"Delicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... returned the captain, with some asperity, "you tell me that this woman has fair hair slightly grey, delicate features, pale complexion, brown eyes, and gentle manners, all of which ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... a patronising way which galled me to the quick,—"do you derive from this source? That is, if you will kindly excuse my saying so? The proposal which you have done my daughter and myself the honour to suggest, necessitates my making such delicate inquiries, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to make matters equal, as it were, there are some stage people so delicate that it is next door to impossible to ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... early August party," said her ladyship, rubbing her delicate little old nose with her pencil, "and Walderhurst is coming to me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish, except those who try to get up interesting ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... species is known in pharmacy as Chinese cassia or Chinese cinnamon (cassia cinnamon). Indeed it is very like the cinnamon of Ceylon, comes in curled quills, has the same odor and taste though not so delicate; but it is darker in color, with a surface less clean and smooth. Its chemical composition is identical with that of the latter and nowadays it forms an important article ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... and nourishing food; before it has reached that age it is watery and deficient in the elements of strength; at any age it is more suitable food for women and children than for healthy men. The finest kind has delicate rosy meat, and white, almost transparant fat. The flesh of the second quality is soft, and rather red compared with the pinkish-white meat of choice kinds; the fat is more scanty, and the general appearance ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... vast portion of our nature as it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation, compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part composed of men of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... make no more apologies." "I will not, madam," cries Mrs. Bennet, "and yet I would avoid anything trivial; though, indeed, in stories of distress, especially where love is concerned, many little incidents may appear trivial to those who have never felt the passion, which, to delicate minds, are the most interesting part of the whole." "Nay, but, dear madam," cries ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the Rhenish loess, Helix hispida, Figure 90, and Pupa muscorum, Figure 89, are very common. Both the terrestrial and aquatic shells are of most fragile and delicate structure, and yet they are almost invariably perfect and uninjured. They must have been broken to pieces had they been swept along by a violent inundation. Even the colour of some of the land-shells, as that of Helix ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... craving for animal food had grown upon them, and they were not without some regretful thoughts at having permitted the dead gavial to drift out to sea. Even from the carcass of the saurian they might have obtained steaks that, if not very dainty or delicate, would at ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... men were very considerate, and gave back most of what they had taken, though many of our men were really too delicate or proud to ask or even take what they had once given to soldiers or to the colored people. I had no such delicacy about my tent-frame, and by night things had resumed something of their old aspect, and cheerfulness was ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... don't give them too much at a time." A few days later, upon inquiring of them how they liked what she brought, grandma was told they had not had anything, and was so surprised that she decided to take Georgia home with her for a week. Georgia was more delicate than her younger sister. Eliza was promised that she should be treated as kindly upon Georgia's return. The week passed, and Georgia returned, looking stronger. She told such wonderful stories about the many cows! lots ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... empress abound in all the shops and in private houses. Her great beauty is the passport to the French heart. It is not of the dashing, bold style, but is delicate and refined. Louis Napoleon has in his provisions for the prince calculated largely upon the popularity of the empress, in case ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... third will make the work of forming the habit of obedience on the part of the mother, and of acquiring it on the part of the child, a source of the highest enjoyment to both. But then, unfortunately, it requires more skill and dexterity, more gentleness of touch, so to speak, and a more delicate constitution of soul, than most mothers ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... it—in the presence of the financier. Much as he resented the thought, it was impossible for him not to realize that the man's pleasure and displeasure were important; for, since his arrival, he had had delicate reminders of this from many sources. Recurrently, it had caused him a vague uneasiness, hinted at a problem new to him. He was jealous of the dignity of the Church, and he seemed already to have detected ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... enjoys, not only in his own country, but through all Europe, a great reputation as a statesman, and has for a number of years been employed by his Court in the most intricate and delicate political transactions. In 1790 he was sent to Brabant to treat with the Belgian insurgents; but the States of Brabant refusing to receive him, he retired to Luxembourg, where he published a proclamation, in which Leopold II. revoked all those edicts ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... am going to ask a favour of you, and am at a loss how to do it in the most delicate manner. For this purpose I have been looking into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in begging of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of Mr. Melmoth), but not finding ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... compunction in fooling the American Ambassador than they have in depriving the prisoners of sufficient food to keep body and soul together. The task of Mr. Gerard in the immediate future is certain to become more perplexing, intricate, and delicate, but we hope that he will prove equal to ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... me that you might stand up when I enter; not, perhaps, so much out of respect for your master, as because he is delicate and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... mistress into a snug little room, was served with a glass of bitter ale. It is a very plain and homely inn, and certainly could not have satisfied Scott's wants if he had required anything very far-fetched or delicate in his potations. I found two Westmoreland peasants in the room, with ale before them. One went away almost immediately; but the other remained, and, entering into conversation with him, he told me that he was going to New Zealand, and expected to sail ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and the childishness was exaggerated by a great muslin bow she wore at her throat. Her pale hair, where it showed beneath her hood, was fine as silk and as glossy; her eyes had the colour of an Italian sky at noon, and her cheeks the delicate tinge of a carnation. The many laces and ribbons, knotted about her dress in a manner most mysterious to Wogan, added to her gossamer appearance; and, in a word, she seemed to him something too flowerlike for the world's ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... at his office the other day. A box of white kids was lying open on the table. A three-cornered note, directed in a very delicate lady's-hand, was distinguishable among a heap of papers. I was just going to call him to account for his proceedings, when he pushed the three-cornered note aside and took up a letter with a great corporation-seal upon it. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... having an indefinable air of gentility and breeding about him. Brereton had already noticed the pitch and inflection of his voice; now, as Harborough touched his cap to the Mayor, he noticed that his hands, though coarsened and weather-browned, were well-shaped and delicate. Something about him, something in his attitude, the glance of his eye, seemed to indicate that he was the social superior of the policemen, uniformed or plain-clothed, who were watching him with speculative and ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... was as if the faint, the delicate colors of the place gave a more frightful grossness and pungency to its smell. Dying asafetida struggled still with gas fumes, and was pierced by another odor, a sharp and bitter odor ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... branches nearly horizontal, wide-spreading, in young trees in whorls usually of five, the whorls becoming more or less indistinct in old trees; branchlets and season's shoots slender; head cone-shaped, broad at the base, clothed with soft, delicate, bluish-green foliage; roots running horizontally near the surface, taking firm hold in rocky situations, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... Eugene Aram, Aunt Victoria?" Beth rejoined with concern, as if not to know about Eugene Aram were indeed to have missed one of the great interests of life. Then she sat down at the table with her elbows resting on it, and her delicate oval face framed in her slender hands, and gave Aunt Victoria a graphic sketch of the story from ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... ropemakers when they were at their Work, in revenge for one of them being told by one of the hands in the Walk, that "if he wanted work he might empty his Vault." Enough to enkindle the flame of resentment in the Breast of a common Soldier, who of all men has the most delicate Sentiments of honor! Two of the prisoners were of the party in these noble Exploits, as was ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... taste, fifty-six of which only could be put in a heaped up bushel, that is, half a bag. Another variety, somewhat smaller, but not less fair in appearance, and of a better flavor, my comrade was acquainted with, and said they were called the Double Paradise. He acknowledged they were very delicate. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... aperture. The pain, however, of this proceeding was so great that I was obliged to ask him to pause till it should abate a little, which it very soon did. Then summoning up courage, I told him to thrust again gently. This he hastened to do in the most delicate manner possible. The first few thrusts, till the upper part of the pillar got fairly inserted within the cheeks, were even worse than before. But as soon as this was accomplished, and the hollow part at the junction of the pillar with the head had passed ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... leap, dashed out the entire frame, and shattered it to pieces. When this was finished, Susan dug a grave, and in it laid the little Indian boy. She made it close to the hut, for she could not bear that wolves should devour those delicate limbs, and she knew that there it would be safe. The next day Tom returned. He had been very unsuccessful, and intended setting out again, in a few days, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... displeasure vanished at once before these preparations for good cheer; and so, settling herself on the great easy-chair, with a three-legged table before her, she began to dispatch, with good appetite, the little delicate dish which she had prepared for herself. She did not, however, fail in the duties of civility, and earnestly, but in vain, pressed Mistress Margaret to partake her dainties. The damsel declined ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... three sons and three daughters. If this couple really were our hero and heroine, then the Raymonds became connected, through the three daughters, with the Smiths, the Joneses and the Browns. In one way, perhaps, the question might be set at rest, were it not too delicate a one for successful handling. There is little doubt that among the descendants of Mistress Dulcibel, on the female side, the birth-mark of the serpent, more or less distinct, will be found occasionally ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... love with her. They had only seen giantesses up to that time, who, though very fine and striking in appearance, are never pretty, and these two young giants had never in their lives seen anything so delicate and so lovely as Tamara, or dreamed that it was possible that such beautiful ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... all his eyes. What Jeanne called "changing" was a very wonderful process. The trees, which hitherto had been of a very bright, delicate green, began gradually to pale in colour, becoming first greenish-yellow, then canary colour, then down to the purest white. And from white they grew into silver, sparkling like innumerable diamonds, and then slowly altered ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... to suggest that this good man sought popularity at the expense of others; for I do not believe that either fame or interest was his motive. But the right of authors to the credit of their writings, is a delicate point; and, surely, his example would have been worthier of imitation, had he left no ground for the foregoing objections, and carefully barred the way ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... herself had felt no very profound impressions until she married a clergyman; and that argument always made him smile (as invisibly as possible), because he had not detected yet their existence in his better half. Such questions are most delicate, and a husband can only set mute example. A father, on the other hand, is bound to use his pastoral crook upon ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... aware that the delicate structure of the canoe was no obstruction at all against a rifle-shot. Accordingly, while descending the river, he had taken precaution to insure his safety, in case of such an occurrence as had now transpired. A large, rotten ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... comrades sank helplessly into this quaking bog. Out of fifty captured of his regiment, Williams, a delicate lad, sickened at once; Dean, a stout old Scotchman, was close on idiocy in a month; Allan, the color-bearer, was shot by the guard,—he had slipped near the dead line, and fallen with his head outside; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... north and east winds, lay the orchard, neglected and unpruned, but very beautiful with its moss-grown apple trees, its straggling plums, and budding walnuts, and cherries just bursting into an ethereal fairy network of delicate palest pink bloom. Primroses grew here amongst the grass, and clumps of dog violets and little tufts of bluebells were pushing their way up to take the place of the fading daffodils, while a blackthorn ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... lay down rules,' fell from him at length, sententiously. 'Our position, Rose, as I have often explained, is a delicate one. A lady in circumstances such as yours cannot exercise too much caution. Your natural associates are in the world of wealth; unhappily, I cannot make you wealthy. We have to guard our self-respect, my dear child. Really, it is not safe to talk with strangers—least ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... grows in the East Indies: the medullary, or pithy part of which, is beaten with water, and made into cakes. These the Indians use as bread. This, when reduced into granules and dried, forms the sago we find so nourishing to persons of weakly and delicate constitutions. But it is now, my dear children, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... be more interested in the fourth of my instruments," he said, as he waved his thin, delicate hand towards the stand which stood in front of me. "In this you can see ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... grew less thick, with the result that flowers were more plentiful, and if not more abundant the birds and gloriously-painted insects were easier to see. Hot springs were plentiful, and formed basins surrounded by the deposit from the water, a petrifaction of the most delicate tints, while the water was of the ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... the British Museum and must, I think, have been delicate, for I remember often putting off hour after hour consulting some necessary book because I shrank from lifting the heavy volumes of the catalogue; and yet to save money for my afternoon coffee and roll I often walked the whole way home ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... the weight of your shackles in gold," said Bonthron, "I would rather see the iron on you than have the treasure myself! But look up; you were wont to love delicate fare—behold how I ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... not a superstitious person. I think I have already told you so. Still I have instincts and intuitions; and you, who are not wholly dead to the subtle influences of the more delicate sentiments, will probably sympathize with me when I admit that Mr. Plum's sign did not inspire me with that enthusiasm which is at least comforting to the possessor. The reference to Mr. Plum's ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... safe beeping. You do all this for flowers which a thousand suns shall duplicate in beauty, and for jewels for which a handful of dollars can reimburse your loss; but you are infinitely careless with the delicate rose of maidenliness, which, once faded, no summer shining can ever woo back to freshness, and with the unsullied jewel of personal reputation which all the wealth of kings can never buy back again, once lost. See to it that you preserve that modesty and womanliness without which the prettiest ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Wilhelmstrasse I would be in closer touch with the bigger affairs of diplomacy. Tappken had hinted at my finding favor with the Wilhelmstrasse and I guessed that coming on top of my Port Arthur success a delicate private mission was responsible for it. To cite ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... received this letter, he can hardly have been in a mood to respond sufficiently to its minute and overflowing dilettantismo. The amiability and polite affectionateness, perceptible even yet through the dilettantism, may have been pleasant to him; and he may have noted the subtle and delicate expression of sympathy with his domestic unhappiness which seems to be conveyed in the passages quoted, as if by accident, from Petrarch, Horace, Chiabrera, and Tibullus. Dati may have been there replying to that portion ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... same thing;—the philosopher exercises precisely the same faculties, though in a much more delicate manner. In scientific inquiry it becomes a matter of duty to expose a supposed law to every possible kind of verification, and to take care, moreover, that this is done intentionally, and not left to a ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... the last ten years, but everybody called his widow Mrs. T. P. Ayres. Mrs. Ayres kept no maid. She had barely enough income to support herself and her daughter. She came to the door herself. She was a small, delicate, pretty woman, and her little thin hands were red ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... not attempt to describe her daughters, for beauty is of so perishable a nature, and of so little value without good qualities, it is but time wasted dwelling on the subject. Jane, the youngest, had been some time in a delicate and declining state of health; and, viewing life as uncertain in its tenor, had wisely adapted her mind to passing circumstances. Next to her brightest hopes, was her desire to be useful whilst she remained ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... put your little girl in this dormitory, Madame," she said, opening a door that led into a room with eight beds. The floor was of polished wood, and this room, adjoining the infirmary, was the one in which delicate or convalescent children slept. Mamma was reassured on seeing this, and we then went down and inspected the grounds. There were three woods, the "Little Wood," the "Middle Wood," and the "Big Wood," and then there was an orchard that ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... scenery, the elegance of which it is almost impossible to render with due force in another language, and the true and delicate touches of human nature which everywhere abound in the work, especially in the long dialogue in Chapter II, are almost marvellous when we consider the sex of the writer, and the early period when ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... of your love is wrong, after that love has been not only given but declared. A girl's position in such matters is so delicate, especially that of such ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... my mother and father will throw some light upon the lives of their children, but it is a delicate task to write of one's parents. As I was but six years old when my father died I have only a dim recollection of him, but materials for an interesting sketch of his brief but active career are abundant. I know of no citizen of Ohio of whom more anecdotes have been told, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... sometimes affects delicate, nervous women during the early months of pregnancy. If it be not very frequent nor severe, it requires no attention, as it will pass away of itself in a short time. When, however, it disturbs the sleep at night, renders the patient anxious, and causes headache and weariness, it is time ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... met the request, when first made, by sturdy remonstrance, and by a powerful appeal to the King's sense of honour. It was only when no other plan could be devised for composing the ugly business, that he felt it his duty to remonstrate with the Queen. It was; he felt, "too delicate a province for so plain-dealing a man." The caprice of fortune never laid upon a man so proud as Clarendon, a task so irksome and so little to his taste. Only the public interest involved forced him to breathe for a time the stifling ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... chanced to lift my eyes, and the glorious spectacle of the Elsinore burst upon me. I had been so long on board, and in board of her, that I had forgotten she was a white-painted ship. So low to the water was her hull, so delicate and slender, that the tall, sky-reaching spars and masts and the hugeness of the spread of canvas seemed preposterous and impossible, an insolent derision of the law of gravitation. It required effort to realize that that slim curve of hull inclosed and bore up from the sea's bottom five ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... gossip; a wife. Kin', kind. King's-hood, the 2d stomach in a ruminant (equivocal for the scrotum). Kintra, country. Kirk, church. Kirn, a churn. Kirn, harvest home. Kirsen, to christen. Kist, chest, counter. Kitchen, to relish. Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle. Kittle, to tickle. Kittlin, kitten. Kiutlin, cuddling. Knaggie, knobby. Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones. Knowe, knoll. Knurl, knurlin, dwarf. Kye, cows. Kytes, bellies. Kythe, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... as I could wish on the stems of the asphodel, all in process of laying. The gravid female is always solitary. Each mother has her twig to herself, and is in no danger of being disturbed during the delicate operation of laying. When the first occupant has departed another may take her place, and so on indefinitely. There is abundance of room for all; but each prefers to be alone as her turn arrives. There is, however, no ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... son of Sir William Dobbin, a London tradesman. Uncouth, awkward, and tall, with huge feet; but faithful and loving, with a large heart and most delicate appreciation. He is a prince of a fellow, is proud and fond of Captain George Osborne from boyhood to death, and adores Amelia, George's wife. When she has been a widow for some ten years, he ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... do," said Jane. "I think no good can come from interfering in such matters, and I am particularly ill-adapted for such a delicate communication. Besides, if one may judge by the last few weeks, it is Miss Phillips who ought to receive the offer of marriage, and not Elsie. If her brother were to ask what Mr. Brandon's intentions are, as he might very well do, the result would be a marriage of two very ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... of that OS. Like so many other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between brute force and complex, finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... shadow of a terrible cloud over his house, and for long periods it was deprived of a mother, and he of a companion. Yet amid these sore anxieties and heavy depressions he never lost either his fortitude or, what is much rarer than fortitude, that delicate and watchful consideration for others which is one of the most endearing of human characteristics. When he was twenty years younger, he had written of himself to one of his sisters ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... was born, says the legend, there appeared a beaming cloud in the heavens, and on it stood a majestic virgin, who said: "Of Birger is born a daughter whose admirable voice shall be heard over the whole world." This delicate and singular child grew up in the castle of her father, Knight Brake. Visions and revelations appeared to her, and these increased when she, only thirteen years of age, was married to the rich Ulf ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... tarn, so lone and cold, The delicate shadow no more shall hold; The fleetness has died in each rigid limb, And never shall dun ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... came the call of a robin. A splash of blue fire in the willows was a blue bird's wing. A solitary butterfly made a half circle about him, passing close to him as though to beat him back with its delicate, diaphanous wings. The pale yellowish buds everywhere were changing to a lusty verdant. Air and grass were filled with questing insect life thrilling upward with little voices. The snows were slipping, slipping from the mountainsides, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... Frederick, as he was known in those early days, found himself heir to the throne after death had unexpectedly removed the two claimants with rights prior to his own. And on the succession of his eldest brother, he became the Crown Prince. It was a delicate position which imposed on him a reserve foreign to his nature. As it contrasted sharply with the unceremonious jollity of his brother, King Charles, he came by degrees to be regarded by those ignorant ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... from his lips; Nor did he ask a reason for the things Unreasonable and hard required of him, But straightway did his duty just as if The nation's fate hung on it. I pitied Paul; Slender of form and delicate, he bore The toils and duties of the hardiest. Ill from exposure, or fatigued and worn, On picket hungered, shivering in the rain, Or sweltering in full dress, with knapsack on, Beneath the blaze of the mid-summer sun, He held his spirit—always still the same Patient ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... settlers fled panic-stricken from their homes, leaving behind their goods, and, in many cases, their clothes; delicate women with little children, weary and footsore, hurried on to some place of refuge. In Cavan they crowded the house of the illustrious Bishop Bedell, at Kilmore. Enniskillen, Derry, Lisburn, Belfast, Carrickfergus, with some isolated ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Madame de Saint-Veran, "have two ideas touching these marriages,—the first, romantic and chimerical; the second, good, practicable."[689] Bougainville, invoking the aid of a lady of rank, a friend of the family, acquitted himself well of his delicate task. Before he embarked for Canada, in early spring, a treaty was on foot for the marriage of the young Comte de Montcalm to an heiress of sixteen; while Mademoiselle de Montcalm had already become Madame d'Espineuse. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... who had seven children, six of them boys and the seventh a girl. They were very poor and all had to work hard for a living, but the drudges of the family were the youngest son, Yvon, and his sister, Yvonne. Because they were gentler and more delicate than the others, they were looked upon as poor, witless creatures, and all the hardest work was given them to do. But the children comforted each other, and became but the better ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... were unimpaired. Sally was filled with renewed envy of her personal advantages. Then her eyes went back to Mrs. Perce's hair. It was too obviously doctored. She didn't want anything like that. She wanted something more delicate.... ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the manuscript existed in her handwriting; and secondly, that the apparitions and revelations recorded were against all the rules of apparitions and revelations which he had painfully discovered. The affair was of a delicate nature. The writer was young and incredulous; a grey-beard, more deeply versed in theology, replied, and the Sorbonnists silenced our philosopher ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... looked into the sloe eyes charged with reserve. Back of them, he felt, was the mystery of purity, of maidenhood. He longed to know her better, to find out and to appropriate for himself the woman that lay behind the fine veil of flesh. She seemed to him delicate as a flame and as vivid. There would come a day when her innocent, passional nature would respond to the love of a man as a waiting harp ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... couple of hours in talking over the past, and at his departure, Mr. Bright made him a handsome present in such a delicate manner that he could not help ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... through whose influence he had obtained his commission. So far he had not availed himself of his privileges too often and had therefore not as yet outworn his welcome, for he was a true diplomat. He entered this evening with just the right shade of delicate assurance and humble affrontery to assure him a cordial welcome, and gracefully settled himself into the friendliness that was readily extended to him. He was versed in all the ways of the world and when he chose could put up a good appearance. He knew that for the ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... difficulty of supposing savages capable of originating so thoughtful and elastic a scheme as the exogamous system. This is a point on which it is not possible to speak positively. The lowest tribes have produced languages of wonderfully intricate and delicate construction, and, supposing the process of constructing marriage regulations to have gone on during a very long period, modifications introduced from time to time, to meet conditions felt to be ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... A girl of delicate outline and slender frame was lying on the bed. She was wearing a fashionable rest gown of soft silk trimmed with gold embroidery, her fair hair partly covered by a silk boudoir cap. By her side stood a small table, on ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... fire to prepare some breakfast for her husband, in readiness for his return from the beach, so the wet clothes were soon taken off the child, and they saw it was a little girl about five years old, fair and delicate-looking, decently, but not richly clad, with a small silver medal hung round her neck by a black ribbon. At first they feared the poor little thing was dead, for it was not until Mrs. Peters had well-nigh exhausted all her best-known methods ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons of Rome, who poured their jewels into the treasury for the public defence—the wives of Prussia, who, with delicate fingers, clothed their defenders against French invasion—the mothers of our own Revolution, who sent forth their sons, covered with prayers and blessings, to combat for human rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... signs of embarrassment. "And listen here," he said, gruffly, "a young girl's a pretty sweet and delicate piece of business. They're mighty easy to hurt, and the hurt lasts a long time....You want to be married a long time, I expect, and you want your wife to—er—love you right on along. Well, be darn careful, young fellow. Start the thing right. More marriages are smashed in ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... were of highly strung temperament, neither subject to those subtle impressions which more delicate organisations receive, as the nostrils receive an exhalation, from such a place as this. But Dr. Cairn and his son, though each in a different way, came now within the aura of this temple ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... suggest a method of conquering it. I address myself exclusively to the large class of people who, if they are honest, will declare that, while they enjoy novels, essays, and history, they cannot "stand" verse. The case is extremely delicate, like all nervous cases. It is useless to employ the arts of reasoning, for the matter has got beyond logic; it is instinctive. Perfectly futile to assure you that verse will yield a higher percentage ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... immaterial, such was the voice of the Singing Mouse; faint, small and clear, a piping of fifes so fine, a touching of strings so delicate, that it seemed to come from instruments of beryl and of diamond, a phantom music, impossible to fetter with staff or bar, and past the hope of ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... thoughts on the tinkling streams of Mendocino and the big, kind, sheltering trees. The rhododendrons were beginning to blossom there now. Soon the redwood lilies would be scenting the air with their delicate fragrance. Gray squirrels would be scolding in lofty trees, and trout would be leaping ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... all the early settlers in the bush the bandicoot is well known. It is a marsupial quadruped which lives on bulbs, and ravages potato patches. It is about eighteen inches in length from the origin of its tail to the point of its nose. It has the habits of a pickpocket. It inserts its delicate fore paws under the stalks of the potato, and pulls out the tubers. That morning I had endeavoured to dig some potatoes; the stalks were there, but the potatoes were gone. I stopped to think, and examined the ground. I soon discovered tracks of the bandicoot, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall see ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a forcible language, but it lacked the wealth of expression and the flexibility necessary to respond to the most delicate touches of the master-musicians who were to come. When Shakespeare has Lear ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... of interview, the weakling's walk * Who sees two lion whelps the fount draw nigh: My cloak acts sword, my heart's perplex'd with fright, * Lest jealous hostile eyes th' approach descry: Till sudden hapt I on a delicate maid * Like desert-doe that fails ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob Evers ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... birth from the sea of the last and sweetest of the children of the Heaven, Aphrodite, or Immortal Beauty,—the only one of this second generation who continued to reign on Olympus; an awful, beauteous goddess, says Hesiod, beneath whose delicate feet the verdure throve around, born in wave-washed Cyprus, but floating past divine Cythera. Her Eros accompanied, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... that come about? Why, it was her doll that helped Vasilissa. If it hadn't been for it, however could the girl have got through all her work? And therefore it was that Vasilissa would never eat all her share of a meal, but always kept the most delicate morsel for her doll; and at night, when all were at rest, she would shut herself up in the narrow chamber[184] in which she slept, and feast her doll, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... wearing it, posed and attitudinized as a Dewdrop. She was pronounced a "regular little love" by the Misses Bryne-Stivers, whom the Madigans had nicknamed the Misses Blind-Staggers—a resentful play upon their hyphenated name, as well as a delicate reference to their blue goggles that might have ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... parrot tribe form one of the most pre-eminently tropical groups of birds, only a few species extending into the warmer temperate regions; yet even the most exclusively tropical genera are by no means delicate birds as regards climate. In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 1868 (p. 381) is a most interesting account, by Charles Buxton, of the naturalization of parrots at Northrops Hall, Norfolk. A considerable number of African and Amazonian parrots, Bengal parroquets, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... she spoke the last two words, and it was possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or curvature of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... justice of their reasoning; but your brother says that you complain that the writer is always saying the same thing. Well, well; all the better! Is it possible that there should be a more perfect style, or a finer, more delicate or more natural raillery? Could anything be more worthy of comparison with Plato's "Dialogues"? But after the first ten letters, what earnestness, solidity, force and eloquence! What love for God and for truth, what exquisite skill in maintaining ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... sufficient ground for suspecting them to be intruders. The derivative origin of a species may sometimes be indicated by the extreme scarcity of the individuals, their colour, and worn condition; whereas an opposite conclusion may be arrived at by the integrity of the shells, especially when they are of delicate and tender structure, or their abundance, and, in the case of the lamellibranchiata, by their being held together by the ligament, which often happens when the shells have been so broken that little more than the hinges of the two valves are preserved. As to the univalves, I have ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... to be watcher. The Lord God, who sent Miss Dix into the Virginia hospitals, and Florence Nightingale into the Crimea, and the Maid of Saragossa to appease the wounds of the battlefield, has equipped wife, mother, and daughter for this delicate but tremendous mission. ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... part of that day was spent in rearranging the habitable parts of Willow Creek, and placing the more delicate valuables further out of danger. At night candles were lighted, fresh wood was heaped up in the stove, and ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... the most northerly prefecture and from the prefecture in the extreme south-west of the mainland. But human aptitude plays its part as well as climate. The Japanese hand is a wonderful piece of mechanism—look at the hands of the next Japanese you meet—and in sericulture its delicate touch is used to the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... bare room where Dirk's treasure was sleeping,—not a thing in it save the two wooden stools and rough board which upheld their still little burden. Pure and white the child lay,—a fair, delicate flower when compared with the dinginess and squalor of everything about it; and something of this contrast seemed to glimmer upon Dirk's rough perceptions, for he said ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... life in Mexico City was gay, especially in the position which she filled as the niece of the British Minister, who was often called upon to act as hostess, as her aunt was delicate and her cousin was younger than herself and not apt at the business. There were Diaz and the foreign Diplomatic Ministers; also the leading Mexicans to be entertained, for which purpose she learned Spanish. ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... re-echoed across the prairie. "Dinner time; just what we have been waiting for!" shouted Joe, as he let go the handles of the scraper, unhitched the mules, sprang on the back of one of them, and stooping, swung Harry Langdon, his delicate-looking driver, laughingly across the back of the other. The next moment they were dashing towards the camp half a mile away. Other laborers, similarly mounted, were straining every muscle to reach the same place, for they knew that the rule of "first ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... scaled one of those natural obelisks or needles of rock that stand up out of the depths two or three hundred feet high. Nature shows you what an enormous furrow her plough can open through the strata when mowing horizontally, at the same time that she shows you what delicate and graceful columns her slower and gentler aerial forces can carve out of the piled strata. At the Falls there were two or three of these columns, like the picket-pins of ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... fact that her mother was in delicate health, partly to the proximity of her father's house in Lower Grosvenor Street to that of Mr Stanhope, she was the constant associate of the young Stanhopes, and attended many balls and routs chaperoned by their mother. There was, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... would make a neat and handsome window), each panel or space for panes being neatly constructed with a sieve-work, such as is now used as screens during summer season in the lower part of parlor windows. To prevent too great oxydization or too rapid decay of so delicate a structure as the wire must be, it should be made of brass, copper, or some composition which would not readily corrode. Inside or outside doors of the same material, made to close and open like the Venetian jalousies now in use in civilized countries, would be found very convenient, ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... her sleep. Her beauty and her graces needed sleep. It was his blessed privilege to guard her slumbers, his pride to house her well and to see that she slept in fabrics suited to the delicate fabric of ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the fort, finding that it was impossible to bring the Karteria any nearer. For nearly a mile round Vasiladhi, the depth of the water does not exceed three feet, and the fort itself rises little more than six feet above the level of the sea. The bombardment of such a place was a delicate operation, requiring the most favourable weather, and the very best artillery practice. The first day the attempt was made, two hundred shells were fired without producing any effect. When fired en ricochet, they diverged to the right and left in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... coconuts, which a smiling-faced young girl opened for us as we wanted a drink, carefully pouring out upon the ground all the liquid that remained after Sru and myself had drank, and then putting the empty shells, with their delicate lining of alabaster flesh, into the fire to be consumed, for no one not of chiefly rank must partake even of that which is cast aside by a chief ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Though her fair complexion was not relieved by much color, she had enough to produce that freshness and bloom which was her chief beauty. A profusion of light hair played in silken locks around her soft and penetrating blue eyes. The delicate roundness of her figure, slender as a palm-tree, was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. But that which formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners, which united the Creole nonchalance with the vivacity of France. She was gay, gentle, and amiable. She ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... times and hoped that his superior officer had not noticed that sign of discomfort. Though Van Rycke, in spite of his general air of sleepy benevolence and careless goodwill, noticed everything, no matter how trivial, which might have a bearing on the delicate negotiations of Galactic Trade. He had not climbed to his present status of expert Cargo-master by overlooking anything at all. Now he gave ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... from fair Kephisus flowing Kupris sweetens the winds and sets them blowing Over the delicate land; And ever with joyous hand Braiding her fragrant hair with the blossom of roses, She sendeth the Love that dwelleth in Wisdom's place That every virtue may quicken and every grace In the hearts where she ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his hands were small, if not delicate. His legs and thighs were thin, nearly to emaciation, but of extraordinary length; and his knees would have been considered tremendous, had they not been outdone by the broader foundations on which this false superstructure of blended ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Bisland and to direct his attention to Grover in order to secure a retreat. Just before daylight Green, to whom, with his 5th Texas, Waller's battalion, and West's section of Semmes's battery, Taylor had given the more than usually delicate task of covering the rear, marched off the ground, leaving nothing behind save one 24-pounder siege gun and a disabled howitzer ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... and I proceeded to withdraw myself, and I wuz jest a-backin' off, as I make a practice of doin' in my interviews with Royalty, when Duty gin me a sharp hunch in my left side, and I had to lock arms with her, and approach the Infanty agin on a delicate subject. ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... and her Ministers. Your attachment to the honor and independence of your country will restrain you from every concession unbecoming the dignity of a free people. The diplomatic order in which you are placed by your commission, will prevent embarrassments, which, in so delicate a case, might arise from the punctilio of ceremony; while it entitles you to all the confidence and protection essential to the office ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various |
