"Nicety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, "I ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... hardness so that they would not break up into granules of smaller size. The trouble due to the settling of the granules and wedging the electrodes apart has been practically eliminated in well-designed instruments, by great mechanical nicety in manufacture. ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... the king, the queen, and the Duke of Orleans, on their camp beds. The lieutenant's entrance produced a burst of laughter in the great drawing-room; but he did not appear to notice that he was the object of general attention, but began to arrange, with so much cleverness, nicety and gayety, his straw bed, that the mouths of all these poor creatures, who could not go to sleep, began ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about, and Marrin kept patting him on the back: "Delightful! Fine! You're my style, Mr. Blaine—everything done to a nicety, no frills and feathers. Isn't New York a great town? There are things happening in it you'd never ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... these rocky countries, of which I guessed the length by standing against it. In this there could be no great errour, nor do I much doubt but the Highlander, whom we employed, reported the number right. More nicety however is better, and no man should travel unprovided with instruments for ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... a supplemental volume to Mr. Winston's Book on Painted Glass, is an admirable collection. The subjects are accurately traced, and the nicety of the tint and leading preserved. The examples are classed, and an ingenious Introduction displays the taste and research of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... in the hallway on guard, Fred and the twins took possession of Nappy Martell's room. The boy who loved to dress so loudly was rather methodical in his habits, and had arranged all of his clothing and other articles with great nicety in ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very fine indeed is the workmanship of this monument. The figures which surround Jovinus are men of handsome countenance, evidently portraits, their dress and arms being finished with the utmost nicety of detail. The figures are ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... you, sir, on being without reproach in your business relations. You will suit me to a nicety. I lost two years ago the old man who sat at this desk for the last forty years. He was the only friend I had in the wide earth. He was my prop and support, and now that he is gone, I feel tottering and weak. I want some one to assist me in the ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... hinges, now—might they not better be here, and here, than there, and there? Manvers was indifferent as to the hinges. The fastening? Let the fastening be one which could be snapped-to, and open upon a spring. The chain—ah, there was some nicety required for that. From his point of view, Sebastian said, with the light of enthusiasm irradiating his face, that that was the ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Gretchen fancies she can do it—requires nicety and care to do it well, and is far more difficult than "frying in deep fat." The pan requires to be hot, also the fat or butter used, which should cover the bottom of the pan; a bright fire is required. Things that take long to cook require more ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... to be having enough trouble with his legs, without taking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But the marvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with such nicety that the chairman announced "Four minutes," almost upon the instant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more to the upholder of the affirmative. "Refutation and conclusion by the affirmative," said the chairman. "Mr. ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety. There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called "sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... covered with a clean cloth of the finest of homespun, and everything set out with the same nicety as if the meal had been spread in the dining-room. The old lady, who had sought to please her son by putting on her best cap for the occasion, but who had in truth forgot what day it was until reminded by ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... old invalid soldier commands his 500 or 600 men as gardeners and overseers. Every leaf that falls in pond or canal is carefully fished up. They trim and polish the trees and paths in the gardens to the greatest nicety, and the grass borders are ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... himself with the unconscious air of one more accustomed to crowded streets than to that rude and unpaved highway. His clothing bore the unmistakable stamp of a tailor of rank. His person was groomed with that nicety of detail that is permitted only to those who possess both means and leisure, as well as taste. It was evident, too, from his movement and bearing, that he had not sought the mile-high atmosphere of Prescott with the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... indeed, note it as a nicety, that the membrane must be moist through which this transudation is to take place; and I admit that there are men whose enveloping sheath of individualism and egotism is so hard and dry, so little interpenetrated by candor and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... walked off again to play another game at bowls. They are remarkably expert at this diversion, and will play in the stony lanes and streets, and on the most uneven and disastrous ground for such a purpose, with as much nicety as on a billiard-table. But the most favourite game is the national one of Mora, which they pursue with surprising ardour, and at which they will stake everything they possess. It is a destructive kind ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... with their uncommon distension, the ringlets pressed down, crushed and uncurled with the over flowing moisture that had wet everything round it; in short, the different feel and state of things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr. H.....'s nicety and experience unaccounted for but by the real cause. But here the woman saved me: I pretended a violent disorder of my head, and a feverish heat, that indisposed me too much to receive his embraces. He gave in to this, and good naturedly desisted. Soon after, an ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... some of its shrewdness. It was as if the white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life. He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips twitched. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... just it. Put her on her guard—that is all that is necessary. She is a dear, good, clever girl, and it would be very sad if anything were to interrupt our comfortable way of getting on with her." Mrs. Robarts knew to a nicety the exact meaning of this threat. If Lucy would persist in securing to herself so much of Lord Lufton's time and attention, her visits to Framley Court must become less frequent. Lady Lufton would do much, very much, indeed, for her friends at the parsonage; but not even for ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... exacting of them the speedy and full performance of their allotted tasks; which, however, he always took care should come under rather than up to the measure of their strength. In his business habits, he was methodical to a nicety; kept his own books, and was his own overseer: for, having a strong aversion to being waited on, he never suffered others to do for him what he could do for himself. He kept a close and clear account, in writing, of the profits arising from the grain, tobacco, and ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... are supposed to be able to feel the pulse of the University move about with the weight of much knowledge upon their brows, throwing out hints as to the probable majority one way or the other. Some profess to know it to a nicety. Others shake their heads and remark vaguely that there is not much to choose either way. So week after week goes by, until the excitement reaches a climax when the date of the election ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... open door, Birnier stroked his shaven chin perplexedly with the other. He glanced from the sergeant, standing rigidly by the table, to the lieutenant engaged in stoking his cigar to a nicety. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... herself; that Mr Arabin would be found to be quite safe. But by degrees he began to find out that his wife's eyes had been sharper than his own. Other people coupled the signora's name with that of Mr Arabin. The meagre little prebendary who lived in the close, told him to a nicety how often Mr Arabin had visited at Dr Stanhope's, and how long he had remained on the occasion of each visit. He had asked after Mr Arabin at the cathedral library, and an officious little vicar choral had offered to go and see ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... flesh into slices and strips would be easily effected, though it would require more time, and should be done with great nicety. If not sliced very thin, the meat would be liable to ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... lines of eulogy of him, with the nicety and distinction of phrase which one would expect. Perhaps the simple ending of it is most impressive of all; so let us make it our own for ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... up? They sent for a kite, to be sure; and the men, women, and children of Alexandria, wondering what they were going to do with it, followed the toy in crowds. The kite was flown over the Pillar, and with such nicety, that when it fell on the other side the string lodged upon the beautiful Corinthian capital. By this means they were able to draw over the Pillar a two-inch rope, by which one of the youngsters 'swarmed' to the top. The rope was now in a very little while converted into a sort ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... thesis, "Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." We may suppose that the young man acquitted himself well, reasoning with great nicety in favor of the legality of an illegal action, doubtless to the edification of Governor Shirley, who was present and who perhaps felt sufficiently remote from the performance, being himself only an actual supreme magistrate ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... after the old woman's death. For during her life-time her stern son paid her such deference that it was a moot point, perhaps, which of them really ruled. Between them, however, the young wife was moulded to a nicety, and her voice gained no more weight in the counsels of the windmill when the harsh tones of the mother-in-law ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... subject of croquet. He had spent many hundreds of dollars on his grounds. His wickets were fastened to hard pine planks, and these were then carefully buried two feet deep. The surface of the ground, he was wont to descant, must be of a particular sort of gravel, sifted just so, and rolled to a nicety. The balls must be of hard rubber, and have just one-eighth inch clearance in passing through the wickets, with the exception of the two wires forming the "cage," where it was imperative that this clearance should be reduced to one-sixteenth of an inch—but ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... arisen. In his hands the docile oar had become a raging termagant, and, when he would have been rid of it, the baubles had opposed his will. He had been dragged and battered unspeakably. Over all, the lash had been laid upon his bare shoulders; and that with a nicety of judgment which should have been foreign to so white a wrist and to eyes that could look so tender. Now that he had escaped out of hell, it was not surprising that he was loth to discover his refuge. Still, a promise must ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... bicycles out of the cats' home quietly, mounted, rode quickly down the road till they were out of hearing of the house, and then slackened their pace in order to reach their destination cool and tidy. They timed their arrival with such nicety that as they dismounted before the door of Deeping Hall, Sir James Morgan, in the content inspired by an excellent dinner, was settling himself comfortably in an easy ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... is not like that just mentioned, wholly without meaning. The fact of the vast diffusion of some odors, as that of musk or the rose, for instance, has long been cited as the most remarkable illustration of the divisibility of matter, and the nicety of the senses. And if this were compared with the effects of a very minute dose of morphia on the whole system, or the sudden and fatal impression of a single drop of prussic acid, or, with what comes still nearer, the poisonous ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... an old sailor on a chest just under me was puffing out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished, he brushed the stem of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of his frock, and politely waved it toward me. The attention was sailor-like; as for the nicety of the thing, no man who has lived in forecastles is at all fastidious; and so, after a few vigorous whiffs to induce repose, I turned over and tried my best to forget myself. But in vain. My crib, instead ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... brought in small bright-looking tubs kept for this exclusive purpose and scrupulously clean; it is then helped to each individual in small quantities, and steaming hot. The humblest meal is served with nicety, and with the rice various tasty condiments, such as pickles, salted fish, and numerous other dainty little appetizers, are eaten. To moisten the meal, tea without sugar is taken. A hibachi, or charcoal basin, generally occupies the central position, round which the meal is enjoyed, and on the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... because of the noise he made in trudging up a hill, or because his mud-guard was broken off, or his tire wounded in the great cause, or his polished headlight knocked into a tin can. You will not ridicule the old splint of a shingle which was bound with such surgical nicety among his rusting spokes. If you do, then you are the kind of a boy who would laugh at a wounded soldier and you had better ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the convenience of trade: an exception which on a similar principle had before been admitted in the Civil Law, as to mercantile causes, in which the books of the party were received to give full effect to an insufficient degree of proof, called, in the nicety of their distinctions, a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... forage. On the first day of our return march our commissary sergeant, Bonfoy, did manage to capture and kill a gaunt, lean old Arkansas steer, and it was divided up among the men with almost as much nicety and exactness as if it was a wedding cake with a prize diamond ring in it; and we hadn't any salt to go with it, but in lieu of that used gun-powder, which was a sort of substitute. With that exception, (and ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... reserve, it is itself a place where reserves are kept. All country bankers keep their reserve in London. They only retain in each country town the minimum of cash necessary to the transaction of the current business of that country town. Long experience has told them to a nicety how much this is, and they do not waste capital and lose profit by keeping more idle. They send the money to London, invest a part of it in securities, and keep the rest with the London bankers and the bill brokers. The habit of Scotch and Irish bankers is much the same. All their spare money is ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... men. No cooking was allowed, and all windows were carefully curtained, in order not to draw the fire of the enemy, who were in very unpleasant proximity to the house. I well remember next morning, because the Germans had got the range to a nicety, and the otherwise enjoyable place was rendered unbearable by the crash of shells. So unhealthy grew the position, that the transport was moved a mile away; but we who composed the tent section remained to deal with any men who were brought in. It is astonishing how quickly one ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... in different senses, even abstracted from chastity, which has been already treated of. It sometimes means that tenderness and nicety of honour, that apprehension of blame, that dread of intrusion or injury towards others, that Pudor, which is the proper guardian of every kind of virtue, and a sure preservative against vice and corruption. But its most usual meaning ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... faultless. From head to heels he was adjusted with mathematical nicety. Every organ in his shapely body did its work silently, easily, accurately. Silver-gray hair covered his head, falling gracefully away from a parting in the middle of it. It never seemed to grow long, and yet it never looked as if it had been cut. Mr. ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... a dandy by instinct, a good dresser by the force of original genius; a first-rate tyer of cravats on the involuntary principle. When a boy at Eton, in 1790, he acquired his first distinction not by "longs and shorts," but by the singular nicety of his stock with a gold buckle, the smart cut of his coat, and his finished study of manners. Others might see glory only through hexameters and pentameters; renown might await others only through boating or cricket; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... treatment of the private acts of royal personages by lacquey History, there is, in the minds of the ultra-civilized, an insistance, that any event having a consequence in matters personal to them, be at all hazards recorded with the utmost nicety in decency. By such means, they preserve the ceremonial self-respect, which is a necessity of their existence; and so they maintain the regal elevation over the awe-struck subjects of their interiors; who might otherwise revolt, pull down, scatter, dishonour, expose for a shallow fiction ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my hasty record be an error, it will be deemed by my friends, I hope, a pardonable one. My book can scarcely demand the serious attention of the critic; nor could criticism well expect a better style from one whose profession is seldom supposed to allow much leisure to acquire nicety in the arts of composition. I claim no other merit for my Notes than having followed the advice (of Gray, I believe) that ten words put down at the moment upon the spot, are worth a whole cart load of recollections. I have not ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in his last appearance. It is a singular fact—which seems to point still more directly to inspiration in your case—that your missionary actually resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... others who do a fire-eating act, calculate to a nicety just how long a certain fire will burn. And they do not place the blazing material into the mouth until the flames are almost on the point of going out of themselves. This, added to the fact that a chemical solution protects the tongue and lips, makes the act comparatively ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... released from all responsibility, except that of keeping my line taut, could put my whole mind on his performance. There is a little the same sort of pleasure in watching the skillful handling of a rod that there is in watching the bow-action of a violinist. Both things demand the utmost nicety of adjustment: body, arm, wrist, fingers uniting in an interplay of efficiency exactly adapted to the intricately shifting needs ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... exactly amid channel, and then made a sign to cut the bush-rope that held the canoe to the fallen tree. The canoe drove down the torrent with inconceivable rapidity. It did not touch the rocks once all the way. The Indian proved to a nicety: "medio tutissimus ibis." ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... exhibited; silk- weaving factories where fine fabrics are made on the simplest of looms; feather shops where breastpins and other ornaments are made of tiny bits of feathers on a silver base—a work requiring almost incredible nicety of vision and such strain upon the eyes that the operators often become blind by forty. Another curiosity is a shop where crickets are reared for fighting as the Filipino fights cocks and the Anglo-Saxon fights dogs. The Chinese gamble on the result and a good fighting cricket is sometimes ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... way to the door and tugged at the handle. The door would not open; built with air-tight nicety, it did not budge in ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table, his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable a beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as he gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty and coarseness of her surroundings. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... turned out a neat half-dozen skilful, miniature models of the New England deep dish apple-pie, pricked and pinched to a nicety. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... and variations of innovating speculation with any marked nicety. Anything with the stamp of rationality on its phrases or arguments was roughly set down to the school of the philosophers, and Rousseau was counted one of their number, like Voltaire or Helvetius. The Emilius appeared in May 1762. On the 11th of June ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... little ledge of snow. Reaching out further, he broke the crust obliquely just above, and having packed the snow as well as he could immediately about, and moving lengthwise with an infinite caution, he crawled up the few inches to the narrow ledge, balancing his stiff body with a nicety possible ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... exaggerating her faults and taking delight in recounting her failures. She was too familiar with every detail of the business for her men to dare to neglect her interests too flagrantly, but they had learned to a nicety how high their percentage of losses might run without getting their ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... planting is estimated by so many cart-loads; and nothing can be more vague than this mode of computation, for the load which a cart can carry depends upon the condition of the oxen, upon the nature of the road, and upon the length of the cane. Such is the awkward make of these vehicles, that much nicety is necessary in packing them, and if two canes will about fit into a cart lengthways, much more will be conveyed than if the canes are longer and ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... was opened by a short, thin woman, of dark complexion, small peering black eyes, and slick, shining hair of the same hue, which was arranged with an air of nicety and precision. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... show, probably, that, although we were in the vast wilderness, all fastidious nicety had not been left behind, took up the plate which had been set before him, and, seeing something adhering to it which did not exactly please him, handed it over his shoulder to Grignon, requesting him ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of the triglyphs between them were considered of the greatest importance. The exquisite drapery of caryatids and canephorae, no English artist, a hundred years ago, thought fit to imitate; but the cornices which they supposed were measured inch by inch with the utmost nicety. Ingenious devices were invented for enabling the artificer to reproduce, by a series of complicated curves, the profile of a Doric capital, which probably owed its form to the steady hand and uncontrolled taste of the designer. To put faith in many of the theories propounded ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... carelessness, that evening saw a great deal of nicety bestowed upon the operation of wrapping up and sending off the song. He dropped it into the box and heard it fall, and with the curious power which he possessed of setting his wisdom to watch any particular folly in himself that it could not hinder, speculated as ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... own resources. Taking but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations, which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure deprived of the comfort and advantage ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... were also black with a spark in them. What was the spark? It was, Raven concluded again, in this quick scrutiny, like that in the eyes of inventors and visionaries. He wore clothes so threadbare that it seemed as if he must have been cold. But they were patched with a scrupulous nicety that made some revulsion in Raven rise up and dramatically spur him to a new resentment. She had patched them. Her faithful needle had spent its art on this murderer of her peace. He had reached the woodpile now and ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... in his parlour waiting for us. From the parlour we went to the new study, and here I felt more at ease, for I went to see the Philosopher in his study, and not in his drawing-room. But even this room had too much the look of nicety to be an author's sanctum; and I inquired and was soon informed by Mrs. Dick, that I should have a ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... and secretions involved, but something sends the messages and it is something that has a remarkable likeness to mind as we usually think of mind,—something which takes advantage of the past and gages means to an end with a nicety that excites ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... calculus juries (heaven help them! say I) can calculate damages "almost to a nicety," and further that it is made abundantly evident that c e x is "the general expression for an individual," it is noted that the number of the Beast is not given in the Revelation in words at length, but as [Greek: chxw'].[163] On this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... It grew to be allowed that there must be courage in the fortress, and a gift of leadership. All was seen confusedly, but with a mounting, mounting interest. The world gaped at the far-borne clang and smoke and roar. Military men in clubs demonstrated to a nicety just how long the fortress might hold out, and just how it must be taken at last. Schoolboys fought over again in the schoolyards the battles with the heathenish names. The Emperor of the French and the King ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank among artists when he began, and he never varied the process. With what delicacy he bruised the mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated the ingredients; with what solicitous care he capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing against the dark green fringe! And then the hospitality and grace with which he offered it, after the selected oat straws had been plunged into ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... its broad muzzle and wide nostrils, its smooth, black coat, and its feet, webbed like ducks—skinned the game, and put it at once upon the spit. When the meat was cooked to a nicety, I covered it over to protect it from insects, and then proposed retiring, for I foresaw that the Indian would be unable to carry his load the next day, and that either Sumichrast's patience or mine would be taxed ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... the kitchen to drink coffee. There was no time to wait for any nicety of service. They stood outside the window and the cook passed them their coffee and a roll, which they drank and ate from the window-sill. Edna ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... compliment upon the elegance of his illustration, when a look of pain upon Miss Warren's face checked me, and I said nothing. Lack of delicacy was one of Mr. Hearn's gravest faults. While courtly, polished, and refined in externals, he lacked in tact and nicety of discrimination. He often said things which a finer-fibred but much worse man would never have said. He had an abundance of intellect, great shrewdness, vast will force, and organizing power, but not much ideality or imagination. This lack rendered him incapable of putting himself in the place ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... or the disabled body of a living person, is considered the third in the scale of honours. These things are regulated, among the Indians, with the nicety which attends the distribution of academical prizes at ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a half-brick in thickness on the soffit and not being tied by a bond to anything behind them—for behind them is the lintel with rough discharging arch over, supporting the remaining width of the wall—require to be executed with great care and nicety. It is a common fault with workmen to rub the bricks thinner behind than before to lessen the labour required to obtain a very fine face joint. This practice tends to make the work bulge outwards; it should rather be inverted if it be done at all, though the best work is that in which the bricks ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... under; the offices in the gift of the President might very well be reckoned on to supply the beef which should lead by their noses the weary expectants whose hunger might be too strong for their nicety of stomach; and the pinch of salt,—why could not that be found in the handful of Republicans who might be drawn over by love of notoriety, private disgusts, or that mixture of motives which has none of the substance of opinion, much ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... silent as they picked their way gingerly; their advance required a nicety and precision of step which permitted of no talking or examination of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... in the middle of the vast square was the farm house belonging to Mr. Wright. It was quite a respectable building, two stories high, with flat roof, and constructed entirely of rough logs, yet fitted together with considerable pretensions to skill and nicety. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Q. 145] pertains to virtue. Now a certain honesty is observed in the outward apparel; for Ambrose says (De Offic. i, 19): "The body should be bedecked naturally and without affectation, with simplicity, with negligence rather than nicety, not with costly and dazzling apparel, but with ordinary clothes, so that nothing be lacking to honesty and necessity, yet nothing be added to increase its beauty." Therefore there can be virtue and vice in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... in the way of small-talk—for the hostess felt a certain unwilling hesitation to approach the topic of daughters—but it happened to suit the social purpose of Miss Chetwynd to a nicety. Miss Chetwynd was a vessel ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... toward humanitarianism. It is difficult to analyze a living thing; the analysis is at best imperfect. Many more motives may blend with the three trends; possibly the desire for a new form of social success due to the nicety of imagination, which refuses worldly pleasures unmixed with the joys of self-sacrifice; possibly a love of approbation, so vast that it is not content with the treble clapping of delicate hands, but wishes also to hear the bass notes from toughened ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... are not in one piece but composed of forty or fifty. The French burrs which Tibbald preferred come over in fragments, and these are carefully fitted together and stuck with plaster of Paris. Such work required great nicety: the old millwright was, in fact, a kind of artist in ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the Academy of Sciences, Paris, stoutly maintained that it was due to ventriloquism or some other trickery. It was evident, however, that before the phonograph could become a practical instrument, further improvements in the nicety of its articulation were required. The introduction of the electric light diverted Mr. Edison from the task of improving it, although he does not seem to have lost faith in his pet invention. During the next ten years he accumulated a large fortune, and was the principal means of introducing ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... to a group of fifty or more listeners; at evening, sweet singing, riddles, jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic conundrums and satirical responses. Many found interest and pleasure in carving with the utmost nicety wood or bone.[12] ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... you would see this Lewis Baboon behind his counter, selling broad-cloth, sometimes measuring linen; next day he would be dealing in mercery-ware; high heads, ribbons, gloves, fans, and lace, he understood to a nicety ... nay, he would descend to the selling of tapes, garters, and shoebuckles. When shop was shut up he would go about the neighborhood, and earn half-a-crown, by teaching the young men and maidens to dance. ...
— 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.
... and overcome by these cruel attacks, which had been calculated with the greatest nicety and precision, hardly knew what to answer in return; she even seemed to have lost all power of thought. Her perfidious friend's voice had assumed the most affectionate tone; she spoke as a woman, but concealed the instincts of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to symbol Time, mantelpiece decorations, illustrated editions of her favourite authors; her bed-chambers, too, gave the nest for sleep a dainty cosiness in aerial draperies. Hence, more or less directly, the peccant bills. Credit was reduced to reckon to a nicety the amount she could rely on positively: her fixed income from her investments and the letting of The Crossways: the days of half-yearly payments that would magnify her to some proportions beside the alarming growth of her partner, who was proud of it, and referred her to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Old Testament we find several passages more elevated and sublime than any in Homer. At the same time that we allow a greater and more daring genius to the ancients, we must own that the greatest of them very much failed in, or, if you will, that they were much above the nicety and correctness of the moderns. In their similitudes and allusions, provided there was a likeness, they did not much trouble themselves about the decency of the comparison: thus Solomon resembles the nose of his beloved to the tower ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... harm, but they were silly and flippant, and enjoyed evading rules simply for the fun of the thing. Netta loved to show off before the others, and because she found Miss Gascoyne an easier victim than Miss Douglas, she kept most of her sallies for the junior teacher. She could estimate to a nicety the fine distinction between giving trouble and open defiance. She never actually overstepped the line, but she contrived to make matters very unpleasant for poor Winnie. It was her boast that she could always raise a spark ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... his toilet,[778]—which Of these is not exactly ascertained,— (I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained,) A lamp burned high, while he leant from a niche, Where many a Gothic ornament remained, In chiselled stone and painted glass, and all That Time has left our fathers of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... gentleman (Gamba, Testi di Lingua), calls the version of Apuleius "rude and curious;"[3] but adds, that it contains "expressions full of liveliness and propriety." By "rude" is probably meant obsolete, and comparatively unlearned. Correctness of interpretation and classical nicety of style (as Mr. Panizzi observes) were the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... with every nerve and muscle at concert pitch. The man moved forward, with hand outstretched invitingly. The Wolfhound moved backward, with hackles slightly raised. Thus they followed each other round the little yard perhaps six times, the distance between them being maintained with nicety and precision by Finn. Then Matey's mental inferiority appeared. He was expecting very shortly now the man from whom he hoped to receive his reward—the price of Finn. His intelligence, such as it was, told him that strategy would now be necessary to enable ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... excuse for it. On the other hand, he recognized Tom as almost indispensable; he could put a lick and polish on the maharajah's troops that no amount of cursing and coaxing by their own officers accomplished. Tom understood to a nicety that drift of the Rajput's martial mind that caused each sepoy to believe himself the equal of any other Rajput man, but permitted him to tolerate ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... next "a tyrant"; but when his whole work was done, a careful survey of it could bring one only to the conclusion that he knew when to follow and when to lead. He was in complete touch with popular sentiment, and divined with nicety when he could take a step in advance. He made an effort to keep on good terms with Congress, and he differed with that body reluctantly, although, when the necessity came, decisively. While he had consideration for those who did not agree with him, and while he acted always with a regard to ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report, And smell of calumny. I have begun; And now I give my sensual race the rein: 160 Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he must not only die the death, 165 But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... they would call her back, and that they would all come into the hall with David to see the effect of his surprise upon her. She had planned to a nicety just which stair she could reach before they got there, and where she would pause and turn and poise, and what pose she would take with her round white arm stretched to the handrail, the sleeve turned carelessly back. She had ready her countenances, ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... in this fabric (if I may be allowed to go on with my simile), a boudoir, a hall, or a staircase; and fix a critical eye upon a recess badly contrived, an oval badly turned, or pillars weakly put together:—the builder says, Don't look at these parts of the fabric with such fastidious nicety; they are subordinate. If my boudoir will hold a moderate collection of old-fashioned Dresden China, if my staircase be stout enough to conduct you and your company to the upper rooms; and, if my hall be spacious enough to hold the hats, umbrellas and walking-sticks of your largest ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... carpet-bed lies largely in its unity, sharp contrast and harmony of color, elegance—often simplicity—of design, nicety of execution, and the continued distinctness of outline due to scrupulous care. A generous allowance of green-sward on all sides contributes greatly to the general effect,—in ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... it appears that those whose object was the transmutation of metals, very frequently joined to this pursuit the study of astrology, and even the practice of sorcery. So much delicacy and nicety were supposed to be required in the process for the transmutation of metals, that it could not hope to succeed but under a favourable conjunction of the planets; and the most flourishing pretenders to the art boasted that they had also ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... and Nettie herself sat by the child's bedside—Nettie, all alert and vigorous, in the little room, which, homely as its aspect was, displayed even to the doctor's uninitiated glance a fastidious nicety of arrangement which made it harmonious with that little figure. Nettie was singing childish songs to solace the little invalid's retirement—the "fox that jumped up on a moonlight night," the "frog that would a-wooing go"—classic ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... relations tangled up, requiring many explanations, and maybe apologies, and leaving unpleasant memories for a long time to come. Such incidents have not been infrequent. Nations are very sensitive. Governmental affairs must be handled with great nicety. There would be a second thing which if I were a wise enough man to be an ambassador I would likely do. I would go to see John Hay and Joseph H. Choate, and have as many interviews with them as possible, and learn all ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... machine motion can be applied to any organ or part of the system, and intensity of the application regulated to a nicety. The rapidity of motion necessary to produce active exhilaration of any part of the body is easily secured by the use of the manipulator, but is far beyond the power of the hands. The degree of circulation given to the fluids, both inside and outside of the vessels, and of energy imparted ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... something monastic about it; the walls, hung with a cheap glazed cotton selected with taste, of a color which harmonized with the furniture and was newly covered, gave the room an air of elegance and nicety. In the hallway he added a double door, with a "portiere" to the inner one. The window was shaded by a blind which gave soft tones to the light. If the poor mother's life was reduced to the plainest circumstances that the life of any woman could have in Paris, Agathe was at least better off ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the most useful and accessible in Great Britain;" and Mr. Watson found in a few of the books Porson's handwriting, consisting of critical remarks and notes. In a copy of the Aldine "Herodotus," he has marked the chapters in the margin in Arabic numerals "with such nicety and regularity," says his biographer, "that the eye of the reader, unless upon the closest examination, takes them ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Universalist society, she rejoiced cordially as if a temple of Baal or an idol of Ashtaroth had been overturned. Yes, grandma was Puritanical—not to the extent of persecution, but a Puritan in the severity of her faith and in the exacting nicety of her interpretation of her duties to God and mankind. Grandma's Sunday began at six o'clock Saturday evening; by that hour her house was swept and garnished, and her lamps trimmed, every preparation ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... round a table in a private room. 'The wonderfully minute and exact acquaintance with every detail of the system' possessed by the civilians 'made an ineffaceable impression' upon his mind. They knew, 'to a nicety, the history, the origin and object of every provision in the code.' The discussions were consequently an 'education not only in the history of British India but in the history of laws and institutions ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... again in a moment, bearing a great chair, which they set with nicety at the door of the carriage. This done, the gapers saw what they had come to see. For an instant, the face that all England knew and all Europe feared—but blanched, strained, and drawn with pain—showed in the opening. For a second the crowd was gratified with a glimpse ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Oh, let's hang all spinsters who are brightly reproving," Claire was silently raging. "And particularly and earnestly confound all nicety and discretion ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... The Brigade transport had been guided and collected to a spot where it could safely be of service to the battalions. Moreover, when the men arrived they found tea waiting for them already brewed. Apparently the hour of the men's arrival had been timed to such a nicety that the meal was just ready for them. Assuming the truth of Napoleon's maxim about an army marching on its belly, one can easily see from these pages that if Staff work had in any way failed, or if the Army Service Corps had broken down, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... and her fore and aft canvas a-shiver. Instinctively I sprang to the wheel and put it well over, just in time to pay the vessel off again; but it was fully half an hour before I had again hit off the exact position of the wheel with sufficient nicety to allow of its being again lashed, and the brig once more left to ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... with much! Though not adjusted with nicety, at least you are strongly built. I wonder whether you were born a bear or whether you have come to it through your rustic life, with its tilling of crops and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that, even if you had received a fashionable education, and had mixed with society, and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... an officer could be a man among his men, yet lose not one jot of his dignity. Accordingly, Frazer set himself to the task in band. By the time he had been at Piquetberg Road for two days, he knew the name and face of every man in his squadron. A week later he could tell to a nicety which of his men were engaged to girls at home, which of them had heard of one Rudyard Kipling, and which of them could be counted upon in an emergency. The two latter counts Weldon filled absolutely. In regard to the first, Frazer permitted himself a moment of ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... respecting it, than simply to remark, that even if the apostles had gone on the opposite extreme of what I meant I should not think them 'deserving of no credit.' Supposing they had descended into minutiae, and related, to an exact nicety, every particular circumstance (which is exactly the reverse of what I mean to state), would they on this account have been deserving of no credit? I think not. Considering the time, however, which had elapsed after the ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... and I kin hand him out some coffee and some meat, if that'll do him," she said, and Chi Foxy seated himself. The breakfast she brought him on a chipped plate was all he could have desired. There was a half of a veal cutlet, browned to a nicety, a portion of fried potatoes, a thick slice of bread without butter, and a cup of coffee. Chi ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... [Good taste.] Taste. — N. taste; good taste, refined taste, cultivated taste; delicacy, refinement, fine feeling, gust, gusto, tact, finesse; nicety &c. (discrimination) 465; [Grk]; polish, elegance, grace. judgment, discernment &c. 465. dilettantism, dilettanteism; virtu; fine art; culture, cultivation. [Science of taste] aesthetics. man of taste &c.; connoisseur, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... of subjects. In the present anthology will be found ballads, love-songs, elegies, as well as short stanzas composed with the strictest economy of word and phrase. These we must characterize as epigrams. They are gems, polished with almost passionless nicety and fastidious care. They remind us very much of Roman poetry under the later Empire, and many of them might have been written by Martial, at the court of Domitian. They contain references to court doings, compliments, and sentiments couched in pointed language. The drama ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... chicken, roasted on a spit before an open fire in the kitchen so tiny that there was scarcely room for the cook and his attendants to move about. Yet here, they prepared the elaborate dinners, served with the utmost nicety, in which Romans delighted. "It is different from anything ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... as fresh as possible, without being too wealthy looking," she said with a smile as she laid out her newest blouse and brushed her hat with great nicety when the hour for getting ready for the tea-party ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther |
