"Slovenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Last Judgment, and before 1584, when the Caracci were working on their frescoes in the Palazzo Fava at Bologna—that is to say, between the last of the genuine Renaissance paintings and the first of the Revival—nearly half a century elapsed, during which art sank into a slough of slovenly and soulless putrescence.[215] Every city of Italy swarmed with artists, adequately educated in technical methods, and apt at aping the grand style of their masters. But in all their work there is nothing felt, nothing thought out, nothing expressed, nothing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... exceedingly rich, about ten years before, they had made a grand tour of the hotels of this country and Europe. By so doing Mrs. Parsons and her daughter felt that they became a part of the social life of the cities which they visited. Although they had been used to plain, if not slovenly, house-keeping before the money came, both the wife and daughter had evolved into connoisseurs of modish and luxurious hotel apparatus and garniture. They had learned to revel in many courses, radiantly upholstered parlors, and a close acquaintance with the hotel register. Society ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... about the Lascars. I could not help fancying that they all had a more than usually sulky manner. When ordered to do any duty, they generally gave a scowling glance towards the officers, and performed it in a slovenly, indifferent manner. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... always harping on the same subject, her approaching death. She spoke gravely with an unpleasant smile, even with an angry face which would not allow any contradiction. She had been smart and fashionable in her dress, but now in view of her approaching death she became slovenly; she did not read, she did not laugh, she did not dream aloud. What was more she drove with her aunt to the cemetery and selected a spot for her tomb. Five days before her confinement she made her will. ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and females, is black, glossy, and straight. The men usually wear it rather long, and allow it to hang about their heads in a loose and slovenly manner. The women pride themselves extremely on the length and thickness of their hair; and it was not without reluctance on their part, and the same on that of their husbands, that they were induced to dispose of any of it. Some of the women's hair was tolerably fine, but would not, in this ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was speaking of him. He found "My son Benjamin" to be little and lean, and buttoned-up slovenly in a frowsy old great-coat that fell down to his ragged carpet-slippers. His eyes were very watery, his cheeks very pale, and his lips very red. His breathing was so uncommonly loud, that it sounded almost like a snore. His head rolled helplessly in the monstrous big collar of his great-coat; and ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... cloth and kerseys sufficient for their own consumption. The men are about the middle size, generally spare built and active; the women, on the contrary, are very stout and short. They are very lively and hospitable, but very slovenly in their houses and cookery. In short, they appear a different race from the English. A stranger going above the Falls, finds himself suddenly among a new race of people, different in their language, religion, ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... They're all right when they come North to college, but of all the hangdog, ill-dressed, slovenly lot I ever saw, a bunch of small-town ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... live contented upon an income somewhat less than he had formerly given to his groom—preached very short sermons to a very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of whom only understood Welsh—did good to the poor and sick in his own careless, slovenly way—and, uncheered or unvexed by wife and children, he rose in summer with the lark and in winter went to bed at nine precisely, to save coals and candles. For the rest, he was the most skilful angler in the whole county; and so willing to communicate the results ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... familiarity, and hence our enjoyment. The mere scientific inquiry into the difference between originals and copies, into the connection between master and pupil, makes us alive to the special qualities which can delight us. As long as we looked in a manner so slovenly that a spurious Botticelli could pass for a genuine one, we could evidently never benefit by the special quality, the additional excellence of Botticelli's own work. And similarly in the case of archaeology. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... bad-tempered grooms make nervous, bad-tempered horses; rough and noisy cattle-men, fidgety cows; ill-trained dogs and savage shepherds, sheep wild and difficult to approach; so does the bad-tempered, impatient, or slovenly master make men with the same bad qualities, when a smile or a kind word will bring out all that is good in a man and produce the best ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for misdemeanor, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... mown early, for the younger and greener the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when it is hay, and the seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as when left late; advice which many slovenly farmers need to-day. He does not approve of the custom of reaping rye and wheat high up and mowing them after, but advises that they be cut clean; barley and oats, however, should be commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at Michaelmas, and were cast ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... were, in her opinion, "indolent slugs, who guard, by liming it over, the snug place which they consider in the light of an hereditary estate," and "idle vermin who two or three times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner, a service which they think useless, but call their duty." She believed in the spirit, but not in the letter of the law. The scriptural account of the creation is for her "Moses' poetical story," and she supposes ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of the village, that enjoy the peculiar confidence of Master Simon, is one who has struck my fancy so much that I have thought him worthy of a separate notice. It is Slingsby, the schoolmaster, a thin, elderly man, rather threadbare and slovenly, somewhat indolent in manner, and with an easy, good-humoured look, not often met with in his craft. I have been interested in his favour by a few anecdotes which I have ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... themselves on her; How his brothers soon Call her "wasteful one"; How his sisters next Call her "giddy one"; 20 How his father growls, "Greedy little bear!" How his mother snarls, "Cannibal!" at her. She is "slovenly" And "disorderly," ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... and some of them nodded and said "Howdy do" as he passed. He entered the parlor on the right of the long hall which ran through the centre of the main wing. A slovenly negro girl was sweeping the hearth. She leaned her broom against the cottage organ and went to call ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... disagreeable similes being applied to her, the young lady, who aspires to be a good rider, should, even from her first lesson in the art, strive to obtain a proper deportment on the saddle. She ought to be correct, without seeming stiff or formal: and easy, without appearing slovenly. The position we have described, subject to occasional variations, will be found, by experience, to be the most natural and graceful mode of sitting a horse:—it is easy to the rider and her steed; and enables the former to govern the actions of the latter so effectually, in all ordinary ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... anchored under the shelter of a small battery. As there is nothing like making hay whilst the sun shines, we at once headed straight for the anchorage, and, trusting to the extreme roguishness of our own appearance to put our enemies off their guard, began to shorten sail in a somewhat slovenly fashion, as though we were about to bring up. Then, passing under the stern of our quarry we luffed up into the wind, shot alongside the craft, hove our grappling-irons into her rigging, and, whilst our boarders were still busy driving her astonished crew ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... chocolate-colored negress, enters. She is slovenly in appearance, but must not in any way denote the "mammy." She is the type one encounters in cheap theatrical lodging-houses. She has a letter in her hand,—also a ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... very capable person who hated dust and grime. The big house wanted some such intervention, as since the butler's departure it had become rather slovenly, save in the portions occupied by Mrs. Rossiter. Charwomen were got in, and spring cleanings on a gigantic scale took place, so that when Rossiter did return he thought it had never looked so nice, or his Linda been ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... were less capable, some snappish, some without authority. The housekeeper, who should have been chosen with the greatest care, since in her hands lay the whole management and preparation of the food of these growing children, was a slovenly, wasteful woman, taken from Mr. Wilson's kitchen, and much believed in by himself. Nevertheless to her door must we lay much of the misery ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... ever lived in London without having occasion to complain of the dearness and badness of labour. The chief object of the town artisan is to do as little work as possible. He is absolutely without conscience in his work, and all that he does is slovenly. He surveys a job, and meditates upon it for an hour—at your expense; begins it, and goes away to fetch a tool that he has forgotten—the time of his absence being duly charged against you; procrastinates and dawdles; sits down to read the paper, if no ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... the Japanese which will not be improved by contact with foreigners, and especially with Americans, is thoroughness. This trait is seen on every hand in Japan. Nothing is built in a slovenly way, whether for private use or for the government. The artisan never scamps his work. He seems to have retained the old mechanic's pride in doing everything well which he sets his hand to do. This ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... been the fashion, too, to say that he was slovenly, and careless in his dress. This also is a mistake. His clothes could not fit smoothly on his gaunt and bony frame. He was no tailor's figure of a man; but from the first he clothed himself as well as his means allowed, and in the fashion of ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... product of striving to do things with defective psychic impulsion is fatigue in its common forms, which slows down the pace, multiplies errors and inaccuracies, and develops slovenly habits, ennui, flitting will specters, velleities and caprices, and neurasthenic symptoms generally. It brings restlessness, and a tendency to many little heterogeneous, smattering efforts that ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... fitted on, and all of a piece, till it all looks as if it had grown by nature itself upon the well-dressed wearer. Be like him—be like her—so runs the third head of the etiquette-card. Be not slovenly and disorderly and unseemly in your livery. Let not your livery be always falling off, and catching on every bush and briar, and dropping into every pool and ditch. Hold yourselves in hand, the instruction ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... church, which is according to the mind of Jesus Christ, is not without much molestation and displeasure to men's corrupt nature. It is a very purgatory upon earth: it is like the fire to drossy silver, and like fuller's soap to slovenly persons, who would rather keep the spots in their garments than take pains ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... some of his books, it is true, are very hurried productions, finished in haste for the market with no great amount either of inspiration or artistic confidence about them. But little slovenly work will be found bearing his name, for he was a thoroughly trained writer; a suave and seductive workmanship had become a second nature to him, and there was always a flavour of scholarly, subacid and quasi-ironical modernity about his style. There is little doubt that his ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... remember what I said at the "Nature" dinner. I scolded the young fellows pretty sharply for their slovenly writing. [A brief report of this speech is to be found in the "British Medical Journal" for December 8, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... prevaricating solicitors, and other such vermin; but they were so civil as to send me word by an interpreter that they are all mine already. Besides, our master Lucifer is so cloyed with their souls that he often sends them back to the smutty scullions and slovenly devils of his kitchen, and they scarce go down with them, unless now and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... morais being in a ruinous condition, and bearing evident marks of neglect. The people of Atooi, again, inter both their common dead and human sacrifices, as at Tongataboo; but they resemble those of Otaheite in the slovenly state of their religious places, and in offering vegetables ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... other half Sheet is—that—Yes! I wish very much for your Translation of the Vita Nuova, which I did read in a slovenly (slovenly with Dante!) way twenty or thirty years ago, but which I did not at all understand. I should know much more about it now ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... considerations, and complacently to reject the reality of anything else, was horrible. Not a thing did Mrs. Brangwen care about, but the children, the house, and a little local gossip. And she would not be touched, she would let nothing else live near her. She went about, big with child, slovenly, easy, having a certain lax dignity, taking her own time, pleasing herself, always, always doing things for the children, and feeling that she thereby ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... remained there he could not have stated, when from the steps beneath him, leading towards the water, he heard a man's slovenly voice. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed, demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. He seemed in a deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from him with a swish and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the recumbent figure; a prairie hen rustled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... labour of her deliberate art; but with the general tone of all the critics she had every reason to be as content as her letters show her to have been. Only two criticisms rankled: the one that she was a follower of Tennyson, the other that her rhymes were slovenly and careless. And these appeared, in varying shapes, in nearly ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the exigencies of the State required them to contribute. Those expectations began to vanish soon after they had been formed, and at the present time we see the previously rich agricultural plains of Russia, abandoned, as they almost wholly are, to the slovenly husbandry of a rude and greatly demoralized peasantry, deteriorating from year to year in the quality of their produce, and thereby opposing less and less impediment to the successful competition of other corn-growing countries.[25] The great fall that has taken place in the value of Russian cereals ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... personal representative. The quality of the paper, the kind of printing or engraving, the mechanical make-up—all these things contribute to the IMPRESSION a letter makes upon the recipient even BEFORE THE MESSAGE IS READ. Many letters come to nothing because their dress is unattractive, cheap, slovenly; and so progressive business men are learning to select their stationery with care to insure for it both tone and dignity. The kind of paper to select—the size, the tint and the quality—is described and explained in the ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c. (unconformable) 83; acephalous[obs3], deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical[obs3]; unsymmetric[obs3], unsystematic; untidy, slovenly; dislocated; out of sorts; promiscuous, indiscriminate; chaotic, anarchical; unarranged &c. (see arrange &c. 60)[obs3]; confused; deranged &c. 61; topsy-turvy &c. (inverted) 218; shapeless &c. 241; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as his own, so he took his place bravely ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... There is not another like it in the country, perhaps in the world. The next time his majesty, the Tsar, requests my presence, I shall inform him that the violin is here in his fortress, stolen by a slovenly, insolent official, who doesn't know a violin from a block of wood, or a note from a pin head." His eyes drooped again. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... frontier, which is here an imaginary line. Two slovenly customs-house men asked me if I had anything dutiable on me. I said No, and it was evident enough, for in my little sack or pocket was nothing but a piece of bread. If they had applied the American test, and searched me for money, then indeed they could have turned me back, and I should ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... unmade my bed Though the day has begun to wear! 'What a slovenly hussif!' it will be said, When they all ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... a few seconds, and then the door was thrown wide open and a slovenly woman, with a snuff stick in one corner of her mouth, came out, followed by four children. The youngest three clung to her skirts and stared, with fearful eyes, at the man on the horse, while he of the tousled head threw stones at the dog and commanded him, in a shrill voice, to "shet ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... a citizen and as a member of an "exalted profession." If he sees only the patients he himself treats or one particular malady, he is derelict as a teacher, no matter how charming his personality or how skilled in his specialty. If a school physician is slovenly in his work, if he spends fifteen minutes when he is paid for an hour, should the efficient school-teacher conceal the fact from her superiors because he is a physician? If private hospitals misrepresent ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... and working for a revival. Let everything be done to make our ordinary services very attractive. Let our Choirs, and those who have charge of the musical part of the services, do their part to make the singing pleasant and lively. It is a grievous thing to note how slovenly this part of the service is in some places. For instance, in many chapels where they have a chant-book, the run is on three or four. It is a symptom of inertness when STELLA is sung as though it were the only 6-8's tune. ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... tell you that?" Norgate protested. "Whatever my feeling for England may be at the present moment, however bitterly I may regret the way she has let her opportunities slip, the slovenly political condition of the country, yet I cannot put away from me the fact that I am an Englishman. If trouble should come, even though I may have helped to bring it about, even though I may believe that it is ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to sell his last piece of property here. I very nearly met him in Switzerland, and was very anxious not to. Though I hope he will deign to recognise me. He wrote letters to me in the old days, he has been in my house. I should like you to dress better, Stepan Trofimovitch; you're growing more slovenly every day.... Oh, how you torment me! What ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the wanderer comes to those houses where people work alone or by twos. They work in a slovenly fashion. The alchemistic quacks are generally called "bunglers" and "messy cooks" by the masters of the art. These are the ones who do not work according to the "possibilities of nature," which is, nevertheless, the touchstone of ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... about in our pockets, which, he said, could not but be much more nauseous and offensive, than to see it thrown away, as we did all other evacuations. I found that what he said was not altogether without reason, and by being frequently in his company, that slovenly action of his was at last grown familiar to me; which nevertheless we make a face at, when we hear it reported of another country. Miracles appear to be so, according to our ignorance of nature, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to allow my old Mary Jane to be slovenly either. But I will manage the job myself if old folks and old boats are not worth ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... somewhat Spanish type. They still wear the traditional hood, a black scarf, called a "Faldetta," thrown over the head and shoulders, and disposed in such a style as to exhibit the countenance of the wearer in the most alluring form. Although picturesque in the distance, they are very slovenly in their hair and dress on closer acquaintance, and generally exhibit the traces of their Oriental origin. They are great experts in the making of Maltese lace, for which they have won a world-wide reputation, and their native filigree work is also very famous and very beautiful. Churches (where ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... merit. Garrick, on going with Woodward to see his Richard with a view of being amused, owned that he was astonished at the genius and power he saw struggling to make itself felt through the burden of ill-training, uncouth gestures, and an ungraceful and slovenly figure. He was generous enough to own that all the merit there was in his own playing of Richard he had drawn from studying this less fortunate ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... and it is very much to be wished that there were more journalists like him. For from the two great reproaches of the craft to which so many of us belong, and which seems to be gradually swallowing up all other varieties of literary occupation, he was conspicuously free. He never did work slovenly in form, and he never did work that was not in one way or other consistent with a decided set of literary and political principles. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the unprincipled character of journalism, no doubt; and nobody knows better than those who have some experience ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... or disorderly conduct in quarters, failure to salute officers, slovenly dressed at formations, rifle equipments not properly cleaned at inspection or other formations, overstaying pass, short absences without leave and absences from formations ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... ought to characterize the soldier. If he allowed to be retrenched, or indeed left unemployed, any of that military exhibition, which tends to impress upon the many the moral superiority of the few, where, he argued, would be their safety in the hour of need; and if those duties were performed in a slovenly manner, and without due regard to SCENIC effect, the result would be to induce the wily savage to undervalue that superiority which discipline chiefly secured to the white warrior. Captain Headley was ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... recall many such scenes as this, my dear child. And perhaps I should say that my mind was, and has always remained, with my mother on such matters. If God gives food for the use of His creatures, it is to His honour and glory to serve it handsomely, so far as may be; and I see little religion in a slovenly piece of meat, or a shapeless hunch of butter on a ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... fists—both clenching confidently his own argument, and ready for action; the very drawing back of one leg, and protrusion of the other, is indicative of testy impatience. The vicar is a little too loose and slovenly, both in attitude and attire; the uniting of the figures (artistically speaking) is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... side of the bay, to the palace of the Lord High Commissioner on the east. Most of the streets run at right angles to each other; the principal, the Strada Real, runs to the gate which forms the chief entrance to the town. The houses are for the most part built in an irregular and slovenly manner; and even the public buildings cannot boast of much beauty. The inhabitants, of the town especially, are a mixture of Greeks and Venetians. In the country the population is more purely Greek. The roads, constructed chiefly by fatigue parties from the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... to Linwood, and consequently I had a severe task of trunk-packing, one of my greatest delights, however. I hate to see any one pack loosely or in a slovenly manner. Perhaps that is the reason I never let any one do it if I am able to stand. This morning was appointed as our day for leaving, but I persuaded her to wait until to-morrow, in hope that either the General, or news from Virginia, would arrive this evening. Bless this village! ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... a prize for something thing or other—if it were not for scholastic proficiency, or exemplary deportment, then it was for personal neatness or something else. The two Burghes, who were grossly ignorant, slothful, perverse, and slovenly, got prizes for the regular attendance, into which they were daily ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... pardoned for having deserted it. She then told me that Barnave's conduct upon the road was perfectly correct, while Potion's republican rudeness was disgusting; that the latter ate and drank in the King's berlin in a slovenly manner, throwing the bones of the fowls out through the window at the risk of sending them even into the King's face; lifting up his glass, when Madame Elisabeth poured him out wine, to show her that there was enough, without ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... envious as he looked at this work, which was as harmonious as music. The slovenly faces of the carriers beamed with smiles, the work was easy, it went on smoothly, and the leader of the chorus was in his best vein. Foma thought that it would be fine to work thus in unison, with good comrades, to the tune of a cheerful song, to get tired from work to drink a glass of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... extremely slovenly in their dress; but the women are rather more correct and uniform, those of the better condition being habited in muslin, and their hair ornamented, and ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... woman was spinning the woof:[40] there was one little servant girl besides;— she was weaving[41] together with them, covered with patched clothes, slovenly, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... soiled nor slovenly, his cream-colored suit had a tossed look, almost linty, as if, traveling night and day from some far country beyond the prairies, he had long been without the solace of a bed. His aspect was at once gentle and jaded, and, from the moment of seating himself, increasing in tired abstraction and dreaminess. ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... generation after generation has finally made some support of this kind indispensable to the average woman. While that matter has not as yet been settled, it is obvious that custom is really responsible for the conviction of many women that they appear slovenly without corsets. On the other hand, not a few women, unmindful of fashion, never wear them; they testify that they are healthier for doing so. Whether this be true or not, no one can honestly believe that corsets will soon be banished; and the practical problem is to distinguish between ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... all recitations the most slovenly and contemptuous; the priest might have been either smiling or sleeping; for his very red face appeared to have nothing in common with his scarcely moving lips; and the assistant looked straight at the trench, half covetously, half vindictively, as if he meant to turn the body out of ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... also awed by this control. She remembered how, when her own mother died, Mrs. Banks had refused to take solid food for a whole day, and the recollection braced her for her cold bath, for fresh linen, for emulation of Aunt Sophia, for everything unlike the slovenly weeping of Mrs. Banks, sitting in the neglected kitchen with a grimy pocket-handkerchief on her lap and the teapot at her elbow; but she knew that the Banksian manner was really natural to her, and the Mallett control, the acceptance, the same eating of breakfast, were ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... subsequent despoiling by King Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, "we may less wonder that so large a fabrick has not had more care taken of it as it ought; for I cannot but say, that it is ill kept in repair, and lies very slovenly in the inside, and several of the windows are stopped up with bricks, and the glazing in others sadly broken; and the boards in the roof of the middle Isle or Nave, which with the Cross Isle is not archt with stone (but wainscotted ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... and leaning over it and fixing his eyes carelessly upon her, asked what she wanted to look at. His tone and manner struck Ellen most unpleasantly, and made her again wish herself out of the store. He was a tall, lank young man, with a quantity of fair hair combed down on each side of his face, a slovenly exterior, and the most disagreeable pair of eyes, Ellen thought, she had ever beheld. She could not bear to meet them, and cast down her own. Their look was bold, ill-bred, and ill-humoured; and Ellen felt, though she couldn't have told why, that she need not ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... here be thought to be a Patron of slovenly Negligence; for there is nothing which breeds a greater Aversion in Men of a Delicate Taste. Yet you know, Sir, that, after all our Care and Caution, the Weakness of our Nature will eternally mix it self in every thing we write; and an over curious Study of being correct, enervates ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... a clean sheet of paper by a lot of scribble. Try and see in your mind's eye the drawing you mean to do, and then try and make your hand realise it, making the paper more beautiful by every touch you give instead of spoiling it by a slovenly manner ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... lay about eight miles to windward at noon; and we have been drifting south and east this twelve hours, through lying to on the starboard tack; and besides, the ship has been conned as slovenly as she is sailed. I've seen her allowed to break off a dozen times, and gather more leeway. Ah! here is Captain Robarts. Captain, you saw the rate we passed the revenue cutter. That vessel was nearly stationary; so what we passed her at was our ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Liverpool Packet, of New Bedford, last from the "off-shore ground,'' with nineteen hundred barrels of oil. A "spouter'' we knew her to be, as soon as we saw her, by her cranes and boats, and by her stump top-gallant-masts, and a certain slovenly look to the sails, rigging, spars, and hull; and when we got on board, we found everything to correspond,— spouter fashion. She had a false deck, which was rough and oily, and cut up in every direction by the chines of oil casks; her rigging ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils like yourself. [Dropping his voice like a man making some shameful confidence] And all the while there goes on a horrible, senseless, mischievous laughter. When you're young, you exchange drinks with other young men; and you exchange vile stories with them; and as you're ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... nails of thy fingers constantly and neatly pared, nor suffer them to grow as some do, who ignorantly imagine that long nails beautify the hand, and account the excess of that excrement simply a finger-nail, whereas it is rather the talon of the lizard-hunting kestrel,—a foul and unsightly object. A slovenly dress betokens a careless mind; or, as in the case of Julius Caesar, it may ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dismissed her cab, and in the interval which elapsed before her ring was answered by a slovenly little servant, who gaped visibly at the lady's hurried request that her name should be taken up to Mr. Oswyn, she had leisure for the first time to realize the strangeness of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... were red and swollen from recent weeping, her face was mottled from her tears. Much trouble had made her careless of late of her prettiness, and now she was disheveled, her apron awry around her waist, her hair mussed, her whole aspect one of slovenly disregard. Her depression was so great that Joe was moved to ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the different individuals, who intended either to bestow or receive edification before the fires of the Bold Dragoon on that evening, were collecting, until the benches were nearly filled with men of different occupations. Dr. Todd and a slovenly-looking, shabby-genteel young man, who took tobacco profusely, wore a coat of imported cloth cut with something like a fashionable air, frequently exhibited a large French silver watch, with a chain of woven hair and a silver key, and who, altogether, seemed ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... me about pillow-cases made without felling," says Mrs. Alexander; "it's slovenly and shiftless. I wouldn't have such a pillow-case in my house any more than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... dressed in a suit, the ground whereof had been black, as I perceived from some few spaces that had escaped the powder, which was incorporated with the greatest part of his coat; his periwig, which cost no smull sum, was after so slovenly a manner cast over his shoulders, that it seemed not to have been combed since the year 1712; his linen, which was not much concealed, was daubed with plain Spanish from the chin to the lowest button, and the diamond upon his finger (which naturally dreaded the water) put me in ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... exacted such things from our butcher over and above good service in his trade, if we insisted that his meat should not only build up honest nerve and muscle, but that it should compensate for all that was slovenly in our homes, dishonest in our economic conditions, and slack and vulgar in our public life, he would very probably say that it took him all his time to supply sound meat, that it was a difficult and honourable thing to supply sound meat, that the slackness of business- men and statesmen ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... apologised for bringing a girl reared in Edinburgh to a place like this. On one of the gates they passed was written "Hiemath," and there was something very characteristic of the jerry-built and decaying place in the cheap sentiment that had been too slovenly to spell its own name correctly. Yet to the left, over the housetops of foul black streets running upwards from the railway-lines, there shone the great silver plain, and afar off a channel set with white sailing-ships and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... gait, a negligent slovenly fellow. To slouch; to hang down one's head. A slouched hat: a hat ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... it. If it be granted, that, in effect, this way does more mischief—that a man is secretly wounded, and, though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious world will find it out for him, yet, there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly butchering of a man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place. A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few moments had gleaned the main facts in connection with the accident and the father and daughter which it had brought so involuntarily under his roof. He was quite sober now, and his speech, although slovenly, was not indelicate. He was still able to pay to woman that respect which curbs the coarseness of a tongue for years subjected to ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of others. Through toys, tools, and books the lesson may be learned so early that it becomes ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... probable that Dekker took decidedly the greater part. The shambling and slipshod metre, which seems now and then to hit by mere chance on some pure and tender note of simple and exquisite melody—the lazy vivacity and impulsive inconsequence of style—the fitful sort of slovenly inspiration, with interludes of absolute and headlong collapse—are qualities by which a very novice in the study of dramatic form may recognize the reckless and unmistakable presence of Dekker. The curt and grim precision of Webster's tone, his terse ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... these nests to pieces for its materials; and place another nest before these canary birds as a pattern, and see if they will make the slightest attempt to imitate their model! No, the result of their labour will, upon instinctive hereditary impulse, be exactly the slovenly little mansion of their race, the same with that which their parents built before themselves were hatched. The Doctor could not do away the force of that single fact, with which his system was incompatible, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... should afford ample concealment when wanted, but should also admit of the head being completely exposed when required. Now, the veil gives abundant concealment, but does not admit of total removal, and is rather inconvenient to the wearer; it is apt to get in the way, and is in danger of causing a slovenly, or even a dirty, appearance; it is more suited for in-door, than for out-of-door use—more for a warm than a cold climate. The hood is the best thing we know of, for combining the two requisites of complete concealment and complete exposure. It unites by its shape all the purposes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Keith. She had never thought of this before. Yes, it was true, he did not pretend. Not in the least, not about anything. When you saw him, you saw at once the worst there was to see. It was afterward that you discovered he was not slovenly, but clean and neat, not badly but well dressed, not homely but handsome, not sickly but soundly well, not physically weak but strong, not dull but vividly alive, not a tiresome void but ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... to run over the several defects of style among us; I shall therefore say nothing of the mean and paltry (which are usually attended by the fustian), much less of the slovenly or indecent. Two things I will just warn you against; the first is the frequency of flat unnecessary epithets, and the other is the folly of using old threadbare phrases, which will often make you go out of your way to find and apply them, are nauseous to rational hearers, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... its chief merit in those articles which present resumes of the past year's events in politics, literature, science, and art. The one on the last-named subject is less complete than could be wished, and is written in rather slovenly English; but the article on literature is very full and satisfactory. A great mass of biographical matter is presented under the title of "Obituaries," but more extended notices of more distinguished persons are given under the proper names. Among the latter are accounts of the lives and public ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... who had a decent regard for his own works, could never have made or passed this slovenly Folio. Yet Mr. Greenwood argues that probably Bungay was still alive and active, after Shakspere was dead and buried. (Mr. Greenwood, of course, does not speak of Bungay, which I use as short for his Great ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... wholesome. The other was an army lieutenant, but Molly promptly quelched her first inclination to address him, as she noted his red, inflamed face and dissipated appearance. As she nibbled, half-heartedly, at the miserable food brought by a slovenly waiter, the two men exchanged barely a dozen words, the lieutenant growling out monosyllabic answers, finally pushing back his chair, and striding out. Again the girl glanced across at the older man, mustering courage to address ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... nervously without making any serious attempt to use them. He had lost all power of concentrating his thoughts or of making any effort to work. Fortunately for him no one had paid any attention to him during the past ten days. His appearance was dishevelled and slovenly, and he was more bent than he had formerly been. His eyes were bleared and glassy as he stared at the table before him, assuming a wild and startled expression when, looking up, he fancied he saw some horrible object gliding quickly across ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... will portray his words with signs of labour and deliberation, while the playful haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the slovenly will blot and efface and scrawl, while the neat and orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before their eyes. The merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and variableness ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... drink, but he smoked; and, while waiting for his companion, he solaced himself with a pipe. He was a fine manly fellow, very different from Ned; who, although strong of limb and manly enough, was slovenly in gait and dress, and bore unmistakable marks of dissipation ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the two; a kind of language which none but his intimates could comprehend. His articulation was defective; his countenance was so ugly as to be forbidding; and, during the latter part of his life at least, his personal habits were worse than slovenly. The failure in the pulpit is not wonderful; nor yet that in the law, which he tried next. He turned again to his first pursuit, and published some philological writings. While eager about a new method of teaching ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... attempting to perform, and fail to catch the idea that individual profit and prosperity depend upon the success of the business as a whole. No chain is stronger than its weakest link, and so long as there remains a slovenly dairyman in the business just so long our system will be incomplete and the working of co-operation remain imperfect. Perfect concert of effort, unbroken unity of hand with hand, in all the various details of the business, reaching ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he now added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly, confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse; while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up,—as indeed ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... with hell; 280 That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit, And wink at crimes he did himself commit. A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints; A heaven like Bedlam, slovenly and sad, Foredoom'd for souls with ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... He was in high dudgeon, but the white walls, the prie-dieu, the straight, narrow bed, were pleasant to see. His room was the first agreeable impression of the day. He picked up a drawing from the table, it seemed to him awkward and slovenly. He sharpened his pencil, cleared his crow-quill pens, got out his tracing-paper, and sat down to execute a better. But he had not finished his outline sketch before he leaned back in his chair, and as if overcome by the insidious ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Dingley Dell on Christmas Day—a thick-set, mildewy young man, with short black hair, a long white face and spectacles. He was a medical student, and brought with him his chum, Bob Sawyer, a slovenly, smart, swaggering young gentleman, who smelled strongly of tobacco smoke and looked like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe. Ben intended that his chum should marry his sister Arabella, and Bob Sawyer paid her so much attention that Winkle began to ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... of a slovenly, or wilfully misapprehending reader, and was unworthy of serious notice. But its introduction here tends to draw the reader from the true ground of complaint, which is that at the end of Mr. Darwin's book we stand much in the same place as we did when we started, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... reason for that. That reason is not mere aversion to face the common sense of the relations between population and subsistence, but a growing suspicion—as to the reasonableness of which, again, I give no opinion—that emigration is made into an easy and slovenly substitute for a scientific reform in our system of holding and using land. In the case of Ireland, other ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... pedagogue about them but the gown and cap. "Austere in face, and rustic in his looks," says David Buchanan, "but most polished in style and speech; and continually, even in serious conversation, jesting most wittily." "Roughhewn, slovenly, and rude," says Peacham, in his 'Compleat Gentleman,' speaking of him, probably, as he appeared in old age, "in his person, behaviour, and fashion; seldom caring for a better outside than a rugge-gown girt close about ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... company of the enemy presented a slovenly appearance; quite in contrast, also, with some other regiments of their army. The major was a soldier of the highest type, and he could not fail to see the neatness of the Riverlawns. Very likely he was sorry to ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... to the city now, having reached that slovenly suburb that had given its plebeian name to the once aristocratic neighborhood. Clouds of dust whirled in their wake, and stones flew right and left under the horses' hoofs; men in carts pulled their teams ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... in this country and Europe, the highest culture of American society, wrote these noticeable sentences: "The farmers have not kept pace, in intelligence, with the rest of the community. They do not put brain-manure enough into their acres. Our style of farming is slovenly, dawdling, and stupid, and the waste, especially in manure, is immense. I suppose we are about, in farming, where the Lowlands of Scotland were fifty years ago; and what immense strides agriculture has made in Great Britain since the battle of Waterloo, and how impossible it would have been ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... strange if he had smelt of eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, which looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and in the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh, and his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, interesting talker who used in old days to make the husbands of the district jealous on ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... nurse's knee. He kept silence therefore, and wondered whether Turrif or the pony was guiding, so carelessly did they go forth into the darkness, turning corners and avoiding ghostly fences with slovenly ease. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... nor slovenly nor gay, Nor sternly act; nor trifling play; Still keep the golden middle way Whate'er betide you; And ne'er through giddy pleasures stray, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... choice for the useful and graceful covering of the foot-soldier's head; either the small slouched hat of the old Spanish infantry—a hat very liable to be turned into something slovenly and dirty—or the foraging cap of our undress—a covering most comfortable, but not quite strong enough for campaigning use, as well as for parade; or the helmet of antique form, shaped, that is to say, in some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the stoops were slovenly and fat, (Lay me out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!) And everywhere I stepped there was a baby or a cat; (Lord God in Heaven, will it never ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door, and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... had criticized General Grant's English, and Clemens immediately put down other things to rush to his hero's defense. He pointed out that in Arnold's criticism there were no less than "two grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English," and said: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... The Boy had heard that the beavers were accustomed to begin their dams by felling a tree across the channel and piling their materials upon that as a foundation. But the systematic and thorough piece of work before him was obviously superior in permanence to any such slovenly makeshift; and moreover, further to discredit such a theory, here was a tall black ash close to the stream and fairly leaning over it, as if begging to be put ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dough. His body is like a lump of mochi pastry, and his limbs like dango dumplings. He has lop ears that hang down over his shoulders, a tremendous double chin, and a round belly. Though he will not let his beard grow long, the slovenly old fellow never has it shaven when he ought to. He is a jolly vagabond, and never fit for company; but he is a great friend of the children, who romp over his knees and shoulders, pull his ears and climb up over his shaven head. He always keeps something good for them ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... volume also belonged to the Wodrow collection. It is written in a very careless, slovenly manner, after the year 1639, by one Thomas Wood; and is scarcely entitled to be reckoned in the number of the MSS., as it omits large portions. Thus, on the title of Book Fourth, it is called "A Collection ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... untold good. Americans who spend too many years in out-of-the-way municipalities of the Philippines without coming in contact with their kind are apt to lose their sense of perspective, and there is danger that they will grow careless, or even slovenly, in their habits. It is of the utmost benefit for school teachers to get together once a year, learn of each other's failures and successes, and profit by each other's experiences, forget their troubles while engaging in healthful athletic sports, listen to inspiring and instructive ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... fourth. But the majority of the omissions and corrections were prompted by a careful taste, that abhorred everything redundant or slovenly. It has been suggested that when Johnson carried off the Vicar of Wakefield to Francis Newbery, the manuscript was not quite finished, but had to be completed afterwards. There was at least plenty of time for that. Newbery does not appear to have imagined ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... distant Apennines, and the neat prosperities and mountain backgrounds of South Germany, all clamour their especial merits at one's memory. And there are the hills and fields of Virginia, like an England grown very big and slovenly, the woods and big river sweeps of Pennsylvania, the trim New England landscape, a little bleak and rather fine like the New England mind, and the wide rough country roads and hills and woodland of New York State. But none of these change scene and character in three miles of walking, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... the whole army it is stated at 5 per cent." "Of the camps inspected, 5 per cent.," he says, "were in admirable order; 44 per cent. fairly clean and well policed. The condition of 26 per cent. was negligent and slovenly, and of 24 per cent. decidedly bad, filthy, and dangerous." Thus 50 per cent. were either negligent and slovenly, or filthy and dangerous. I wonder what the report would have been had Camp Benton, at St. Louis, been surveyed! "In about 80 ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... thirds reminded him of chicken-crates. Never had he seen such green gardens, such orange and lemon groves, such forests of olives. Save that it was barren rock, not a space as broad as a man's hand was left uncultivated; and not a farm which was not in good repair. One saw no broken fences, no slovenly out-houses, no glaring advertisements afield: nobody was asked impertinently if Soandso's soap had been used that morning, nor did the bambini cry for soothing-syrups. Everything was of stone (for wood is precious in Italy), generally whitewashed, and presenting the smiling countenance of comfort ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... in German to someone on the stairs. She wondered again for the hundredth time how this poor, slovenly, one-eyed, ill-kempt creature, scrub-woman and janitress, could speak two languages with such ease. Her English, except in excitement, seemed equally fluent with her German. How did such a woman fall so low? She was industrious and untiring in her work. She never touched liquor or drugs. She ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... properly dressed as he passes under the lynx-eye of one of these military custodians of the peace. Such supervision is not even altogether uncalled for among the officers of the new Army; one has been much struck with the slovenly, and at times grotesque, appearance of men who have suddenly assumed the position of officers and gentlemen. The somewhat apt epigram which is current to-day, is not wholly unmerited, "Temporary officers are expected to behave as ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... voice, and apparently feeling extreme pleasure in making the respectable middle classes stare at her in reverent amazement. Also, two Royal Academicians—a saturnine Academician, swaddled in a voluminous cloak; and a benevolent Academician, with a slovenly umbrella, and a perpetual smile. Also, the doctor and his wife, who admired the massive frame of "Columbus," but said not a word about the picture itself. Also, Mr. Bullivant, the sculptor, and Mr. Hemlock, the journalist, exchanging solemnly that ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly in her dress, rude in speech, coarse in manner, slovenly in her household duties. These two creatures, with their children, too often call themselves farmers, agriculturists, or tillers of the soil. The poet Cowper well describes them in his poem representing 'the country boors' gathered together ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I imagine, rot—and slovenly rot—and some of it pompous rot; and I want you to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... changed their course, and, sailing between Scarpanto and Carso, headed north and passed before nightfall between Slazida and Placa. The crew had been busy painting a broad yellow line round the brig, in slackening the rigging, and giving the vessel the appearance of a slovenly merchant brig. They had learned from the Turks that although undoubtedly acts of piracy took place in the Western Archipelago, these were comparatively isolated acts committed upon small vessels becalmed near one or other of the islands, the attacks being made in ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... were wearing coloured shirts and collars, the man who desired to retain or achieve that touch of distinction which means so much must at any cost wear white ones; and that, further, Society was frowning on the slovenly unstarched neck-wear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... once again! The moving canvas shows A slave plantation's slovenly repose, Where, in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds, The human chattel eats, and sleeps, and breeds; And, held a brute, in practice, as in law, Becomes in fact the thing he's taken for. There, early ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the largest in England, but it showed many evidences of neglect and slovenly care. Some of the worst looking cattle I saw in England obstructed the ornamental stone bridge that crosses the stream flowing into a large artificial lake within the park. The driveways were not kept in the perfect ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... equivalent, is dispensed, not by the sovereign in person, but by her chaplains and almoners, in the midst of beautiful formalities. The dignity with which the ceremony is performed is a striking evidence of the national character, and a contrast to the sometimes slovenly manner in which great public religious functions are got through abroad. The charities are distributed in the chapel of Whitehall, the palace made tragically famous by the disgrace of Wolsey and the death of King Charles I. Fifty-five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the other hand, and whether at best or worst, falls readily into native ways of life; to which he adds too commonly what is either a mark of celibate man at large, or an inheritance from mediaeval saints—I mean slovenly habits and an unclean person. There are, of course, degrees in this; and the sister (of course, and all honour to her) is as fresh as a lady at a ball. For the diet there is nothing to be said—it must amaze and shock the Polynesian—but for the adoption of native habits there is much. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and cheerful. Careless, incorrect, slovenly, illegible. I dare not show a sentence of it even to Eustis. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... guard made a slovenly gesture, half salute, half indicative: "The Messenger," he announced, and, half turning on his heel as he left the room, "our signal officer, Captain West," in deference to ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... Paul Dormer appears in the archway from L., He is a dark-browed man, about forty, but with white hair; he is attired as a clergyman, but his dress is rusty, shabby, and slovenly; he carries ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... under his hand. He might have so painted, if oil and water had been combined, and the vehicle rendered saponaceous, which it probably was. Many artists have been led, he observes, to change the manner from good to bad. We have a remarkable instance in our Gainsborough, whose latter scratchy, slovenly manner is most displeasing; nor had he at any time an imagination to justify it, or rather to qualify it by the power of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... lodge his heart beat violently. What would old Morin have to tell him? But old Morin was very busy trying to make his kitchen fire burn properly instead of sending all the smoke pouring out into the room; the old man's slovenly figure was just visible in a clearing in the smoke, and he returned Nibet's salutation with nothing ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... small animal, about one fourth the size of a common flea: it is very troublesome, in warm climates, to the poor blacks, such as go barefoot, and the slovenly: it penetrates the skin, under which it lays a bunch of eggs, which swell to the bigness of a ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown
... in the house on Sunday evenings, always first scrupulously knocking at the door. An untidy room gave him positive pain, and the most slovenly boys would endeavour to get their filthy rooms into some sort of order, "just to please old John." John was passionately fond of flowers, and one would meet the most unlikely boys with bunches of roses in their hands. If one inquired what they were for, they would say half-sheepishly, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of paper from a large pocket-book which lay at his elbow on the new green cloth-covered table, and handed it to his friend, who slowly opened and read it in a slovenly way, mumbling the most of it as he ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania; a Virginia creeper in New Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above the ground; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... very unequal writer. His plays are slovenly and careless in construction, and he puts classical allusions into the mouths of milkmaids and serving boys, with the grotesque pedantry and want of keeping common among the {107} playwrights of the early ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... was going round the town with a big basket of tins and brushes and things, trying to sell some, while he hung about the public-house, enjoying himself doing nothing. Her round was a long one, and few people seemed tempted to buy of such a slovenly, disagreeable-looking woman, one who grew rude too, if people did not want any of ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... was alone. He was known as a jolly, blarney-tongued, slovenly wit, who for a consideration managed the political affairs of Jordantown and the county in a manner which was agreeable to the "deities" already mentioned, who were not willing to do all the things in this business that ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... with us. He wished, perhaps ignorantly, to arrest the progress of civilization and substitute a slovenly ideal of his own. His purpose was to cancel the civilization which the race had gained during thousands of years of effort, and bring it back to a semi-savagery. But the world was too big for him. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... patronage of the public. It is impossible that men who cannot construct an English sentence correctly, and who do not know the value of clearness in writing, should be able to disentangle the knots which slovenly printers have tied in the thread of an old author's meaning; and it is more than doubtful whether they who assert carelessly, cite inaccurately, and write loosely are not by nature disqualified for doing thoroughly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Germinie's abasement and degradation began to be visible in her personal appearance, to make her stupid and slovenly. A sort of drowsiness came over her ideas. She was no longer keen and prompt of apprehension. What she had read and what she had learned seemed to escape her. Her memory, which formerly retained everything, became confused and unreliable. The sharp wit of the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... difficulty, and leant heavily upon a staff cut roughly from a tree, and from its green bark and slovenly-stripped ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... in the same group, a man of fifty or thereabouts, of slovenly aspect and lachrymose mien, lanky, too, like a maypole, and somewhat bent by the weight of his head, which was long and suggestive of a horse's. His scanty, straight, yellowish hair, his drooping moustaches, in fact the whole of his ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... madder-colored ball, but there were delicate points in its execution which a restless civilization has hurried into oblivion along with the other lost arts, and Marg'et Ann surveyed her ball critically now and then, to be sure that it was not developing any slovenly one-sidedness under her deft hands. The minister's crutches leaned against the arm of his painted wooden chair with an air of mute but patient helpfulness. Marg'et Ann had cushioned them with patchwork, but he had walked about ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... which has been drilled into him, and which he repeats because he supposes it must be all right, seems inconsistent with all the material universe, or at least quite apart from it. Yet, even listening to that excellent sermon (whose masculine thought was very superior to its somewhat slovenly style), I thought, as I looked at the beautiful tree rising in the silent churchyard,—the stately sycamore, so bright green, with the blue sky all around it,—how truly John Foster wrote, that when standing ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... hour, he halted and looked about him. He was within a few blocks of the church, a little to one side of Tower Street, the main east and west highway of the city, in the midst of that district in which Mr. Parr had made the remark that poverty was inevitable. Slovenly and depressing at noonday, it seemed now frankly to have flung off its mask. Dusk was gathering, and with it a smoke-stained fog that lent a sickly tinge to the lights. Women slunk by him: the saloons, apparently closed, and many houses with veiled windows betrayed secret ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tolerant and moderate in their reasonings; at least, so I read history. However, such was the case, and such its effect upon the Tracts. These at first starting were short, hasty, and some of them ineffective; and at the end of the year, when collected into a volume, they had a slovenly appearance. ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... acquired the habit—or if they have acquired it they quickly lost it—of regarding their wives as ladies. "She is not a lady, she is only my wife," is a well-known joke, but some men take it not as a jest. Some men think that before their wives they can be as slovenly and unclean as they please. Give your husband to understand that cleanliness and freshness is not a "sex-limited" attribute, and just as a husband wants his wife to be clean and dainty and well-groomed, so a wife may enjoy the same qualities in her ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... hardly troubled to make any change. Not only this, but the Coronation of the Virgin, of the Perugian Gallery, shows groups identical with both the above paintings, and this Assumption, for which, as Crowe says, "he fell back on the model of the Lyons Ascension," is painted in a slovenly ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... officers' boots, or sawing wood and picking up chips to boil the teakettle. They are off dignity as well as off duty, then; but when they are on both, and in full dress, they make our volunteers (as I remember them) seem very shabby and slovenly. ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... by Washington Irving in the story of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,"—with this difference: Everything about the Tennessee plantation was dirty, out of order, and in general higgledy-piggledy condition. And the method of farming was slovenly in the extreme. The cultivated land had been cleared by cutting away the underbrush and small trees, while the big ones had merely been "deadened," by girdling them near the ground. These dead trees were all standing in ghastly nakedness, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell |
