"Exacting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mrs. Brown's comfortable face peeped out from door or window, with an inquiry as to her master's needs; but he was not an exacting patient, and usually met her with a smile and "Nothing, Brownie, thanks—don't trouble about me." Lee Wing came along, shouldering a great coil of rubber hose like an immense grey snake, and stopped for ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... that had long been half-formed in his brain took definite shape and became the moving influence of the intellectual side of his life. His literary conscience had always been strict—even exacting—with him, making him push the quest for the right word in which to express his idea—just the right word, no other—to its farthest limit. Urged by this conscience, he could rarely ever feel that his work was finished, but kept revising, polishing ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... its own regulations for admitting members, and all alike exercised severe discrimination. Various kinds of evidence were necessary to prove the pure and noble descent of the candidate. The German was the strictest and most exacting of the langues, demanding proof of sixteen quarters of nobility and refusing to accept the natural sons of Kings into the ranks of its Knights. Italy was the most lenient, since banking and trade were admitted as no stain on nobility, while most of the other langues insisted on military ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... striking. Now the consumer can have his favorite brand not only roasted but packed air-tight to preserve its flavor; and made up, moreover, of growths brought from the four corners of the earth and blended to suit the most exacting taste. He can buy it already ground, or he can have it in the form of a soluble powder; he can even get it with the caffein element ninety-nine percent removed. It is preserved for his use in paper or tin or fiber boxes, with wrappings whose ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... stop," she answered, "but I'll tell this much. It's the first of the great social functions. Everybody wears her party clothes and a sweet smile. It's the first lesson of the year in How to attain Ease under New and Exacting Conditions. No matter how the seniors snub you later on, in order to teach you your proper place, you'll all be birds of a feather that one time, and flock together as peaceably ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... who were stained with Andre's death came in turn to her to demand the price of blood. The Catanese and her son, who held in their hands not only the queen's honour but her life, now became doubly greedy and exacting. Dona Cancha no longer put any bridle on her licentiousness, and the Empress of Constantinople ordered her niece to marry her eldest son, Robert, Prince of Tarentum. Joan, consumed by remorse, full of indignation and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... entitled to a place in this list of discoverers: his great fault, like that of some others, lay in pushing his method too far. He began by detecting unclaimed dividends, and disclosing them to their right owners, exacting his fee before he made his communication. He then generalized into trying to get fees from all of the name belonging to a dividend; and he gave mysterious hints of danger impending. For instance, he would write to a clergyman that a legal penalty was hanging over him; and when the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... was a man, without seeing his whole body. Well, it is easy to find out in a few hours the essential points of the various doctrines, and, for selecting the best, these will suffice, without any of your scrupulous exacting investigation. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Finding that it was impossible to make any impression upon his staunch friend, Arthur Gride, who had prepared himself for some such result before he came, consented with a heavy heart to the proposed treaty, and upon the spot filled up the bond required (Ralph kept such instruments handy), after exacting the condition that Mr Nickleby should accompany him to Bray's lodgings that very hour, and open the negotiation at once, should circumstances appear auspicious and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... dressed in say and camlet. Sir Thomas received her with scrupulous deference, set her on his right hand, and paid all kindly attention to her comfort. For some time, however, it appeared doubtful whether anything on the supper-table was good enough for the exacting young lady. Those around her came at last to the conclusion that Gertrude's protestations required considerable discount; since, after declaring that she "had no stomach," and "could not pick a lark's bones," she finished ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... answered Sobrenski in the accents of finality. He had never cared about the girl's inclusion in their plots, and took his revenge in exacting from her considerably more than his ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... a lawyer, judge, planter, merchant, general, politician, and statesman; and he played most of these parts with conspicuous success. In such a society a man who persisted in one job and who applied the most rigorous and exacting standards to his work was out of place and was really inefficient. His finished product did not serve its temporary purpose much better than did the current careless and hasty product, and his higher standards and peculiar ways constituted an implied ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... Feodore, at Paris, had written to me so much about her. Do you know, I have never been to the opera for an age! That alone was quite a treat to me. I never go to the opera, nor to the play, nor to any thing else. Society has become so large and so exacting, that I have found out one never ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... not be too exacting towards Elsie, my son," said his mother, shaking up his pillows for him, and settling him comfortably on them; "she is always so ready to sacrifice herself for others that she would not, I fear, refuse such a request, however much it might ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... in some way jar on us. His blank verse and the irregular metres which he, unfortunately, so often employs, have little or no music, and are often quite intolerable. But after all the deductions which the most exacting criticism can make, it still remains that, as a serious poet Lowell stands high. As a painter of nature, he has, when at his best, few superiors, and, in his own country, none. Whatever be their esthetic and technical deficiencies, he has written many poems of sentiment and pathos which can ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... error of excessive stimulation—thinking to gain time by forwarding the intellect as early as possible. He was himself a scholar, and hoped to make her the heir of all he knew, and of as much more as might be elsewhere attained. He was a severe and exacting disciplinarian, and permanently marred the nervous system of his child by the system he adopted of requiring her to recite her tasks on his return home at night, which was frequently very late. Hence a premature development of the brain, which, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... became an exile, and a wanderer on the face of the earth. For many years he lived the life of a pirate or viking, exacting tribute from other ships or sacking them if they would not pay tribute; for this occupation in the days of Frithiof was considered wholly respectable. It was followed again and again by the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... principles. That, in this case, the employers and the employed are members of one family, is a circumstance which intensifies the relation. It is a sad thing for a man to pass the working part of his day with an exacting, unkind, master: but still, if the workman returns at evening to a home that is his own, there is a sense of coming joy and freedom which may support him throughout the weary hours of labour. But think what it must be to ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... that he had no desire to forgive Lord Trowbridge,—that life in this world, as it is constituted, would not be compatible with such forgiveness,—that he would not, indeed, desire to injure Lord Trowbridge otherwise than by exacting such penalty as would force him and such as he to restrain their tyranny; but that to forgive him, till he should have been so forced, would be weak and injurious to the community. As to that, he had quite made up his mind, in ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... first whether the conditions are equally appropriate. For instance, young JACK RIVENLUTE is not a bad fellow, though he may not be given to sentiment, and VIOLA MANDOLINE is a very charming girl, if she is apt to be a trifle high-flown and exacting at times. When they marry—(they have not even met at present, but they will marry, the year after next, unless Mr. Punch's Own Second-sighted Seer grossly deceives himself)—when they marry, VIOLA'S Uncle JOHN will be the person to present them with ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... know such a feeling existed in this dark world," he muttered, rather to himself than as if answering me. "He forgives me without exacting any promise. Alas! he knows not what ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... transaction of buying a newspaper, explaining each action involved, and making correct payment or exacting ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... on horseback, followed by a herd of picked horses, who passed them at a gallop, like a whirlwind. The days were all alike, as at sea, wearisome and interminable; but the weather was fine. But the peones became more and more exacting every day, as though the lad were their bond slave; some of them treated him brutally, with threats; all forced him to serve them without mercy: they made him carry enormous bundles of forage; they sent him to get water at great distances; and he, broken with fatigue, could not even ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... effort, gulping down the rage that stirred him, made his great mistake. He spoke of his love for her. Fatuity! She laughed at him, said that as she detested women, his love was too exacting for her, if it meant that she should never be commonly friendly with ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... worn-out man. If ever the world had a slave, I am one; but there have been times during this June day when I earnestly wished that I might break my chains; and your serene, kindly face, that is in such blessed contrast to its shrewd, exacting, and merciless spirit, gave ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Now however, she can persist in this course of conduct no longer. Sir Percival and Count Fosco are old and fast friends, and their wives will have no choice but to meet on civil terms. Madame Fosco in her maiden days was one of the most impertinent women I ever met with—capricious, exacting, and vain to the last degree of absurdity. If her husband has succeeded in bringing her to her senses, he deserves the gratitude of every member of the family, and he may ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... a last Christmas together at Storm, left Kate and Jacqueline more than ever dependent upon each other. If Philip had been more exacting as a husband, he might well have complained of his wife's constant attendance on her mother in those days. But he was so far from complaining that it was at his suggestion Jacqueline formed the habit of taking her midday ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... with God? Have they the all-inclusive view of His glorious Trinity, His personal presence, His revealed will, His exacting requirements, His omnipotent grace, His redeeming love, His mediatorial kingdom, His everlasting Covenant? Have they the view that will keep them steadfast, progressive, and enthusiastic in His service? ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... asking myself, 'In my place, what would Evelyn have done?' and the answer disturbs my sleep. You are impulsive, my dear, and your temper is not beyond reproach. If you loved deeply you would be exacting, and would fiercely resent deceit. You would have run away even more impetuously than I did myself, but—but—you would not have kept up your resentment for six long years, or refused the offender a ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... innocent amusements which form a natural outlet for exuberant spirits, it will be well if we can do justice to the nobility of aim, and the greatness of self-sacrifice, to which their austerity was due. We must remember that the aim of the Puritans was a godliness far more exacting than that which we seek, and requiring a proportionate sacrifice of immediate pleasure. We must remember, too, that the amusements of that time were in large part brutal, like the bear-gardens; and licentious, like most of ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... for your welcome letter, so kind in its candour, I angry that you should prefer 'The Seraphim'! Angry? No indeed, indeed, I am grateful for 'The Seraphim,' and not exacting for the 'Drama,' and all the more because of a secret obstinate persuasion that the 'Drama' will have a majority of friends in the end, and perhaps deserve to have them. Nay, why should I throw perhapses over my own impressions, and be insincere to you who have honoured me by being sincere? ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than this, I have no business nor connection with England, nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... because the Irish masses are most unfriendly, and the more England concedes the more unfriendly Ireland becomes. For Ireland regards all concessions as being wrung from England by superior force and skill, and as being, in short, the fruits of compulsion. Therefore, the more Ireland gets the more exacting she will always become. Ask any Englishman or Scotsman resident in Ireland if the Irish masses are friendly, and everyone will laugh at you. The English Home Rule party say, 'Just so. Let us cure this. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... able to keep a good many irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded more than eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His cheerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, would find dumped ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mr. Mussey, stout, affable, and cynic, a heavy drinker, untidy about his person and exacting about his engine-room, a veteran of his trade and—it was said—an ancient croney of Monk's. There was, at all events, a complete understanding evident between these two, though now and again, especially at table, when Monk was putting on something more than his customary amount of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... sensible and prudent; she would adapt herself to circumstances. And though, of course, it was not such an establishment as she well might expect for her daughter, still, since the young people loved one another, and thought they could be happy under these reduced circumstances, she would not be too exacting. And Lady Beauchamp at last paused, and looked in Everett's face for some manifestation of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... said, apologetically. "What our fine young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I've been maybe a little too zealous—too exacting. Then I'm old and testy ... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it's black like that hideous Benton ... But we're coming out into the light. Lodge, didn't you tell me this Number Ten ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... however, when exacting circumstances obliged her to look upon the prospect of placing me at school with a more impartial eye. A change was creeping, slowly, but surely, into our lives: hardly for the better in one way, and yet, in the end, I ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... landing of British reinforcements continued, amounting to 15,000. The guns and munitions were out of date. The position of the Allies' battleships has been changed. They are now inside the harbor." The most exacting German General Staff could not ask for better service than that! When the Allies retreated from Serbia into Salonika every one expected the enemy would pursue; and thousands fled from the city. But the Germans did not pursue, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... As long as they are well served, they are content to sacrifice something to the modern spirit of equality. It is those who have risen in the social scale late in life who are always standing on their dignity and exacting homage. If the latter class would moderate its pretensions, a stumbling-block would be removed from the entrance to domestic service. We already have several agencies for training servants; could ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Many sides I am, to my detriment. Too many sides for it seems to me I can fit into almost any opening with equal interest. And I find very few environments wholly uncongenial. I am not conscious of exacting in my nature any particular strain or line but what irritates and antagonizes me in any environment is the presumption on the part of the creator of that environment that theirs is the only world-view. I suppose the really strongest thing in me is ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... picture of the res angusta of a small-town household: a father held closely to office or warehouse—his own or some one else's; a sister confined to her school-room; a mother who found the demands of the domestic routine too exacting even to allow a three-hour trip to town; and a brother—Randolph added this figure quite gratuitously out of an active imagination and a determined desire not to put any of the circle to the test of a personal encounter—and a brother ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... young man ventured timidly to observe, "it seems to me that art, however exacting it may be, cannot take entire possession of the woman. What would she do with her affections, with the craving for love, for self-sacrifice, which is in her, far more than in man, the motive ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... our first and best known families have sunk the assemblies of the St. Cecilia in the more important question of what order of government will best suit-in the event of our getting happily out of the Union!—our refined and very exacting state of society;—whether an Empire or a Monarchy, and whether we ought to set up a Quattlebum or Commander dynasty?-whether the Bungle family or the Jungle family (both fighting families) will have a place nearest the throne; what sort of orders will be bestowed, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... on board holding four, badly placed, uncomfortable, possessing the single advantage of privacy; but these managers would have them empty rather than allow two passengers to occupy one of them under the full fare of four. This is unamiable and exacting. In crowded times it may be all very right, but on ordinary occasions they would do well to follow the example of the more generous Norwegians, who place their state cabins holding four at the disposal of anyone paying the fare ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... he cried, "that you are not getting to be one of those exacting creatures who are jealous if a man is not at their side every moment? I ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... is not a poet?" Let me say, once for all, that I do think so. To have written one perfect song is to have given witness and the only kind of witness (in common with the media of other arts) that is finally authoritative, that at least one supremely exacting mood has been perfectly realised; that is to say, one moment of life has been perfectly experienced. And since, with our human conception, we can see no good or desirable end beyond the perfect experience of life, the man who proves ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... very just remark. The general held similar views. He considered snow in winter proper; sultriness in summer legitimate; frosts in the autumn the same, and rains in spring not objectionable. He was not an exacting man. And I call to mind now that he always admired thunder. You remember, child, your ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Iowa. Educated at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. Was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Chicago for twelve years, when he gave up this profession and came to New York to become a stock-broker. Although Mr. O'Hara has followed this exacting occupation for the past ten years, it has not prevented him from writing and publishing several volumes of poetry, largely classic in theme, and handled with an adequate and beautiful art. "The Poems of ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... the office (he had no assistant but the callow Hopkins) was more exacting than laborious, but it kept him confined seven hours in the twenty-four. Still, there was time in the lengthened days as the year advanced for walking, rowing, and riding or driving about the picturesque country which surrounds Homeville. He and Mr. Harum ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... different nature. Who is there that does not feel horror-struck, and tremble for the innocent, when he sees a being of this kind transferred from the yard-arm to the seat of justice, deciding in the first instance on the honor, lives, and property of a hundred thousand persons, and haughtily exacting the homage and incense of the spiritual ministers of the towns under his jurisdiction, as well as of the parish curates, respectable for their acquirements and benevolence, and who in their own native places, would possibly have rejected ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... that you couldn't well do that!" said Imogen with a smile a little bitter. "I spent very little on myself." And she continued, with somewhat the manner of humoring an exacting child: "You see, I helped a great many people; I sent two girls to college; I sent a boy—such a dear, fine boy—for three years' art-study in Paris; he is getting on so well. There is my girls' club on the East side, my ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... her own mother. In self-excuse she recalled the two or three occasions when she had tried to win her mother. But fate seemed to have decreed that their moods should never correspond. Her mother's sudden fierce outbursts of love, when she would be jealous, exacting, almost cruel, had frightened her when she was a child, and later on had bored her. Other daughters would have shown patience, unselfishness, but she had always been so self-centred. Why had she ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... of his men that it would be useless to strain his authority, and so he gave way, though with sore reluctance, only exacting a solemn oath from the whole company that they would keep their hands off the cattle of Helios. When each in turn had taken the oath they landed on the shore of a sheltered bay, and encamped by a ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... with forty-seven years of holy abstinence from water. Groups of gazing pilgrims stood around all and every of these strange objects, lost in reverent wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which these pious austerities had won for them from an exacting heaven. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... loved Le Gardeur; but there was no depth in the soil where a devoted passion could take firm root. Still she was a woman keenly alive to admiration, jealous and exacting of her suitors, never willingly letting one loose from her bonds, and with warm passions and a cold heart was eager for the semblance of love, although never feeling its ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... cannot imagine what you would have. One woman is too frivolous—another wants refinement—one is too indolent and exacting—and when you can make no other objection, why her style is a little too prononce"—the last words were given with ludicrous imitation of his cousin's tone. "If an angel were to descend from heaven for you, I doubt if ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... mentally forecast what they are likely to be; I do not mean that we should practically forestall them, by demanding the immediate performance of promises which time alone can fulfill. The man who makes his demand will find out that there is no worse or more exacting usurer than Time; and that, if you compel Time to give money in advance, you will have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than any Jew would require. It is possible, for instance, to make a tree burst forth into leaf, blossom, or even bear fruit within ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... examples of his character, smiling at them with a good conscience; and when the day of the funeral came round, doing the honours with exact propriety. I could perceive, besides, that he found a solid gratification in his accession to the title; the which he was punctilious in exacting. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ming tendencies continued, and despite the reorganization undertaken by Kang Hsi and maintained by his two successors, the excessive requirements of the old system, which had been formulated during the Sung epoch and definitely established in the Yuean and Ming periods, were so exacting that irremediable decadence was inevitable. Thenceforward no great changes in the realm of painting need be expected. It only continued its ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... 97. The fundamental human rights by this Constitution guaranteed to the people of Japan are fruits of the age-old struggle of man to be free; they have survived the many exacting tests for durability and are conferred upon this and future generations in trust, to be held ...
— The Constitution of Japan, 1946 • Japan
... no more cloud between them. The morning passed on with sisterly talk. Lydia had wisely refrained from exacting promises; she hoped to resume the subject before long—together with another that was in her mind. Thyrza, too, had something to speak of, but could not bring herself to it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... into Mexican railways. The speculation had proved an excellent one, and then, with a few airy and casual references to Hudson Bay, Grand Trunks, and shares in steamboats, it was thought the creation of Olive's fortune could be satisfactorily explained to a not too exacting society. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... farm buildings just big enough for his small establishment. He did not keep a carriage, and had even given up his dogcart, but he always had a saddle-horse for himself and a pony for me; at one time I had two ponies. His horses were his only luxury, but he was as exacting about them as if he had been a rich nobleman. He would not tolerate careless grooming for an instant; bits and stirrups were always kept in a state of exemplary brightness, and when he rode through Shaw he was quite fit to be seen in Hyde Park. At that ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... and he was 'to be taken on at a salary of—a week.' Let us avoid pecuniary chatter, and merely say that the sum, while he was on trial, was not likely to tempt many young men into the career of journalism. Yet 'the work will be very exacting, and almost preclude the possibility of my doing anything else.' Now, as four leader notes, or, say, six, can be written in an hour, it is difficult to see the necessity for this fatigue. Probably there were many duties ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... a little exacting when they are engaged, I suppose," said the poor fellow. "They feel they have more right than others ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... unqualified, Phil knew. It was, in fact, the directing force of Aunt Dolly's whole life. It had enabled her to overcome her innate dislike for the everlasting round of social trivialities and assume her place as a society leader with a brilliance and tact which had earned the commendation of even her exacting husband. What was going wrong in the Waring household? Or was it all imagination and Aunt Dolly's look of concern sum-totalled by the weather in relation to a change ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... me that a reasoner so shrewd, so clear, and so exacting as Horace Smith did not pursue the proposition further; for without booksellers there would have been no market for books—the author would not have been able to sell, and the reader would not have ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... pregnant word, for you are about to see him grow. He was less a coxcomb than shamefaced and sentimental; and one may have these qualities, and be a coxcomb to boot, and yet be a gallant fellow. One may also be a gallant fellow, and harsh, exacting, double-dealing, and I know not what besides, in youth. The question asked by nature is, "Has he the heart to take and keep an impression?" For, if he has, circumstances will force him on and carve the figure of a brave man out of that mass of contradictions. In return for such benefits, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... though I knew that it was inevitable that I must sooner or later come to the front. So when the captain informed me that he should appoint me Corporal, I told him that I thanked him, and through him, the Nation, and would try and perform the duties of the exacting and important position to the best of my ability, and hoped that I might not do anything that would bring discredit upon our distracted country. He said that would be all right, that he had no doubt the country would pull through. That evening at dress parade the appointment was read, and I felt ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... appointed Inspector-General of the Forces. In this extremely exacting office, his qualities of thoroughness and grip had splendid scope. A glance at his comments discloses the high standard of excellence which he exacted from every branch of the service. Only the other day timid folk were bewailing his methods ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... his pastoral intercourse, especially with members of his flock tried and tempted like as he was. He had learned how to counsel and comfort them by the things which he also had suffered. He may have been too exacting and harsh in dealing with himself; but in dealing with other souls nothing could exceed the gentleness, wisdom, and soothing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... have been very afflicting to those who heard it, could any thing have given addition to what they knew before.—Prince Menzikoff was sensible of what they felt, and to alleviate their grief, assured them that he would take upon him to give them all their liberty, without even exacting a promise from them never more to draw their swords against the czar, in case the king of Sweden should ever be able ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... 'I respectfully protested—'she should play among the seraphs. You shall allow me, madame. I am no mean musician. As a critic I am exact and exacting. Permit me, madame, that I bring my violin, and play once ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... rustler, she would shield him and save him, if that were possible. He would love her always—Billy Louise could not conceive of Ward transferring his affections to another less exacting woman—and he would be grateful for her friendship. She could build long, lovely scenes where friendliness was put to the front bravely, while love hid behind the mask and only peeped out through the eyes now and then. She did not, of course, plan all this in sober ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... insubordinate young whelps at last, and strictly forbidden to take the Tommies out any more without orders. I wasn't sorry, because Tommy is such an exacting sort of creature. He wants to live as though he were in barracks all the time. I was grubbing on fowls and boiled corn, but the Tommies wanted their pound of fresh meat, and their half ounce of this, and their two ounces of t'other thing, and they used to ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... capably? Would I cease to be putty in the hands of other people? I doubt it. Even a strong, obdurate mind is liable to connect with conditions that render it weak and pliable for the simple reason that it is sometimes easier to put up with a thing than to try to put it down. An exacting, arbitrary mind perhaps might evolve a set of resolutions that even the most intolerant would hesitate to violate, but for an easygoing, trouble-dodging brain like my own there is no such thing as tenacity of purpose, unless it be in the direction of an ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... efforts being husbanded for their breeding haunts. I once spent part of the month of June in Minnesota, almost directly north of my Kansas field of research, and there found these charming minstrels as tuneful and affable as the most exacting bird lover could wish. Perhaps some of the very sparrows that spend the winter in silence in northeastern Kansas trill their finest arias in their summer homes on the shores of Lake Minnetonka or in the boggy hollows in the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... principles clearly. Farming is austere, and few farming communities have recreation adequate to the demand of the young people and the working people who live on the farms. Agriculture is becoming more systematic and more exacting in its demands: and systematic work creates a demand for organized play. As this demand is not satisfied in the country—indeed it is less generally satisfied now than in former times—the youth and ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... I was willing to end all in peace, and so I made him' dine with me, and I have hopes to work my end upon him. After dinner the barber trimmed me, and so to the office, where I do begin to be exact in my duty there and exacting my privileges, and shall continue to do so. None but Sir W. Batten and me here to-night, and so we broke up early, and I home and to my chamber to put things in order, and so to bed. My swelling I think do begin to go ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his fair "friend" was one of the greatest beauties and the greatest coquettes of her time. Her smile was honor; her fan was a scepter; her face was perfect; and her heart never troubled herself or her lovers; if she had a fault, she was a trifle exacting, but that was not to be wondered at in one so omnipotent, and her chains, after all, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... vainly sought in the writings of our divines. If I have at this moment any advantage over you, it is due entirely to that tranquillity which I enjoy, and of which at present you are unhappily deprived. The agitations of your mind, the inquietudes of your body, and the attacks of an exacting and ceremonious devotion, with which your soul is perplexed, prevent you, for the moment, from seeing things coolly, and hinder you from making use of your own understanding; but I have no doubt that soon your intellect, strengthened by ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... successfully attain to a high standard of orderliness, deportment and response, each to the other, they develop the cohesive strength which will carry them through any great crisis. For this reason mainly, military life is far more exacting than civil life. But the services hold that what is best for the many can be achieved without cramping the personal life or blighting individuality and initiative. Within the frame of our system, we can achieve obedience and discipline without ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... occasion he could not resist the impulse of again going hunting, though in the eighty-second year of his age. Exacting from his friends the promise that should he die, his remains should be brought back and buried by the side of those of his wife, he took a boy with him and went to the mouth of the Kansas River, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Cooper learned in this rough but manly school. A brother officer who knew him well said, "He was active, prompt, and efficient, a pleasant shipmate, always ready to do his duty, and rigorous too in exacting it of others." Of Cooper's "Naval History" was added, "It is the noblest tribute ever paid to a noble profession." Aboard the Stirling on these several cruises Cooper learned much that afterwards appeared in his sea ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... reached a point where forbearance toward the insolent French minister was no longer required by the most exacting courtesy. His official communications, and public and private acts, were becoming too offensive to be longer tolerated by the government, without virtually abdicating authority and acknowledging its utter incompetency. So the president called the cabinet ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... duties in which are most arduous and exacting, comprises gentlemen of legal, as well as scientific, attainments. It should be re-inforced by more of the same character. They should be relieved, by legislation, of continual embarrassment by reason of meager salaries and fears of removal incident to merely political ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... abroad. It combines in a remarkable degree the copiousness of a Thesaurus with the brevity and convenience for ready reference of a school-dictionary. Citations abundantly sufficient to meet the wants of ordinary readers are given in full, while distinct references guide the more exacting scholar over a much wider field of original authority. In this way space is economized, and the book is made cheap without a sacrifice of learning. Its first general merit is its singular correctness. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... differently from me.) My dear father, think how, for twenty years, through poverty, through pain, through weariness, through sickness, through the uncongenial atmosphere of a farcical college and of a bare army and then of an exacting business life, through all the discouragement of being wholly unacquainted with literary people and literary ways, — I say, think how, in spite of all these depressing circumstances, and of a thousand more which I could enumerate, these two figures of music and of poetry ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... was a year memorable in the history of America; and the alertness of the charity boy's intellect is shown in that he was aware of the struggle between England and the Colonies. He discussed the situation with his schoolfellows, and explained that the mother country had made a mistake in exacting too much. His sympathies were with the Colonies, but he thought submission on their part was in order when the stamp-tax was removed and that complete independence was absurd—the Colonies needed some one to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... to herself, of course; but it pleased her very much that the word she had dropped had had such a splendid result. Grace, she knew, was a lovable girl and never exacting with the servants; and Mrs. Mason was good to her people, too. But it was a rather perfunctory sort of goodness, spurred by little real knowledge ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... one which startled our whole camp, for it was nothing less than a formal offer on the part of the Priest Captain to condone the rebellion, and to compromise with the rebels, on certain far from exacting terms. ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... sufficient to blast the influence of so divine a mother, and the rest of her children: She always affected to keep mean and scandalous company; valuing nobody, but just as they agreed with her in every capricious opinion she thought fit to take up; and rigorously exacting compliance, though she changed her sentiments ever so often. Her great employment was to breed discord among friends and relations, and make up monstrous alliances between those whose dispositions least resembled each other. Whoever ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... library—even when you are not doing all that, your mind seems to be away from me—down there in La Salle Street or the Board of Trade Building. Dearest, you don't know. I don't mean to complain, and I don't want to be exacting or selfish, but—sometimes I—I am lonesome. Don't interrupt," she said, hastily. "I want to say it all at once, and then never speak of it again. Last night, when Mr. Gretry was here, you said, just ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... been told very differently by soldiers, if one may judge from Joinville; but commonly the Virgin herself prescribed the kind of service she wished. Especially to the young knight who had, of his own accord, chosen her for his liege, she showed herself as exacting as other great ladies showed themselves toward their Lancelots and Tristans. When she chose, she could even indulge in more or less coquetry, else she could never have appealed to the sympathies of the thirteenth-century ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... conduct were obtained. In January the British forces began their retreat from Kabul. Then followed a series of treacheries and mutual breaches of faith. Akbar Khan and his hordes of Afghans dogged the retreating column exacting further concessions. The English women and children were demanded as hostages. From the heights of the Khaibar Pass, the Ghilzai mountaineers poured a destructive fire into the Englishmen. Akbar ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... rather less exacting, and reached the allied headquarters a week earlier, they might have led to the break up of the Coalition. For the political situation of the allies had been even more precarious than that of their armies. The pretensions of the Czar had excited ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... off in silence. "Cobbler" Horn scarcely knew whether his exacting coachman would think it proper for his master to enter into conversation with him; and the coachman, on his part, would not be guilty of such a breach of decorum as to speak to his master when his master had not ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... upon in Scripture is the treatment given by the Egyptians to the Israelites. "Every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians," so they counted themselves superior to the Hebrews, and subjected them to the greatest indignities, grinding them under the harshest oppression, and exacting from them, by the lash of the task-master, the most arduous labor. But mark how their pride was rebuked and their cruelty punished, under the moral and retributive government of God. Their land was desolated by a series ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... get on with urgent correspondence or to frame questions to be asked of witnesses, and so take up his unfortunate secretary's time that it was almost impossible for him to get his work finished for the next meeting. He made the most exacting demands upon his overworked staff, showing as little consideration for them as he did grasp of the mass of detail they had to get through between committee meetings. Indeed, had it not been for the industrious energy of Klein, who had ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... her toilette alone. It was easy to see that her education had not been that of a young lady of quality, for she was quite independent of her maid; but Mrs. Betts was a woman of experience and made allowance for her, convinced that, give her time, she would be helpless and exacting enough. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... flushed up to the eyes, then the blood sank back to her breast, and left her as pale as a lily. She loved the man, and they were happy words to her, and she was satisfied with them, though perhaps some women might have thought that they left a good deal to be desired. But Bessie was not of an exacting nature. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... wearily, "of course it is the truth. You always were the man in whom I could trust, and I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being so exacting. But, captain, I ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... the poor girls had perhaps been greater than their grief. Poor Joanna had been exacting and tyrannical, and with no female attendants but the old, worn-out English nurse, had made them do her all sorts of services, which were requited with scoldings and grumblings instead of the loving thanks which ought ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he could do sometimes to endure patiently the company of Robert Hume or his brothers. Even Davie, who was not exacting in the matter of response to his talk, missed something in his chief friend, and ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... no estate to support it, and it had to be let, to provide an income for the widow and the boy. Much of the expensive furniture had been sold before letting, but enough remained to satisfy the wants of a not very exacting tenant. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Adele, "if you are so. I am sorry that I'm not Caroline Stanhope with a large fortune, but if I do not bring you a fortune, by economy I will save you one. Let me only see that you are not deprived of your usual pleasures and luxuries, and I care not what I do or how I live. You will find no exacting wife in me, dearest, troubling you for expenses you cannot afford. I will live but to please you, and if I do not succeed, I will die—if you wish to be rid ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat |
