"Overdone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frustrated by the thick heads, or worse, by the inevitable suggestions of those remarkably intelligent corporals, who seem to consider themselves as having a special mission direct from heaven to know everything except how to do what they are bid. And oh! the first camp cookery, when everything is overdone except what is underdone; when the soup is water, and the coffee grounds, and the tea (we had tea in the three-months!) senna! And after a day of worry, hurry, confusion, and awful cooking, the first ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... so weak and knocked about that she immediately fell down again. We resolved to let her have a few minutes' spell before making another attempt at lifting. There was not a blade of grass to be seen, and the ground was too dusty to sit on. We were too overdone to make more than one-worded utterances, so waited silently in the blazing sun, closing ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... official personages. He ordered everybody about except the Lord Mayor, and him he seemed to push about as though he were wheeling him in a legal Bath-chair. His Lordship was indeed a great invalid in respect to matters of law; I think he had overdone it, if I may use the expression; his study must have been tremendous to have acquired a knowledge of the laws of England in so short a time. But being somewhat feeble, and in his modesty much misdoubting his own judgment, he did nothing and said nothing, except ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... of the deposition is crude and overdone, yet there can be no doubt that from this time Adams did work for the one great end. At first he was alone, yet he recognized the temper of the continent, and saw the way that the political sentiments of the country were tending. The methods which he followed were not always open; ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... you silly child," said her mother, kissing her affectionately, "and overdone manners are much better ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... "A little overdone," said Miss Pinshon. "She wants regular exercise; but irregular exercise is very trying to any but a strong person. I think Daisy will be stronger in a ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hiss of the escaping air above all the industry clamor; heard, and saw the car start backward. Then he had a flitting glimpse of a man in grimy overclothes scrambling terror-frenzied from beneath the Rosemary. The thing done had been overdone. The fireman had "bled" the air-brake too freely, and the liberated car, gathering momentum with every wheel-turn, surged around the circling spur track and shot out masterless on the steeper gradient of the ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... at the bird's leg; but that bird was rather overdone. Mrs Strong, aided by Mary O'Halloran as cook and kitchen-maid, had done their best in the rock kitchen with a fire of cocoa-nut shells and barks; but some piled-up pieces of coral and basalt, though they are great helps, do not form a patent prize kitchener; and though the result was ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... had struck. From this moment the respect shown to Bill, and to Gus also, by those who had no desire to do otherwise was really almost overdone, his classmates being generally proud of him, and the teachers and seniors pleased to have him a member of the school. But the sophs mostly grew more inclined to consider both boys a menace to their ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... variety of other forms of wealth. The purpose of this work is to point out the circumstances underlying the origin and growth of the great private fortunes; in the case of the Astors this has been done sufficiently, perhaps overdone, although many facts have been intentionally left out of these chapters which might very properly have been included. But there are a few remaining facts without which the story would not be complete, and lacking which ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... all pains to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora, and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another thing, its atmosphere is so depressingly Slavonic. It is as dismal and as overdone as Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor. How shall I give you the sharp flavour of it, or catch the temper of ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... many. After all, there is more to be said for than against. Of course, provided—It is all very well to say labor should be allowed to look after itself, and none of this paternalism. Of course, the paternalism can be overdone and unwisely done. But, at least where women workers are concerned, if we are going to wait till they are able to do things for themselves we are going to wait, perhaps, too long for the social good while we are airing our theories. It is something like saying ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... sight to see that his quest had been successful, and that he had brought to Mr. Chamberlain the ammunition he required in order to slay John Dillon. The moment Mr. Dillon sat down, Mr. Chamberlain was on his feet. He worked up to the situation with some skill; but, after all, with that overdone passion which, as I have already said, spoils some of his greatest effects—he did not expose the mistake in his first few sentences. He worked up the agony, so to speak. First he recalled to the Liberals—whose hatred to him he feels and returns with interest—the fact that they had ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... order to pass the man and woman at a little distance unobserved. No; I was not mistaken. The woman was Mary Simms, though without any trace of all her former simple-minded airs; Mary Simms, no longer in her humble attire, but flaunting in all the finery of overdone fashion. She wore an air of reckless joyousness in her face; and yet, spite of that, I pitied her. It was clear she had fallen on the evil ways of bettered fortune—bettered, alas! ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... bread, without clothing, without a shirt, consumed by fever, devoured by vermin, poor artisans torn from their workshops, poor husbandmen forcibly taken from the plough, weeping for a wife, a mother, children, a family widowed or orphaned, also without bread and perhaps without shelter, overdone, ill, dying, despairing,—some of these wretched beings succumb, and consent to "ask for pardon!" Then a letter is presented for their signature, all written and addressed: "To Monseigneur le Prince-President." We give publicity to this letter, as ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... to look forward to," he continued. "I'm always thinking what you'd like to paint, and make a picture of. I should like to be painted myself, and mother; and there'll be plenty o' time. For I'm not a man to see you overdone with work, Phebe. I've been thinking about it for the last five year, ever since you were a pretty young lass of fifteen. 'She'll be a good girl,' mother said, 'and if old Marlowe dies before you're ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... great quantities of half-cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the Italian band on board; for the general desired to serenade the governor during the evening. It was an hour too early; for the commander had been so solicitous that the company should not be late, that he had overdone the matter. The landlord was to have the carriages at the landing at half-past six, and there was an hour to wait. But the princess and Mrs. Sharp declined to leave their seats in the launch, for fear of mussing up their dresses; and the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... and soft tenor, and he had sung very naturally, carelessly almost. But everything had been just right. When he had stolen time, when he had given it back, the stealing and repayment had been right. His expression had been charming and not overdone. There had been at moments a delightful impudence in his singing. The touches of tenderness had been light as a feather, but they had had real meaning. Through his last song he had kept a cigarette alight in his mouth. He had merely hummed ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... it will only cause indigestion and aggravate the case. It is a good practice to do nothing when there is nothing to be done that will benefit. This refers to medicine as well as feed. Nothing is well done that is overdone. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... photoplay, and this practice has gradually grown until, today, it is very seldom that the name of the writer is omitted. There are patrons who feel that, at the present time, the preliminary announcements on most films, especially "features," are rather overdone, inasmuch as they usually give the names of the author of the story, the writer of the scenario, or continuity, the director, the cameraman, the "art title" maker, and the supervising producer. However, most writers and actors feel that the manufacturers are quite welcome to ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Cairo, where coffee is so much used, he was assured by the best judges, that there were only two people in that great city who understood how to prepare it in perfection. If it be underdone, its virtues will not be imparted, and, in use, it will load and oppress the stomach; if it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste, its virtues will be destroyed, and, in use, it will heat the body, and act as an astringent." The desirable colour of roasted coffee is that of cinnamon. Coffee-berries ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... the roots; and, still others, to render the plant food in the ground available. Probably all are right, and the summing up seems to be, "to make the crop grow," so the safe way is to stir often. This cannot be overdone. A crop may be cultivated every day if desired, provided that good judgment is exercised as to the condition of the soil. It should not be stirred when too wet. The gladiolus has not a very long season for growth, and if best results ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... He had overdone it. Five hundred pairs of eyes tore themselves from their leader's face and shifted fearfully to the lurking, crawling ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Production by all these manufacturers is, and must necessarily be, absolutely planless. This planless production must end in the market being overstocked with commodities of one kind or another; that is, that it must end in 'over-production.' In the trade which has been thus overdone, prices fall and wages come down; or a great manufacturer fails and a smaller or greater number of workmen are discharged. Crises are therefore the direct result of private enterprise."[208] "Why are men—men that is who are able and willing, nay, eager ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... had seen enough for one day, for sight-seeing is the hardest work one can do when it is overdone. After supper, when the lady was rested, she consented to visit Tivoli, where the students were to spend the evening. This celebrated resort of the Copenhageners is situated just outside of the old walls of the city, near the arm of the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... son had been the central figures, and the tragedy had ended with her death. Poppaea is closely studied: her petty, feline personality contrasts well with the large, imperial presence of Agrippina. Nero himself is not so successful as a whole: his puerility in the first part is overdone, though as the play goes on the creation takes definite shape, and becomes at once more complex and more distinct. The invariable recurrence of his vanity at the most tremendous moments is admirably managed: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... high upon her head, giving her a youthful look. Her shoulders and bosom were snowy, but they now rose puffily in a manner to obstruct the free movement of the neck, which had grown too short. Her plump and dimpled arms ended in pretty little hands that were, alas, too fat. She was, in fact, so overdone with fulness of life and health that her flesh formed a little pad, as one might call it, above her shoes. Two ear-drops, worth about three-thousand francs each, adorned her ears. She wore a lace cap with pink ribbons, a mousseline-de-laine gown in ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... was required, that no separate species of warfare should be overdone, lest a nausea of sentiment should revert upon the authors, and thus lead to a reaction more sanguinary than the force of the philosophers could control. In all those cases Condorcet was the prime mover and the agent concerned. ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... often wondered if things were not being overdone as far as coaching goes in the preparatory schools at the present time. The superabundance of coaches and the demand for victory combine to force ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... not overdone, but were carried on with a fine insistence and a dogged determination. Up to date, however, despite the fine work of their boys, the citizens of the town had been somewhat grudging about affording money for training athletic teams. What the boys had won on the fields of sport they ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... down and got him home at last; and when he'd got home he was that dismal and depressed from the reaction that he sat in his armchair all day and did nothing but grumble and burst into tears, for, you see, he'd overdone it, and it was bound to tell upon him. But after that all his natural pluck and determination got hold of him again, and if he wasn't mad to have that dance that they had ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the way Ephraim would have gone about a love affair, had he had one. Sam Price's were the approved methods in that section of the country, though Sam had overdone them somewhat. It was an unheard-of thing to ask a man right out like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... go to the South for purposes of traffic may or may not be favored with large profits. All the products of the mechanic arts are very scarce in the interior, while in the larger towns trade is generally overdone. Large stocks of goods were taken to all places accessible by water as soon as the ports were opened. The supply exceeded the demand, and many dealers suffered heavy loss. From Richmond and other points considerable quantities of goods have been reshipped to New York, or sold for less ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... "Simplicity may be rather overdone! Do you think, child, I have not seen through your evident desire to ingratiate yourself?—and scheming yourself into this house will, I assure you, not further ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... are quite expert with the oars, and boating, when not overdone, is a healthful and pleasant amusement. When gentlemen are with a party of ladies, one of them should step in the boat to steady it, while another "assists" the ladies in. See that their dress is so arranged that they will not get wet. Inexperienced ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... all his anxious, tender questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented and wished nothing different; and the next time he saw her she was more lively than usual. It might be that she was a little overdone with work and anxiety now, for soon after Christmas Mrs. Poyser had taken another cold, which had brought on inflammation, and this illness had confined her to her room all through January. Hetty had to manage everything downstairs, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... her father feared that she might become a permanent invalid. There was nothing very decided or alarming to tell Cynthia, and Mrs. Gibson kept the dark side from her in her letters. 'Molly was feeling the spring weather;' or 'Molly had been a good deal overdone with her stay at the Hall, and was resting;' such little sentences told nothing of Molly's real state. But then, as Mrs. Gibson said to herself, it would be a pity to disturb Cynthia's pleasure by telling her much about Molly; indeed there was not much ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... plant which seemed to resemble in a general way the picture on the outside of the package. Now, under the fluctuating influences of irresponsible isotherms, phlegmatic Springs, rare June weather and overdone weather in August, I find it almost impossible to produce a plant or vegetable which in any way resembles its portrait. Is it my fault or the fault of the climate? I wish the club would take hold of this at its ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... prejudiced, dear, even on my account. I can do nothing that might injure Walters now and can't treat him with suspicion; but he's going soon and, if it's any comfort, I won't leave the hotel grounds for the next day or two. Anyhow I've rather overdone ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... Germany. England is often mocked for the way in which she "muddles through" successive perils, yet she may feel that the stereotyping of her people in a rigid administrative frame might be too high a price to pay for constant preparedness. As for us Americans, we have made a virtue, perhaps overdone it, of avoiding a mechanical Kultur. We prefer the greatest freedom for the individual to the perfectly regimented state. We will move toward culture and cheerfully assume the necessary ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... appearance of indolent indifference that was rather overdone, the turnback stooped low enough to extract the pin. But his fingers trembled in the act, and half a ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... overdone manner was not calculated to abate Mrs. Kilgore's astonishment, and she continued to stare at him with an expression in which a vague terror began to appear. There are few shorter transitions than that from panic to anger. Seeing that her astonishment at ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... in, but still no guest arrived. The baron descended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed. The meats were already overdone, the cook in an agony, and the whole household had the look of a garrison, that had been reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to give orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. All were seated at table, and just on the point of commencing, when the sound ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... "Yes, dear," and he was as caressingly deferential to each of them as he was formally deferential to the men; he required the same final obedience of them, and it was not always so easy to make them obey. In non-essentials he yielded at times, as when one of the ladies had overdone a point, and he demurred. "But I always got a laugh on that, Mr. Godolphin," she protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity and reality in others. "Is that the way you ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... which he cannot find, and cries for no reason, he flies into a passion for which no one can account; some fathers lament this, almost with despair. "My child is very intelligent, but so naughty! nothing will satisfy him. It is no use to buy toys for him, he is really overdone with them; nothing ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Duke of St. Bungay said nothing in answer to this, as he did not understand the chopping of the reed. "I'm afraid I've been wrong about this collection of people down at Gatherum," continued the younger Duke. "Glencora is impulsive, and has overdone the thing. Just look at that." And he handed a letter to his friend. The old Duke put on his spectacles and read the letter through,—which ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... be the liveliest cricket on the hearth, the biggest toad in the puddle, while the husband was pre-negotiating with the physician for some more evaporated stock in the auto. How she ever got home was a mystery, for she would be more disabled than ever for weeks to come. Of course she had just overdone her constitutional possibility—she said so herself, and she ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... the animal was unmanageable, out of all control. The goading and the enraging that goes on in the dens behind the arena had been overdone apparently, for the bull, wild with rage and pain, galloped madly round, taking no notice of the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... window of this transept was put up in 1894, in memory of Wm. Philip Price, M.P. This window is too full of detail, and the canopy work is overdone. The glass is ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... inconsistent with the ballad, which, at least to judge from the examples left us by antiquity, admits in some cases of a considerable degree of decoration. Still, however, I do most sincerely agree with you, that this may be very easily overdone, and I am far from asserting that this may not be in some degree my own case; but there is scarcely so nice a line to distinguish, as that which divides true simplicity from flatness and Sternholdianism (if I ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Little too much, of his small but essentially important part,—they are all important parts,—and of Miss SYBIL GREY can be said "Nous savons Gre a Mlle. Sybil." Mr. SIDNEY WARDEN's Character Sketch of the young and rather raw German Waiter, is excellent; the Waiter being "raw," is not overdone. Not a dull second in the farce. Will our B.C. Author give us some of his adaptations from PLAUTUS, TERENCE (some good old Irish plots of course, in the writings of this author), and a few other ancients with whom he was, it is most probable, personally ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... would study hard to make up for the years she had lost, perhaps go abroad to work under the great voice builders and coaches there. And "some day," perhaps, rumor would tell him of a new contralto whom people loved to hear sing. . . . It was a little childish, no doubt, and rather overdone. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... pepper and salt, nutmeg and Jamaica pepper. Lay it in a dish, and to ten pounds add nearly one pound of butter, spreading it over the meat. Put a crust round the edges, and cover with a thick one, or it will be overdone before the meat is soaked: it must be baked in a slow oven. Set the bones in a pan in the oven, with no more water than will cover them, and one glass of port, a little pepper and salt, in order to provide ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Watteau to copies of Chinese and Japanese scenes. Flowers, cupids, garlands, landscapes—never was such a diversity of decoration attempted as during the reigns of Louis XIV and XV. As a result the output became very overdone and ornate. Fortunately for art, Louis XVI had better taste. Instead of continuing this garish type of design he procured a collection of Greek vases to serve as models for his workmen, ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... dark hair brushed back from his forehead, a strong, clean-shaven face and good features. Only, as he drew nearer, there was evident a slight, unnatural quivering at the corner of his lips. The cordiality of his greeting, too, was a little overdone. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... though himself somewhat the senior, as to a military man, that flattered his esprit de corps, mingled with a sort of frank cordiality, which except from countryman to countryman in a foreign land, would perhaps have been a little overdone: but, under the actual circumstances, it ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... conceal the design, and long before he was ready he found himself securely blockaded by a Dutch flotilla supported by an English squadron. So firm indeed was the English hold on the army, that for a time it was overdone. The bulk of the English fleet was kept on the line of passage under Howard, while Drake alone was sent to the westward. It was only under the great sailor's importunity that the disposition, which was to become traditional, was perfected, and the whole fleet, with ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... "Oh, he is overdone with the work we babes have scarce begun," muttered Standish with a wrathful laugh. "Glad am ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... with a rather overdone cheerfulness. 'Well, mother,' he began, attempting to kiss her, 'I didn't dine at home ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... well enough, but it is somewhat overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards, bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the speculator. If I live, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... ever, would you give it up to a lawyer? You would not like it;—would you, Frederic?" She had put her hand on his, and was looking up into his face as she asked the question. Again, perhaps, the acting was a little overdone; but there were the tears in her eyes, and the tone of ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... that she was in the presence of a mouse. She retreated, and perhaps if any convalescent patient had been awake she would have enlisted his aid to expel the mouse; but in the ward the patients were, as one man, snoring vociferously. It was this slightly overdone snoring, at the finish, which gave birth to suspicions and caused the ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... overdone in Art and Literature. Leave them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... Roberts," said the lieutenant quietly. "Poor fellow! he is overdone, and it has flown to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... she had visited almost daily a distant neighbor, far gone in consumption, whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she passed their house in returning home, too much overdone to call, as she thought to do, and had gone a quarter of a mile toward home, when it occurred to her, Mr. W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as she feared, found him dying. As she sat by his bedside, holding his hand, a sensation never felt before seized her so strongly that she ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... too. There also it was no less clear to her than to Sir Wilfrid that she had "overdone it." It was true, then, what Lady Henry said of her—that she had an overmastering tendency to intrigue—to a perpetual tampering ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... locking her hands together, in a miserable pity for Arthur. She knew well what a shining pinnacle of success and fame Welby occupied in the eyes of the world; she knew how envious were the lesser men—such a man as John Fenwick, for instance—of a reputation and a success they thought overdone and undeserved. But Arthur himself! She seemed to be looking into his face, graven on the dusk, the face of a man tragically silent, patient, eternally disappointed; of an artist conscious of ideals and discontents, loftier, more poignant, far than his fellows ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... squeak," said The Duke. The carelessness of the tone was a little overdone, but The Pilot ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... had ever been before. She did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling, half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it was, detached himself from the person he ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... some prejudice against this form of exercise from the fact that it can be overdone, and also from the popular idea that it is injurious ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... do,' Rose said cheerfully. She was too cheerful for Sophia's romantic little theory, but an acuter audience would have found her too cheerful for herself. She had overdone it by half a tone, but the exaggeration was too fine for any ears but her own. She was, as a matter of fact, in the grip of a violent anger. She was not the kind of woman to resent the new affections of a rejected lover, but she had, through her own folly, attached herself to ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... even a sublime, side. It would be wrong to fancy that there is nothing but ignorant superstition in the Starovere's scrupulous attachment to his ancestral worship. The vulgar heresy is, in fact, only an overdone ritualism, whose logic lands it in absurdity. The Old Believer's reverence for the letter comes from his belief that letter and spirit are indissolubly united, and that the forms of religion are as needful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... were flushed up a good deal. It set them off first-rate. I never saw either of them look so handsome before. Old Barnes had come down well for once, and they were dressed in real good style—hadn't overdone it neither. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... personally. Not having been on the ocean since I was a child, I, who am naturally no good sailor, was extremely ill as day by day we ploughed through seas that grew ever more rough. Also, strong as I was, that fearful ride had overdone me. Added to these physical discomforts was my agonising anxiety of mind, which I leave anyone with imagination to picture for himself. Really there were times when I wished that the Seven Stars would plunge headlong to the bottom of the deep ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... it!—I'll do it!" cried Mr. Worden, hurrying into the passage, in quest of his hat and cloak. "It is no more than just that you should have your own, and the supper will be either eaten, or overdone, should ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... reminiscence, and his daughter was spared for the time being. The dinner went on from bad to worse, but the guests were most polite, and tried their best to keep up a brisk conversation, while they nibbled at the underdone potatoes and picked at the overdone asparagus. Miss Bean alone was unconscious of the true state of affairs, for Mrs. Adams had thought it unnecessary to inform her of the cause for the party, and she commented with a perfect unconcern, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... brain alike were overdone, when the strained nerves gave way, when the fever of fear and suspense rose to its height, she thought of flight. That was the only recourse left to her—flight! Then she would escape the terrors of death and the horror of life. Flight was the only ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... my small dorg at the swimming business, by throwing him into a shallow pond. I had to go in after the beast pretty smart, boots, trowsers, socks, and all. He and I had a roast by the fire that evening. My trowsers, however, getting overdone in the operation, I lost $4 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... coxswain furiously, when he saw that he had overdone the matter. "Hold water! Go ahead! ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... is an all-too-common "ailment". The false fit, as a rule, is very much overdone. The face is red from exertion instead of livid from heart and lung embarrassment, the spasms are too vigorous but not jerky enough, the skin is hot and dry instead of hot and clammy, the hands may be clenched, but the thumb will be outside instead of inside the ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... "The fellow's overdone without knowing it," he said. "Take my advice, man, and let him gang his ain gait. Fever or no, he's hard as nails, and he'll be glad enough to knock under in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... was seldom very Protestant at meals, unless it happened that they were underdone, or overdone, or indeed that anything occurred to put her out of humour. Her spirits rose considerably on beholding these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works, she passed to the somethingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness. Nay, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... artistic occupation. The foliage is graceful, the composition well-balanced, and the colour mostly bright body colour applied in the Greek manner. The fault of the heads is that they are too small for the figure, and of the draperies that the folds are overdone too much fluttering detail. The gilding differs from the Byzantine in not being laid on the vellum in the form of burnished leaf, but painted on like the colours, not only in the figures but ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... which is his lively name for the kitchen knave, gets the holly-wand across his quarters when he deserves it; but Tusser seems to feel that discipline may be overdone. It may be waste of good stick and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... hoe and nonchalantly regarded the gathering forces. She had often thought out the scene, and her air of indifference was somewhat overdone. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... here. Overdone, weary, rest for her nerves. Nonsense. I assure you she has no more nerves ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... respectable opinion that character-mongering is much overdone nowadays. After all, what does it matter—that Fanny Elmer was all sentiment and sensation, and Mrs. Durrant hard as iron? that Clara, owing (so the character-mongers said) largely to her mother's influence, never yet had the chance to do anything off her own bat, and only to very ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... that which is persecuted, grows. To them its present popularity is due, the cheapening of its Degrees, the invasion of its Lodges, that are no longer Sanctuaries, by the multitude; its pomp and pageantry and overdone display. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to look at her again. "Have I concealed my admiration so successfully as that? Perhaps I have overdone the concealment." ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... and the panatela brunette at Skillet Ridge, and the gold tooth down in the Kaw valley. Redruth gets his cases mixed, and they send him up the road. He gets out after they are through with him, and says: 'Any line for me except the crinoline. The hermit trade is not overdone, and the stenographers never apply to 'em for work. The jolly hermit's life for me. No more long hairs in the comb or dill pickles lying around in the cigar tray.' You tell me they pinched old Redruth ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... country, or the first ascent of a peak, is usually accorded privilege of nomenclature. Yet it is a privilege that is often abused and should be exercised with reserve. Whether or not it has been overdone in the present case, others must say. This, however, the author will say, and would say as emphatically as is in his power: that he sets no store whatever by the names he has ventured to confer comparable ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... and commendable; smartness is a limited and showy acuteness or shrewdness, usually with unfavorable suggestion; pertness and sauciness are these qualities overdone, and regardless of the respect due to superiors. Impertinence and impudence may be gross and stupid; pertness and sauciness are always vivid and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... schoolmasters; and ail, if my memory serves me,—all of us were assailed by this excess of furious folly! But what was there in that infernal music? It is inexplicable! Yet I certainly ate or drank nothing which could put me into such a state. No; yesterday I had for dinner a slice of overdone veal, several spoonfuls of spinach with sugar, eggs, and a little beer and water,—that couldn't get into my head! No! There is something that I cannot explain, and as, after all, I am responsible for the conduct of the citizens, I ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... its chin and throat, which were a limpid amaranth purple; and the effect on the excited rods and cones in one's eyes was like the power of great music or some majestic passage in the Bible. You, who think my similes are overdone, search out in the nearest museum the dustiest of purple-throated cotingas,—Cotinga cayana,—and then, instead, berate me ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... of the "sane mind" has been a little overdone, I think. The men who are prone to say of everyone that they "exaggerate a little," or "are morbid," are like weights in a scale—just, but oh, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... this applies also to fasting. Under certain conditions it becomes a necessity; but it may easily be abused and overdone. ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... overdone his strength!" we said to each other. "He has not been taking care of himself!—And then to have lain perhaps hours in the snow! It's a ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... you so disgracefully, as I admit that my friend here has done, and after roping your pugnacious hands, as I myself was obliged to do, we never can launch you upon the moor, in such weather as this, without some food. You are not very strong, and you have overdone yourself. Let us go to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... me, ready long ago,—nay, I understand there is, or was, an English TRANSLATION of the whole of them, better or worse, for behoof of the curious:—but on serious consideration now, I have to decide, That they are but as a Scene of clowns in the Elder Dramatists; which, even were it NOT overdone as it is, cannot be admitted in this place, and is plainly impertinent in the Tragedy that is being acted here. Something of Farce will often enough, in this irreverent world, intrude itself on the most solemn Tragedy; but, in pity even ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... modern faces of type have been designed on much the same lines, notably one for The Dove's Press in England, the "Montaigne" seems the best of them all, because of its freedom, and its absolute divorce from the overdone, exaggerated, heavy-faced effects of the ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a headache, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the man; but really the thing was overdone when, not content with overcrowding our village, these London people took to living in dug-outs on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative who has any virility is the antiquarian, and he is one ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a king required grand ...
— Statesman • Plato
... amount of petty vanity in his composition which manifested itself by an ostentatious and overdone disregard of all personal considerations. He straightened his lips and looked rigidly at the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled with bitterness against the whole race ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whole we must confess we felt that the training was rather overdone. We had to put in many hours daily, and the march to the training ground at Yvrencheux and back, some six miles in all, was to say the least of it somewhat tedious. We were besides, most unfortunate with regard to weather, which was very unpleasant most of the time, and we were hardly ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... tame, neither, but let your discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... I scented trouble in store for Charlotte. Rosa I was not so sure about; she sat demurely and upright, and looked far away into the tree-tops in a visionary, world-forgetting sort of way; yet the prim purse of her mouth was somewhat overdone, and her ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... other. The hog was placed before us, and the fat and blood before them, on which they chiefly dined, and said it was Mamity, very good victuals; and we not only said, but thought, the same of the pork. The hog weighed about fifty pounds. Some parts about the ribs I thought rather overdone, but the more fleshy parts were excellent; and the skin, which by the way of our dressing can hardly be eaten, had, by this method, a taste and flavour superior to any thing I ever met with of the kind. I have now only to add, that during the whole of the various operations, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the fashions have got even here," thought I; for the old woman was dressed in the latest style,—or, rather, she had overdone it sadly; for her gown was nearly up to her knees, and she was nearly as ridiculous an object as some of the young ladies I had seen at home. She had a respectable bonnet on, however, instead of a straw saucer; and her hair was neatly put under a cap,—not ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... of you in no time! You know, Natalia Victorovna, I have the greatest difficulty in saving myself from the superstition of an active Providence. It's irresistible.... The alternative, of course, would be the personal Devil of our simple ancestors. But, if so, he has overdone it altogether—the old Father of Lies—our national patron—our domestic god, whom we take with us when we go abroad. He has overdone it. It seems that I am not simple enough.... That's it! I ought to have known.... And I did know it," he added in a tone of poignant ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Thaddeus, one night as they ate their supper, "does it occur to you that the roast is a little overdone to-night?" ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... is of greater consequence than many others; and, moreover, when there is more than one, something is usually overdone. Where one adventurous individual will rather draw back in a pursuit, more than one would induce them to urge each ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the world will not be without some physical advantage to ourselves, if we have been accustomed to indulge in meat freely. Among the well-to-do meat eating is apt to be overdone to the extent of affecting the kidneys and the arteries, and some enforced restriction would be a real advantage to health, as has been demonstrated in other than war times. Because a food is good is no reason for unlimited quantities; an ounce of sugar a day is wholesome—a pound ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... sturdiness is required in the shape of heavier form lumber and stronger framing to provide for the wear and tear of repeated use, and it is always economy to provide it when repeated use is possible. The thing can be overdone, however; there is an economical limit to repeated use, as we demonstrate further on. In the matter of economy in carpenter work, a certain amount of extra work put into framing the forms to withstand the stress of repeated use is economically justifiable. Also carpenter work put into framing which ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... went to investigate the home of the unfortunate stranger. It was a comfortable affair, containing two rooms and a small outhouse, plus a certain amount of rough furniture. In the corner of the outer room was the ubiquitous Yukon stove, with a fryingpan on the top containing a much overdone "flapjack." A pair of snow-shoes lay in a corner, and sundry articles of clothing were hanging on nails. In the next room was a camp-bed and more clothes, two bags of flour, one of beans, a few tins of canned meat, a rifle ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... hospital for congenitally diseased compositions taking the air. And they have to hobble along sharply too; there is a certain cruel decision in the way the notes are struck, a Nurse Gillespie touch about this Invisible Lady. Or it may be the callousness of old habit, a certain sense of a duty overdone, a certain impatience at the long ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... his fellow-Englishmen was due, no doubt, to the fact that Lord Houghton, the only son of a gifted, eccentric, and indulgent father, was brought up at home. The glorification of the Public School has been ridiculously overdone. But it argues no blind faith in that strange system of unnatural restraints and scarcely more reasonable indulgences to share Gibbon's opinion that the training of a Public School is the best adapted ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... "So long silent!" I like that. Sorry to disappoint you, my dear Mamma, but that phonograph, as a domestic stimulant, was played out long ago—it has played me out often enough! Perhaps you don't know it, but really VIOLA has rather overdone it. Whenever we have a tiff, she sets the "Voice from Eden" at me; if she chooses to consider herself ill-used, I am treated to a preserved echo of our marriage vows, and the Bishop's address; when she is in the sulks, I get the congratulations in the vestry; and if ever I grumble at the weekly ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... with an almost overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, with a shade ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... tunnel was fired clean into the air, fell within a couple of fathoms of where we lay, and bounded over the edge of the hill, and went pounding down into the next valley. I saw I had rather under-calculated our distance, or overdone the dynamite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thing is being overdone. That family, before another month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel paint that the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of that once happy home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... It was magnificent, but it must not be overdone. A little more and they would not have time to get the foe out for the second time. In which case the latter would win on the first innings. And this thought was as gall ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place of the stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much overdone his description. Truly it was almost tumbling down, though massively built, and a good house long ago; and it looked the more miserable now from being placed in a hollow of the ground, whose slopes were tufted with rushes and thistles and ragwort. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... and, though she had but one daughter, was always careful to designate the young lady by name. At luncheon she had talked a great deal of elevating influences and ideals, and had fluctuated between apologies for the overdone mutton and affected surprise that the bewildered maid-servant should have forgotten to serve the coffee and ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... those novel inventions, perhaps, which you were so anxious to taste. I see people are not scrupulously punctual in Paris,—it is ten minutes after the time. Possibly we are waiting for some guest who has not sufficient good taste to remember that viands may be overdone through his culpability." ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... in A and B, which therefore begin to descend, and so a current of air is driven from the cave into the pit C. Owing to the elasticity of the atmosphere, even at a low temperature, this descent, and the consequent rush of air into C, will be overdone, and a recoil must take place, which accounts for the return current into the cave from the pit C. The sun can reach A more easily than B, and thus the air is lighter and more moveable in the former ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... sweet to him, his disgust is great when one praises the failures in which he alone discovers all that is lacking in the eyes of the public. He is whimsical to the last degree. His friends have seen him destroy a finished picture because, in his eyes, it looked too smooth. "It is overdone," he would say; "it is ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... overdone with work, bereft of conjugal consolations, and weary of a world in which he wandered alone, by the time he was two-and-thirty had sunk into the Slough of Despond. He hated life. Having too lofty a notion of the responsibilities imposed on him by his position to set the example ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... statue. Sir Matthew White Eidley was much struck by the genius of young Lough, and became one of his greatest patrons. The sculptor determined to strike out a new path for himself. He thought the Greeks had exhausted the Pantheistic, and that heathen gods had been overdone. Lough began and pursued the study of lyric sculpture: he would illustrate the great English poets. But there was the obvious difficulty of telling the story of a figure by a single attitude. It was like a flash of thought. "The true artist," he said, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... the house the foreman, with a specially pleasant smile, asked him if he would not have his dinner now, expressing the fear that the feast his wife was preparing, with the help of the girl with the earrings, might be overdone. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... loser by poor McKay's removal," he said, with brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—quel coup d'oeil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whole; but a large head and shoulders are quite sufficient for a dish, and contain all that is usually helped, because, when the thick part is done, the tail is insipid and overdone. The latter, cut in slices, makes a very good dish for frying; or it may be salted down and served with egg sauce and parsnips. Cod, when boiled quite fresh, is watery; salting ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... which would have done credit to one of our own parks, though there were, of course, too many of them here to be at all effective. Indeed, it may be said that from a scenic standpoint everything through which we had passed was overdone: mountains, rocks, streams, trees, all sounding a characteristic American ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... no good, at any rate. Troth, I'll get a gospel and a scapular, for, to tell you the truth, I observed that Masther Harry gave me a look the other day that made my flesh creep, by rason that he thought the mutton was overdone." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... as very affectionate, and as tired and overdone. She looked tired and overdone herself, and out of spirits as well. Mr. John Short said a few sympathetic words, and volunteered a few reasonable pledges for the future, and then took his leave—the kindest thing he could do, since thus he set the mother at liberty to go and comfort ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... "I am speaking truth. You do not understand that after the work and care of all this terrible time of preparation, ending in the great demands made upon you to-day, the strain has been greater than your young nature can bear. Bend the finest sword too far, Roy, and it will break. You are overdone—worn-out. It ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... is a decent regard for appearance, and in the eyes of the French and the British officers the American army usually seemed rather unkempt. The formalities of dress, the uniformity of pipe-clay and powdered hair, of polished steel and brass, can of course be overdone. The British army had too much of it, but to Washington's force the danger was of having too little. It was not easy to induce farmers and frontiersmen who at home began the day without the use of water, razor, or brush, to appear on parade clean, with hair powdered, faces shaved, and ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong |
