"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bailiwick tried ordinary civil suits and breaches of the peace. This bailiwick also offered what might be euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising members. True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and cost much money; so even the officials ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... punctilious leave of Catherine, and a still colder and slighter leave of Langham. Elsmere accompanied him to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... towards name and pedigree, exercised a marked influence on his whole career. "To prove himself worthy of his forefathers was the purpose of his early manhood. It gives us a key to many of the singularities of his character; to his hunger for self-improvement; to his punctilious observance, from a boy, of the essentials of gentlemanly bearing, and to the uniform assertion of his self-respect."* (* Dabney volume ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... went back to Australia, and more wisely married an honest serving-maid. He is respected for his intelligence and good nature, and is industrious and punctilious in business. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... ignorant obstinacy of the peasants. It was a new spectacle for Russia to see a public function fulfilled by conscientious men who had their heart in their work, who sought neither promotion nor decorations, and who paid less attention to the punctilious observance of prescribed formalities than to ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... "Ha! Getting punctilious, all at once, are you? Talk ethics, eh? Where were your scruples, a year ago, when people were paying 25 cents a loaf for bread, because of that big wheat pool you put through? How about the oil you've just lately ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... and pasting his slips with punctilious regard to duty, had been following his master's movements ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... symptom of a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... different from the Americans," said Mrs. Trent, "particularly those of M. Villefort's class. They are beautifully punctilious, but I don't call it quite ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's joints, he came to see us—a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... council of war, (which never fights,) and with a whole circle of bayonets glittering at our breasts, I advised a surrender without loss of time. The troopers were already disarmed, and the Don, appealing to me as evidence that he had done all that could be required by the most punctilious valour, surrendered his sword with the grace of a hero of romance. The Frenchmen enjoyed the entire scene prodigiously, laughed a great deal, drank our healths in our own bottles, and finished by a general ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... obedience to their Lord's commandment. As He said on the Sermon on the Mount, 'Whoso shall do and teach one of the least of these commandments shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' The higher we are, the more we are bound to punctilious obedience to the smallest injunction. The more we are obedient to the lightest of His commandments, the greater we become. Thus the least in the kingdom may become the greatest there, if only, cleaving close to Christ, he forgets ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male,—the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... adoration. Consequently, desiring it no longer, we usually cast it from us, and pass onwards to seek fresh perfection. For the circumstance that that was not what occurred with respect to my own relation to Dimitri, I was indebted to his stubborn, punctilious, and more critical than impulsive attachment to myself—a tie which I felt ashamed to break. Moreover, our strange vow of frankness bound us together. We were afraid that, if we parted, we should leave in one another's power ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... surprise of the admiral, he found himself treated with the most punctilious courtesy by Ovando, who even proceeded to the harbour, with a numerous suite, to receive him in state upon his arrival. However, differences soon arose as to the conflicting jurisdictions of the viceroy and the governor; especially with regard ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... in Ireland, it is not because the loyalist sings it, but because the dis-loyalist shuns it; and its avoidance at gatherings both political and social where Nationalists predominate, naturally makes those who value loyalty the more punctilious in its use. If there is a profuse display of the Union Jack, it is because it is in Ulster not merely "bunting" for decorative purposes as in England, but the ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... manifested lest they should fall under the lash of his merciless sarcasm. An Ishmael in society, his uplifted hand smote all conventionalities and shams, spared neither age nor sex, nor sanctuaries, and acknowledged sanctity nowhere. The punctilious courtesy of his manner polished and pointed his satire, and when a personal application of his remarks was possible, he would bow gracefully to the lady indicated, and fill her glass with wine, while he filled her heart with chagrin and rankling hate. Since ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... was interrupted by the short blast on the bugle that signified "attention," and everybody straightened like a flash. A big gray automobile pulled up in front of headquarters, and from it descended the general, accompanied by officers of his staff. Punctilious salutes were exchanged, and then the general, accompanied by some of his officers and also those of the regiment, passed slowly between the long files of straight-backed soldiers. His searching glance seemed to take in everything at once, but so thoroughly ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... won't be punctilious with me. For we have nothing to write about, except it be how much we all love and honour you; and that you believe already, or else ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... what remains in the mind when one has done reading him, and this very faculty—of communicating to us, who never saw him or heard him speak, the vivid impact of his overbearing presence—is itself evidence of a rare kind of genius. It is even a little ironical that he, above all men the punctilious and precious literary craftsman, should ultimately dominate us not so much by the magic of his art as by the spell of his wilful and wanton individuality, and the situation is heightened still further by the extraordinary variety of his works and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... piano, and sent it to her; another secured certain luxurious articles for Mrs. Shaw's comfort; and a third saved such of Mr. Shaw's books as he valued most, for he had kept his word and given up everything, with the most punctilious integrity. So the little house was not bare, but made pleasant to their eyes by these waifs from the wreck, brought them by the tide of sympathy and good-will which soon set in. Everybody who knew them hastened to call, many from a real regard, but more from mere curiosity ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... companion looked at each other uncomfortably. Madame de Lera was not perhaps quite so shocked, either by Pargeter's appearance or by his one exclamation apparently addressed to herself, as the punctilious American supposed her to be. She knew no word of the English language, and in her heart regarded all ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Hinman smiled, and said quietly that he guessed there would be "a little more speaking before the close of the session." Then laying his hand on my shoulder, with most punctilious but chilling courtesy, he invited me to the rostrum. The "rostrum" was twenty-five feet distant, but I arrived there on schedule time and only touched my feet to the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... If we look, however, without prejudice on the world, we shall find that men whose consciousness of their own merit sets them above the compliances of servility are apt enough in their association with superiors to watch their own dignity with troublesome and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of independence to exact that attention which they refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the quarrel; and the rest of their travels was doubtless more unpleasant to them both. Gray continued his journey in a ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... have exquisitely given dame nature her natural form, and delineated her in colours so admirable that on the perusal of them I was led to exclaim with extacy Clare everywhere excels in the descriptive. But your literary prowess is too circuitously authenticated to admit of any punctilious commendation from my debilitated pen, and under its umbrageous recess, serenely segregated, from the malapert and hypochondriachal vapours of myopic critics (as I am no acromatic philosopher) I trust every solecism contained in this autographical epistle ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... of the trial, she had seen him but twice, and immediately after he had been summoned to attend some suit in New Orleans, and had hurriedly bidden her adieu in the presence of others. With punctilious regularity he wrote studiedly polished, graceful yet merely friendly letters, and like ice morsels they slowly widened the glacier creeping between ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... ancient Catholic peerage and landed gentry, who, through four generations, had preferred civil death to religious apostasy. It was impossible not to revere the heroic constancy of that class, and the personal virtues of many among them. But they were, perhaps, constitutionally, too timid and too punctilious to conduct a popular movement to a successful issue. They had, after much persuasion, lent their presence to the Committee, but on some alarm, which at that time seems to have been premature, of the introduction of French revolutionary principles ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... but when, in another instant, I heard the click of a night-key, and saw them, after a rather tedious fumbling at the lock, disappear from the stoop, I took it for granted that the gentleman was Mr. Van Burnam's eldest son Franklin, and the lady some relative of the family; though why this, its most punctilious member, should bring a guest at so late an hour into a house devoid of everything necessary to make the least exacting visitor comfortable, was a mystery that I retired to bed ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... very evident admiration, he did not join the ranks of her more or less avowed lovers; a fact that in turn piqued and oddly comforted Kate. For at times this new life of hers seemed a strange dream, in which Benoix, with his gentleness, his punctilious courtesy, his rather formal friendliness of aspect, was the only fixed reality. She felt, vaguely, that she was safe with him; safer than with her husband. She thought of him more as a friend than ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... exercise is frequently called for. The client will be often required, in the course of a cause, to make affidavits of various kinds. There is no part of his business with his client, in which a lawyer should be more cautious, or even punctilious, than this. He should be careful lest he incur the moral guilt of subornation of perjury, if not the legal offence. An attorney may have communications with his client in such a way, in instructing him as to what the law requires ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... abominations committed in the mysteries of those people? Just how far had Augustin dipped into them? They snarled against him everywhere at Hippo, and at Carthage too, where he had compromised himself by his excessive zeal; Catholics and Donatists alike gossiped. Megalius, a punctilious defender of discipline and the hierarchy, no doubt gathered up these malevolent rumours with pleasure. He used them as an excuse for making Augustin mark time, so to speak. Commonplace people always feel a secret delight in humiliating to the common rule those ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... young men of rank and leisure, except a spirit of religious scepticism and impiety, and a wanton and inexcusable recklessness in regard to women, which made him a slave to his passions. The first alienated him, so far as he was known, from the higher respectable classes, who generally were punctilious in the outward observances of religion; and the second made him abhorred by the virtuous middle class, who never condoned his transgressions in this respect. But at this time his character was not generally known. It was not until he was seated on the pinnacle of fame that public curiosity ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... covered my vexation—I being all unpowdered and wearing no waistcoat over an unfrilled shirt, for I do love fine clothes when circumstances require; but the lady was none the less punctilious, and as I made to toss my pipe into the street below, she forbade me with perfect courtesy and a smile that only ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to Beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation. But Deronda's last sentence answered ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... so many debates and intrigues, that the spring was far advanced before it received the sanction of both houses; and it was thought dangerous by many to introduce, so near the time of action, such great innovations into the army. Had not the punctilious principles of Essex engaged him, amidst all the disgusts which he received, to pay implicit obedience to the parliament, this alteration had not been effected without some fatal accident: since, notwithstanding his prompt resignation of the command, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... right: 'They have only got the fashion of the time; and, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of tricks of speech,—a yesty, frothy mass, with nothing in it, which carries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice, choice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' Yesty I take to be right, and prophane (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to fond (foolish); of trennowed I can make nothing ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... punctilious one," said Agelastes. "There is not, I trust, a subject in the empire who knows better the ten thousand punctilios exigible from those of different ranks, and clue to different authorities. The man is yet to be born who has seen me take advantage of any more commodious ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Montfort, at the very moment of his fall, set the example of an extensive reformation in the frame of parliament, which, though his authority was not acknowledged by the punctilious adherents to the letter and forms of law, was afterwards legally adopted by Edward, and rendered the parliament of that year the model of the British parliament, and in a considerable degree affected the constitution of all other representative assemblies. It may indeed be considered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... wedded with due rites should be set free. That maiden, therefore, was recommended to Vichitravirya for being married by him according to due rites. Doubting my father's words I repaired to others for asking their opinion. I thought that my sire was exceedingly punctilious in matters of morality. I then went to my sire himself, O king, and addressed him these words from desire of knowing something about the practices of righteous people in respect of marriage, 'I desire, O sire, to know what in truth the practices are of righteous people.' I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... had long been the custom to profit from the wrecks that happened upon the dangerous shore, until at last the setting of false lights and the appropriation of the lost cargoes became a legitimate business. One Sunday a congregation at church (they were rigid Puritans and punctilious about worship) was startled by the news that a West India ship loaded with sugar was going to pieces on the rocks near by. The birds of prey flocked to make prize of the booty. A good deacon bagged a large quantity of sugar, piling it on the shore while he went for his oxen to carry ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... is, what fearful and wonderful nervous systems these delicate creatures have to manage; I, with what I was pleased to term my high organization and special training—I, like any brutal hind, had berated my wife. I, who was punctilious to draw the silken portiere for her, who could not let her pick up so much as her own lace handkerchief, nor allow her to fold a wrap of the weight of a curlew's feather about her own soft throat—I had belaboured her with the ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... typical man of his class," I answered. "He is stiff, obstinate, punctilious, with an extreme sense of honour, to gratify which, by-the-bye, he has just deliberately pauperized himself. He will not remind you in the least ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a little laugh. This man was different from the punctilious aides-de-camp and others who had hitherto begged most respectfully to notify ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... draw his own hot water, or put out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily service. Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, and it seemed appropriate that this last night ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... primarily for seclusion, not for companionship, and this characteristic alone is wofully hard for the stranger to understand. To the gregarious German, priding himself upon Gemuethlichkeit, loving reunions, restaurants, his Stammtisch, formal and punctilious in his politeness, unused to the ways of the world, but yet convinced that he is now a great man politically and commercially, the Englishman is not only an enigma but an insult. I am criticising neither. I have received unbounded hospitality and friendliness from both. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... constantly to be seen in the village; and then another person was with him always, a tall, handsome youth, his son. They were fond and proud of each other, and were religious and good citizens in a highbred, punctilious way. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Sharpe with a slight smile, 'if we were talking of a sum of any importance, why, one might be a little more punctilious, but for such a bagatelle we have already wasted too much time in its discussion. I am ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... "You're far too punctilious," remarked Mrs. Hsueeh, "as to entertain such notions! No such ideas as these crossed my ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... matter of much discomfort to the crew that the new cook took his duties very seriously, and prided himself on his cooking. He was, moreover, disposed to be inconveniently punctilious about the way in which his efforts were regarded. For the first day the crew ate in silence, but at dinner-time on the second ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... the case. The largest sum to be returned was three hundred dollars. He had borrowed it from a merchant in good circumstances, who could at any time command his thousands, and to whose credit there usually remained heavy balances in bank. But he was exceedingly punctilious in ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... of the outer world was soon dispelled by a broad gleam of light, as the great front doors were thrown open. An old, gray-haired butler stood on the threshold, and greeted them with rather pompous respect and punctilious deference. The interior was quite in keeping with the outside view of the house. But though the old carved rafters and wainscoting were dark and heavy, cheerful lamps were in abundance, and in the halls and drawing-rooms, wax candles were ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... Jones and Amelia Powers had run over, and were sitting there with Louisa and me. Little Alice had gone to bed; we had refused to allow her to go to see what was going on, and yet listened to Tommy Gregg's report, which was not, I suppose, to our credit. I have often thought that punctilious people will use cats'-paws to gratify curiosity when they would scorn to use them for anything else. Still, neither Louisa nor I would have actually beckoned Tommy Gregg up to the door, as Mrs. Jones did, though I suppose we had as much cause to ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Espana, which I was compelled to repeat so often that I heartily wished them all in Spain, and felt very much inclined to send them all thither, or to some other warm climate, but that Don C. cautioned me not to trifle with these punctilious privates: as on one occasion an Englishman, annoyed as I had been, having answered the fiftieth hail disrespectfully, in his own language, was marched off to the Calaboose, where he was detained all night, and only released the next morning upon the payment of ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... quite different. He is a convert, and rather inclined to be punctilious. Then, too, he is from England. In America the best we get as a rule is just plain 'Bishop.' One of your own kind of Bishops—an Episcopalian—I knew him well and a charming man he was—told me that in England he was 'My Lorded' and 'Your Lordshiped' ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... him. He was punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an introduction in the mere yard, as informal—a thing ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... politeness. It is, however, a very prominent and characteristic trait, and in some of its phases rather astounding to a stranger. A common thing in the streets of Moscow is to see a couple of sturdy beggars, uncouth as grizzly bears, meet and stop before each other with the utmost and most punctilious gravity. Beggar number one takes his greasy cap from his head slowly and deliberately, gives it a graceful sweep through the air, and, with a most courtly obeisance, exhibits the matted tuft, or the bald spot on the top of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... a woman of active mind, something of a busy-body—dogmatic, punctilious in her claims to respect, proud of the acknowledgment by her acquaintances that she was not as other tradespeople; her chief weakness was a fanatical ecclesiasticism, the common blight of English womanhood. Circumstances had allowed her ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... settled," Mangan said, cheerfully. "I can't say there is much of the grasping creditor about your friend. I could hardly persuade him to take the check at all, after I had hunted him from place to place. What made you so desperately punctilious, Linn? You don't imagine he would have talked about it to any women-folk, even supposing you had not paid up? Is that it? No, no, you can't imagine he would do anything of that kind; I should call him a thoroughly good fellow, if one might be so familiar with his betters. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... dear," said his mother. "It seems to me that you may be a trifle too punctilious; still, it is best to err on the safe side, and, after all, these are new people; we know very little about them, after all." Nothing was further from Mrs. Anderson than the surmise that, even had she called, no invitation would ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Weber regulated all his affairs in the most punctilious manner. The presentiment of the fast-approaching end rendered him doubly careful that all should be in order; and, in his last conferences with his legal friends, he was always anxious to insure the presence of his wife, whose strong practical good sense he knew. During these painful ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... affection, who was considerably my senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you—could you in my circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even punctilious enough to tell your daughter—an excessive scruple, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... afternoon at them—confound them!" declared the owner of the Lola with a laugh. "But, of course, I didn't want to make a lot of errors in spelling. These Italians are so very punctilious." ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... considered as his masterpiece in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same sentence for the purposes of the rhyme, which shews either a want of technical resources, or great inattention to punctilious exactness. But to have ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... any punctilious feelings she had, partook of the homely meal with what grace and relish she could command, and thanking them all for their ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... that I am no longer living in the house with her. The fact is, dear mother, I could not have been a good girl had I stayed long in the house with Lucy, for she managed in some extraordinary manner to rub me the wrong way. She was so extra good, so punctilious, and so proper; she didn't suit me one bit, and I didn't suit her one little bit either. I was becoming quite a naughty girl. I never was too good—was I, mother dear? Perhaps, darling, I'd have become an awfully naughty ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... your leisure in the morning. In the meantime, you shall be my escort home to-night. My friends are about holding a little musical levee. I can promise you, too, some good singing. We French are not nearly so punctilious as you Americans, and I shall have no difficulty in smuggling you in, in the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... his life I shall have occasion to mention some of them as connected with particular incidents, or with the writing of particular parts of his works. To some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but when we consider the punctilious exactness with which the different houses in which Milton resided have been traced by the writers of his life, a similar enthusiasm may be pardoned ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... there,[85] (within which again different shades appear). (1) The Gospel has to do with the people of Israel, and with the Gentile world only on the condition that believers attach themselves to the people of Israel. The punctilious observance of the law is still necessary and the condition on which the messianic salvation is bestowed (particularism and legalism, in practice and in principle, which, however, was not to cripple the obligation to prosecute the work of the Mission). (2) The Gospel ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... most common arts. They proceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have done before them. Trace them through all their artifices, frauds, and violences, you can find nothing at all that is new. They follow precedents and examples with the punctilious exactness of a pleader. They never depart an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny and usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to the public good the spirit has been the very reverse of this. There they commit the whole to the mercy of untried speculations; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Her prospective father-in-law appeared to her somewhat punctilious, but she determined to ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... taking her for a walk up Harcombe Hill. Half-way up she turned a white face to him, smiling sweetly, sat down on the hillside, and bent her head upon her knees. He sat beside her and waited for her recovery with punctilious patience. His face wore an expression of agonized concern. But she could see that the concern was not there ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... snuff-box. Such familiarities were not rare in that day between the gentlemen of New France and their old servants, who usually passed their lifetime in one household. Felix was the majordomo of the Manor House of Tilly, trusty, punctilious, and polite, and honored by his mistress more as an humble friend than as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... had lost their likeness to the wolf, and had become more like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,—in a word, they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and privations, they gradually grew used to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... Reviewer avails himself of that Christian liberty to which they themselves so systematically lay claim, mercilessly to uncover their baseness, and uncompromisingly to denounce it. If I may declare my mind freely, punctilious courtesy in dealing with such opinions, becomes a species of treason against Him after whose Name we are called, and whom we profess to serve. Seven men may combine to handle the things of GOD, it seems, in the most outrageous manner; ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... attempt to glose the sin; they dealt not in innuendo or double entendre. Beside the page of modern realism, the ballad page is clean and wholesome. Human passion unrestrained there may be; but no sickly or vicious sentiment. There is a punctilious sense of honour; and if it is sometimes the letter rather than the spirit of vow or promise that is kept, the knights and ladies in the ballads are no worse than are the Pharisees of our day; and they are always ready to pay, and generally ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... solemnly presiding over the tea-tray with a touch-me-not air of inflexible propriety, he soon made himself the useful and agreeable centre of a group of ladies, to whom he carried cake, bread-and- butter and other light refreshments, with punctilious care, looking as though his life depended upon the exact performance of these duties. Once or twice he glanced at Maryllia, and decided that she appeared younger and prettier than when he had seen her in town. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the member for Cavan set himself in deliberate fashion to outrage Parliamentary traditions and usages. He finished by becoming a punctilious practitioner of Parliamentary forms, a stickler for the minutest observation of order. Whilst Mr. Gladstone and other members of old standing were content to preface their speeches with the monosyllable "Sir," nothing less than "Mr. Speaker, sir," would satisfy Mr. Biggar. No one who ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... contracted. If we would escape embarrassment, public and private, we must cease to run in debt except for objects of necessity or such as will yield a certain return. Let the faith of the States, corporations, and individuals already pledged be kept with the most punctilious regard. It is due to our national character as well as to justice that this should on the part of each be a fixed principle of conduct. But it behooves us all to be more chary in pledging it hereafter. By ceasing to run ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... ahead of her into the box-hedge, which rose, stiff and punctilious, ten paces away, the counterpart of that beneath which we were sitting. For once in a way, her merry smile was missing. In its stead Gravity sat in her eyes, hung on the warm red lips. I had known her solemn before, but not like this. The proud face looked very resolute. There was a strength about ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... from the outlook of social respectability, where self rules every action with the question, 'What will others say?' So should I two years ago, but conditions have somewhat changed my views. Professional necessity can never afford to be quite so punctilious, cannot always choose the nature of its environments: the nurse must care for the injured, however disagreeable the task; the newspaper woman must cover her assignment, although it takes her amid filth; and the actress must thoroughly assume her character, in spite of ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... most high-pitched strain of personal abuse, "get a bottle of visible ink, hang (if possible) the editor of 'The Dial,' cut Mr. Alcott, and throw out of the window to the pigs all his odd numbers of the 'North American Review.'" This paper of Poe's is a laughable and pathetic case of his professedly punctilious analysis covering the most bitter attacks, with traces of what looks like envy, and others of a resistless impulse to sympathize with a literary brother as against the average mind. He begins with a discussion of originality and ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... so stealthily that none might hinder. A sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... have not the same regularity in their meals, or time for sleep, as we have, but consult their appetites and inclinations like other animals. But they make amends for this irregularity, by a very strict and punctilious observance of festivals, which are regulated by the motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, like the hopes which the approach of that benignant ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Cobber Carkeek. There's a spring above his head, And his mattress is a special kind of clay. He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed, And he makes it ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... oppression of thought from public care will rarely allow them to speak on any other subject than business, can be a remedy large enough for so large an evil. True it is, that a peculiarly frank or jovial temperament in a sovereign may do much for a season to thaw this punctilious reserve and ungenial constraint; but that is an accident, and personal to an individual. And, on the other hand, to balance even this, it may be remarked, that, in all noble and fashionable society, where there happens ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... restlessness, as if there would be no tomorrow. The operators all swore that Wayne would be elected, but seemed to fear a miracle. On the poorer section of the beat, there was a spiritless hope that Nolan might come in with his reform program. Men who would normally have been punctilious about their payments were avoiding Bruce Gordon, if in hope that, by putting it off a day or so, they could run into a period where no such payment would ever be asked—or a smaller one, at least. And he was too tired to chase them down. His collections had been falling off already, and he ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... earlier. But he had already made appointment by letter to meet the Surveyor and the Assistant Surveyor at noon on the headland, to measure out and discuss the site of the proposed fortification; and he was a punctilious man in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of superiority to the faults of his time and country which had caused the King to seek him for a companion seemed to have vanished with his feebleness and timidity. The manhood that had been awakened was not the chivalrous, generous, and gentle strength of Henry and his brothers, but the punctilious pride and sullenness, and almost something of the license, of the Scot. The camp had not proved the school of chivalry that James, in his inexperience, had imagined it must be under Henry, and the tedium and wretchedness of the siege had greatly added ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and looked with perfect serenity toward the high and mighty duchess, whose titles were being pompously enumerated by the punctilious mistress of ceremonies. As ill luck would have it, this one was older, uglier, and more strangely bedizened than all the others together. The queen felt a spasmodic twitch of her face; she colored violently, and opening her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... dust be hurled That dull, punctilious god, whom they That call their tiny clan the world, Serve and obsequiously obey: Who con their ritual of Routine, With minds to one dead likeness blent, And never ev'n in dreams have seen The things that ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... her work, sprang about with happy energy, and studied her hardest; for John, in what he expected her to do, made no calculations for work of which he knew nothing. He was never at home till late in the day; and when Ellen had done all she had to do, and set the supper-table with punctilious care, and a face of busy happiness it would have been a pleasure to see if there had been any one to look at it, she would take what happened to be the favourite book, and plant herself near the glass door, like a very epicure, to enjoy ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and the only result will be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... list of the guests a short time ago. I see Hastings is one of them, and Fischer, and Rumania and Greece will be represented. Now Hastings was to have been here, and as a rule the neutrals are very punctilious." ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... training with almost fervid enthusiasm. It used to be a joke of mine that on one occasion my horse shied because an Australian private saluted me. No one could make a friendly jest of like kind against the American soldiers. When first they arrived in France no troops were more punctilious in practising the outward and visible evidences of discipline. Fit, with the perfect fitness of the man from 23 to 28, not a weed amongst them, intelligent-looking, splendidly eager to learn, they were much akin in physique and general qualities to our own immortal "First Hundred ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... situation. When Inman learned how he had been outwitted he was enraged to the point of ordering an attack at once, with the resolve to give mercy to no one. He even threatened to visit his fury upon Fred Whitney, who had shown such punctilious regard for his parole, for it would seem that under the circumstances he would have been warranted in ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... are so ceremonious among themselves, and so punctilious with regard to etiquette, that the omission of the most minute point established by the court of ceremonies is considered as a criminal offence. Visiting by tickets, which with us is a fashion of modern refinement, has been a common practice in China some thousand years; ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... hard, cold, dead formality of his elder son, as by the prodigal wastefulness of the younger, without getting the sorrow balanced by a subsequent joy. Whited sepulchre! what will thy residence in the house, and thy constant and punctilious profession avail thee while thou art planting daggers in thy father's heart, and nursing vile hypocrisy in thy own? It is the empty open vessel that gets itself filled when it is plunged into a well of living water; the vessel ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... to work at once, Rupert, for although you must of course appear in uniform, that somewhat war-stained coat of yours is scarcely fit for the most punctilious court in Europe. However, as they will have this coat for a model, the tailors will soon fashion you a suit which would pass muster as your ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... destroyed the very heart of the saga, which it was not for Schiller to make over but to render dramatically plausible. It may be urged, perhaps, that a poet who had made Joan of Arc die in glory on the battle-field need not have been so punctilious in following the exact line of Tschudi's story. But the cases are not exactly parallel. There the alternative was a scene of unmitigated and revolting horror, which would have destroyed the effect of the tragedy; here it was simply ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... study and observation of the Far East,[31] that only the respect in which Japan differed from other oriental despotisms lay in "the ruling influence among her people of the strictest, loftiest, and the most punctilious codes of honor that man has ever devised," he touched the main spring which has made new Japan what she is and which will make her what she is destined ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... assumed the direction of affairs, and continued to entertain or be entertained. Her energy and resource seemed inexhaustible. The officials of both governments treated her with punctilious respect, and the prestige gained in this way she used to enhance her reputation as a hostess. Soon she became the social dictator of the city, and the most exclusive circles, American and Panamanian alike, allowed ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... least, was so fervent a defender of the faith, so punctilious in all observances, so constant at the altar rail; none so versed in rubrics, ritual, and canon law; none had such a knowledge of the Church fathers. Mr. Atterbury delighted to discuss them with the rector at the dinner parties where they met; none was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to observe all the rules that the punctilious etiquette of the profession demanded. He found Dr. Haines sleeping heavily in his clothes. He had had a bad night. He was uneasy at the outbreak of sickness in his camp, and more especially was ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... our souls when our fate puts us in his place—in her place—in their place—whom we used to strike, never realizing how it hurt them! He is respected for his intelligence and good-nature; he is sober, industrious, pushing and punctilious in business. One trait of the Bohemian remains. About every four months a restlessness comes over him; then the wise Jenny of her own accord proposes a trip. Poor Tom's eyes sparkle directly; off they ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... serviceable tool. But the members of Council were by no means in an obsequious mood. Hastings greatly disliked the new form of government, and had no very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard of this, and were disposed to be suspicious and punctilious. When men are in such a frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give occasion for dispute. The members of Council expected a salute of twenty-one guns from the batteries of Fort William. Hastings allowed them only seventeen. They landed in ill-humor. The first civilities ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fears the war remained popular with practically all the men with whom I talked. Various companies were being formed, and militia captains, to make sure of seeing active service, were not punctilious as to where and by what means they secured their men. There was much ill-natured bickering over this rivalry, with several matters assuming such proportions that only Colonel ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solicitude for every public account, and to have examined into them with the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... name quite simply, without any attempt at rudeness or facetiousness. I should say that this was typical of the whole character of the man. With a beautiful and punctilious courtesy he removed his hat—not a very good hat—on entering the house. I formed the impression from the ease with which he did this that the practice must have been habitual ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... the answers to these objections are unknown to him. Here is a very precise passage, taken from the excursus on the Manichaeans, which is found at the end of the second edition of his Dictionary: 'For the greater satisfaction of the most punctilious readers, I desire to declare here' (he says, p. 3148) 'that wherever the statement is to be met with in my Dictionary that such and such arguments are irrefutable I do not wish it to be taken that they are so in actuality. I mean naught else than that they appear to me irrefutable. That is of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the sake of all he must care," vehemently repeated Colin, with the punctilious honour of the nobly-born soldier. "For his child's sake, this would be enough to bring him from his grave. If he refused to return to the investigation, it would be almost enough to ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... What might this mean? Was it merely an urbane way of reminding him that he had neglected certain civilities demanded by the social code? Dalmaine would doubtless be punctilious; he was a rising politician. Yet the insult was too pronounced: it suggested some ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the human spirit. Though the life of a Brahman is intensely religious, yet it is cramped with exactions which are not only abortive but positively belittling. The code of Brahmanism never deals with general principles in the regulation of conduct, but fills the whole course of life with punctilious minutiae of observances. Instead of prescribing, as Christ did, an all-comprehensive law of supreme love to God and love to our neighbor as ourselves, it loads the mind with petty exactions, puerile precepts, inane prohibitions. "Unlike ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... important feature in the ritual which he prescribes is the shaving and ducking of all who have not passed the line before. But our attitude was strictly Erastian, and the demigod retired discomfited to the second class, where from the sounds which arose he seemed to find more punctilious votaries. On the 23rd we sighted a sail—or rather the smoke of another steamer. As the comparatively speedy 'Dunottar Castle' overtook the stranger everybody's interest was aroused. Under the scrutiny of many brand-new telescopes and field ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... out the cheque and showed it me. There was the Duke's own signature for L500,—'Omnium,' as plain as letters could make it." Armed with this full information, Mr. Slide felt that he had done all that the most punctilious devotion to accuracy could demand of him, and immediately shut himself up in his cage at the "People's Banner" ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... made, however, was on Charles alone, and he was surrounded by councillors, so much the more pedantic and punctilious as they were incapable, and placed amidst pressing necessities with which in themselves they had no power to cope. It may easily be allowed, also, that to risk any hopes still belonging to the hapless young King on the word ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... of nobility; the traditions shattered. But he thanked John Steele in an old-fashioned, courtly way for what he had once done for his niece whose life he had saved. Perhaps it was the reaction in himself; perhaps John Steele merely fancied a distance in the other's very full and punctilious expression of personal indebtedness; his courteous reiteration that he should feel honored by his presence at any and all ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... of sand go slipping and sliding into place in that gigantic hour-glass, striving and fretting in their vanity, but always impotently falling towards that thin neck, where days are numbered and the punctilious turnstile ushers to those mysterious marches where there ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... little world these children used to know:— Johnty, the oldest, and the best, perhaps, Of the five happy little Hoosier chaps Inhabiting this wee world all their own.— Johnty, the leader, with his native tone Of grave command—a general on parade Whose each punctilious order was obeyed By his ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... deer, and elk were treated by the American Indians with the same punctilious respect, and for the same reason. Their bones might not be given to the dogs nor thrown into the fire, nor might their fat be dropped upon the fire, because the souls of the dead animals were believed to see what was done to their bodies and to tell it to the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... becoming crowded, the Vigneron family had succeeded in finding room for themselves. They were all there: little Gustave, seated in a sinking posture, with his crutch between his legs; his mother, beside him, following the prayers like a punctilious bourgeoise; his aunt, Madame Chaise, on the other side, so inconvenienced by the crowd that she was stifling; and M. Vigneron, who remained silent and, for a moment, had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... before all things anxious to express, may think of those laws, the limitations of vocabulary, structure, and the like, as a restriction, but if a [13] real artist will find in them an opportunity. His punctilious observance of the proprieties of his medium will diffuse through all he writes a general air of sensibility, of refined usage. Exclusiones debitae—the exclusions, or rejections, which nature demands—we know how ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... confirmed by the threats which sick people will sometimes utter to their attendants. "If you don't take better care of me," a man will sometimes say, "and if you don't do everything you possibly can to preserve my valuable life, my ghost will serve you out." That is why friends and relations are so punctilious in paying visits of respect and condolence to the sick. Sometimes the last request which a dying man addresses to his kinsfolk is that they will kill this or that sorcerer who has killed him; and he enforces ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer |
