"Niceness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "parish" school. It is not a paupers' school—that is admitted—but it is a "parish" school, to which the children of men who have often received relief are sent. The yeoman's instinct revolts at it. Attempts have been made to get over this niceness of feeling by erecting a special class-room for farmers' sons, and patriotic baronets have even gone so far as to send their own boys so as to set the example. But it is in vain. The middle-class farmer is above ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... sink after the tail. The high charging of ships is that which brings many ill qualities upon them. It makes them extremely leeward, makes them sink deep into the seas, makes them labour in foul weather, and ofttimes overset. Safety is more to be respected than show or niceness for ease. In sea-journeys both cannot well stand together, and, therefore, the most necessary is to be chosen. Two decks and a-half is enough, and no building at all above that but a low master's cabin. Our masters and mariners will say that the ships ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... said Herbert jerkily; "she saw niceness in people whatever they were like. But girls don't really know when fellows ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... filtered, exquisitely rich. For such a host, my friend! expends much more In oil than cotton; solely studying love! To a philosopher, that animal, Voracious, solid ham and bulky feet; But to the financier, with costly niceness, Glociscus rare, or rarity more rare. Insensible the palate of old age, More difficult than the soft lips of youth, To move, I put much mustard in their dish; With quickening sauces make their stupor keen, And lash the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... since had reason to think that I was mistaken; for I have been informed by a lady, who was long intimate with her, and likely to be a more accurate observer of such matters, that she had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full. BOSWELL. Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, ii. 84, says:—'I dined with Dr. Johnson as seldom as I could, though often scolded ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... an illuminator of missals), in which he would introduce fifteen hundred small figures in a picture two feet eight inches, by six feet five inches in size, and work out every detail with the utmost niceness and care. The reliquary, or 'chasse,' is a wooden coffer or shrine about four feet in length, its style and form those of a rich Gothic church, its purpose to hold an arm of the saint. The whole exterior is covered with miniatures by Memling, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... patriotism and moral courage, to "the Fathers of the American Revolution." Their discussions of public questions, during the eleven years which preceded the Declaration of Independence, evince a clearness of discernment, an accuracy of statement, a niceness of distinction, a thorough knowledge of the principles of government, and the mutual relation of colonies and the parent State, elegance of diction, and force of argument, not surpassed in discussions of the kind in any age or ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... when one would do, lost her reputation for "faculty." Certainly such an early drill was of use in developing the health and the bodily powers, as well as in giving precision to the practical mental faculties. All household economies were arranged with equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper knew just how many sticks of hickory of a certain size were required to heat her oven, and how many of each different kind of wood. She knew by a sort of intuition just what kinds of ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... niceness to that pleasure shewn, Where nature sums up all her joys in one; Gives all she can, and, labouring still to give, Makes it so great, we can but taste and live: So fills the senses, that the soul seems fled, And thought itself does, for the time, lie ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... showed himself to be immensely impressed by Belknap-Jackson, whom I had never beheld more perfectly vogue in all his appointments. He became, in fact, rather moody in the presence of this subtle niceness of detail, being made conscious, I dare say, of his own sloppy lounge-suit, rumpled cravat, and shocking boots, and despite Belknap-Jackson's amiable efforts to draw him into talk about hunting in the shires and our county ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... secured. Teach them from the first self-reverence in touch, as in word and deed, and watch even their attitudes in sleep, that the little arms are folded lightly upwards. Even experienced nurses are not always nice in their ways. Be vigilantly watchful that the utmost niceness is observed between the boys and girls in the nursery, and that childish modesty is never broken down, but, on the contrary, nurtured and trained. Knowledge and watchfulness are the two cherubim with the flaming sword ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... laid down seem's in its self plain and evident; but because Rapin, and some other Criticks, famous for the Niceness of their Judgments, have made it a considerable Question, and at last own'd themselves unable to decide it, I shall ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... have now given what testimony I could find in our English authors, to prove the practice of immersion from the time the Britons and Saxons were baptized, till King James' days, when the people grew peevish with all ancient ceremonies, and through the love of novelty and the niceness of parents, and the pretense of modesty, they laid aside immersion." (History of Cold Bathing, ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... they received their deflection, and were warped from their original rectitude. A 'prude' is now a woman with an over-done affectation of a modesty which she does not really feel, and betraying the absence of the substance by this over-preciseness and niceness about the shadow. Goodness must have gone strangely out of fashion, the corruption of manners must have been profound, before matters could have come to this point. 'Prude,' a French word, means properly virtuous or ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... sometimes," said Lotta, cutting another half- inch off from the unconsumed fragment, and picking the skin from the meat with her own fair fingers. Hitherto Souchey had been regardless of any such niceness in his eating, the skin having gone with the rest; but now he thought that the absence of the outside covering and the touch of Lotta's fingers were grateful ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... about my friend. Indeed, he was always nice, with the niceness of people whose hearts are genuinely humane. But this time it cost him an effort. His attempts at general conversation broke down into dullness. It occurred to me he might have been indisposed. But before I could frame ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... route a few obstacles which will intrigue the reader a marriage announcement in the newspapers would be more economical and quite as interesting. It is difficult to be "nice" and "funny," I know, and it was very noble of Miss WIGGIN if one quality had to be left out to cling to the niceness; but I hope that in her next book she will manage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... expert swordsman" like Milton. It is impossible to think of him as an abusive controversialist as Milton was in his controversy with Salmasius. But though Emerson never betrayed it to the offence of others, he must have been conscious, like Milton, of "a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness," which was as a shield about his inner nature. Charles Emerson, the younger brother, who was of the same type, expresses the feeling in his college essay on Friendship, where it is all summed up in the line ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a girl, and endeavour to keep it up when she has become a wife. One great thing undoubtedly was, the chariness of herself and her conduct, which an unmarried female always observes. She should maintain the same niceness and reserve in her person and habits, and endeavour still to preserve a freshness and virgin delicacy in the eye of her husband. She should remember that the province of woman is to be wooed, not to woo; to be caressed, not to caress. Man is an ungrateful being in love; ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... I know to this day what possible niceness there was for you in being married to a man everybody thought would never get ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... "I told the King you were too nice for it. He said on the contrary that he was sure you would do it; that it was not a matter of niceness, but of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... shook his head. He had heard more; and for all that he accounted her at present safe from Marius, yet he made no false estimate of that supple gentleman's character, was not deluded by his momentary show of niceness. As the time of Florimond's arrival grew nearer, he thought it very possible that Marius might be rendered desperate. There was grave danger in remaining. He said naught of this, yet he convinced mademoiselle that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... mysterious quality of readableness pure and simple has more generally belonged to the French novel than to the English. This, as I have endeavoured to point out, is not a question of naughtiness or niceness, of candour or convention. I have indeed admitted that the conventions of the French novel bore me quite as much as anything in ours. It may be partly a question of length, for, as everybody knows, the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... immediately alter any plan that interfereth therewith. Are we not unawares, by little and little, tending to a separation from the Church? Oh, remove every tendency thereto with all diligence. Receive the Sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil; against calling our society a Church or the Church; against calling our preachers ministers and our houses meeting-houses: call them plain preaching-houses. Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a Dissenter, but as a Methodist ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... endure toils, nor anything that diminishes pleasure. Hence it is written (Deut. 28:56): "The tender and delicate woman, that could not go upon the ground, nor set down her foot for . . . softness [Douay: 'niceness']." Thus delicacy is a kind of effeminacy. But properly speaking effeminacy regards lack of pleasures, while delicacy regards the cause that hinders pleasure, for instance toil or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask; and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of your actions—and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from your ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... are thinking of themselves when they do so, and they will rarely say, "I might have married;" rarely within them will they avow that, with their permission, it might have been. They can catch an idea of a gentleman's view of the widow's cap. But a niceness that could feel sharply wounded by the simple rumour of his alliance with the young relict of an earl was mystifying. Sir Willoughby unbent. His military letter I took a careless glance at itself lounging idly and proudly at ease in the glass of his mind, decked with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the faithful effort to render the original truly resulted in a perfection of style of which the translator himself was largely unconscious. The declaration in the preface to the version of 1611 that "niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling,"[192] and the general condemnation of Castalio's "lewd translation,"[193] point to a respect for the original which made the translator merely a mouthpiece and the English ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... her, selfish, only caring about herself, a foreigner with a bad nature, caring really about nothing, having no proper feelings at the bottom of her, and no proper niceness. He raged, and piled up accusations that had some measure of truth in them all. But a certain grace in him forbade him from going too far. He knew, and he quivered with rage and hatred, that she was all these vile things, that she was everything vile ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Angeles. I have grown to detest formality, dances and dinners and receptions and things. If there is one thing Reggie and I will quarrel about that will be it. He has always been invited everywhere and he enjoys the niceness ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... reflected, yet she had none of the professional air, the faded niceness of face and manner which he associated with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of niceness, when there's chance of wreck," The captain said, as ladies writhed their neck To see the dying dolphin flap the deck: "If we go down, on us these gentry sup; We dine upon them, if we haul them up. Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters, As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... heroine. She was in what are called reduced circumstances, and was moreover encumbered by sisters who were not quite all that could have been wished in the way of niceness. One day Penelope, looking through an iron gate, saw a beautiful garden, full of flowers; and the master of the garden, himself unseen, saw Penelope, and loved her. So she accepted the invitation of his voice and went into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... believe, soon became tired of her. He liked her flattery, and at first declared that she was clever and nice, but her niceness was too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes. Mackinnon himself can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth, but when his foot is on terra firma he loves to feel the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... it wrangles In treble points of niceness, Tell Wisdom she entangles Herself in overwiseness; And when they do reply, Straight ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... believe, soon became tired of her. He liked her flattery, and at first declared that she was clever and nice; but her niceness was too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes. Mackinnon himself can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth; but when ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... more improbably than anyone else, but she is such a dear little goose that most amiable readers will be quite glad that she doesn't have to suffer as much as such geese would if they existed in real life. You can see from this that it is one of those books that are full of real niceness and goodwill, and it has besides plenty of plot and lots of interesting characters, and yet somehow it gives you the feeling of being out of focus. You read on, expecting every moment that clever Miss WEBLING will give things a little push in the right direction and make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... and some block or stone his pillow; and as for his horse, he is, as it were, a chamber-fellow with his master, faring both alike. How justly may this barbarous and rude Russian condemn the daintiness and niceness of our captains, who, living in a soil and air much more temperate, yet commonly use fur boots and cloaks! but thus much of the furniture of their common soldiers. But those that are of higher degrees come into the field a little better provided. As for the ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... the earlier stages each individual is obliged to be a law to himself and to guard his rights with a strong hand. Of course the transition periods are full of incongruities. Men have not yet adjusted their relations to morality and law with any niceness. They hold strongly by certain rude virtues, and on the other hand they quite fail to recognize even as shortcomings not a few traits that obtain scant mercy in older communities. Many of the desperadoes, the man-killers, and road-agents have ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... a great sort of good preachers, who had been commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen of those parts, being great and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Michael; she was thankful that he had left Mrs. Mervill, but his voice had been too kind, too nice. Meg did not know what she would have liked him to do, what he could have done otherwise. She only knew that the niceness ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... wi' a wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour. But sink me now if I'd rot myself in rum on account of anything that wears a petticoat. That's not the Old Wolf's way. If there's no other expedition'll tempt you, why not Port Royal? What a plague do it matter if it is an English settlement? ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Woman without Vizard in the Nation Can see it twice, and keep her reputation— That's certain, Forgetting— That he himself, in every gross Lampoon, Her leuder Secrets spread about the Town; Whilst their feign'd Niceness is but cautious Fear, Their own Intrigues ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... only the human element that counted, everyone would stay at the brassworks forever. I feel like a snake in the grass, walking off "on them" when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment the "dearie" kind of niceness that made you feel it was orders from above. From our floor boss down, they were people who were born to treat a body square. All the handicaps against them—the work itself, the surroundings, the low pay—had so long been part of their lives, these "higher ups" seemed insensible to ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... consent, put some aspic of pate de foie gras on her plate, and watched her satisfy her hunger with great pleasure, which was not lessened by the fact that, for all her hunger, she ate with a delicate niceness. He had feared from her neglected air that her manners had also been neglected. After the aspic, he carved the breast of the chicken for her, helped her to salad, and mixed the ice water with the sirop to exactly the strength ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... niceness then? If a man has his time at his command and has studied the art of legislation it may be nice, because he will be doing his duty;—or if he wants to get into the government ruck like your brother-in-law, it may be nice;—or if he be an idle man with a large fortune it may ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... madam, as if anybody couldn't see through that little thrick! To call her for a fightin' ould warrior that bet Cromwell an' held his own in spite of him! An' her havin' to grow up a young lady with nothin' but niceness in her! Ah, then now, madam, why didn't ye call her Mary, the same as her grandmother ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... to assert my claims to anything. For the first time, I was looked down upon, and I did not like it. I do not quite know why I was made to know this so well. My dress, if not showy or costly, was certainly without blame in its neatness and niceness, and perfectly becoming my place as a schoolgirl. And I had very little to do at that time with my schoolmates, and that little was entirely friendly in its character. I am obliged to think, looking back at it now, that some ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... us a morning of much niceness, like the present one, and we found that the schooner had been altogether taken, as honorable Carew remarked by one god of the sea, named David Jones. So we rowed around the volcano and came in this bay, and I knew the place from the memory I had ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... fine dramatic genius led astray, because the time was out of joint. Similarly, the trouble with French tragedy, in the classicist period of Corneille and Racine, is that it was written only for the finest caste of society,—the patrician coterie of a patrician cardinal. Hence its over-niceness, and its appeal to the ear rather than to the eye. Terence aimed too low and Racine aimed too high. Each of them, therefore, shot wide of the mark; while Moliere, who wrote at once for patrician ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... presents a double image of action baffled by wisdom. Hamlet baffles the dealing of the justice of Fate, and also the death plotted for him by his uncle. His weapon, in both cases, is his justice, his precise scrupulousness of mind, the niceness of mental balance which gives to all that he says the double-edge of wisdom. It is the faculty, translated into the finer terms of thought, which the ghost seeks to make real with bloodshed. Justice, in her grosser as in her finer form, is concerned with the finding of the truth. The ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Sara could find no words to express their niceness. And she could no more have described them to you than if they had been so many endearing young charms. But one of the queerest, prettiest things she was sure about: their faces were all dimples! Moreover, they were much more becoming to them than ordinary features ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... no niceness of feeling about this mountain of obesity in matters of business. He spoke as callously of the girl, for whom he entertained his unholy passion, as he would speak of a stranger. He experienced no compunction in linking her name with that of an outlaw. His gross nature was of too low ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... very sulky attitude at the corner where the railings were. In his heart of hearts he was extremely anxious that Flossy's mission should fail. It seemed to him that every bit of the niceness, all the interest would go out of his life if he hadn't Dickory. In some ways he considered that Dickory was more to him than she was to Flossy. He wondered how Flossy could even talk of parting with her. He hoped sincerely she would fail in ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness— Tell Wisdom she entangles Herself in over-wiseness; And when they do reply, Straight give them both ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... a coarse man. He is not delicate enough for your niceness; because I suppose he dresses not like a fop and a coxcomb, and because he lays not himself out in complimental nonsense, the poison of female minds. He is a man of sense, that I can tell you. No man talks more to the purpose to us: but you fly him so, that he has no opportunity ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... allusion whatever was made to the Squire's somewhat uncivil conduct at their last meeting. Mr. Cox trusted that his dearest friend would come over and have another spell at the Moonbeam before he settled down for life;—and then hinted in language that was really delicate in the niceness of its expression, that if he, Cox, were but invited to spend a week or two at Newton Priory before he banished himself for life to Australia, he would be able to make his way over the briny deep with a light heart and an uncomplaining tongue. "You know, old fellow, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... best and honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practise of all that which is praiseworthy. These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I might be (which let envy call pride), and lastly that modesty, whereof, tho not in the title-page, yet here I may ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... be a work of niceness and despatch, but it is ill training for working on the spars of a rolling ship. John Cutler was mousing clew-blocks on the main-yardarm, the ship lurched heavily, the foot-ropes were wet and slippery, and John, ill-balanced ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... had now undone the parcel he had just put into her hand, and seeing before her, in all the niceness of jewellers' packing, a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she could not help bursting forth again, "Oh, this is beautiful indeed! This is the very thing, precisely what I wished for! This is the only ornament ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... The same Niceness of Judgment which makes some Men write sence, makes them very often shy and unwilling ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... question after question.... She talked of her boy-violinist, of Trampy. And they all laughed boisterously, with heads thrown back, full-throated, and Nunkie, very paternally, congratulated Mr. Clifton on his daughter's niceness. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... niceness," said Priscilla, smiling down at the little old lady whose eyes were twinkling all over her. "I don't think you'll find us in any way a nuisance. All we ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... that, being an incorrigible Spaniard, I am naturally given to a kind of extemporization and to neglectfulness of a filed niceness in my works. For this reason my original work—and likewise the Italian and French translations of it—issued from the press with a certain number of errors, obscurities, and faulty references. The labour which ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... solemn vow of revenge, if once more he gets her into his power. His man Will. is gone in search of her. His hopes; on what grounded. He will advertise her. Describes her dress. Letter left behind her. Accuses her (that is to say, LOVELACE accuses her,) of niceness, prudery, affectation. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... work, and pretty hard, but I tell you we are a good bit better off than they are in the prisons of Russia. We have got plenty to eat, though I cannot say much for its niceness; anyhow we are a long way better fed than the soldiers who look after us; ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... had known that Henrietta was to suffer, she would have subdued her niceness, for if Francis had been in physical possession of her body, she would have had no difficulty in possessing his mind. Holding nothing back, she could also have held him securely. She did not want him, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... private life our wit or folly have so refined, that they seldom subsist but in idea; a true friend, a good marriage, a perfect form of government, with some others, require so many ingredients, so good in their several kinds, and so much niceness in mixing them, that for some thousands of years men have despaired of reducing their schemes to perfection. But in conversation it is or might be otherwise; for here we are only to avoid a multitude of ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... before my weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting, telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic cares. The management of an ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... differed from his employee. While Jim's word was never questioned even by the veriest sceptic of the plains, McLagan was notoriously the greatest, most optimistic liar in the state of Montana. A reputation that required some niceness ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... and a small penknife which my father had given me, I cut out the one half of the cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably serve my turn; and subdividing it into many little slices, which were curious to see for the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold it out in so many pennyworths to my young companions as served us all the way to Warwick, which is a distance of some twenty miles from this, town: and very merry, I assure you, we made ourselves with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on an evening gown, but with none of her old niceness of detail. She merely put it on. Her wet hair she twisted into a knot without glancing at the mirror. As she entered the parlor she staggered slightly. Talbot averted his eyes. He may have had similar cases, and, as a doctor, become hardened to all manifestations ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... pay for!" she said eloquently. "She's so kind! I love that woman for all her niceness to me. I told you I had no right to pay so much rent. I came in just for a few weeks until I could find something else, and I haven't had the heart to move. I've been in such holes, and had such awful landladies. They seem divided into two big classes, kind and dirty, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the person next to you is an English nobleman incognito; and a hundred to one, the man opposite to you is a brute or a knave. To behave so that you may not be uncivil to the one, nor a dupe to the other, is an art of some niceness. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... this miserable scrap of paper!... Our dinner-hour is three when we are actors, five when we are ladies and gentlemen. The food we get here in New York is very indifferent. It was excellent in quality in Philadelphia, but wherever we have been there is a want of niceness and refinement in the cooking and serving everything ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... swell gentl'man," said Peaches, "and me and Mickey just loves him for his niceness to us; but we got that all settled. Mickey is going to write the po'try piece for the first page of the Herald—that's our paper—and then we are going to make all my pieces into a bu'ful book, like ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... whizz, like dangerous missiles, through the air. The greatest effect of the great cause was her own greater importance, chiefly revealed to her in the larger freedom with which she was handled, pulled hither and thither and kissed, and the proportionately greater niceness she was obliged to show. Her features had somehow become prominent; they were so perpetually nipped by the gentlemen who came to see her father and the smoke of whose cigarettes went into her face. Some of these gentlemen made her strike matches and light their cigarettes; others, holding her on ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... unapproachable. His niceness, Miss Keating imagined, would keep him linked arm in arm with his sister, maintaining, unconsciously, inoffensively, his distance and distinction. He would manage better than the Colonel. He would not have to get up and go ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... poetry," said I. "Only blunt things, bluntly put, without any finicking niceness. I wish Nikhil ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... learning there was no exquisite [Footnote: Overelaborate.] eloquence in him: He was a good citizen, of an honest, gentle nature, as are commonly fat and burly men: for so was he: But to speake truly of thim? full of ambitious vanity and remisse niceness. [Footnote: Ineffectual fastidiousness.] And I know not well how to excuse him, in that he deemed his Poesie worthy to be published. It is no great imperfection to make bad verses, but it is an imperfection in him that he never perceived how unworthy they were of the glorie of ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... niceness that your husband should dress like a tramp, does it?" he said hoarsely. "And pray whose fault is it that he is reduced to doing so? Judging by your own costume, you can easily remove that cause of offence if you choose. It does not ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... boyish colour, and between them, over admirable snowy teeth, projected the hooked key to this temperament. It is possible that Alice, from sheer thoughtlessness, shared the vulgar prejudice against Jews; but certainly she did not now feel it. The man's personal charm, his exceeding niceness, had always conquered that prejudice, whenever encountered. Moreover, he was only about thirty-five in years, and no such costly and beautiful male had ever ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... courteously as I glanced up. I was very humble, young westerner that I was in the scholastic town, and puzzled by the friendly nod. The man was no other than Longfellow, and in his politeness to me he was only following his invariable custom of greeting in a friendly way every student he met. His niceness of attire rather amused the boys of those days who, however, responded warmly to his friendliness and loved him much. This story was current. He had for some time been a famous man and was subjected to much persecution from sight-seers which he bore good-naturedly. Standing one day at the Craigie ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... thou old Margate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, sun-burnt captain, and his rough accommodations—ill exchanged for the foppery and fresh-water niceness of the modern steam-packet? To the winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage, and didst ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons. With the gales of heaven thou wentest swimmingly; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with her absolute value, surrounded her with all the importance of her wit. That wit, as discriminated from stature and complexion, a sense for "bridge" and a credit for pearls, could have importance was meanwhile but dimly perceived at Matcham; so that his "niceness" to her—she called it only niceness, but it brought tears into her eyes—had the greatness of a general as well as of ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... all covered over with a profusion of little statues and other ornaments"; and the cathedral at Siena, which Addison had characterized as "barbarous," and as an instance of "false beauties and affected ornaments," Gray commends as "labored with a Gothic niceness and delicacy in the old-fashioned way." It must be acknowledged that these are rather cold praises, but Gray was continually advancing in his knowledge of Gothic and his liking for it. Later in life ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... wear no beards at all. Some lusty courtiers also and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl, in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God not to be a little amended. But herein they rather disgrace than adorn their persons, as by their niceness in apparel, for which I say most nations do not unjustly deride us, as also for that we do seem to imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women do ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... She could do nothing, of course. Nevertheless he began to feel grateful to her. She was surely unlike other women, incapable of bearing a grudge. For he had not been very "nice" to her in the days when he was happy and she was in difficulties. At this moment he vaguely exaggerated his lack of "niceness," and perhaps also her pardoning temperament. In truth, he was desperately in need of a touch from the magic wand of sympathy. Believing, or even perhaps knowing, that to the incurably wounded man palliatives ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... with the softness and odor of lavender crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented slippers, represented the perfection of niceness. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she lack a certain sense of niceness which warns women as to what they may or may not do? Didn't she know how to behave? Well, this was the sort of thing that happened if women had no breeding. He blamed Felicie for the accident that had occurred and was relieved of a ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... while since) was very highly augmented: insomuch as I cannot but shrive myself thus freely and soothly unto you. That, albeit, among a number of natural imperfections, I have least of all offended in the humour of ambition, yet now so it is, that I do somewhat repent me of my too much niceness that way: not as carried with an appetite to rake more riches to myself (wherein, God is my witness, my content is complete) but only in respect of my greedy desire to make a livelier demonstration of the same that I bear to my COMMON MOTHER, than I have hitherto attained sufficient ability ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... my Remarks. And these that I have here chosen, are no ways inferior to Terence's in matters of Plot and Intreague, but in some respects superior, tho' not so elaborately wrought up, or always with that Niceness; so that these may undoubtedly prove excellent Models for our Poets Imitation, provided they observe Differences of Tastes, Humours, Ages, and Persons, and keep to those principal Beauties they already ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die, out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither valiant, nor miserable, only upon a weariness to ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... of maternal niceness Phil had never run up against, consequently he did not feel sympathetic ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... presents as I have named, such I mean as are not to be refused, when you have received them, send them to the sick, to the prisoners, or to the poor. The people will be edified with this procedure, and no occasion left of suspecting you, either of niceness or covetousness. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... second great figure in the history of the time. He has obtained the immortality which he so much desired, and we are, therefore, entitled and obliged to scrutinize his conduct with a niceness which would be ungracious and unnecessary in the case of a less distinguished man. After Pharsalia he had concluded that the continuance of the war would be unjustifiable. He had put himself in communication with Antony and Caesar's friend and secretary ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the male sex is concerned, apparently more awkward and uglier; and their ideas in religion, morals, taste, etc., are a monotonously direct reversal of our orthodoxies. There is at least one passage which the absence of all "naughty niceness" and the presence of the indescribably nasty make a good "try" for the acme of the disgusting. More of it is less but still nasty; much of it is silly; all of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... leave, as that will depend on when Mother says I must be home; but I didn't want to go away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message saying he was coming. I have thanked everybody for their niceness and kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me and held me so tight I could hardly breathe. And I know now there is nothing as good as friendliness, and loving-kindness is more ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... her side, I dare say, if her ladyship can be excused to punctilio, and for having a greater esteem for a married man, than he can deserve, or than may be strictly defended to a person of your purity and niceness." ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... into this as if she had been born to it. She was born to it, for it's just the kind of thing she'd have made for herself if she'd had the means. No show, no fuss, just niceness! And it's the sort of thing my wife shall have, somehow, even in the country, before long. We'll bring this there; she'll know how. There's no patent on it. Bless her—how George deserves this! If only ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... of the parson's mien and manner, which with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of propriety ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I'm sure there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun hadn't scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel carpet they've spread for you on the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... like Swift, the satirist of his times and of his kind, snarling at his rulers, and turning at last to gnaw, in venomous rage, his own heart. And yet he who portrayed the character of By-ends, and noted the gossipings of Mrs. Bats-eyes, lacked neither keenness of vision, nor niceness of hand, to have made him most formidable ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the rusticity that was his. How could one of his cross-grained, unfortunate, almost accursed stock, have contrived to reach this pitch of niceness? London had done ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... fingers. It was impossible to deny that he was good-looking after a fashion; but Marie despised him in her heart. She was almost bigger than he was, certainly stronger, and had no aptitude for the city niceness and POINT-DEVICE fastidiousness of such a lover. George Voss had come back, not taller than when he had left them, but broader in the shoulders, and more of a man. And then he had in his eye, and in his beaked nose, and his large mouth, and well-developed chin, that look ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... seeing his master apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution in his movements. This bearded man also wore a moustache, which had given rise to grave doubts in the minds of many members—of the family—, especially those who, like Soames, had been to public schools, and were accustomed to niceness in such matters. Could he really be considered a butler? Playful spirits alluded to him as: 'Uncle Jolyon's Nonconformist'; George, the acknowledged wag, had named ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... conceivable human device. The town stands in the midst of a chain of sandy ridges, inside which is a smaller ring, with a wide stretch of open country absolutely devoid of cover between the two. The extreme niceness of the position lay in the fact that any one ridge was well within range of most if not all of the remainder. Without much difficulty, the infantry captured two of these outer ridges—Mansura and Shalouf—and immediately prepared for the attack ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... to those that do it by all that they can think of. And though he judges it not fit to lead the Forlorn in vice and profaneness: yet, if he goes about to damp a frolic, there is great danger, not only of losing his Sunday dinner, but also all opportunities of such future refreshments, for his niceness and squeamishness! ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... fists. One ear was slightly larger than the other, having the appearance of a swelling upon the lobe. In this unlovely visage, filled with distrust and concentrated venom, only the nose retained an incongruous and unexpected niceness. It was a good straight nose, yet it had something of the pleasant tiptiltedness of a child's. It was the sort of nose which should have complemented a mouth formed for spontaneous laughter. It looked lonesome and out of place in that set and lowering countenance, to which the red straggling ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... to both, Leonore recovered her dignity enough to rise, and say, "Now, I want to pay you for your niceness. What do you ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... and mark of care) They chide that noise which heedless youth affect; Still course for use, for health they cleanness wear, And save in well-fix'd arms, all niceness check'd. They thought, those that, unarm'd, expos'd frail life, But naked nature valiantly betray'd; Who was, though naked, safe, till pride made strife, But made defence must use, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... audience. She thought also—as so frequently during the last, in some respects, extremely unsatisfactory twenty-four hours—of Mr. Rochester and of Jane Eyre. Not that she ranged herself with Jane socially or as to scholastic attainments. In both these, as in natural refinement, propriety and niceness of ideas, she reckoned herself easily to surpass that much canvassed heroine. The flavour of the evangelical charity-school adhered—incontestably it adhered, and that to Jane's disadvantage. No extravagance of Protestantism ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... requisite, said he, this may appear to my dear Pamela's niceness, it befits me to tell you, that I am every moment more and more pleased with the right you have to my name: and, my dear life, added he, I have only to wish I may be half as worthy as you are of the happy knot so lately knit. He then took a pen himself, and wrote, after Pamela, his most worthy ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson |
