"Untidiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a little younger and shorter, and clothed in a superior untidiness, had somehow got on to the bridge, and was leaning with his back against the parapet which supported Edwin's elbows. His eyes were franker and simpler even than the eyes of Edwin, and his lips seemed to be permanently parted in a good-humoured smile. His name was Charlie Orgreave, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... settled districts among the poor and uneducated, where filth and untidiness reign, the "itch" is a very prominent disease. It is caused by the itch mite, a parasite which burrows underneath the skin leaving behind its eggs in little irregularly shaped, bluish tinted ridges. Such a profound ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... declared Patty, stoutly. "This kind of stuff can be picked up in a jiffy, and then the room is all in order. This is temporary, you see. By untidiness, I mean dirt and dust, and bureau drawers in a mess, and ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... dress, and the little interest he held in the affairs of this world. But who could have believed in such complete indifference, in the utter laisser-aller of such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes, and he felt no shame whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so accustomed to it that he would probably have denied its existence. The incessant smoking of a stout German pipe had spread upon the ceiling and over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. The cat, a magnificently ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... have given her own personal habits more consideration. True love will endure much, but it sometimes dies in the presence of untidiness, of carelessness as to dress or room, or lack of sweetness of person or of breath. If you demand much of a husband, he has a right to demand just as much from you. If there are habits concerning which you would rather he as a lover should be ignorant, ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... be pleasant to talk to and give good advice through the years that remain. [Instinctively she rectifies some little untidiness in the room.] What fools they are to think they can ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... The Heath was as usual, gay with pleasure-seekers and the streets sedate with church-goers. On Monday, when we tried to transact business and exchange money, we found that there were hitches and difficulties; it was more as though a window had been left open and a certain untidiness had resulted. "It will be all right tomorrow," everybody said. "Business as usual," ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Parker's esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Parker had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to have been 'tidying up and starting afresh' all my life," he said wearily; "I'm beginning to see where the untidiness lies, and the only way to ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Thomas Corbin disposes of the asseverations of Jefferson's biographers that the leader of the Democrats dressed himself like a gentleman until he became President. His untidiness was probably congenital to begin with, and in any case would have been a policy from the first, of that deep ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... of paper on the floor, a match end on a study table, any article of furniture or clothing out of its proper place, or any undress or untidiness on the part of a cadet, constitutes a breach of discipline, and must be reported and atoned for. Naturally, a case of hazing would be a most serious "delinquency," as breaches ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred Natasha's censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive things. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a lucky woman. Mine had plenty, I assure you. Untidiness was no name for Jessie, and Mary—I'm SORRY to ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... replied Carver smiling, for goodwife Billington's untidiness was but too notorious among ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... The same untidiness that marked the house was to be seen about the barn also, which, if anything, was in a more dilapidated ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... regard to a young girl's wardrobe, the same fundamental rule prevails: if every article of apparel is not daintily clean, it is unbecoming and unworthy a refined personality. Soiled laces and soiled ribbons are to be shunned; but better untidiness and soil of the outward apparel than of that which we know by the general name of underwear, which is far more personal and important than the outward costume. The more refined the character and taste of any young girl, the more ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... pensively. She knew that he didn't care a rap about the little squat god, but he abhorred untidiness—in other people. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... lowly set of cottage rooms, built by Sir John Denham in 1624, crouches quietly apart; the other, two hundred years younger, but still good Georgian brick, stands behind a gateway in grounds which, when I saw them last, were a miracle of untidiness. The almshouses, were rebuilt in 1828, when perhaps the grass round ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... of K——, hearing the regiment approaching, forsook their pans of boiling jam and ran into the street. Forgetting their morning deshabille and general untidiness, they rushed breathless with excitement to meet the regiment, and listened greedily to the band playing the march. Looking at their pale, ecstatic faces, one might have thought those strains came from some heavenly choir rather than from ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of her dark hairs hung low about her neck in disorder, and even in that first glance his eye had noted a certain negligent untidiness about her toilet most different from her former ways. Her face was worn and strangely aged and saddened, but beautiful still with the quenchless beauty of the glorious eyes, though sleepless nights had left their dark traces ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... hardened untidiness nor his lonely lot seemed, however, to weigh heavily on his mind; for he withdrew whistling, and his notes were heard about the passages for some little time. When they had died away in a distant part of the house, the red-haired young lady left ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... equivalents. Everyone will not be quiet in tone, or harmonious, or beautiful. Occasionally, as I go through the streets to my work, I shall turn round to glance again at some robe shot with gold embroidery, some slashing of the sleeves, some eccentricity of cut, or some discord or untidiness. But these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of harmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect of disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of ridicule, that it has in the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... like promotion! Kate dearly loved to have herself taken off her own hands, and not to be reproved by Mary for untidiness, or roughly set to rights by Lily's nurse. She actually exclaimed, "Oh, thank you!" And her aunt waited till the hat and cloak had been taken off and the chestnut hair smoothed, looked at her attentively, and said, "Yes, you are like ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... placed these houses in condition to withstand seige. Twin barrels of water stood in opposite corners, provisions were stored on the hanging shelves and the bunks once again reveled in untidiness. Spare rifles, in pattern ranging from long-range Sharp's and buffalo guns to repeating rifles, leaned against the walls, and unbroken boxes of cartridges were piled above the bunks. Instead of the lonesome outrider, he placed four men to each ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... English name for a large family of plants occurring chiefly in Europe and Asia, of which we have fourteen species in Great Britain, arranged under the botanical families of Carlina, Carduus, and Onopordon. It is the recognized symbol of untidiness and carelessness, being found not so much in barren ground as in good ground not properly cared for. So good a proof of a rich soil does the Thistle give, that a saying is attributed to a blind man who was choosing a piece of land—"Take me to a Thistle;" ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... thoughts had been on the sagging floors, the cheap furniture, the marred wall-paper, the miserable ugliness and poverty of the house, and everything in it; but she had seen in his remark only scorn for her housekeeping, irritation at the room's untidiness. She was very angry. As Allison realized this, a sudden fierce satisfaction possessed him. Now at last she would speak out, without pretence, without reserve! He should hear ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... uncomfortable living alone," Ralph grumbled. He was unshaven. The others showed in various aspects of untidiness ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... morning. It is scarcely possible that Borrow's stepdaughter and her husband could have left him alone at three o'clock in the morning in order to drive into Lowestoft, less than two miles distant. At this time, be it remembered, Dr. MacOubrey was eighty-one years of age. Now, as to the general untidiness of Borrow's home at the time of his death—the point is a distasteful one, but it had better be faced. Henrietta was twenty-three years of age when her mother married Borrow. She was sixty-four at the time ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... type requires great care, for the young girl in London is not naturally child-like. There should be a suggestion of untidiness about the hair; the dress should be simple, loose and sashed; nurse a kitten with a blue ribbon round its neck; say that you like chocolate-creams; open your eyes very wide, and suck the tip of one finger ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... his equinoctial lines, and his topics of Capricorn, and I don't know what besides,' Mrs. Martin continued, pointing to some charcoal scratches on the wall. 'I shall never rub 'em out; no, though 'tis such untidiness as I was never brought up to, I shall never rub ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... over. Stay at home. If anything happens let me know, even if it's at night. Don't write letters, I shan't read them. To-morrow I'll come again at this time alone, for a final answer, and I trust it will be satisfactory. Try to have nobody here and no untidiness, for the place isn't fit to be ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
