"Nicety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in July he had timed his morning job to a miraculous nicety so that at the stroke of twelve his workaday garments dropped from him magically, as though he were a male (and reversed) Cinderella. There was a wash room and a rough sort of sleeping room containing two cots situated in the second story of the Ideal Garage. Here Nick shed ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... none exceed Shakspeare in logical correctness and nicety of expression. With a vigour of though and command of language attained by no man besides, it is fair to conclude, that he would not be guilty of faults of construction such as would disgrace a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... in the rope with one impatient gesture. He coiled it swiftly, but with nicety. Then round and round he swung the gaping loop—and threw ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... cannot shake them off. Nothing to them appears natural, appropriate, or beautiful, which is alien to their own language, manners, and social relations. With this exclusive mode of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible to attain, by means of cultivation, to great nicety of discrimination within the narrow circle to which it limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility which enables him, by renouncing ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... while the real attack was developing without let or hindrance. It was a smart ruse, worthy of a race of higher attainments than the tribe which is ranked lowest in the human scale. During long days of patient watching, they had probably estimated to a nicety the number of men on board. They reasoned that a show of force to the south would draw all eyes from the north, and the stronger squadron of canoes might be enabled to run under the bows of the ship so speedily and quietly that the occupants of the leading craft, men who could climb like monkeys, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... barely sufficient for its defence and its government, should place, on the side of its loss, every name that is supernumerary on the civil or the military list; all those orders of men, who, by the possession of fortune, subsist on the gains of others, and by the nicety of their choice, require a great expense of time and of labour, to supply their consumption; all those who are idly employed in the train of persons of rank; all those who are engaged in the professions of law, physic, or divinity, together with all the learned ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... enough off to be buying mechanical toys," agreed Dorothy. "But Christmas goods seem to attract every one. See, isn't this cute?" and she held up a small tin automobile, the details of which revealed to what a nicety the real machine could be ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... to his senses again it was to find himself being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with cold water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though a chirurgeon was attending ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... name of the yacht was inscribed in gold letters, the decks without a spot, the ropes neatly flemished down, the bulwarks of a pale salmon colour, the stanchions, belaying-pins, and other brass work burnished to a nicety, all betokened a thoroughly well-ordered yacht, Murray himself setting the example in his own person. The yacht soon glided by the wooded heights of Binsted. The royal domain of Osborne, surrounded by trees, with its green lawn, was passed, Cowes Point rounded, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... From head to heels he was adjusted with mathematical nicety. Every organ in his shapely body did its work silently, easily, accurately. Silver-gray hair covered his head, falling gracefully away from a parting in the middle of it. It never seemed to grow long, and yet ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... direction in quest of us. Now, take notice, lady, I know a place in which I can take refuge with my friends and countrymen, those gallant Scots, who have never even in this dishonoured age bent the knee to Baal. For their honour, their nicety of honour, I could in other days have answered with my own; but of late, I am bound to tell you, they have been put to those trials by which the most generous affections may be soured, and driven to a species of frenzy, the more wild that it is founded originally on the noblest feelings. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... things she did not like to do; and one of the things she did not like to do was to roughen or soil her hands. To put her little hands into the pan of water, and handle and pare the coarse roots with the soil hanging to them, was very distasteful to her nicety. She looked a little dismayed. But there were the roots all to be pared and washed, and Maria would have her hands full; and was not this also work given to Matilda to do? At any rate, she felt that she could not refuse without losing influence over Maria, ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... the poor little Irish girl grew up amongst us. Not ill-used certainly, for she was fed and taught as we were; and some forty shillings a year more expended upon the trifles, gloves, and shoes, and ribbons, which make the difference between nicety and shabbiness in female dress, would have brought her apparel upon an equality with ours. Ill-used she was not: to be sure, teachers, and masters seemed to consider it a duty to reprimand her for such faults as would have passed unnoticed in another; and if there were any ...
— Honor O'callaghan • Mary Russell Mitford
... must get it out of the victim next below him. Constant improvements in machinery perfect and expedite the work; improved gauges and metres (in the form of examinations) compute the comparative yield to a nicety, and allow no evasion. The child cannot spare an hour, for he must keep up with the other children; the teacher dares not relax, for he must keep up with the other schools; the committees must only stimulate, not check, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... making ready for a show. To a casual observer it might have seemed a scene of confusion. But in reality the work jumped forward with order and precision, for the position of every bolt, chain, nail, cord, piece of iron and bit of wood had been calculated beforehand to a nicety; there was not a wasted movement of saw, adze, or hammer. The Jasper B., in short, had been measured accurately for a suit of clothes, the clothes had been made; they were now ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... the summit of a lofty eminence, appeared the still dark and frowning fortress of Cyclopean architecture, composed of stones of vast magnitude. When I afterwards visited it, I was surprised to find the extraordinary nicety with which, without any cement, they were joined together; and I cannot tell with what machinery the Peruvians could have raised blocks so enormous to such heights, or how they could have fitted them, shaped as they are in so many various forms, with ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... them the speedy and full performance of their allotted tasks; which, however, he always took care should come under rather than up to the measure of their strength. In his business habits, he was methodical to a nicety; kept his own books, and was his own overseer: for, having a strong aversion to being waited on, he never suffered others to do for him what he could do for himself. He kept a close and clear account, in writing, of the profits arising from the grain, tobacco, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... taking the place of our bread. It is of particularly fine quality, and at meals is brought in small bright-looking tubs kept for this exclusive purpose and scrupulously clean; it is then helped to each individual in small quantities, and steaming hot. The humblest meal is served with nicety, and with the rice various tasty condiments, such as pickles, salted fish, and numerous other dainty little appetizers, are eaten. To moisten the meal, tea without sugar is taken. A hibachi, or charcoal basin, generally occupies the central position, round which the meal ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... a pledge to the Zards of our intention to abide by the agreement, what more precious thing could I give then my own sister?" He spoke calmly and spitefully, enjoying the end of his long charade of nicety, "Besides, the council was falling for her peace talk, as they always give great heed to every member of the royal family, and I was not strong enough at that time to control them, as I do now. Unfortunately for me you were out at the moment of the attack ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... somewhat obscure a part of the illustration of the principle of virtual velocities.... Will you look at this point again? I have made a trifling remark in page 6, but it is a mere matter of metaphysical nicety, and perhaps hardly worth pencilling your beautiful ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... is being used just now by some of Mr. Punch's contemporaries to draw attention to their circulations does not, it will be seen, tend to numerical nicety, though doubtless it has its advantages from the advertising point of view. The following items ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... hard at the ruddy, impudent face, which instantly assumed an appearance of the most defiant unconcern, while its owner began to devote his energies to shying stones at an invisible rook upon the old church tower with great nicety of aim. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... smiled at all, there had been but one will in the household. At any rate, after the old woman's death. For during her life-time her stern son paid her such deference that it was a moot point, perhaps, which of them really ruled. Between them, however, the young wife was moulded to a nicety, and her voice gained no more weight in the counsels of the windmill when the harsh tones of the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... all ready, 'A' party? Then come on." Worming over the bank Samuel followed his subaltern into the darkness, and the raid had begun. Without a sound they approached the wire through which they had to cut, crawling as they had practised. Timed to a nicety they reached it and lay still, just as a couple of flashes from the rear proclaimed the gunners were beginning. Five—six—seven seconds, and with a shrill scream two shells whistled over their heads and burst fifty yards in ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... discovering the hand whence the assistance came. Had her aunt been well enough to leave the house, she would not have scrupled unfolding to her the recent calamity of Mr. Constantine. But well aware that Miss Dorothy's maidenly nicety would be outraged at a young woman appearing the sole mover in such an affair, she conceived herself obliged to withhold her confidence at present, and to decide on ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... exhibited; silk- weaving factories where fine fabrics are made on the simplest of looms; feather shops where breastpins and other ornaments are made of tiny bits of feathers on a silver base—a work requiring almost incredible nicety of vision and such strain upon the eyes that the operators often become blind by forty. Another curiosity is a shop where crickets are reared for fighting as the Filipino fights cocks and the Anglo-Saxon fights dogs. The Chinese gamble on the result ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... walking pole, such as it is convenient to carry in these rocky countries, of which I guessed the length by standing against it. In this there could be no great errour, nor do I much doubt but the Highlander, whom we employed, reported the number right. More nicety however is better, and no man should travel unprovided with instruments ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... of distrust: and having, as she said, been already deceived by Simnel, she was determined never again to be seduced by any impostor. She desired before all the world to be instructed in his reasons for assuming the name which he bore; seemed to examine every circumstance with the most scrupulous nicety; put many particular questions to him; affected astonishment at his answers; and at last, after long and severe scrutiny, burst out into joy and admiration at his wonderful deliverance, embraced him as her nephew, the true image of Edward, the sole heir ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... have no common measure, namely, the week, the lunar month, and the solar year; and as this can only be done approximately, and within certain limits, the determination of Easter is an affair of considerable nicety and complication. It is to be regretted that the reverend fathers who formed the council of Nicaea did not abandon the moon altogether, and appoint the first or second Sunday of April for the celebration of the Easter festival. The ecclesiastical calendar would in that case have possessed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to a nicety was obviously a great point with Horace. "What plate he had was made to look its best." "Ridet argento domus"—"My plate, newly-burnished, enlivens my rooms"—is one of the attractions held out in his invitation to the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... long handle. When placed in the head of the screw, to drive in, it should be turned from left to right, and in taking out, from right to left. There is a particular way of getting out a screw, which is only to be learned by a little practice. The knack consists in combining with nicety the pressure on the screw-head and the turning of the driver. The young carpenter will now and then find a very stubborn screw and fancy it quite impossible to get it out; but by a little perseverance, he soon finds out the knack of doing ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... the politician toward the press is comprehended to a nicety by every man who has served as ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... almost exactly the point from which he started the first time. He pauses, panting, but with the scowl of determination still more intense, and concentrated chiefly in his right eye. Very cautiously extending his dexter hand, that he may not destroy the nicety of his perpendicular balance, he points with a finger at the knob of the door, and suffers his stronger eye to fasten firmly upon the same object. A moment's balancing, to make sure, and then, in three irresistible, rushing strides, he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... of a new government, whatever care or wisdom may distinguish the work, cannot fail to originate questions of intricacy and nicety; and these may, in a particular manner, be expected to flow from the establishment of a constitution founded upon the total or partial incorporation of a number of distinct sovereignties. 'Tis time only that can mature and perfect so compound a system, can liquidate ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... hang a card-case round your neck! The hinges, now—might they not better be here, and here, than there, and there? Manvers was indifferent as to the hinges. The fastening? Let the fastening be one which could be snapped-to, and open upon a spring. The chain—ah, there was some nicety required for that. From his point of view, Sebastian said, with the light of enthusiasm irradiating his face, that that was the cream of ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... itself, or in him that attains to it, is merely comparative, there seems to be no fixed point of perfection beyond which such learning may not be carried. In speaking or writing to different persons, and on different subjects, it is necessary to vary one's style with great nicety of address; and in nothing does true genius more conspicuously appear, than in the facility with which it adopts the most appropriate expressions, leaving the critic no fault to expose, no word to amend. Such facility of course supposes an intimate knowledge of all words in common use, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... realization in the way of self-consciousness was an uneasy doubt of his own inherent nicety, for he soon discovered that whatever was thus particularly forbidden seemed to ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table, his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the exile from his accustomed sphere ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... permeating like an odor the humdrum purlieus of the day. This was savage, triumphant, that leaped like flame from his heart to his mouth, that burned blood-red on the black night. It swept away hesitation, a sick man's nicety and doubts, all the prejudices of all times! This was love, unchained, that came like waters from the mountains to quench the thirst of blazing deserts: parched, dry, in dust; now ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... diplomatic relations tangled up, requiring many explanations, and maybe apologies, and leaving unpleasant memories for a long time to come. Such incidents have not been infrequent. Nations are very sensitive. Governmental affairs must be handled with great nicety. There would be a second thing which if I were a wise enough man to be an ambassador I would likely do. I would go to see John Hay and Joseph H. Choate, and have as many interviews with them as possible, and learn all I possibly could from them of London official life, court etiquette, personages ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... his voice shed with astounding completeness all its syllabled nicety. "You try to make yourself useful as well as pestilential. Get him a bit of adhesive for that cut. It looks as bad as though a horse had kicked ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that 'the barn was every bit as good' as I, 'and every bit as wollsome,' and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... of Russia, by land and by water, and has calculated her resources to a nicety. German spies are legion in Russia as they are in France. She may hope to make easy-going people like us believe that she is on the best of terms with our ally, but she will find it far more difficult ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... him with an air carried from his supper hour, bland, dispensing. Well! Let us have it. "What did you wish to see me about?"—with a use of the past tense as connoting something of indirection and hence of delicacy—a nicety customary, yet unconscious. Bobby had arrived in his best clothes and with an air of such formality that Mr. Deacon had instinctively suspected him of wanting to join the church, and, to treat the time with due solemnity, had put him ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... some new byroad, snatching at every bush they pass. They are too excitable, too ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! What forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and yonder, feels ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... their bicycles out of the cats' home quietly, mounted, rode quickly down the road till they were out of hearing of the house, and then slackened their pace in order to reach their destination cool and tidy. They timed their arrival with such nicety that as they dismounted before the door of Deeping Hall, Sir James Morgan, in the content inspired by an excellent dinner, was settling himself comfortably in an easy ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... phrase the composition was "close-up and solid" to the extreme degree of compactness. The uncommonly free use of red ink for the smaller initials was not altogether a matter of taste; if the page had been written entirely in black ink it would have been unreadable through its blackness. This nicety in writing consumed much time, but the mediaeval copyist was seldom governed by considerations of time or expense. It was of little consequence whether the book he transcribed would be finished in one or in ten years. It was required only that he should keep at his work steadily ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... the horizontal lines of their buildings. Mr. Penrose made careful measurements, establishing the fact, and a folio volume of plates was published to illustrate the discovery, and evince the unequalled nicety of the Greek eye. But the main point, namely, that a horizontal line above the level of the eye, in order to appear horizontal, must bend slightly upwards, was pointed out to me years ago by a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... office as the anointed of the Lord should have saved him from the gibe. The king goes his way all unawares, and, as it would seem, had not regained his men, when David, leaving his band (very much out of temper no doubt at his foolish nicety), yields to a gush of ancient friendship and calls loudly after him, risking discovery and capture in his generous emotion. The pathetic conversation which ensued is eminently characteristic of both men, ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... blotting paper, and iron it with a large smooth heater, pretty strongly warmed, till all the moisture is dissipated. Colours may thus be fixed, which otherwise become pale, or nearly white. Some plants require more moderate heat than others, and herein consists the nicety of the experiment; but it is generally found that if the iron be not too hot, and is passed rapidly yet carefully over the surface of the blotting paper, it answers the purpose equally well with plants of almost every variety ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... a game at romps with these birds, and knew their haunts and habits to a nicety. The covey consisted of thirteen at first, but by repeated blazings into the 'brown of 'em,' he had succeeded in knocking down two. Jog was not one of your conceited shots, who never fired but when he was sure of killing; on the contrary, he always let drive far ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... not see his goddaughter again until he came with Mrs. Sandworth to the last of these events. She was looking singularly handsome at that time, her color high, her eyes very large and dark, almost black, so dilated were the pupils. With the nicety of observation of a man who has lived much among women, the doctor noticed that her costume, while effective, was not adjusted with the exquisite feeling for finish that always pervaded the toilets of her mother and sister. Lydia was trying with all her might to make ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... with a kindly smile on his lined face. He had, perhaps, a soft place in that cynical and dry heart for his niece, and liked to hear her simple talk. Cartoner was listening, with a greater attention than the words deserved. He was weighing them with a greater nicety than experienced social experts are in the habit of exercising over dinner-table talk. And Deulin was talking hard, as usual, and listening at the same time; which is not by any means ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... resembles in many of his habits, performing similar services, and being guilty of the same mischievous deeds. It is remarkable that in Europe, where land is more valuable than in this country, and where agriculture is carried on with an amount of skill and nicety that would astonish an American farmer, the people are not so jealous of the birds. In Great Britain rookeries are regular establishments, and the Rooks, notwithstanding the mischief they do, are protected, on account of their services to agriculture. The farmers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... takes. He was born in Dolton, which was settled by the original Bumpus, back in the Plymouth Colony days, and if he were rich he'd have a library stuffed with gritty, yellow-backed books and be a leading light in the Historical Society. He speaks with that nicety of pronunciation of the old New Englander, never slurring his syllables, and he has a really fine face, the kind of face one doesn't often see nowadays. I kept looking at it, wondering what was the matter ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... others of considerable authority, are delivered in it. Some may think that because the Law-French is no better than the old Norman corrupted, and now a deformed hotch-potch of the English and Latin mixed together, it is not fit for a polite spark to foul himself with; but this nicety is so desperate a mistake, that lawyer and Law-French are coincident; one will not stand without the other." So enamored was he of the grace and excellence of law-reporters' French, that he regarded it as a delightful study for a man of fashion, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Wayne Junction, in connection with a doorway much like the above, is an elliptical porch much like those of Salem, Massachusetts, although devoid of their excellent proportion and nicety of detail. Both the porch platform and steps are of wood, but the slender, smooth columns supporting the roof, which takes the form of an entablature, stand on high stone bases. Only simple moldings have been employed, and the detail can hardly be said to belong to any particular ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... some of its shrewdness. It was as if the white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life. He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips twitched. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... the hard earth, as our trench seemed to give no more protection from the dropping bullets than a saucer would from a storm of rain—but it was too late. We could not sink into the earth fast enough. The Boers had got the range of the trench to a nicety, and the shells burst over us now with a horrible methodic precision. Several men were hit, and there was no reason why the enemy should cease to rain shrapnel over us until we were all killed. As we were absolutely powerless to do anything, I put up ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the richest green, others were brown from fresh tillage, with men ploughing or harrowing in them, or plants just springing up in long green rows, which, partly on account of the distance, and partly through the exquisite neatness and nicety of farmers' work, looked so smooth, and soft, and fine, that the scene appeared more like enchantment ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... trips; if she had only one or two, she retained them between her mandibles. It will be understood, I suppose, that we did not see the food in its passage from one bird to the other,—human eyesight would hardly be equal to work of such nicety; but the two bills were put together so frequently and in so pronounced a manner as to leave us in no practical uncertainty about what was going on. Neither had I any doubt that the change was connected in some way with the increasing age ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... had formerly been a smuggler, but he had wearied of that too active life, and he had longed for an occupation more sedentary and less strenuous. Distilling suited his temperament to a nicety. It was what he had been used to see as a boy when his parents were alive, for his father before him had been a "skeely" man in that line. So Donald built to himself a kind of hut in a wild, unfrequented glen. A little burn, clear and brown, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... figure, the indolent attitude of Tom Appleton, the blase young man whom he was so accustomed to meeting at billiard-tables, in clubs, or hotels. A tolerant, amiable expression saved the youth's smooth, handsome face from vacuity. He was dressed with careful nicety. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... when I make it and give it to thee thou hast nothing to do when in some battle thou seest they have cut me in half through the middle of the body—as is wont to happen frequently,—but neatly and with great nicety, ere the blood congeal, to place that portion of the body which shall have fallen to the ground upon the other half which remains in the saddle, taking care to fit it on evenly and exactly. Then thou shalt give me to drink but two drops of the balsam I have mentioned, and thou shalt see ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the principles of the American Revolution opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, therefore the key comes to the right place;" the black velvet coat worn when the farewell address to the Army was made; the rooms all in nicety of preparation as if expectant of the coming host—we move among these memorials of days and men long vanished—we stand under the great trees and watch the solemn river, in its never-ceasing flow, we gaze upon the simple tomb whose silence is unbroken save by the low murmur ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... uniform alacrity in going under; the offices in the gift of the President might very well be reckoned on to supply the beef which should lead by their noses the weary expectants whose hunger might be too strong for their nicety of stomach; and the pinch of salt,—why could not that be found in the handful of Republicans who might be drawn over by love of notoriety, private disgusts, or that mixture of motives which has none of the substance of opinion, much less of the tenacity of principle, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... having enough trouble with his legs, without taking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But the marvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with such nicety that the chairman announced "Four minutes," almost upon the instant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more to the upholder of the affirmative. "Refutation and conclusion by the affirmative," said the chairman. ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... the "Return" signal of his leader. He banked round and ran into a thicker pall of fog and began climbing. As he turned he saw a quick, red, angry flash appear in the clouds and something whistled past his head. The guns had got the altitude of the bombers to a nicety and Tam grinned. ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... exception which on a similar principle had before been admitted in the Civil Law, as to mercantile causes, in which the books of the party were received to give full effect to an insufficient degree of proof, called, in the nicety of their distinctions, a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... MS. Psalms, written with wonderful elegance and manual nicety, struck me as very curious: they were done by the Certosini monks lately eradicated, and with beautiful illuminations to almost every page. A Livy, printed here in 1418, fresh and perfect; and a Pliny, of the Parma press, dated 1472; are extremely valuable. But the pleasure ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... gauged it to a nicety,' says someone; ''e won't come out till we're demobbed, an' 'e'll be orf before Reginald gets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... black with a spark in them. What was the spark? It was, Raven concluded again, in this quick scrutiny, like that in the eyes of inventors and visionaries. He wore clothes so threadbare that it seemed as if he must have been cold. But they were patched with a scrupulous nicety that made some revulsion in Raven rise up and dramatically spur him to a new resentment. She had patched them. Her faithful needle had spent its art on this murderer of her peace. He had reached the woodpile now and ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... has it. Now, the Carolinians treated John just as they treated Jonathan, and there was no more to be said. All parties were bound to enter the port, subject to the municipals, as is set forth in Vattel. That was a case soon settled, you perceive, though depending on a nicety." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... is often not without his charm. He knows, if not courts and princes, at least hotels and railway companies. He is on terms of easy familiarity with every 'boots' in several counties. He can calculate to a nicety how long a train is likely to be delayed by a fair 'somewhere along the line.' He is also full of information about local politics. In Connaught, for instance, an experienced member of the profession will ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... filled with young English men and women who could walk many miles a day, and who could climb peaks so inaccessible that the feats received honorable mention in Alpine journals,—a result which filled their families with joy and pride. These young people knew to a nicety the proper diet and clothing which would best contribute toward endurance. Everything was very fine about them save their motive power. The writer does not refer to the hard-worked men and women who were taking a vacation, but ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... stopped and stood watching half-witted Turk Smollet, who was pushing a wheelbarrow in the road. The old man with his absurdly boyish mind had a dozen long boards on the wheelbarrow, and, as he hurried along the road, balanced the load with extreme nicety. "Easy there, Turk! Steady now, old boy!" the old man shouted to himself, and laughed so that the ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... the neatest comfortable people walking about, the canals not unsweet, and busy and picturesque with old-world life. Rows upon rows of houses, built with the neatest little bricks, with windows fresh painted, and tall doors polished, and carved to a nicety. What a pleasant spacious garden our inn has, all sparkling with autumn flowers and bedizened with statues! At the end is a row of trees, and a summer-house, over the canal, where you might go and smoke a pipe with Mynheer Van Dunck, and quite cheerfully catch the ague. Yesterday, as we ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Diamond were at last re-united, and here they have remained ever since. You smile as if I had been relating a pleasant fable. But tell me, if you can, how it happens that in the forehead of yonder idol there is a small cavity lined with gold into which the Diamond fits with the most exact nicety. That cavity was there when I bought the idol and has in no way been altered since. The shape of the Diamond, as you have seen for yourself, is rather peculiar. Is it therefore possible that mere accident can be at the bottom of such a coincidence? Is not ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... unmoved; she appealed to the sadness which lingers for ever in the heart of man, and, after the vapid brilliancies of La Fontaine's comedy, the strain had all the greater power to stir. Wilhelmine, an unseen spectator at many rehearsals of the theatricals, had calculated this to a nicety, with an artist's instinct for playing upon ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Mr. Melcher, freshly perfumed and talcumed, entered the room. His white hair was arranged with scrupulous nicety; his pink face, as unwrinkled as his immaculate attire, was beaming with ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional. He can do all this, and then stuff the customer's mouth with a soap-brush, and leave him while he goes to the other end of the shop to make a side bet with one of the other barbers on the outcome of the Autumn Handicap. In the barber-shops they knew the result of the Jeffries-Johnson ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... brother look with disdain upon us because we are not cleanly and neat? It is true that the masses of our race have not shown that regard for personal cleanliness and nicety of dress, which a wealthy and educated people have the means and the time for. Our people by the exigencies of their lot, have had to toil and toil in menial places, the places where drudgery was demanded and where contact with dust and ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... wondered with the rest but she did not share their ignorant mistrust, for she had sufficient worldly wisdom to recognize the nicety of his speech and the reticence of his manners as belonging to a gentleman—a gentleman under a cloud mayhap but still born a gentleman. She was intensely curious regarding his antecedents, and one day she had her curiosity gratified. A letter which came in the morning mail from a schoolmate ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... or other simple means. It will be evident that, by shifting the roller, a greater or less speed of the cone can be effected, and as to the end of the cone's axis an index hand sweeping an ordinary clock face is attached, the speed of this index hand can be regulated to a nicety, in proportion to that of the drum. Of course, before fixing the size and proportion of the disk and cone, the number of revolutions of the drum in a given time must be ascertained by experiment. For instance, the drum being found to make 15 revolutions in 12 hours, the proportions ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... against it, yet I have not taken upon me to correct the same, in respect it was the will of the deceased, that his manuscript should be submitted to the press without diminution or alteration. A fanciful nicety it was on the part of my deceased friend, who, if thinking wisely, ought rather to have conjured me, by all the tender ties of our friendship and common pursuits, to have carefully revised, altered, and augmented, at my judgment and discretion. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... Kittie, after a pause, and turning a corner in her handkerchief with great nicety, "I suppose since it's settled, that he will be here in a few days. Bea has fixed his room ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... at least in his desire for a permanent residence in an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... are stupid, sulky, and phlegmatic, the men are vivacious, timid, inquisitive, and garrulous beyond belief. They make excellent domestic servants, are cleanly, and even tedious in the nicety with which they arrange dishes on a table or clothes on a bed. They have also their friendships after the manner of woman, embracing one another, sleeping on the same mat, telling one another their secrets, betraying them, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... I keep it Lonely, apart] [Hammer: lovely] I am yet inclined to lonely, which in the old angular writing cannot be distinguished from lovely. To say, that I keep it alone, separate from the rest, is a pleonasm which scarcely any nicety declines. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... began to eat, deliberately, and with an overemphasised nicety. As she carried her soup-spoon to her lips, Maurice Guest felt that she was observing him; and throughout the meal, of which she ate but little, he was aware of a peculiarly straight and penetrating gaze. It ended by disconcerting him. Beckoning the waiter, he went through the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... behaved as the last in the house, being persuaded that she was so before God. She feared nothing more than what ever could bring to her mind the remembrance of her former dignity. She prayed and read much, worked with her hands, abhorred the least appearance of worldly nicety, and took a singular pleasure in visiting and comforting the sick. Thus she passed the fifteen last years of her life, never suffering the least preference to be given her above anyone in the community. Her mortifications ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... treatment of Ariosto is typical. Men of not over scrupulous nicety may question whether his Comedies are altogether wholesome reading. But not even a Puritan could find fault with his Satires on the score of their morality. Yet Rome sanctioned the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... able to reach, and in the Old Testament we find several passages more elevated and sublime than any in Homer. At the same time that we allow a greater and more daring genius to the ancients, we must own that the greatest of them very much failed in, or, if you will, that they were much above the nicety and correctness of the moderns. In their similitudes and allusions, provided there was a likeness, they did not much trouble themselves about the decency of the comparison: thus Solomon resembles the nose of his beloved to the tower of Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus, as the coming ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... who do a fire-eating act, calculate to a nicety just how long a certain fire will burn. And they do not place the blazing material into the mouth until the flames are almost on the point of going out of themselves. This, added to the fact that a chemical solution ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... a constant and particular attendant upon his person and motions; and he was especially employed and ordered to haunt him as a ghost, that he should scarce let him be ever out of his sight. He performed this to a nicety, and failed not to give me a perfect journal of all his motions from day to day, and, whether for his pleasure or his business, was ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... with these, dovetailed in as opportunity offered, in a sailing-ship under way there went on the work of readjusting the yards and sails; a pull here and a pull there, like a woman getting herself into shape after sitting too long in one position. Yards trimmed to a nicety; the two sheets of each sail close home alike; all the canvas taut up, from the weather-tacks of the courses to the weather-earings of the royals; no slack weather-braces, or weather-leaches, letting a bight of loose canvas sag like an incipient double chin. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... great nicety, into the ground at the precise spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his pocket a tape-measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of the trunk of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... you set him down either for the gentleman by birth fallen a victim to some degrading habit, or for the man of small independent means whose expenses are calculated to such a nicety that the breakage of a windowpane, a rent in a coat, or a visit from the philanthropic pest who asks you for subscriptions to a charity, absorbs the whole of a month's little surplus of pocket-money. If you had seen him that afternoon, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... powers, Elsley Vavasour began to fancy that his wife was a very commonplace person, who was fast losing even her good looks and her good temper. So, on the whole, they were not happy. Elsley was an affectionate man, and honourable to a fantastic nicety; but he was vain, capricious, over-sensitive, craving for admiration and distinction; and it was not enough for him that his wife loved him, and bore him children, kept his accounts, mended and moiled all day long for him and his; he wanted her to act the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Our difficulty has been that of choice. Many pleasant companions we have had to pass by; to strike from our list many excellent letters. Those that remain are intended to present as complete a portrait of the writer as space permits. Occasionally it was some feature of the age, some nicety of manners, some contrast in point ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... together, during the course of two hundred years, by a family which had been always wealthy, and inclined, of course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the current literature of the day, without much scrutiny, or nicety of discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease, though they did not withdraw ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Okehampton. Not only was there a most deadly rifle fire, partly from the lines in front and partly from the village of Colenso upon their left flank, but the Boer automatic quick-firers found the range to a nicety, and the little shells were crackling and banging continually over the batteries. Already every gun had its litter of dead around it, but each was still fringed by its own group of furious officers and sweating ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... naturally having no turn to mischief; then, by the way, he was perfectly well made, stout, clean-limbed, tall of his age, as strong as a horse, and, withal, pretty featured; so that he was not, absolutely, such a figure to be snuffled at neither, if your nicety could, in favour of such essentials, have dispensed with a face unwashed, hair tangled for want of combing, and so ragged a pliht, that he might have disputed points of shew with any heathen philosopher ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Gretchen fancies she can do it—requires nicety and care to do it well, and is far more difficult than "frying in deep fat." The pan requires to be hot, also the fat or butter used, which should cover the bottom of the pan; a bright fire is required. Things that ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... slight figure, the graceful precision of her poses, the faultless symmetry and taste of her dress, and the atmosphere of a fastidious and wholesome cleanliness which exhaled from her. In the lady I saw before me, half reclining in a rocking-chair, there was none of the stiffness and nicety. Habited in a loose gown of some easy, flexible, but rich material, worn with that peculiarly indolent slouch of the Mexican woman, Mrs. Saltillo had parted with half her individuality. Even her arched feet and thin ankles, the close-fitting boots or small slippers of which ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte |
