"Daintiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charmer in himself. His venom has graces. He is a stinging insect, but of how brilliant a hue! There are few satires in literature richer in the daintiness of malice than the Epistle to Martha Blount and the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. The "characters" of women in the former are among the most precious of those railleries of sex in which mankind has always loved to indulge. The summing-up of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... The daintiness of Rose in cap and apron with a big white fichu at her throat, with one red cheek and the corner of the most kissable mouth on the avenue maddeningly visible, soon drove all memory of the Gladwin mansion and the suspicious antics of the "rat-faced ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... surroundings, and though you ordinarily require him to put away some of his things himself, you do also assist this process by putting away a good deal to which you do not call attention. You make your home not only orderly but pretty, and yourself, also, that his love for you may lead him into a love for daintiness. (3) Habits: A few set observances may be safely and steadfastly demanded, but these should be very few: Such as that he should not come to breakfast without brushing his teeth and combing his hair, or sit down to any meal with unwashed hands. Make them so ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... the second time, and had more reason than ever for believing that, with all his daintiness and fastidiousness, he is altogether a man, hearty and generous, and his books, with all their shifting shadows, but a transcript of himself and of his unacknowledged visions and meditations. His ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... preserved in the Palatine Anthology, and two more by Strabo and Athenaeus; five others in the Anthology are ascribed to him on more or less doubtful authority. He brought to the epigram the utmost finish of which it is capable. Many of his epigrams are spoiled by over-elaboration and affected daintiness of style; but when he writes simply his execution is incomparable. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 21, speaks of "the sweet myrtle-berry of Callimachus, ever full of acid honey"; and there is in all his work a pungent flavour which is sometimes ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... two kinds of fastidiousness were at war. There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily on a desert island; a master whose daintiness was, as it were, an investment, cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in accordance with the laws of competition. This competitive daintiness had caused Soames in his Marlborough days to be the first boy into white waistcoats in summer, and corduroy waistcoats in winter, had prevented ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Bidborough must see scores of lovely girls. Jean seemed to see them walking past her in a procession—girls who had maids to do their hair in the most approved fashion, constantly renewed girls whose clothes were a dream of daintiness all charming, all witty, all fitted to be wife to a man like Lord Bidborough. What was he doing now, Jean wondered. Perhaps dancing, or sitting out with someone. Jean could see him so clearly, listening, smiling, with lazy, amused eyes. By now he must be thankful that the penny-plain girl ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... encased in white socks and yellow sandals. Above the yellow halo of her hair floated, with the sun shining through it, as through a glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which the child held by a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time, enraptured by the absurd daintiness of the figure between the big bundles of flesh of the nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly that months had gone by,—was it only months?—since his hands had touched anything soft, since he had seen any flowers. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... to the parlour, there came the bestowing of presents which Clarissa had brought for her friends. And they were so many and so satisfactory, that the criticisms of the past night were certainly for the present forgotten; Letitia forgave her cousin her daintiness, and Maria overlooked the gold watch. Matilda as usual said little, beyond the civil, needful words, which that ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... to stroke her head, just as fearlessly as if she were not armed with a beak that could bite through a boot. Greatly impressed by this daring, she gurgled in her throat, and took the great thumb delicately between her mandibles with a daintiness that would not have marred a rose-petal. Yes, she concluded at once, this was a man after her own heart, with a smell to his hands like that of MacPhairrson himself. Dropping the thumb with a little scream of satisfaction, she sidled briskly up and down MacAllister's ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... big, protecting arm and heart were gone forever—and now he had an early buttercup in his buttonhole, and on his lips the last of the laughter that he had just been sharing with Mary Dickey! And Mary, the picture of complacent daintiness, was ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... cured his dyspepsia in Italy, thanks to the wise and wholesome cooking of the said Egiste. In reality, and more simply, Brancadori was the old cook of a Russian lord, one of the Werekiews, the cousin of pretty Alba Steno's real father. That Werekiew, renowned in Rome for the daintiness of his dinners, died suddenly in 1866. Several of the frequenters of his house, advised by a French officer of the army of occupation, and tired of clubs, hotels, and ordinary restaurants, determined to form a syndicate and to employ his former cook. They, with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... skins that easily grow pale; it was pale to-day. Her black hair was fine as spun silk; the coil under her hat-brim shone as she moved. The fine hair, the soft, transparent skin, and the beautiful marking of her brows were responsible for an air of fragile daintiness in her person, just as her almond-shaped, liquid dark eyes and unsmiling mouth made her look sad. It was a most attractive face, in all its moods; sometimes it was a beautiful face; yet it did not have a single perfect feature except the ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... from above a quaint and nondescript garment, to which she had given a certain daintiness with a cleverly placed ribbon or two and an adroit use of pins. Privately, Hal considered that she looked delightfully pretty, with her provocative eyes and the deep gleam of red in her hair like flame seen ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of presents on the trays waxed rapidly less and less, the last parcel of all being of exceptional daintiness,—tissue-paper, tied round with a narrow blue ribbon. It was addressed to Betty, and to her rapturous surprise contained a line of congratulation from Cynthia Alliot, and the exact duplicate of an artistic silver and enamel ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... were modelled with infinite daintiness, were really inoffensive hands, the hands ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... course not," she interposed quickly, but with a tightening of the heart he recognised the bitterness of her tone. For all her soft daintiness, there was something of the tigress in ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the road to hell, ever to find such a ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... as he called it. Once or twice Keith had repeated such words at home and suffered for it. Soon he learned to know the type at first hearing, and he disliked this part of the vocabulary even when he could use it without danger to himself. He developed a greater daintiness in words than in anything else, but this summer formed an exception. The force of suggestion brought to bear on him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in foulness of tongue and thought. As soon as he was back in the ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... a screen between her face and the fire, motioned him to, seat himself opposite. He did so without words. He felt curiously and ridiculously tongue-tied. He fell to studying the woman instead of attempting the banality of pointless speech. From the smooth gloss of her burnished hair, to the daintiness of her low, black brocaded shoes, she represented, so far as her physical and outward self were concerned, absolute perfection. No ornament was amiss, no line or curve of her figure other than perfectly graceful. Yet even the fire's glow which she had seemed to dread ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... children took Dick and Rose-Ellen to the vacation school held every summer in one of the town churches. The Beechams were not surprised at Nico's dressed-up daintiness when she called for them. Grandma said she was perfect, from the ribbon bows on her shining hair to the socks that matched her smart print dress. But it was surprising to see Vicente come from the cluttered, dirty Garcia rooms, almost as ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... rooms where he had never been, a tiny chamber at the far end of the passage which she had made into a boudoir. Once he had seen into it through the open door, seen the daintiness with which it was decorated, a daintiness redolent of her as he had known her in the days when, for him, the ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... crowded dining-room, and looking to neither the right nor the left as they followed the headwaiter to their places. The discovery that they had exclusive possession of a small table was a matter of joyful surprise to them both, on which they freely commented. The daintiness of the linen, the gleam of silver, the perfection of the service, and the soft glow of candles under silk shades, filled their simple country souls with awe. It suggested unconjectured expense with a tang of wickedness as well. Off in ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... bare of leaves, the Oakdale gardens and lawns still flaunted a few late-blooming, rich-hued chrysanthemums. Perhaps it was because of the dark season of suspense through which she and Tom had passed that Grace declared herself for the cheerful daintiness of a pink and white wedding. In contradistinction to the weddings of her chums, who with the exception of Miriam Nesbit had each been accompanied to the altar by a bevy of bridesmaids, Grace announced that ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... museum. That Asiatic poikilia, that spirit of minute and curious loveliness, follows the bolder imaginative efforts of Greek art all through its history, and one can hardly be too careful in keeping up the sense of this daintiness of execution through the entire course of its development. It is not only that the minute object of art, the tiny vase-painting, intaglio, coin, or cameo, often reduces into the palm of the hand lines grander than those of [223] many a life-sized or colossal figure; ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... her carriage which came of the soil rather than of the city pavement. But it was a robustness in a finer than the wonted sense, a vigorous daintiness, it might be called, which gave an impression of virility with none of the womanly left out. It told of a heredity of seekers and fighters, of people that worked stoutly with head and hand, of ghosts that reached ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... was greasy from the handling of black fingers. The girl spread it on the little center-table with a certain daintiness, seated herself, and held out her hand for Peter's pencil. She made rather a graceful study in cream and yellow as she leaned over the table and signed her name in a handwriting as perfect and as devoid of character as a copy- book. She began discussing the speech ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... breakfast to find that Caroline had cleaned the room and had set the breakfast with a certain daintiness, while leaving dust thick on the corners of the floor and under the clock on the mantel-piece. Still, it was such a relief not to have to get up and prepare the breakfast and light the fire that Miss Ethel tried to forget the dust. Of course, after Caroline had gone ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... ribbons breathe The perfume of her touch; her gloves, Modeling the daintiness they sheathe; Her fan, a Watteau, gay with loves, Lie ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... account will be given of five book sizes that have taken rank as favorites. It should excite no surprise that all are small sizes. Nature's favorites are always small; her insect jewels outnumber her vertebrates a millionfold; and book-loving human nature takes the same delight in daintiness. ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... merry life again. You fuss so at a fall or hurt, And, if you get a little dirt, You keep up such an odious creaking, That where you are there is no speaking; And then your lackey Emery's called, And he, poor thing, is pricked and mauled, Until your daintiness—O, shocking!— Is fit for ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... fascination; and her country attire, the well-cut brown tweed ulster, the cloth cap from beneath which many little waves of fair silky hair had escaped, the trim gloves and short skirts—the most insignificant article of her attire—all seemed to bespeak that peculiar and subtle daintiness which is at the same time the sweetest and the hardest to define of nature's ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must be carried above and must fall below that limit, under circumstances which, to our apprehension, seem just as favourable as those at the altitude of thirty feet. But they do not germinate. Upon the other hand, Odontoglossums show no such daintiness of growth in our houses. They flourish at any height, if the general conditions be suitable. Mr. Roezl discovered a secret nevertheless, and in good ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... sunlight, they lodged in her many-braided yellow hair, or fluttered down the long curls that hung in front of her ears. She laughed again under the caressing shower. Then she tore away the remaining petals and tossed them up with an elf-like daintiness, not at the crouched and expectant kitten this time, but so that the whole red rain floated tenderly down upon her upturned face and into the folds of the white kerchief crossed upon her breast. She waited for ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... who speculated most audaciously, and perhaps truly, about the St. Michael. When he learned that Emma secreted it in her den, where she rarely admitted anyone, he maintained that it had become her incorporeal spouse. The daintiness with which it fingered a golden sword-hilt, as if fearing contamination, symbolised the aloofness of her spirit. The solitary enjoyment of a great impression of art made her den a sanctuary, absolving her from commoner or ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... thoughtfulness, the sight of it shocked her. The black dingy tray was smeared and dirty, the slice of bread rested on it, with no plate between, the knife and fork and cup were dirty too, and all was put down anyhow. Charlie probably was not accustomed to daintiness, but this was enough to check whatever appetite an invalid might have. Jessie longed to take the tray away, and set it according to her own notions, but she said nothing, for instinct told her that her mother's feelings would be hurt if she did, and that it would not ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... over; the cake-stand in four storeys had been depleted from attic to basement, and, after admiring the daintiness and taste displayed throughout Mrs. Henry's drawing-room, the ladies from Dawes Road had reached the most fascinating ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... lunches Deficiency of food material in the ordinary school lunch Why the after dinner session of school drags wearily Simple lunches desirable Suggestions for putting up the lunch Creamy rice Neatness and daintiness essential The lunch basket Sabbath dinners A needed reform Feasting on the Sabbath, deleterious results of Simple meals for the Sabbath A Sabbath bill of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... and slight, with timid, brown eyes and soft, fair hair and a certain daintiness of person that singled her out for attention in spite of the shabbiness ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... under the auspices of the Vegetarian Society, gave a magnificent object lesson in the possibility of a dietary excluding fish, flesh, and fowl. The sixpenny dinners, as also the plain and "high" teas, were truly a marvel of excellence, daintiness, and economy, and the queue of the patient "waiters," sometimes 40 yards long, amply ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... of place. Gorgeous couches, rich colors, silken walls, an oriental magnificence. In here is the ballroom. But wait: what is this in the corner? A large triumphal statue—of a cat overcoming a dog. And look at this dining-room, its exquisite appointments, its daintiness: faucets for hot and cold milk in the pantry, and a gold ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... first time Phebe beheld the change in him, and stood gazing at him in mute surprise and sorrow. He had always been careful of his personal appearance, with a refinement and daintiness which had grown especially fastidious since his marriage. But now his coat, wet through during the night, and dried only by the keen air of the hills, was creased and soiled, and his boots were thickly covered ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... trick, nor ruse, nor feint, Avail'd to hide the cause of grief, Or bar out Time, that graceless thief. A house, when gone to wreck and ruin, May be repair'd and made a new one. Alas! for ruins of the face No such rebuilding e'er takes place. Her daintiness now changed its tune; Her mirror told her, 'Marry soon!' So did a certain wish within, With more of secrecy than sin,— A wish that dwells with even prudes, Annihilating solitudes. This maiden's choice was past belief, She soothing down her restless grief, And smoothing ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... inspected—that was all. Now Ugly's supper consisted of two things he could never be induced to eat—ham and cold potatoes; and Harry, from mischief—he knew, however, that the dog had had a hearty dinner—prepared those things purposely, supposing that Ugly's daintiness would fail in a twelve hours fast. But no; there ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... slowly, and others rapidly. In some parts the voice should be low and soft, while in other parts it should be loud and gruff or harsh. The words of the princess should not sound like those of the old witch or the soldier. The daintiness and grace of elves and fairies should be indicated in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... door, had a receiving line, quite in the manner of any reception. She herself, in a blouse of marvellous daintiness and sweeping skirts, stood beside the visitor from London to present her. To this day Johnnie is uncertain as to where the wonderful blue silk frock of that lady from abroad was fastened, though she gave the undivided efforts of sharp young eyes and an inquiring ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... or the half of a breath, Graham saw the whole breathless situation, realized that the white wonderful creature was a woman, and sensed the smallness and daintiness of her despite her gladiatorial struggles. She reminded him of some Dresden china figure set absurdly small and light and strangely on the drowning back of a titanic beast. So dwarfed was she by the bulk of the stallion that she was a midget, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... minx-manner as some people called it. Claude had known it well in the "early days." It gave her a certain very modern charm in the eyes of some men. And it suggested a woman who lived in and for the world, who had nothing to do with any work. There was daintiness in it, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... service of the Associated Charities, that there was no foulness of disease or misery she feared to look in the face; but her house had always been thoroughly well regulated, she was passionately clean, and she was an excellent woman of business. Now, however, she elevated daintiness to a religion; her interior shone with superfluous friction, with punctuality, with winter roses. Among these soft influences Verena herself bloomed like the flower that attains such perfection in Boston. Olive had always rated high the native refinement of her country-women, their ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... potatoes, etc., and she should always be allowed to wash pots, pans and kettles, after the cooking is done. But if the mistress will spend half an hour in the kitchen before each meal, John will soon discover that his food has a delicacy of flavor and is served with a daintiness imparted only by a professional French cook,—or ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... roused herself up as the day came on, and looked things in the face so long, that her own face got little attention. However, Phoebeand the force of habitsent her down in the usual daintiness, at the usual time, to receive Mr. Falkirk, who after all did not come. But Dingee was on hand, and so Hazel made believe over her breakfast, quite successfully, and carried on her mental fight of questions the while ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... have I the daintiness of ear, To check time broke in a disordered string; But for the concord of my state and time, Had not an ear to hear my ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... gatherings. The women of the neighborhood, having only the primary hypothesis of human conduct, said she was "proud." She did not join heartily in their conversations when they met her, and had an aloofness about her which could only be explained that way. She had a certain daintiness about her, too, in her way of dressing—even in the way she did her hair—and in her walk, which made the women say with certain resentment, that Mrs. Paine ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... Madame Forestier, the latter "did not open the case, to the relief of her friend." The irony of fate could hardly go further; but it does go further a little later, when Madame Forestier, still young and beautiful, fails to recognize Madame Loisel because the latter had lost youth, beauty, daintiness, her very self, in toiling to pay to Madame Forestier a debt that was not a debt. Just before the final revelation Madame Loisel is made to say, "I am very glad." There is a unique pathos in her use of this word: it lifted her a little from the ground ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... of the indefinable quality that some people impart to a dwelling-place. Entering, one felt refinement, daintiness, and the ability to live above mere externals. Barbara had, very strongly, the house-love which belongs to some rare women. And who shall say that inanimate things do not answer to our love of them, ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... own reflection. Chrissie's clever fingers had pulled and twisted the crinkled paper into the most becoming of peasant caps, the large bead ear-rings, tied on with silk, jangled on to her neck, her paper sleeves stood out like lawn, the lace-edged apron was a triumph of daintiness, she wore Patricia's scarlet-kid dancing-slippers with Betty's black ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... he ordered of the trim maid, and he smiled to himself contentedly at the daintiness with which ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great deal of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickax or saw. And for the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is expected to be substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a deep-sea diver to be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when he ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... call, is familiar to his trained ear. Perhaps we cannot do better than quote the opening lines of a singularly beautiful sample of Ram Spudd's genius which seems to us the last word in nature poetry. It is called, with characteristic daintiness— ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... knowledge of none of these. The obvious step, of course, would be to set him at work; but from this undertaking Mary unconsciously recoiled. She had already recognized that while her tastes and her husband's were mostly alike, they were also strikingly different in many respects. They agreed in the daintiness of things, the elegance of detail; but they did not agree always as to the things themselves. Given the picture, they would choose the same frame—but they would not choose the same picture. They liked the same voice, but not the same song; the same company, but ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... came, with her pink-and-white daintiness, and spoke to them both with a little triumphant air of condescension; for was not she engaged to be married, whereas clever, working ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... summer evenings very often I would be taking one of the men with me and a net, and taking the boat from the beach we would go out with the splash-net, for I would be fond of the sport as well as of the daintiness of the eating in salmon trout. In the dusk we would be leaving, and whiles not coming in till it was two or three ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... and eighteen. She had a nice situation at the Pharmacie de Siam, in the Rue St. Honore. She had no one dependent upon her, and all the money she earned was her own. Her dress was of cheap material perhaps, but it was cut and fitted with that daintiness of perfection which seems to be the natural gift of the Parisienne, so that one never thought of the cheapness, but admired only the effect, which was charming. She was book-keeper and general assistant at the Pharmacie, and had a little room of her ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... germs may be defined, I think, as the recurrence of impressions and images connected with physical sanity and daintiness; of aspiration after orderliness, congruity, and one might almost say hierarchy; moreover, a certain exclusiveness, which is not the contempt of the craftsman for the bourgeois, but the aversion of the priest for the profane uninitiated. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... room he had pointed out as hers, was struck by its absolute cleanness and daintiness. The curtains were tastefully draped, tied with ribbon; there were scarfs on dresser and stand, pin-cushion and pins, little trays for trifles. The bed ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... drawing-room. In that quiet interior light that rested softly upon the decorous portraits of his forebears, the mahogany, and the accumulated bric-a-brac of three generations, he became aware of the incongruous presence of Stella. He realized again her clean-cut, finished daintiness, the incisiveness of voice and feature. As he released her hand, still aware of its hard, boyish grip, he heard his aunt's voice, light, wandering, non-arresting, as if continuing some conversational thread, "And Miss Allison Clyde, Mark—my old friend." He ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... single file, we rode back. When there I told each that he must be searched, to which they submitted at once. After that we went through their baggage. I wasn't going to have the sheriff or cowboys tumbling over Miss Cullen's clothes, so I looked over her bag myself. The prettiness and daintiness of the various contents were a revelation to me, and I tried to put them back as neatly as I had found them, but I didn't know much about the articles, and it was a terrible job trying to fold up some of the things. Why, there ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... she arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire—with a rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that none but the wealthy can assume, and, in short, with that unmistakable air about every thing pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion. These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes were. Once ready, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd With being nothing. Music do I hear? [Music.] Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disorder'd string; But, for the concord of my state and time, Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... wore very simple clothes and shoes, but suitable for a bishop and his clerks. Like laymen, they wore the byrrhus, a garment with a hood, which seems very like the ancestor of the Arab burnous. To keep an even line between daintiness and negligence in costume, to have no exaggeration in anything, is what Augustin aimed at. The poet Rutilius Numatianus, who about that time was attacking the sordid and culture-hating monks with sombre irony, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... benches," and I piled them up, with a rickety bucket on top. "Wait!" I implored, stepping up on the bottom bench. "Give me your hand," and as I caught her hands, she leaped from the window to the bucket, and the bucket to the ground, with a daintiness, which I thought savored of ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... had begged the privilege of remaining to help with the supper; and you may be sure every dish was served with a perfection and daintiness of touch only the French can give. Yes, it was a great success; and when, after the last guest had departed, Molly came and told her sister, almost with tears in her eyes, how happy she had been, Sara felt repaid for the sacrifice of quiet ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... audacities flashing and darting about him. He had a certain hauteur with men, and could play the aristocrat when he pleased, for all his philosophical radicalism. But with women he was the most delightful mixture of deference and high spirits. He loved the grace of them, the daintiness of their dress, the softness of their voices. He would have done anything to please them, anything to save them pain. At twenty-five, when he was still 'Citizen Flaxman' to his college friends, and in the first fervours of a poetic defiance of prejudice and convention, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to fill me with surprise. When he and I dwelt there together, the pavilion had been a temple of misogyny. And now, one of the detested sex was to be installed under its roof. I remembered one or two particulars, a few notes of daintiness and almost of coquetry which had struck me the day before as I surveyed the preparations in the house; their purpose was now clear, and I thought myself dull not to have ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than game, and never should be underdone. Dark-legged fowls are best for roasting, as their flesh is moister and better flavored cooked in this way than the white-legged ones, which from their greater daintiness of appearance are to be preferred ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... in her own drawing-room, noticing with what skill comfort had been combined with daintiness, and how she had followed the usual instinct of her kind in trying to create here in this room a piece of England. Through the window he looked out upon a lawn which was being watered by a garden-sprinkler, and where ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... Thus, the stormy glory of her dark hair, great masses that ran a riot of shining ripples and waves. And the straight line of the nose, not too thin, yet fine enough for the rapture of a Praxiteles. And the pink daintiness of the ear-tips, which peered warmly from beneath the pall of tresses. One could know nothing accurately of the complexion now. But it were easy to guess that in happier places it would show of a ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... something within her that responded to the daintiness of the loving stitches in the old blanket—and to a something in the refined faces in the picture. And they had called their wee daughter ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... silk, the skimp skirt and sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness; and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness. ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... carefully pressed, was of cheap material, the velvet on the small black hat had been caught in more than one shower, and the black gloves had been many times painstakingly mended. The small feet alone showed that their owner had allowed herself one luxury, that of good shoes—and the daintiness of those feet made a strong appeal to ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... run through him, for which reason he looked straight in front of him and shifted his grasp on the reins. Disdainful and imperious as she was at times, he knew there was a wealth of softer qualities in his companion now. Her daintiness in thought and person, and honesty of purpose, appealed to him, while that night her mere physical presence had an effect that was almost bewildering. For a moment he wondered vaguely how far a man might dare to go, with what fate had thrust ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... these sensitive capabilities in a very high decree. His careful choice of epithet and name have even been criticised as lending to some of his narrative-writing an excessive air of deliberation. His daintiness of diction is best seen in his earlier work; thereafter his writing became more vigorous and direct, fitter for its later uses, but never unillumined by felicities that cause a thrill of pleasure to the reader. Of the value of words he had ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... sofa by way of marriage.... Joanna congratulated herself on having really done very well for Ellen, though during the first weeks she missed her sister terribly. She missed their quarrels and caresses—she missed Ellen's daintiness at meals, though she had often smacked it—she missed her strutting at her side to church on Sunday—she missed her noisy, remonstrant setting out to school every morning and her noisy affectionate return—her heart ached when she looked at ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... exquisitely fine saffron-colored liquid. It breathed an aroma that seemed the quintessence of angelica and hyssop blended with sea-weeds and of iodines and bromes hidden in sweet essences, and it stimulated the palate with a spiritous ardor concealed under a virginal daintiness, and charmed the sense of smell by a pungency enveloped in ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Gard discovered that while they had kept the puissant Carolingian snatched to their breasts, the chivalrous side of the great medieval evolution which ended in fostering the romantic ideal of womanhood in its chastity, daintiness and colorful spell, had never reached much east of his capital—Aix-la-Chapelle. His heroic size, his practical religious pretensions and assumptions, his campaigns to seize control of foreign lands—all such Carolingian ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... stanza, like the language, is pretty and would scarcely be a suitable vehicle for poetic expression requiring great depth or stateliness. Provencal verse in general cannot be said to possess majesty or the rich orchestral quality Brunetiere finds in Victor Hugo. Its qualities are sweetness, daintiness, rapidity, grace, a merry, tripping flow, great smoothness, and ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... a rather merry time at dinner and the children did not seem a bit afraid to talk, though they were not aggressive. But Dr. Richards thought his little ward compared very favorably with the others. Her daintiness ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... lack a certain desirable roundness, and her shoulders may recede in awkward lines, and yet between these defective features the curves may have a not unpleasing daintiness and delicacy in modelling that can be advantageously revealed. A modish velvet throat-band, such as is shown by No. 63, is one of the most graceful conceits of fashion. The too slim throat encircled by velvet or ornamented with a jewelled buckle or brooch is effectively framed. ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... understand the same allusions. While they talked, Maurice had an opportunity of looking more deliberately at his cousin. He liked her small graceful figure, her tiny hands, and bright sunshiny face, with its frame of almost golden hair arranged in full soft puffs; he liked the air of daintiness and refinement about her dress, and the musical sound of her voice as she talked. He admired her the more, perhaps, because she was quite unlike the type of woman which was, in his thoughts, beyond admiration. But it did occur to him how lovely Lucia would look, with the same advantages ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... stroked the dense brake of black-brown beard that cleverly filled in the interval between Mr. Van Busch's luxuriant whiskers. Presently he stooped and picked up a little tan-leather glove, lying in a tuft of pink flowers. The daintiness of the little glove brought home to Bough more forcibly than anything else, that the Kid had ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... have been true enough the day before; but hunger cures daintiness, and now I was glad of such a mouthful. I bolted it in an instant, and looked for more. He threw me one other crust, saying that was all he could spare; and, finishing the rest himself, went on his way, leaving me as ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked herself who this Miss ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... here came another surprise. The room was of moderate size, poorly furnished, indeed, but comfortable and something more. It bore traces of many petty attentions, even—in its white dimity curtains and valances—of an attempt at daintiness. The sight of it brought quite a pleasant shock after the dirt and disarray of the corridor. Nor was the room assigned to my brother one whit less habitable. But if surprised by all this, I was fairly astounded to find in each room a pair of candles lit—and quite recently ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... times when circumstances allow,—or, in other words, to be delightfully natural. The old-fashioned education of her sex was directed to the development [365] of every quality essentially feminine, and to the suppression of the opposite quality. Kindliness, docility, sympathy, tenderness, daintiness—these and other attributes were cultivated into incomparable blossoming. "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever: do noble things, not dream them, all day long"—those words of Kingsley really embody the central idea in her training. Of course ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... grown very fond of the little Southern girl in the five weeks past. Annabel had a way of ingratiating herself into the affections of her associates. She had the charm that is an inheritance of the South; the musical softness of speech, the daintiness of person, the warmth of heart; and—although Blue Bonnet had it yet ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... thrill of pride as she looks upon her piles of shining, satiny table linen, and takes account of her sheet, pillowcase and towel treasure. They are her stocks and bonds, giving forth daily their bounteous, beauteous yield of daintiness and comfort, and paying for themselves many times over by the atmosphere of nicety and refinement which they create. For it is these touches, unobtrusive by their very delicacy, which introduce ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... in their way, the castaways just at that crisis might not have cared to eat them with the bitterness they must have derived from their briny immersion; still they knew that in due time they would get over any daintiness of this kind; and, indeed, before many hours had elapsed, all four of them began to feel keenly the cravings of a hunger not likely to refuse the coarsest or most unpalatable food. Since that hurried retreat from their moorings by the carcass ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... sat in front of him, with her little porcelain hands lying on the black cushion. And daintiness was astonished into withdrawing ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... daintiness, ceased its motion; she turned at once. Around her lips a strange little smile flitted but faded almost immediately. Save for her straightness and that proud characteristic poise of the head, she might have seemed, at that moment of ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... have expected on a priori grounds. A wideness of sweep and elemental greatness in proportion to the natural majesty of the huge new continent are hardly present; Walt Whitman remains an isolated phenomenon. Instead, we meet in the best American literature an almost aristocratic daintiness and feeling for the refined and select. As compared with the British school, the leading American school is marked by an increased delicacy of finesse, a tendency to refine and refine, a perhaps exaggerated dread of the platitude ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... was his now for the taking—nobly self-offered—and with all the world as an apanage he could not have taken her. The phenomenon of sex he could not explain. Once he had desired her passionately. The ivory-white of her daintiness had fired his blood. He had fought with beasts. He had wrestled with his soul in the night watches. He had loved her purely and sweetly, too. But now, as she stood before him, recoiling a little from his fixed stare of pain, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... lot of Jack to be close to the stove this morning and he gave a momentary sigh for the coolness and order and daintiness that he knew would give atmosphere to the breakfast in Mrs. Willis' household. Not that he minded eating in the kitchen—he and his mother often did that when his father was away and thought it a lark; but he did mind the heat and the haste and ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... "what Sir Daintiness have ye here?" But ere his grinning captors could make reply, the knight ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... middle, the effect simulating double doors. A simple, hand-tooled ovolo ornaments the jambs and architrave casings of the keyed arch. It is also repeated above the double denticulated member of the cornice, the latter enriched by a hole drilled in each dentil alternately above and below. Daintiness and simplicity characterize the fanlight pattern set ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh water fish, as the Mullet may with all sea fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste; and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... in another minute, and, staggering in, he sank into the nearest chair. A stove snapped and crackled in the middle of the little log-walled room, which in spite of its uncovered, split-boarded floor, seemed to possess a daintiness very unusual in the Bush. He did not, however, know what particular objects in it conveyed that impression, for the whole room seemed to be swinging up and down; but he was definitely conscious of a ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the simple white dress that clung to her tall, slender figure, revealing lines of exquisite grace and litheness; not by virtue of the glossy masses of dark brown hair heaped high on her head and held there in wonderful shining coils; not by virtue of added softness of curve and daintiness of outline; not because of all these, but because of the dream and wonder and seeking in her eyes. She was a woman, looking, all unconscious of her ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and were fast asleep, so they went back to the car and slept till morning. At daylight they went down to a brook to wash but found that the soldiers were there ahead of them, and they had to go back and be content with freshening up with cold cream. Thus did these lassies, accustomed to daintiness in their daily lives, accommodate themselves to the necessities of war, as easily and cheerfully as the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... it from himself—Elizabeth appealed to him. Being built on a large scale himself, he had always been attracted by small women. There was a smallness, a daintiness, a liveliness about Elizabeth that was almost irresistible. She was so capable, so cheerful in spite of the fact that she was having a hard time. And then their minds seemed to blend so remarkably. There were no odd corners to be smoothed away. Never in his life had ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... silken walls, an oriental magnificence. In here is the ballroom. But wait: what is this in the corner? A large triumphal statue—of a cat overcoming a dog. And look at this dining-room, its exquisite appointments, its—daintiness: faucets for hot and cold milk in the pantry, and a gold bowl ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... it was a kind which received credit in society, being the product of a great deal of pains and care and exquisite arrangement and combination. She threw her fur cloak back a little, arranged the strings of her bonnet under her chin, which threw up the daintiness and rosiness of a complexion about which there were many questions among her closest friends. She shook up, with what had often been commented upon as the prettiest gesture, the bracelets from her wrists. She arranged the veil, which ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... from their dinner table when the stirred youth arrived at the front door of the new house. It was a cottage, however, rather than a house; and Lucy had taken a free hand with the architect, achieving results in white and green, outside, and white and blue, inside, to such effect of youth and daintiness that her father complained of "too much spring-time!" The whole place, including his own bedroom, was a young damsel's boudoir, he said, so that nowhere could he smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he was smoking when George ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... welfare of cows, soon the mere outward show became an old story. Estrella's sleek nature avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodily well-being. When she was cool and well-fed and not thirsty, and surrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she was ready to amuse herself. But she could not understand the desirability of those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must be paid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... "trousseau." The absence of things useless was not more notable than the abundance of things useful; and let not useful be understood to mean needful,—for of the little extras which are so specially pleasant to those who never buy them for themselves, there was also a full supply. The daintiness of everything was great, but nothing was out of Faith's line: the stuffs might be finer than she had always worn, but the colours were what she had always liked, and in any one of those many dresses she might feel at home in five minutes—they suited her so well. She could see, well ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... solo viola of the chief character; the Romeo and Juliet Symphony, for both vocal and instrumental forces (of which the ball-scene with its wondrous love-melody and the Queen Mab Scherzo—unequalled for daintiness—represent his highest attainments as a tone-poet) and, most popular of all, the Damnation of Faust based on scenes from Goethe's poem. The bewitching incidental pieces for orchestra alone, such as the Ballet ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... cottage under her thumb. By now she had cleaned all the furniture, 'coloured' most of the walls, and mended all the linen, which had been in a sad condition—Miss Anna's powers being rather intellectual than practical. And through it all she kept a natural daintiness and refinement, was never clumsy, or loud, or untidy. She came and went so lightly—and always bringing with her the impression of something hidden and fragrant, a happiness within, that gave a dancing grace and ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the native French taste naturally akin to that Italian finesse. The characteristic of French work had always been a certain nicety, a remarkable daintiness of hand, une nettete remarquable d'execution. In the paintings of Francois Clouet, for example, or rather of the Clouets—for there was a whole family of them—painters remarkable for [157] their resistance to Italian influences, there is a silveriness of colour and a clearness of expression ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... a pouting or mutinous turn of the head, a plump little wrist peering from its nest of lace, a yielding waist bent over an embroidery frame, the rapid rustling of an opening fan, is a feast for the eyes and the intellect. It is indeed all daintiness, a delicate caress for delicate senses, extending to the external decoration of life, to the sinuous outlines, the showy drapery, and the refinements of comfort in the furniture and architecture. Fill your imagination with these accessories and with these figures and you will ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... were gray, and that her hat was for the most part white.) The charm of fabric and tint belonging to what she wore was no shame to her, not being of primal importance beyond herself; it was but the expression of her daintiness and the adjunct of it. She was tall, but if Joe could have spoken or thought of her as "slender," he would have been capable of calling her lips "red," in which case he would not have been Joe, and would have been as far from the truth as her lips were from red, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... continued their progress for about an hour, and, as the shades of evening fell around them, they discovered a public-house. Augustus entered, and returned in a few minutes laden with bread and cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison fare cures a man of daintiness, and the two fugitives dined on these homely viands with considerable complacency. They then resumed their journey, and at length, wearied with exertion, they arrived at a lonely haystack, where they resolved to repose for ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... closely wrapped in her warmest furs, with face well ensconced under her close bonnet, and arms buried to the elbow in her muff, sallied from her room on the announcement that the carriage was waiting. As, with her leisurely daintiness, she tripped it down the stairs, she crossed Mr. Landale, and paused a moment, ready for the skirmish, as she noticed the cynical curiosity with which ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to know. Heaven made her rich in such maternity as his. Mother instinct is in all good lives, and belongs to man. Maternity and paternity are met in the best manhood. The tenderness of motherhood must soften a man's touch to daintiness, like an evening wind's caress, before fatherhood is perfect. All his youthhood, which knew not any woman's lips to kiss; all his manhood, which had never shared a hearth with wife or child,—all this unused tenderness now administers to the wants of this orphan, Cossette. His rescue ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... well after 7 o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be protected, to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... refrigerator with fish, meat, or vegetables of rank or even pronounced smell, exchanges its own delicate aroma for theirs, and reaches us bereft once for all of what is the real charm of perfect butter. For this reason absolute cleanliness and daintiness of vessels containing milk or cream, or used in any way in the manufacture of butter, is one of the first laws ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... caressing tricks and graces imaginable; and she perched herself on his knee, and laughed and chatted so gayly, and pulled his whiskers so saucily, and then, springing up, began arraying herself in such an astonishing daintiness of device, and fluttering before him with such a variety of well-assorted plumage, that John was quite taken off his feet. He did not care so much whether what she willed to do were, "Wisest, virtuousest, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... day by day. Her coat was gray with tiger markings, but paws and throat and nose were snowy white, and in spite of her excursions to barns and cellars her constant care kept them spotless—indeed, she was the very Venus of cats for daintiness and grace of pose and movement. To my grandmother her various attitudes had an undoubted meaning. If in a rainy day Beauty washed her face toward the west, her observant mistress would exclaim: 'See, kitty ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... until after she had taken her supper in the evening, and at about ten in the morning she reached Mara's home by an unfrequented side street. There were those, however, who had begun to notice the regularity of her visits and among them was Owen Clancy. We have also seen that the daintiness of the viands ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... curiosity and desire of the king, and the model was invited to the Parc-aux-Cerfs.[28] This was typical of the service that painting was expected to render to the society that adored it and paid for it. "All is daintiness, delicate caressing for delicate senses, even down to the external decoration of life, down to the sinuous lines, the wanton apparel, the refined commodity of rooms and furniture. In such a place and in such company, it is enough to be together to feel ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... meal is served and from one to three hours afterward. The mind should be diverted from her condition by good reading, friends, or other amusements. The utmost care and tact should be used in the preparation of her food, and art should be manifested in the daintiness of the tray, etc. We found one mother was nauseated even at the sight of her tray and so we planned a call that should bring us to her home at the meal hour. The tray came in with the attendant in unkempt attire, who said, as she placed it carelessly down on a much-loved book our patient ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... strikingly handsome man. His features were good and clearly cut; his hair and moustache were dark, thick, short and glossy; his dark eyes were quick and bright; his figure was well-made, and better developed; his shapely hands were not only clean, they were fastidiously trimmed about the nails (a daintiness common below the rank of sergeant, especially among men acting as clerks); and if the stone in his signet ring was not a real onyx, it looked quite as well at a distance, and the absence of a crest was not conspicuous. He spoke with ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... their costumes showed them to be of station. The crinoline of the two filled all the body of the ample coach from seat to seat, and the folds of their figured muslins, flowing out over this ample outline, gave to the face of each a daintiness of contour and feature which was not ill relieved by the high head-dress of ribbons and bepowdered hair. Of the two ladies, one, even in despite of her crinoline, might have been seen to be of noble and queenly figure; the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... She was vivid as a wild poppy on the hillsides past which they went flashing. But she had, too, a daintiness, a delicacy of coloring and contour, that suggested the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... occurred not many months ago, have made noteworthy contributions to American letters—Edmund Clarence Stedman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Of the two, Aldrich was by far the better craftsman, his verse possessing a wit, a daintiness and perfection of finish which sets it apart in a class almost by itself. In prose, too, Aldrich wrote attractively, but always rather with the air of a dilettante, and without the depth and passion of genius. Stedman also possessed wit ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... violent emotions, and he recognised, with a mixture of surprise and alarm, the great gulf that lay between the rage of Sis Poteet and the little platitudes and pretences of anger which he had seen the other women of his acquaintance manage with such pretty daintiness. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... she sang. She who sang was a girl of five and twenty, whom it had pleased to clothe her ripe womanhood in a boy's habit, that clasped her fine body as close as a second skin, and she might have passed for a man no otherwhere than in a madhouse. She looked very charming in the stained and faded daintiness of her male attire. She wore a green velvet doublet and green woollen hose, with a scarlet girdle and pouch about her waist, and a scarlet feather stuck defiantly in her green cap, beneath which her long fair hair tumbled in liberal confusion about her shoulders. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up among the withered leaves, and the faint blue sheen beneath the beech trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic daintiness in this man, and the elusive beauty of these things curiously appealed to him. He had seen the riotous, sensuous blaze of flowers kissed by Pacific breezes, and the burnished gold of wheat that rolled in mile-long waves; but it seemed to him that ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... arabesques. A narrow pale-green ribbon sometimes edges the right and left of the breast. It is not so rich as the costume of the Banded Epeira, but much more elegant because of its soberness, its daintiness and the artful blending of its hues. Novice fingers, which shrink from touching any other Spider, allow themselves to be enticed by these attractions; they do not fear to handle the beauteous Thomisus, so gentle ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... among her friends, and accepted all the small trials of strict convent life—no bath, nor mirror, coarse underlinen and sheets—no fire, no lights, no privacy, the regular irksome routine of a nun's life, and is perfectly happy—never misses the intellectual companionship and the refinement and daintiness of her former life,—likes the commonplace routine of the convent—the books they read to each other in "recreation," simple stories one would hardly give to a child of twelve or fourteen,—the fetes on the "mother's" birthday, when the nuns ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster |
