"Neatness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creature with which man has surrounded himself that seems so much like a product of civilization, so much like the result of development on special lines and in special fields, as the honey-bee. Indeed, a colony of bees, with their neatness and love of order, their division of labor, their public-spiritedness, their thrift, their complex economies, and their inordinate love of gain, seems as far removed from a condition of rude nature as does a walled city or a cathedral town. Our native ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... a system of 'points' will be established for the course, by which the patrols may be credited for certain accomplishments in the line of this particular training, in addition to the points won by the neatness and accuracy of the reports. The patrol winning the highest final rating will be given the title: Official ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... subjects published. Prayers, hymns, scripture readings and illuminated bits of choice literature were projected on a screen. I trained young men to put up and take down the screen noiselessly, artistically, and with the utmost neatness and dispatch. I discovered that many men who either lacked ambition or ability to wear collars came to that meeting, and they sang, too, when the lights were low. When in full view of each other they were as close-mouthed as clams. The singing became ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... and attractiveness of their home should be a matter of pride with children, and this feeling should cause them to be careful in their own habits of neatness, cleanliness, and order about the home. All these things have a bearing on the foundations of character and are therefore a legitimate concern in ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... entrance he roused himself, however, and begged him, when he should return for the dish, to restore neatness to the bed and to assist him in the ordering of his toilet which he wished ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... countenance emaciated with pain, and every thing about the room proclaiming the most abject poverty. Her daughter sat sewing at the head of the bed, watching every want of her mother, and active with her needle. The perfect neatness of the room, told how faithful was the daughter in the discharge of her painful and arduous duties. But her own slender form and consumptive countenance showed that by toil and watching she was almost worn out herself. ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... his reading these remarks, I may treat him as public property. With his diminutive stature and his perpendicular spirit, his flushed face, expressive protuberant eyes, high peremptory voice, extreme volubility, lucidity and neatness of utterance, he reminded me of the gentry who figure in the revolutions of his native land. If he was not a fierce little Jacobin, he ought to have been, for I am sure there were many men of his pattern on the Committee of Public Safety. He knew absolutely what he was about, understood the place ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... habits and manner of life, are much less cleanly than the Spaniards. The hovels in which they reside exhibit none of the neatness which is observable in the habitations of even the poorest of the other race. The floors are unswept, and abound with filth and mud, and in their persons they are scarcely less vile. Inattention to cleanliness is a ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the evening with his usual fastidious neatness. He had the air of a man who had been engaged for many nights in some arduous occupation. There were dark rims under his eyes, the lines upon his forehead were deeper. Nevertheless, he smiled with something of his old ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wore a startlingly fresh appearance, after the heavy rains. The gravel walk had the prim neatness of a Peter de Hoogh garden path. The white balustrades and flights of steps around the great circle, the statuary and the fountains in the middle lake, flashed pure. The enormous white caps of nurses, their gay silk streamers fluttering ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... slow-moving eye, and his wife, voluble, nervous, overdressed and pretty. Mr. Harris came with Maude Lille, a woman, straight, dark, Indian, with great masses of somber hair held in a little too loosely for neatness, with thick, quick lips and eyes that rolled away from the person who was talking to her. The Enos Jacksons were late and still agitated as they entered. His forehead had not quite banished the scowl, nor her eyes ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... teach your little girl all the womanly habits of method, and order, and neatness, and system, if you have the patience to act the part of playmate with ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... out with perfect neatness; looking out on a very pretty piece of verdure and a cleanly court-yard; with such a good couple to provide for her; with her privacy unapproachable but at her own pleasure; her quiet undisturbed by a prater, a scolder, a bustler, or a whiner; no ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Colonel Freddy's polite invitation, which he gave with such a bright little bow, to inspect the camp. You may be sure it was in apple-pie order, for Jerry, who had taken the Zouaves under his special charge, insisted on their keeping it in such a state of neatness as only a soldier ever achieved. The party made an extremely picturesque group—the gay uniforms of the Zouaves, and light summer dresses of the ladies, charmingly relieved against the background of trees; while Mr. Schermerhorn's stately ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... George I shall not attempt to give any account. I cannot delineate it scientifically, and a loose and popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be amused. There was every where an appearance of the utmost neatness and regularity. But my suffrage is of little value, because this and Fort Augustus are the only garrisons that I ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... the same time his fancy played with the question whether that uncouth, melancholy waitress had found a moment to wash her face before hurrying to fetch his coffee. He amused himself by contrasting her sloven dejection with the brisk neatness of the service at St. Johnswort; but through all he never lost the awe, the sense of responsibility which he bore to the vision vouchsafed him, doubtless for some reason and to some end that it behooved him ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... l'Epee in the two pieces of that name. His stock of characters then is by no means extensive. We may also add to it the part of Esope a la cour, in the comedy of that name by BOURSAULT, which he plays or recites in great perfection, because it is composed of fables only. MONVEL delivers them with neatness and simplicity. For this part he has no ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... usually prescribed by the instructor. Reports of experiments are usually written up in the order: Object, Apparatus, Method, Results, Conclusions. When detailed instructions are given by the instructor, follow them accurately. Pay special attention to neatness. Instructors say that the greatest fault with laboratory note-books is lack of neatness. This reacts upon the instructor, causing him much trouble in correcting the note-book. The resulting annoyance ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... village one day, they were struck as they approached by the far greater appearance of comfort and neatness than generally distinguish African villages. The plots of plantations were neatly fenced, the street was clean and well kept. As they entered the village they were met by the principal people, headed by an ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... surroundings, ought to be one of the most beautiful and attractive objects to be seen in any community. The approach from the street should be like that to any dwelling house, over well kept walks bordered by green turf, with trees and shrubs and flowers offering their adornment. Everything should speak of neatness and order. The playground should be ample, but it should be in another direction and ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... Piraeus, and reduced the city, which was compelled to surrender on what conditions he demanded. One hears it said by Lacedaemonians that Lysander wrote to the Ephors thus: "Athens is taken;" and that these magistrates wrote back to Lysander, "Taken is enough." But this saying was invented for its neatness' sake; for the true decree of the magistrates was on this manner: "The government of the Lacedaemonians has made these orders; pull down the Piraeus and the long walls; quit all the towns, and keep to your own ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... up their clothes with more than usual neatness—which was the only way of being good ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... enterprise of the Romantic School; of the way in which Pliny, Isidore, and other encyclopaedic authors were turned into decorations. The taste for such things is common in the early and the later Middle Ages; all that the romances did was to give a certain amount of finish and neatness to the sort of work that was left comparatively rude by the earlier pedants. There many be discovered in some writers a preference for classical subjects in their ornamental digressions, or for the graceful forms of allegory, such as in the next century were collected for ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... nervous, irritable-looking man of middle age, with a worried and apprehensive expression of countenance. He carried in one hand a small satchel, which he set down upon the floor beside the chair which the lawyer placed for him. His clothing was of good quality, but it was worn without regard to neatness or style, and appeared to be covered with the dust ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... cut illustrates a neat country-house, for a family who think more of neatness, comfort, and intellectual pursuits, than of mere ornament, and may serve the purpose of a farmhouse, or the residence of a retired or professional gentleman. It has the unconstrained air of the Italian style, without a rigid adherence to any rules, and may therefore ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... square of green carpet in the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean—order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it suited my punctilious soul to behold.... Poor the place might be; poor truly it was, but its neatness was better than elegance, and had but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and no fuel laid ready to light; the lace-mender was unable to allow herself that indulgence.... Frances went into ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... most difficult sermon she could transcribe almost word for word. This had excited the spirit of envy in Miss Vincent. The week after the dispute upon the medal, when Miss Damer opened her book, wherein she had written a sermon with extreme neatness, she found every line so scrawled, that one word could not be distinguished from another. Surprised at this proof of secret malice, she involuntarily gave the book to Miss Cotton, who was seated by her. Mrs. Adair, however, ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... Baltimore the look of cultivation increased, the fences wore an air of greater neatness, the houses began to look like the abodes of competence and comfort, and we were consoled for the loss of the beautiful mountains by knowing that we ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... dry-featured man, dressed with the painful neatness of self-respecting poverty: the edges of his coat-sleeves were carefully darned; his black necktie and a skull-cap which covered his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and timidly with blue, rheumy ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... staff in the stern. The Japanese on the gunboat perceived it, for without troubling to hail she opened on us with the machine-guns in her tops. A storm of balls swept the deck, and half of those upon it fell dead or wounded. One of the bullets cut off the peak of my cap with mechanical neatness, leaving the rest of the article on my head, though turned quite round, back to front. Before anything could be done to increase our speed, a quick-firing gun plumped several heavy shot through us. The machinery was damaged, we swung round helplessly, and were evidently fast sinking. ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... had hard work to get a foot-hold on the smooth, worn stones serving to pave it. The buildings were all of that sombre gray stone so picturesque in paintings, and so pleasant for the eye to rest on, yet withal suggesting no brilliant ideas of cleanliness or even neatness. The houses were rarely over two stories in hight, the majority only one story, and but very few of them boasted glazed window-frames, board-shutters letting in light or keeping out rain. Two twists through the narrow streets, or rather alleys, a right-angled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her complexion very fair, her eyebrows and hair dark brown, her teeth superb, her smile enchanting, and her whole person graceful. She was seen almost always in a demi-toilet, remarkable only for neatness and good taste. I do not think I ever once saw diamonds about her, even at the climax of her fortune, when she had the rank ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... remembered, with its rows upon rows of shelves whereon a whole regiment of bottles and glasses were drawn up in neat array, "dressed" and marshalled as if on parade; it was indeed a place of superlative tidiness where everything seemed to be in a perpetual state of neatness ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... doorway, till, at the topmost story, we knocked at a garret door. We entered. Bare it was of furniture, comfortless, and freezing cold; but, with the exception of the plaster dropping from the roof, and the broken windows, patched with rags and paper, there was a scrupulous neatness about the whole, which contrasted strangely with the filth and slovenliness outside. There was no bed in the room—no table. On a broken chair by the chimney sat a miserable old woman, fancying that she was ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... little creatures commonly called fairies, though there are many different kinds of fairies in Fairyland, have an exceeding dislike to untidiness. Indeed, they are quite spiteful to slovenly people. Being used to all the lovely ways of the trees and flowers, and to the neatness of the birds and all woodland creatures, it makes them feel miserable, even in their deep woods and on their grassy carpets, to think that within the same moonlight lies a dirty, uncomfortable, slovenly house. And this makes them angry with the ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... for them long ago. There would have been a little schoolhouse and a teacher. A new wharf, he was sure, would have taken the place of the rickety old thing; and by degrees the women would have learned thrift and neatness, and the men energy and industry. To be sure, it seemed a great deal to do for such dull, apathetic people, who seemed not to have a particle of energy and ambition about them; but papa, he thought, could have done it, and would have done it, had ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... clearing. It was a patch of land some hundred yards wide, and extending from the shore of the lake nearly a quarter of a mile inland. In the center stood a log hut, neatly and carefully built. A few flowers grew around the house, and the whole bore signs of greater neatness and comfort than was usual in the ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... close to the dying embers of their fires, diverged like so many radii from their centre, and lay motionless in sleep, as if life and consciousness were wholly extinct. Here and there was to be seen a solitary warrior securing, with admirable neatness, and with delicate ligatures formed of the sinew of the deer, the guiding feather, or fashioning the bony barb of his long arrow; while others, with the same warlike spirit in view, employed themselves ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... bathe. Compared to French peasants, they are very clean indeed, and even the children are far more decent and cleanly in their habits than those of France. The woman who comes here to clean and scour is a model of neatness in her work and her person (quite black), but she gets helplessly drunk as soon as she has a penny to buy a glass of wine; for a penny, a half-pint tumbler of very strong and remarkably nasty wine is sold at ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... precaution, for I own I felt curious to see how far her taste for research would lead her. It led her a good way: every article did she inspect. I divined her motive for this proceeding; viz., the wish to form from the garments a judgment respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, etc. The end was not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In my dress was a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out; she counted the money in my purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused its contents, and took from between the leaves ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... slope is a seat called the MEDINA HERMITAGE (formerly the summer-residence of the gentleman named on the pillar): the house is characterized by simplicity and neatness: and its greatest ornament is a large verandah, having a broad trellis roof, beautifully intertwined with the sweetest varieties of climbing plants. From its very elevated situation, it commands a rich display of the ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... comfort, good taste is a real economist, as well as an enhancer of joy. Scarcely have you passed the doorstep of your friend's house, when you can detect whether taste presides within it or not. There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace, and refinement, that gives a thrill of pleasure, though you cannot define it, or explain how it is. There is a flower in the window, or a picture against the wall, that marks the home of taste. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... subsequent paper extracted from Mr. Brayley's laboriously-compiled Londiniana possesses more than a passing interest. Its neatness and perspicuity as a Journal will doubtless be appreciated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... kinds of study, manifested a particular inclination for caligraphy: thus he arrived every morning at the College des Oratoriens, where his mother sent him gratis, with his exercises and translations full of faults, but written with a neatness, a regularity, and a beauty which it was charming to see. The little Buvat was whipped every day for the idleness of his mind, and received the writing prize every year for the skill of his hand. At fifteen years of age he passed from the Epitome ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... and the cannon-balls in conical shaped piles, and the long, four-storied brick buildings extending around the spacious square, from the centre of which rose the flagstaff. Grimly as frowned the guns and warlike munitions, the neatness and order that reigned had a pleasing effect on Tom's mind. And within those many-roomed buildings, standing amid the solitudes of the wilderness, in the families of the officers gayety and mirth often held carnival. Already a gush of music, elicited by fair fingers ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... perhaps from being so much in the theatre at night. That takes the dark blood out of the cheeks. But any woman would have looked twice at him. Besides, there was, as there is now, a certain marvellous neatness and spotlessness about his dress; but for his dusty boots you would not have guessed he had been travelling. Poor Nino. When he had not a penny in the world but what he earned by copying music, he used to spend it all with the washerwoman, so that Mariuccia ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Florio's translation of Montaigne down to the present hour. That tradition has always welcomed copious, well-informed, enthusiastic, disorderly, and affectionate talk about books. It demands gusto rather than strict method, discursiveness rather than concision, abundance of matter rather than mere neatness of design. "Here is God's plenty!" cried Dryden in his old age, as he opened once more his beloved Chaucer; and in Lowell's essays there is surely "God's plenty" for a book-lover. Every one praises "My Garden ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... upper class can generally be distinguished at a glance by his superior bearing and manners, by the neatness and cleanliness of his person, his more valuable weapons, and personal ornaments, as well as by greater regularity of features. The woman of the upper class also exhibits to the eye similar marks of her superior birth and breeding. The tatuing of her skin ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... be seen. It was lighted by a conical skylight. My conductor gave a push against the wall. Certain blocks yielded, and others came forward. In fact a door revolved on central pivots, and we were admitted to a chamber crowded with books from floor to ceiling, arranged with wonderful neatness and solidity. From the centre of the ceiling, whence hung a globular lamp, radiated what I took to be a number of strong beams supporting a floor above; for our ancestors put the ceiling above the beams, instead of below them, as we do, and gained in space ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... you hastily picture to yourself a forlorn-looking establishment, you will be moving straight away from the fact. Neatness, order, excellence, are prevalent qualities in all the details of the main house's inward garniture. The furniture is old-fashioned, rich, French, imported. The carpets, if not new, are not cheap, either. Bits ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... farms and villages are less scattered, and cities, built with taste and a great display of wealth, are found at a short distance one from the other. Quincy I may mention, among others, as being a truly beautiful town, and quite European in its style of structure and neatness. Elegant fountains are pouring their cool waters at the end of every row of houses; some of the squares are magnificent, and, as the town is situated upon a hill several hundred feet above the river, the prospect is ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... dress, but that, united to neatness, is all that is necessary—that is the fabled cestus of Venus which gave beauty to its wearer. Good taste involves suitable fabrics—a neat and becoming 'fitting' to her figure—colors suited to her complexion, and a simple and unaffected manner of wearing one's clothes. ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... and alertness of one who, as general Moultrie used to say, was born a soldier. In fact, he appeared never so happy, never so completely in his element, as when he had his officers and men out on parade at close training. And for cleanliness of person, neatness of dress, and gentlemanly manners, with celerity and exactness in performing their evolutions, they soon became the admiration and praise both of citizens and soldiers. And indeed I am not afraid to say that Marion was the 'architect' of the second regiment, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... captives. Three separate buildings, one for the captives from each of the colonies, with the officers' quarters, the soldiers' cabins, the kitchens, and the ovens, were inclosed within the fort, and the whole was kept in a neatness and order such as the savages had never seen, with ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... panes of glass, and in the lower divisions the glass windows are made to lift up. The books are all arranged in double rows; but by the ingenious plan of placing small books in front of large ones, the letterings of all can be seen. Neatness was a mania with Pepys, and the volumes were evened on all the shelves; in one instance some short volumes have been raised to the required height by help of wooden stilts, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... till that, you know. Well, you must promise me that every day of that month you will please your mother by keeping your drawer, or whatever it is, as tidy as a nut; and I must have from Mrs. Nott a good account of your order and neatness. Mind, every day; no books lost, no pencils falling off, else no ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... Maurice to her, when she came up that morning (he noticed that she was dressed with extreme neatness and grace, and also that she seemed pale and careworn, though her beautiful dark eyes had lost none of their soft lustre), "we mustn't startle him. We must lead up to his seeing you. I wonder whether your playing those Neapolitan airs may ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... much as Dublin in another way. "A fine place with a rough people; everything looking prosperous; the railway ride from Dublin quite amazing in the order, neatness, and cleanness of all you see; every cottage looking as if it had been whitewashed the day before; and many with charming gardens, prettily kept with bright flowers." The success, too, was quite ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... red roofs, that are dotted over the uneven surface of the ground. The whole site is owned by the company, and inhabited by its officials and overseers. It has its own church, shops, schools, hospital, workmen's clubs, bakeries, and its air of neatness and well-being contrasts pleasingly with the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Kearney; and proceeded, among dives and warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the water-rats. In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending the stairs a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... principal thoroughfare, called the Getreide Gasse, lights gleamed from windows on the third floor. Within, all was arranged as if for some special occasion. The larger room, with its three windows looking on the street, was immaculate in its neatness. The brass candlesticks shone like gold, the mahogany table was polished like a mirror, the simple furniture likewise. For today was Father Mozart's birthday and the little household was to celebrate ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... we entered was apparently the workshop, for it contained a small woodworker's bench, a lathe, a bench for metal work and a number of mechanical appliances which I was not then able to examine; but I noticed that the entire place presented to the eye a most unworkmanlike neatness, a circumstance that did not escape Thorndyke's observation, for his face relaxed into a grim smile as his eye travelled over the bare benches and the ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... though they might now and then be annoyed by petty tyranny, she still inspired them with sincere respect, and not a little affection. They were, moreover, grateful to her for many habits she had enforced upon them, and which in time had become second nature: order, method, neatness in everything; a perfect knowledge of all kinds of household work; an exact punctuality, and obedience to the laws of time and place, of which no one but themselves, I have heard Charlotte say, could tell the value in after-life; with their impulsive natures, it was positive ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... attention, perhaps, by the remark: "Let me show you something that will look as well as the best and wear like iron, at a moderate price." We arouse his interest by showing him the hard, close, wear-resisting weave of cloth, the tenacity with which it holds its shape, and, at the same time, its neatness, attractiveness, finish, and superior workmanship. We create a desire for the possession of the garment by inducing him to put it on, at the same time remarking: "You can see for yourself that this garment is conservative and suitable in style. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... illustrate ventilation, and the exhibits of hygienic glazed tiles arranged around a desert lecture-theatre. Hygienic tiles stimulate the eye vigorously rather than relax it by any aesthetic weakness; and the crematory appliances are so attractive as they are, and must have such an added charm of neatness and brightness when alight, that one longs to lose a relative or so forthwith, for the mere pleasure of seeing them ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Government stores. A deep indentation now shows Upper Town or Kru Town, heaps of little thatched hovels divided by remnants of bush. It is, despite its brook, one of the impurest sites in the colony: nothing can teach a Kruman cleanliness; a Slav village is neatness itself compared with his. This foul colony settled early in Sa Leone, and in 1816 an ordinance was passed enabling it to buy its bit of land. The present chief is 'King' Tom Peter, who is also a first-class police-constable under the Colonial Grovernment; and his subjects hold themselves ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... to be great in any pursuit, we must be ourselves, and keep all things, in order. In your show and reception rooms, let neatness prevail; have your specimens so placed—leaning slightly forward—as to obtain the strongest light upon them, and at the same time prevent that glassiness of appearance which detracts so materially from the effect they are intended to ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... with equal care and knowledge. Nor was the interior of this bachelor's residence devoid of amusement. Every nook and corner was filled with objects of interest; and everything was in admirable order. The goddess of neatness and precision reigned supreme, especially in his hall, which, though barely ten feet square, was a cabinet of rural curiosities. His guns, his fishing-tackle, a cabinet of birds stuffed by himself, a fox in a glass-case that seemed absolutely running, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the fashion of the Prince de Talleyrand; a gold cross, hanging from a strip of blue ribbon with a white border, indicated an ecclesiastical dignitary. The outlines beneath the black silk stockings would not have disgraced an athlete. The exquisite neatness of his clothes and person revealed an amount of care which a simple priest, and, above all, a Spanish priest, does not always take with his appearance. A three-cornered hat lay on the front seat of the carriage, which bore the arms ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... build a fence one morning. He bravely dug postholes, but they were pretty poor, and the completed fence was not so very straight. He was genial and uncomplaining, and he made a few good friends. He was an agreeable guest, and at our house was fond of a game of whist. He was often facetious, with a neatness that was characteristic. One day, on a stroll, we passed a very primitive new house that was wholly destitute of all ornaments or trimming, even without eaves. It seemed modeled after a packing-box. "That," he remarked, "must be of the Iowan order ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... and ribbons and lace that had nothing to do with the dress to which they were attached. She was always eating sweets, laughed a great deal, had a shrill piercing voice, and was never still. Ivan Petrovitch, the uncle, was very different from my Semyonov. He was short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a short black moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with small smiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in some Government office with great pride and solemnity. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... books too much, a sort of air of pathos and aloofness from things. His mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry James's earlier novels of about the time of the Portrait of a Lady. And I like him. I knew that at once. He's effete and old-worldish ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... of low extraction and coarse breeding; his accomplishments were of a mechanical nature; he was an extraordinary arithmetician, he was a very skilful chemist, and kept a laboratory at his lodgings—he mended his own clothes and linen with incomparable neatness. Philip suspected him of blacking his own shoes, but that was prejudice. Once he found Morton sketching horses' heads—pour se desennuyer; and he made some short criticisms on the drawings, which showed him well acquainted ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... guests may fail to sustain her celebrity. Conspicuous among these cabins are two presenting a much neater appearance: they are brightly whitewashed, and the little windows are decorated with flowering plants. Within them there is an air of simple neatness and freshness we have seldom seen surpassed; the meagre furniture seems to have been arranged by some careful hand, and presents an air of cheerfulness in strange contrast with the dingy cabins around. In each there is a neatly arranged bed, spread over ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... a boy a hundred and more years ago might reach the age of fifteen in a good grammar school of that period and yet not be able to use the multiplication table. As late as 1823 Lamb writes: "I think I lose a hundred pounds a year owing solely to my want of neatness in making up accounts: how I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder!" There is no evidence, however, to show that Lamb did not overcome his lack of preparation. The contrary impression sometimes prevails, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and tinsel finery which seem to be sweeping over the toilet of our women, I must protest that they are vulgarizing the taste, and having a seriously bad effect on the delicacy of artistic perception. It is almost impossible to manage such material and give any kind of idea of neatness or purity; for the least wear takes away their newness. And of all disreputable things, tumbled, rumpled, and tousled finery is the most disreputable. A simple white muslin, that can come fresh from the laundry every week, is, in point of real taste, worth any amount of spangled tissues. A plain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After breakfast and ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... room was handsomely furnished and daintily appointed. Even from her pillows she would have detected any lapse in its exquisite neatness, and one of Ruth's duties was to leave none to be detected. The house was large; and with three servants the young girl had to do a great deal of supervising. She took a natural pride in having things go as smoothly as under her mother's administration; and Mr. Levice said it was well his wife ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... if it belonged to her organism. There she lay, a not unpleasing invalid to contemplate, always looking resigned, patient, serene, except when the one deeper grief was stirred, always arrayed with simple neatness, and surrounded with little tokens that showed the constant presence with her of tasteful and thoughtful affection. She did not know, nobody could know, how steadily, how silently all this artificial life was draining ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pulverized, and 3 pints of rice flour, first made into a thin paste; boil this mixture well, then dissolve 1 lb. of clean glue in water, and add it to the mixture, and apply while warm with a whitewash brush, except when particular neatness is required you may then use a paint brush; in both cases put it on warm. You may add colouring matter to give it ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... smart slap on the face. I instantly struck out in a state of fury—was stopped with great neatness—and received in return a blow on the head, which sent me down on the carpet half stunned, and too giddy to know the difference between the ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... could be too much for Miss Fortune's energies; she was as much at home in a sick room as in a well one. She flew about with increased agility; was upstairs and downstairs twenty times in the course of a day, and kept all straight everywhere. Ellen's room was always the picture of neatness; the fire, the wood fire was taken care of; Miss Fortune seemed to know, by instinct, when it wanted a fresh supply, and to be on the spot by magic to give it. Ellen's medicines were dealt out in proper time; her gruels and drinks perfectly well made and arranged, with appetizing nicety, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... brother-in-law of poor George Ellis. We conversed about our mutual friend, and about the life Canning was to have written about him, and which he would have done con amore. He gave me two instances of poor George's neatness of expression, and acuteness of discrimination. Having met, for the first time, "one Perceval, a young lawyer," he records him as a person who, with the advantages of life and opportunity, would assuredly rise to the head of affairs. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... preacher: the service consisted of plain prayers, the reading of the Bible, and a sermon. In very few churches was there an organ. There was no external beauty in religion. Therefore external beauty in the church itself ceased for three hundred years to be desired. What was required was neatness, with ample space for all to be seated, so arranged that all might hear the sermon. And whereas under the Plantagenets every other man was a priest, a friar, or some officer or servant of a monastery, one only met here and there a clergyman with ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... left for the smoke to escape; the remainder of the roof is covered with a treble coat of birch bark, and between the first and second layer of bark is about six inches of moss; about the chimney clay is substituted for it. On entering one of the houses I was astonished at the neatness which reigned within. The sides of the tenement were covered with arms,—bows, arrows, clubs, axes of iron, (stolen from the settlers) stone hatchets, arrow heads, in fact, implements of war and for the chase, but all arranged in the neatest order, and apparently ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... Spaniards, the Portuguese tried to combine the characters of merchants and missionaries, of pirates and crusaders. When the first of Da Gama's sailors to land at Calicut was asked what he sought, his laconic answer, "Christians {443} and spices," had in it as much of truth as of epigrammatic neatness. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... capableness evolved from the slovenly little house and the untended children, from the dusty rooms and neglected kitchen the kind of order and neatness which had been plain to see in Robin's more fortune-favoured apartment. The children became as fresh and neat as Robin's nursery self. They wore clean pinafores and began to behave ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in the kitchen of the cabin. The room was large, and had a delightful atmosphere of order and neatness. Over the fire swung an immense iron crane, and on the crane were pot-hooks of various sizes, and on one of these hung ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... which they went to the opera. The guests were the Count and Countess Olisco, Count Tornik, Don Cesare Carpazzi, and Prince Minotti. Don Cesare Carpazzi, a thin swarthy youth, sat just across the corner of the table from Nina. Although his appearance was one of great neatness, it was all too evident, if one observed with good eyes, that the edges of his shirt had been trimmed with the scissors until the hem narrowed close to the line of stitching; and his evening clothes in a strong light would have revealed not only the fatal gloss of long ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... forcing the pace and winning successes north of the Somme, their brothers in arms south of the river were carrying out some important operations with neatness and dispatch. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... which was of that excessively deep green that grass takes on in gardens with a north aspect, had the air of being detained in custody, and the borders on each side of the broad gravel path showed that extreme neatness which is found in places of detention. The red brick farmhouse at its end was very small, and its windows such mere square peep-holes among a strong growth of ivy that one conceived its inhabitants as being able to see the light ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" in his mouth, and applying it with vigour to his dusty boots. When they shone to his satisfaction, he produced from his pocket a comb and a minute hand-mirror, and arranged his crisp waves of dark hair to a gentlemanly neatness. Then he replaced his pseudo-panama hat, with the slight inclination to the left side that seemed to him suitable, re-tied his pale blue tie, and passed the mirror to Peter, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... amount of water it uses. The poorer a family, the greater struggle it is to keep up the appearance of cleanliness, and no surer sign of rapid progress on a downhill road can be found than neglect of those practices which tend toward personal neatness. As the life of the farmer, then, becomes easier, as his condition becomes more prosperous, and as his family make more requirements, so, inevitably, is there in the farmhouse a greater demand for water in the kitchen, in the laundry, and in ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... they were going to fix a new shelf in the museum. Both the boys had been taught the use of saw and plane by the village carpenter, and were quite used to doing odd jobs for themselves. David in particular excelled in anything requiring neatness of finish, and took great pride in the fittings of the museum, which he was continually adding to and altering. The shelves were made of any bits of wood the boys had been able to get, so that at present they were all of different colours, and did not please him. He had it in his mind to ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... apparently they are less and less satisfactory, for the diary grows angry and bitter, and the faded writing is blotted at times with tears. Then towards the end of another year there comes this entry, written in a hand of strange neatness ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... says, "The one rule is to be infinitely various; to interest, to disappoint, to surprise and still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of ingenious neatness." ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... everything that could be wanted at sea, and, what was more, lined on two of its sides with state-rooms. It is true, all these apartments were small, and the state-rooms were very low, but no fault could be found with their neatness and general arrangements, when it was recollected that one was on ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... and had been often mended, and the coat, of the same hue, was pitiably white in the seams, while the original buff of the waistcoat and knee breeches had faded to a whitey brown. But the erect soldierly carriage of the wearer, and that neatness and trimness in details, which military experience renders habitual, made this frayed and time-stained uniform seem almost elegant, as compared with the clothes that hung slouchily upon the men around him. Their faces were rough, and unshaven, their hair unkempt, their feet bare, or covered with ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... sat was a portion of the garret, assigned, as we have just stated, by Mr. Wood as a play-room to the two boys; and, like most boy's playrooms, it exhibited a total absence of order, or neatness. Things were thrown here and there, to be taken up, or again cast aside, as the whim arose; while the broken-backed chairs and crazy table bore the marks of many a conflict. The characters of the youthful occupants of the room might be detected in every article it contained. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the same kind. Into these also each man put his hand indiscriminately, and dipping his morsel into his basin, set our officers the example of eating that substitute for wheaten bread, and of swallowing, without regard to neatness or order, all manner of messes, mixed together, and touched by all hands. After dinner, a slave handed round a silver basin, with water and towels, after which a number of toasts were given, and the entertainment concluded with ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... "The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the brethren of the order, are well fitted to strike the man of the world with the conviction that 'there is another and a better' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... much as among the barbarians? To what do they pay the most attention? Is it not to ornament and dress, and refining about styles of tatooing with the "henna" and "kohl?" What do they know about the training of children, domestic economy and neatness of person, and the care of the sick? How many abominable superstitions do they follow, although forbidden by their own religions? Are not the journals and diaries of travellers full of descriptions of the state of ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... and who love to trace all seeming miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all means,—they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness! Al-Kyris was truly a Vision,—the rest was,—What? Merely the working of a poetic imagination under ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... at Mr. Bond's was the pink of neatness, and though we were shut in by rain for five days, we enjoyed it. Sometimes, it would look like clearing up, and we would walk in the garden; but usually we had to hurry in to escape ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... guest of the grandmother, but she had no comprehension of petty tidinesses or small economies. Now James, brought up on a very different scale, knew in detail how the household ought to live, and made it a duty not to exceed a fixed sum. He had the eye for neatness that she wanted; he could not believe it a hardship to go without indulgences to which his grandmother and sister had not been accustomed. Thus, he protested against unnecessary fires; Isabel shivered and wore shawls; ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... schooners riding in the harbor, whose smooth plane rose higher to the eye than the town itself. The salt and the sand were everywhere, but though there had been no positive prosperity in Corbitant for a generation, the place had an impregnable neatness, which defied decay; if there had been a dog in the street, there would not have been a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... people, when they knew——" And here Phillis held her breath a moment. People were wondering even now who they were. They had dressed themselves that morning, rehearsing their parts, as it were, with studied simplicity. The gown Nan wore was as inexpensive as a gown could be; her hat was a model of neatness and propriety: nevertheless, Phillis groaned in spirit as she glanced at her. Where had she got that style? She looked like a young princess who was playing at Arcadia. Would people ever dare to ask ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that was a pleasure ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to pay for simple accommodation, will not tolerate dirt, squalor, or want of sanitation. To their surprise they have found hundreds of cottages, homely, but not uncomfortable, kept with scrupulous neatness, and furnished by no means badly. Nearly all have ample kitchen accommodation, fair beds, and an equipment of glass, china, and crockery, which shows how cheap and good are the necessaries of life in England. The well-to-do agricultural labourer and his wife, whose ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... bride during the honeymoon should be characterised by modesty, an attractive simplicity, and scrupulous neatness. The slightest approach to slatternliness in costume, when all should be exquisitely trim from chevelure to chaussure, would be an abomination, and assuredly beget a most unpleasant impression on the susceptible feelings ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... the wall, with its mattress and skins, which serve for beds, and are only to be seen at night. This arrangement for sleeping, with the bright panels, and the large open fire-place, where a blazing fire of wood was always kept burning, gave to the interior of the most humble homes an appearance of neatness and domestic luxury unknown to the peasantry of ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... clergy and gentry of the principal parishes in this vicinity are interested, for improving the condition of the laboring classes in this region. The queen and Prince Albert have taken much interest in the planning and arranging of model houses for the laboring people, which combine cheapness, neatness, ventilation, and all the facilities for the formation of good personal habits. There is a school kept on the estate at Windsor, in which the queen takes a very practical interest, regulating the books and studies, and paying frequent visits to it ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the end of the garden, like a smiling image of repose, comfort and happiness. In every direction where the rays of light fell, whether upon a piece of old china, or upon an article of furniture, shining from excessive neatness, or upon the weapons hanging against the wall, the soft light was as softly reflected; and its rays seemed to linger everywhere upon something or another agreeable to the eye. The lamp which lighted the room, while the foliage of jasmine and climbing roses hung in masses from the window-frames, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little pates was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of proprete and neatness throughout, that one might have bought his pates of him, as much from ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... servants, who had come in to visit those of the family. All of them had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and were full of sympathy. Generally speaking, the servants seem to me quite a superior class to what are employed in that capacity with us. They look very intelligent, are dressed with great neatness, and though their manners are very much more deferential than those of servants in our country, it appears to be a difference arising quite as much from self-respect and a sense of propriety as from servility. Every body's manners are more deferential ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... hand certain success ought to be achieved by the good-natured, intelligent, reliable man who continually wins friends; the truthful man who has a fine reputation for thrift, honesty, neatness, and love for his work. He seems entirely worthy of success. Yet for reasons that baffle himself and his friends it sometimes happens that such a ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... was not sustained by regular labour and sober industry. Rents, however, were paid for the cottages, or the cottagers would have been turned adrift; and Mrs. Burrows had lived in hers for five or six years, and was noted in the neighbourhood for her outward neatness and attention to decency. In the summer there were always half-a-dozen large sunflowers in the patch of ground called a garden, and there was a rose-tree, and a bush of honeysuckle over the door, and an alder stump in a corner, which would still put out leaves and bear berries. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... at a signal from me, you will creep down to the boat—on hands and knees, or on your stomach if you will—and bore me three small holes close alongside her keelson, using as much expedition as may consist with neatness. You understand? Then the quicker you set about it, the less will be ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... thrown during the day, and the pillows in use, if there is not room for them elsewhere, should be slipped into covers harmonious in color with the couch drapery. Such a reclining and sleeping couch may also be used in bedrooms, although an iron or brass bedstead gives an appearance of neatness and personal privacy that ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... easy disposition made him fall in unresistingly with the family courses, but the need of some tender permanent affection, the longing for some influence that would make the good he preferred easy to pursue, caused the neatness, purity, and liberal orderliness of the Lammeter household, sunned by the smile of Nancy, to seem like those fresh bright hours of the morning when temptations go to sleep and leave the ear open to the ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... an elegant-looking girl, and her features, formerly so vacant, are now animated and full of varying expression. She dresses herself with great care and neatness, and her fair hair is also braided by herself. There is nothing but what is pleasing in her appearance, as her eyes are covered with small green shades. She is about twenty-three, and is not so cheerful as she formerly was, perhaps because her ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... offer, and found himself in a large and well-stocked garden, laid out with much neatness and some taste; the Landlord halted by a parterre which required his attention, and Walter walked ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them—comparatively a large world—fell with avidity on the romantic juxtaposition of names. To lose your betrothed as Aldous Raeburn had lost his, and then to come across her again in this manner and in these circumstances—there was a dramatic neatness about it to which the careless Fate that governs us too seldom attains. London discussed the story a good deal; and would have liked dearly to see and to exhibit the heroine. Mrs. Lane in particular, the hostess of the House ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... particular the canoeist has to trust to the boat-builder. In others, and in those relating to the rigging and sails especially, I regret to say that I do not find any builder fulfils those requirements of strength, lightness, neatness, and simplicity combined in due proportions, upon which so much of the safety of a canoe depends, as well as comfort and pleasure in using it during the many days' constant work of a long voyage. The proper rigging ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... expose the crown of my head behind, and to turn up my trousers with exactly that width of margin which the judgment of my fellow-creatures had decided was correct. My socks were spirited without being vulgar, and the ties I wore were tied with a studious avoidance of either slovenliness or priggish neatness. I wrote two articles in the Harburonian, became something of a debater in the Literacy and Political, conducted many long conversations with my senior contemporaries upon religion, politics, sport and social life, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... is one that calls for individual supervision, the number should not exceed twenty-four, and a smaller class ensures more thorough supervision on the part of the teacher. Neatness, thoroughness, and accuracy are important factors in the work of each lesson, and the number of pupils should not be so large that a lack of these ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... qualities are needed to insure that a woman shall be a happy home-keeper? Certainly, a good temper, a cheerful disposition, a willingness to give time and thought to the details of home-keeping, commonly called domestic cares, habits of order and neatness, and good health, so that one may both give and receive pleasure while discharging the duties ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... English and French in Tahiti. A slight opposition cropped out often in criticism expressed to Americans or to Tahitians, or to each other's own people. New Zealand governs the Cook group, of which Raratonga is the principal island. Comparisons of sanitation, order, neatness, and businesslike management of these islands, with the happy-go-lucky administration of the Society, Paumotus, Marquesas, and Austral archipelagoes, owned by the French, were frequent by the English. The French shrugged ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... S., Pussy K., and Robbie V. R. are very youthful correspondents who favor us with letters printed with remarkable neatness. May R. also writes a very legible "Wiggle." When you learn to ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... about these domiciles, doubtless the effect of the Portuguese and the slave trade, distinguishes them from the barbarous circular huts of the Kru-men, the rude clay walls of the Gold Coast, and the tattered, comfortless sheds of the Fernandian "Bube." They have not, however, that bandbox-like neatness which surprises the African traveller on ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... he would have hung it as a night-lamp in her cabin. The captain and his wife had scoured the shops of Marseilles at one in the morning and bought all the things, paying dearly for them. The room of Madame Caraman was also a model of neatness. Next to the bed stood a small table, upon which was a silver service with a bottle of brandy on it. Madame Caraman was delighted, and when her sense of smell detected the fine quality of the brandy, she was almost ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... wet his lips, as though with satisfaction at the neatness of his wording. He added in a generous tone: "I will not reprimand Mr. Ernol, because his previous work indicates, as he says, that Alma is an old topic to him. I only wish that he stood as ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... his neglect of which occasions him but very slight and temporary inconvenience; whereas in the former it is the very sustenance of his life which is concerned, his inattention to which might expose him to all the miseries of famine. The same care and neatness in the management of their fields has been remarked as characteristics of the North American Indians; and both they and the New Zealanders celebrate the seasons of planting and gathering in their harvests with festivities and religious observances, practices which have, indeed, prevailed ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... place compared with even the poorest of the Dutch towns. The houses are all of mud and thatch; the fort is only a mud enclosure; and the custom-house and church are built of the same mean materials, with no attempt at decoration or even neatness. The whole aspect of the place is that of a poor native town, and there is no sign of cultivation or civilization round about it. His Excellency the Governor's house is the only one that makes any pretensions ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... soon up and dressed—dressed very carefully, in case the eyes of the governess should find anything amiss; but she would have been critical indeed could she have done so, for, when Marjory's toilet was completed, she looked the pink of neatness: Her abundant dark hair was plaited smoothly and tied with ribbon, new for the occasion, and she wore a new frock of soft, warm material, for the autumn days were chilly now and giving warning ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Post office, from their inveterate clumsiness of foldure. So you must not take it disrespectful to your self if I send you such ungainly scraps. I think I lose L100 a year at the India House, owing solely to my want of neatness in making up Accounts. How I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder. I have to do ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... himself remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the pose which Girodet's ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... not so much for Hammerton's acceptance as for the astonishing neatness with which Varney had disposed of the editorship of his paper. But to Varney, rising limply from Hammerton's chest at the edge of the dark road, that cheer meant only that he had kicked the last obstacle out of his ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the last of her name, and, in the midst of all this manual labour, in maintaining that prescribed amount of appearance, from which she had never been allowed to deviate since she had been a little child. A spotless perfection of neatness was indeed the only luxury left within reach of the two ladies, and for that one available satisfaction there was no trouble they would not cheerfully undergo. But these manifold household labours did not vulgarise ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... everything shipshape, no loose ends flying—that's my style, Roy. Now there was neatness and dispatch about my running you out of Freeport when I found your presence there inconvenient. Don't you think there was? Eh, you great fool? You pulled my chestnuts out of the fire very nicely indeed. But I was not as thorough as I should have been ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... from Redburn, a slight inclination of Anita's head, and the introduction was made. A moment later the three entered the cabin, a model of neatness and ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... In gathering peas, most people tug and pull at these as if anxious to see how much strength the pods can possibly bear. In this instance, as in others where the same carelessness is employed, the plants get severely disturbed, and a consequent short crop is put down to the score of bad seed. Neatness, order, and care are principles of great ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... lost the faint color which used to tinge her cheeks; they were now almost too white for beauty, but her eyes were still clear, calm, and sweet; her dress was still the essence of simplicity and neatness, and her bearing was gentle and dignified as of old. The alteration in Daisy was less apparent at this moment, for she was stretched on two cushions in one corner of the sitting-room, and with a warm rug thrown over her, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... ran through her fingers. After a time, however, she calmed herself, and rising, looked for a moment into a small looking-glass, which showed her face entirely disfigured with tears. She then went into a little adjacent room, which, as well as the parlour, was the image of neatness and cleanness. She there took a towel, dipped it in cold water, and seemed about to bathe away the traces from her cheeks. The next moment, however, she threw the towel down, saying, "No, no! why should I?" She then returned to the parlour, and called down ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... not so far," and, holding up the letter, he pretended to read the direction: "'To his excellency, Lieutenant-General Sir Mabel Stewart, commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in these parts.' If you had not been blockheads, you might have known it, from the extraordinary neatness of the rose-colored envelope, with ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... flashing in the darkness. Instead of the wildness of the desert were nut trees, plums, cherries, mulberries and all manner of fruits; instead of scattered wigwams, orderly streets of huts; instead of filth, neatness and cleanliness; instead of drunken brawls and orgies, the voice of children at the village school, and the voice ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... seems quite puzzling, doesn't it? It looks quite impossible, you may say. But the explanation is very simple. What the man held in his hand was his own check on the bank. He had made a slight scratch on it which did not affect its value, only its neatness, and he preferred to tear it to pieces and ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... better soil. Except in the north the Thal people used to make their living almost entirely as shepherds and camel owners. There were scattered little plots of better soil where wells were sunk, and the laborious and careful cultivation was and is Dutch in its neatness. Some millets were grown in the autumn and the sandhills yielded melons. The people have now learned that it is worth while to gamble with a spring crop of gram, and this has led to an enormous extension of the cultivated area. But even now in Mianwali this is a comparatively ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... Vienna, or sent up the Danube—against the stream—with amazing labour and difficulty. It is said that the wine cellars are frequently as deep below the earth, as the houses are above it." Schedel goes on to describe the general appearance of the streets, and the neatness of the interiors, of the houses: adding, "that the windows are generally filled with stained glass, having iron-gratings without, where numerous birds sing in cages. The winter (remarks he) sets in here very severely." Chron. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... shaken hands with the rector and with Miriam Liston as he spoke, and his speech was not the speech of Farlingford men at all, but rather of Septimus Marvin himself, of whose voice he had acquired the ring of education, while adding to it a neatness and quickness of enunciation which must have been his own; for none in Suffolk could have ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Their sentences were built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Pulpete, drawing his face aside and spitting with the greatest neatness and pulchritude towards his shoe, "I am not the kind of man either for La Gorja or other similar earthly matters, or because a steel tongue is sheathed in my body, or my weasand slit, or for any other such trifle, ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... (which is the space between the O and the P) to fall exactly beneath the centre of the title. Then, about 1-1/2 inches below that, start to write your story in synopsis form. Commence your paragraph at 15, indenting ten spaces from the left margin. Thus the neatness and businesslike appearance of your pages will impress the editor favorably at the very first glance. Follow the same rule when typing the scenario, or continuity, and also the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... saw herself no longer from the standpoint of Hurst Manor, but that of Erley Chase. Yes, Harold was right! It was not only the pigtail; there was an indefinable difference in her whole appearance. The clothes were the same, the girl was the same, but there was no longer the immaculate neatness, the dainty care, the well-groomed look which had once characterised her. In her usual impetuous fashion, she had rushed from one extreme to the other; in discarding vanity, ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... tract of nearly 500 acres gives room that is well used for farming and stock-raising, and well-arranged shops give employment in carpentry, blacksmithing and printing and other avocations. The "Word Carrier," a monthly publication, is not surpassed in neatness of printing by any paper that comes to this office. In other Indian schools various industries are taught, especially those that relate to the care and ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... other side was the vice-president, in a claret-colored suit, of American manufacture. Between the president and the chancellor was Mr. Otis, the secretary of state. He was a small man, dressed with scrupulous neatness, and held in his hand an open Bible upon a rich crimson cushion. Near this most conspicuous group stood Roger Sherman, Richard Henry Lee, Alexander Hamilton, Generals Knox and St. Clair, the Baron Steuben, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... again, indulgently, and busied herself in tidying the apartment; an occupation which would have incensed Ninian, since her idea of neatness seemed to him to be but the "disarrangement" of the heaps of papers and manuscript sheets scattered everywhere about, had he not been otherwise interested. A hasty examination of the messages he had received evoked ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond |
