"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a good-for-nothing young spendthrift taken at the last moment "because he wrote a good hand," and a mixed crew, Hudson crossed the wide Atlantic for the last time. He sailed by way of Iceland, where "fresh fish and dainty fowl, partridges, curlew, plover, teale, and goose" much refreshed the already discontented crews, and the hot baths of Iceland delighted them. The men wanted to return to the pleasant land discovered ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... edge of the wood there were some chestnuts and sycamores. He noticed that the large-patterned leaf of the sycamores, hanging out from a longer stem, was darker than the chestnut leaf. There were some elms close by, and their half-opened leaves, dainty and frail, reminded him of clouds of butterflies. He could think of nothing else. White, cotton-like clouds unfolded above the blossoming trees; patches of blue appeared and disappeared; and he wandered on again, beguiled this time by many errant scents and wilful ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... library, with its big open fire, and the books and belongings of his bachelor days. Man is usually not credited with much taste or ability to take care of himself in the matter of comfortable living, but it is frequently noticed that when woman has made a dainty paradise of every other portion of the house, the room she most enjoys, that from which it is difficult to keep out the family, is the one that the man is permitted to call his own, in which he retains some of the comforts and can indulge some of the habits of his bachelor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sway, the compelling force of a fascinating femininity he almost trembled for himself. Weaker sahibs—gad! he knew several, one a Deputy Commissioner. A beautiful little Kashmiri girl had nursed him through cholera when even his own servants had fled. The Kashmiri, who had the dainty flower-like sweetness of a Japanese maid, and practically the same code, had lived in his protection before this. After the nursing incident he had married her, with benefit of clergy, and the result had been hell, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... hollow. Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow: Tara! it twang'd, tara-tara! it blew, Yet wavered oft, and flew Most ficklewise about, or here, or there, A music now from earth and now from air. But on a sudden, lo! I marked a blossom shiver to and fro With dainty inward storm; and there within A down-drawn trump of yellow jessamine A bee Thrust up its sad-gold body lustily, All in a honey madness hotly bound On blissful burglary. A cunning sound In that wing-music held me: down I lay In amber shades of many a golden spray, Where looping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... Miss Bunny,' and 'Don't make dirty your frock, Miss Bunny,' I think I should be jolly—yes, that's papa's word, jolly. But, oh dear, big people are so happy, for they can do what they like, but chindrel must do everything they are told." And quite forgetting her pretty white frock and dainty sash, and the many orders she had received not on any account to soil them, she lay back comfortably ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... finding anything that could be called food, he would, when returning, manage to secure a wild duck, perhaps, or a couple of sea magpies, or a few young gulls. Nothing came amiss to the young Coombers at any time, and just now a tough stringy gull was a dainty morsel. ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... with the guillotine, the phraseurs and meneurs of the Gironde, your orators of set speech, glittering abstractions, and hair-splitting definitions; the Brissots, Vergniauds, Condorcets, and Rolands, who could degrade, dethrone, and condemn a king to perpetual imprisonment, but were just too dainty of conscience to go the whole hog of murder. As history, like an old almanack, does but repeat itself within a given cycle of years, so the same round, cast, and change of characters and characteristics, with all the other paraphernalia of the great drama, Reform and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... by a sudden whim to a change of humour. She sprang from her dejection to the extreme of good spirits. Her singing proved it, for she chose a couple of light-hearted French ballads, and sang them with a dainty humour which matched the daintiness of the words and music. Her shrugs and pouts, the pretty arching of her eyebrows, the whimsical note of mockery in her voice, represented her to Drake under a new aspect, helped to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... set out and arriving at the house of the fisherman's son, they found a large number of beautiful tents erected for the soldiers' accommodation and the King was astonished. Then came the feasting—one dainty dish being quickly followed by another still more delicious and the soldiers said among themselves, "We should like to remain here for two years to eat meat and not be obliged to eat only beans and lentils." They continued there forty days ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... a charming book, with illuminating passages, but it is too logical, too plausible, too full of the preciosity of dainty generalization, to reach the dark and arbitrary soul, either of Spain ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... [man's] soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain; so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth nigh to the grave, and his life to the destroyers. [Thus describing the miserable condition of humankind] If there be a messenger [the Christ, the Messenger of the new covenant] ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... to be some doubt as to the date of this work, as the columns have evidently been inserted since the arches which spring from them were built. The discrepancy will be seen in Plates XVIII., XIX., and XX. The disproportion of the dainty columns and capitals to the heavy arches which are entirely in keeping with the architecture of the rest of the cathedral, but which manifestly do not fit the columns, leads to the conclusion that the columns were a later addition, although probably inserted ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 03, March 1895 - The Cloister at Monreale, Near Palermo, Sicily • Various
... filled with ferns and in places clear water was dripping from these little green cliff gardens. As we ran along the foot of the left wall we saw a peculiar and beautiful spring which had carved out a dainty basin where a multitude of ferns and kindred plants were thriving, a silvery rill dropping down from them. We emerged from the canyon as abruptly as we had entered it, and saw a broad valley stretching before us. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... stealth to Con's girsha. Those were long days of her childhood when her mother was at work in the Hall, and the child was locked in the empty cottage; but many was the kind word through the window, from the women as they passed up and down, and now and again a hot griddle-cake, or some little dainty of the kind, was passed through to the child as she sat so dull and lonely on her ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... and stare out the stern port. She will not speak or eat. I take in her breakfast, but she touch not a morsel. So I tell Senor Estada, and he say, 'then bring her out to dinner with me; I'll make the hussy eat, if I have to choke it down her dainty throat,'" ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... his large dark eyes with their veined lids and silky lashes had a penetrating and peculiar expression—a mixture of audacity and weakness; his thin and somewhat pale lips were apt to curl in an ironical smile; his hands were of perfect beauty, his feet of dainty smallness, and he showed with an affectation of complaisance a well-turned leg above his ample boots, the turned down tops of which, garnished with lace, fell in irregular folds aver his ankles in the latest fashion. He did not appear to be more than eighteen years of age, and nature ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... little creature. I never looked in his laughing eye, or heard his merry shout, or listened for his tripping tread; I never pillowed his little head, or bore his little form, or smoothed his silky locks, or laved his dimpled limbs, or fed his cherry lips with dainty bits, or kissed his rosy cheek ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... nature for dinner on board the steamer, and one or two simple evening gowns for the ship's concert or other festive occasions. A white serge suit was added for pleasant afternoons on deck, and some dainty kimonos and ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... "I told a man the other day that I was tired of meeting him incessantly at dinner, and that we met each other so often in this way as to make conversation a bore." Could any remark have more pungently expressed the unhappy narrowness of New York reunions? How many times has the dainty Mr. Amsterdam or Mrs. Manhattan ever met men and women of literary or artistic gifts at a fashionable dinner in Fifth or Madison Avenue? How many times has he or she met any such person at a "patriarchs' ball" or an "assembly?" Has he ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... crystal rods; already the whole face of the country sounded with the discharge of drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of downpour and the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty as a cat. At the corner of the road, and by the last glint of the drowning sun, I spied a covered cart, of a kind that I thought I had never seen before, preceding me at the foot's pace of jaded horses. Anything is interesting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the studio for the last time, it seemed in twilight, for the shadows of a midwinter afternoon were already long. He saw that she had set out a dainty little tea table and his heart gave a throb when he discerned in its center, in a cut glass bowl, the violets that he had brought her on the preceding day. They seemed to scent the room with a definite and yet elusive fragrance, quite like her personality ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... appeared at the old lady's summons, and led Miss Dane, through carpeted corridors, into the daintiest of dainty bed-chambers, all blue silk and white lace drapery, and rich furniture, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... embroidered and tinted themselves. A bourgeois had the air of a flower, a Marquis had the air of a precious stone. People had no straps to their boots, they had no boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering, dainty, coquettish, which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their sides. The humming-bird has beak and claws. That was the day of the Galland Indies. One of the sides of that century was delicate, the other was magnificent; and by ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a man more humane, more tolerant, more dainty; incites to every natural piety, strengthens reverence; while it clears his brain of whatever dull fumes may have lodged there, stirs up all his senses to wary alertness, and actually quickens his vitality, like high pure air. It is, in ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek Exposing it—but, Oh! the harder heart! Alack! no remedy! to the greedy touch Of common-kissing Titan, and forget Your laboursome and dainty trims. "Cymbeline," ACT ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... the image-maker recovered his strength; and meanwhile Phidias had filled the little shop with dainty-wrought images and graceful vases, such as had never ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... When Sally Stone nursed him, she was forced to feed the little cormorant with a tablespoon. As far as I can see, notwithstanding his partnership education with the young Squire, I think the grown babe should be fed with spoon-meat still. But what dainty lasses are these that come this way? ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... sky's a pale blue cup Over the laughing land, My love goes lightly, holding up Her dress with dainty hand. ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... as she spread a dainty towel over the seat in front, and began her preparations, laying out the powder-boxes, brushes, and comb, the bottles of perfume, and the little knickknacks that make up the fittings of a gentlewoman's boudoir. It ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the basement watching Delia prepare a dainty supper for the governess, and scowling at her as she saw to what trouble she went to make it appetizing ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... mine opinion, I could highly commend your Orchard, if either through it, or hard by it there should runne a pleasant Riuer with siluer streames; you might sit in your Mount, and angle a peckled Trout, or fleightie Eele, or some other dainty Fish. Or moats, whereon you might row with a Boate, and ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... separate beating of the eggs, the knack of stirring it upon the fire, and the method of transferring it from the fire to the table. If you will carefully follow the directions here given, you can produce a dish dainty enough to satisfy the most ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... The pot was then taken from the fire, and all four greedily ate of its contents. It was far from being palatable, and had a clammy "feel" in the mouth, something like sago; but none of the party was in any way either dainty or fastidious just at that time, and they soon consumed all that had been cooked. It did not satisfy the appetite, though it filled the stomach, and made their situation less painful ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Simms, she did not lose the polish of her culture, she was always feminine, even dainty at times, despite her work, that could not help but be coarse to a certain extent. She was full of vigor, she showed unexpected strength, she was a source of encouragement to the men as she waited on them. And also a source of undisguised admiration, all of which ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... whereof they tyrannize over the greatest tyrants; for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty smooth cheeks, such a low gende voice, and so pure a complexion, as if nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry and comeliness? Beside, what live, but to be wound up as it were in a winding-sheet before we are ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... An afternoon tea is a simple entertainment. Refreshments are generally served to the guests. An innovation lately introduced has become quite popular —namely, young women, invited for the purpose, wait upon the guests, bringing in one dainty ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... effected in the necessarily sealed and hermetically-closed boxes in which it reaches Europe by the sea-route; so that if sea-faring tea, like port-wine, easily recommends itself to the taste and nerves of a strong, hard-working man, a dainty, refined lady will give preference to a cup of Kiakhta tea, as she would to a ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... was not, like other Ladies, to hear those poor Animals bray, nor to see Fellows run naked, or to hear Country Squires in bob Wigs and white Girdles make love at the side of a Coach, and cry, Madam, this is dainty Weather. Thus she described the Diversion; for she went only to pray heartily that no body might be hurt in the Crowd, and to see if the poor Fellows Face, which was distorted with grinning, might any way be brought to it self again. She never chats over her Tea, but covers her Face, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... stone-built travelers' bungalow on the heights above; the "Rocket" is straight in descent, and, as a commentator has already remarked, as much like a rocket as anything else; and "La Dame Blanche," a triptych of rhythmical flow, spreads a dainty, silky, sheen of white, whispering, glistening, softly falling water over a slightly shelving width of rock, touched here and there with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... them. Lucky is it for those timid few who, frightened at the long tail, scamper away from the intruder; for, when allowed to mingle in the sport, he suddenly seizes the fairest child, and hurries away to make a dainty meal off him with his little wives in elfin-land. To the Indian men the fairies profess a real friendship; and when they meet one near their dwellings they invite him in and feast him, and press him to stay all night. He invariably declines the polite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... colonists in Louisiana, perhaps because they were accustomed to more dainty food than the English, fiercely hated corn, as have the Irish in our own day. A band of French women settlers fairly raised a "petticoat rebellion" in revolt against its daily use. A despatch of the governor of Louisiana ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... companion. The wage offered was far beyond what she could expect to get in her own country—but far more alluring to her than the money she could earn was the picture of the life which would be hers in free America. Her surroundings would be luxurious; she would be the constant recipient of gifts of dainty clothing from her mistress, and even the hardest work she would be called upon to do would be in itself ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... poyson and malice in it; yet mee thinks the judicious peruser may honestly make use of it in the actions of his life, with advantage. The Lamprey, they say, hath a venemous string runs all along the back of it; take that out, and it is serv'd in for a choyce dish to dainty palates; Epictetus the Philosopher, sayes, Every thing hath two handles, as the fire brand, it may be taken up at one end in the bare hand without hurt: the other being laid hold on, will cleave to the very flesh, and the smart of it will pierce even to the heart. Sin hath the condition of the fiery ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... a dainty hassock for her feet, and Mrs. Pendleton a silken scarf, to protect her from the slightest draught from ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... heed, turned her lips violet, and a sad smile, drawing up the corners of a sensitive mouth, showed teeth that were white as ivory and quite small,—pretty, transparent teeth, in keeping with the delicate ears, the rather sharp but dainty nose, and the general outline of her face, which, in spite of its roundness, was lovely. All the animation of this charming face was in the eyes, the iris of which, brown like Spanish tobacco and flecked with black, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... possibly Sir Edward Dyer—in 1588. As before, the verse, mostly fourteeners, is far from bad, but the selection is not very much to our purpose. Three of the pieces, a singing match, a love complaint, and one of the Galatea poems, are more or less pastoral; but the rest—among which is the dainty conceit of Venus and the boar well rendered in a three-footed measure—do not belong to bucolic verse at all. Incidental mention may be also made of a 'dialogue betwixt two sea nymphs, Doris and Galatea, concerning Polyphemus, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of peculiarities, like most men who are put into the world to do something great. He was amusingly vain, while his dainty vanity so obscured his judgment that he could not see through the most fulsome flattery, especially that of women. At the same time he was professionally keen, with a clear-seeing intellect, dashing, flawless courage, and a mind that quickly grasped the weak points of ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... shyly and stared at the new-comer—a tall, slender girl, dressed, Nesta afterwards commented, just like a person in a story book, so dainty was she. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... rock garden; for one thing, the care of renewal is too great. Biennials are almost as much care, but in each case there will always be exceptions that are a matter of individual preference. Few, for example, would have the heart to reject the dainty little purple toadflax of Switzerland (Linaria alpina), just because it is a biennial. The main dependence, however, must be placed on perennials—the plants that, barring accidents, last indefinitely. These should be mostly species; if horticultural, do not use the bizarre—Darwin tulips, ...
— Making A Rock Garden • Henry Sherman Adams
... and Wind were greedy and selfish. They enjoyed the great feast that had been prepared for them, without a thought of saving any of it to take home to their mother-but the gentle Moon did not forget her. Of every dainty dish that was brought round, she placed a small portion under one of her beautiful long fingernails, that Star might also have a share ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Dainty milkweed babies, wrapped in cradles green, Rocked by Mother Nature, fed by hands unseen, Brown coats have the darlings, slips of milky white, And wings, but that's a secret, they're ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... love to accentuate the point by a display of jewellery, which, though sometimes worn to excess, is always good, for the Burmese lady would scorn to wear a spurious gem. Pretty fans or handkerchiefs are carried in the hand, while, like a halo surrounding the head, dainty parasols, semi-transparent and hand-painted, shield them from the sun. It is difficult to give any true impression of such a Burmese crowd, in which every conceivable variety of tint and texture is displayed, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... with the jeweled stem Still blooms; and the tiny sets In the circle all are here; the gem In the keys, and the silver frets; But the dainty fingers that danced o'er them— ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... sorry figure that he cut. Unwashed, with rank and matted hair and a disfiguring black beard upon his face, and the erstwhile splendid suit of black camlet in which he had been taken prisoner now reduced to rags that would have disgraced a scarecrow, he was in no case for inspection by such dainty eyes as these. Nevertheless, they continued to inspect him with round-eyed, almost childlike wonder and pity. Their owner put forth a hand to touch the scarlet sleeve of her companion, whereupon with an ill-tempered ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... smiling coquetry he had never seen before, Pauline stretched out a truly Spanish foot and offered him its dainty covering. Won by the animation of her manner, Manuel forgot his misgivings and played his part with boyish spirit, hovering about his stately wife as no assiduous maid had ever done; for every flower was fastened with ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... don't," sez I, "I haint jealous of her, and I like her looks first-rate. I love a pretty young girl," sez I candidly, "jest as I love a fresh posy with the dew still on it, a dainty rose-bud with the sweet fragrance layin' on its half-folded heart. I love 'em," sez I, a beginnin' to eppisode a little unbeknown to me, "I love 'em jest as I love the soft unbroken silence of the early spring mornin', the sun all palely tinted with rose and blue, and the earth alayin' calm and ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... of delight indeed. When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin, her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She had forgotten. Only the hands of the prospective mother could have fashioned such dainty garments as these. Everywhere the eternal question. All her perplexities had fallen from her in the joy of dressing herself as Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam saw her not, but the great problem ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... word for me and one for yourself," she cried, seizing the dainty pink sprays that now trailed over her head and shoulders as the boat glided along the fringe of hushes supporting the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your hand—if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet, abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours, in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as though ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... page, the deep-eyed knight, The heartless falcon, poised for flight, The dainty steed and graceful hound, In thee ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... The place of the other is filled by what are called "flats," or narrow bars of iron covered with card clothing. The cylinders move rapidly, the flats slowly, and the cotton passes between them. It comes out in a dainty white film not so very much heavier than a spider's web, and so beautifully white and shining that it does not seem as if the big, oily, noisy machines could ever have produced it. In a moment, however, it is gone somewhere into the depths of the machine. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... was represented by massive furniture in calamander, ebony, and satinwood, carved with the most elaborate devices, dainty laces made by the nimble fingers of village women, beautiful productions on tortoise shell and gold, heavily embroidered cloths of gold, and a large collection of the various curios for which the East is famous, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... and dainty, entered the drawing-room first and pointed an accusing finger at the strange figure ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... those euphonious inscriptions peculiar to Italian artists,—these and such as these tokens of his experience and tastes gave interesting significance to his companionship. Nor were indications of present consideration and usefulness wanting: flowers or dainty needle-work, the offerings of his fair pupils, applications to him, as President of the Italian Benevolent Society, diplomas from American colleges, and invitations to the country, to dinner, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... forward the armchair which looked as if it had been least used by petitioners, set it at the side of the fireplace so as to sit facing her father, and settled herself in so solemn an attitude that it was impossible not to read in it a mocking intention, crossing her arms over the dainty trimmings of a pelerine a la neige, and ruthlessly crushing its endless frills of white tulle. After a laughing side glance at her old father's troubled face, she ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... at work, Thorgunna wore the rudest of plain clothes, though ever clean as a cat; but at night in the hall she was more dainty, for she loved to be admired. No doubt she made herself look well, and many thought she was a comely woman still, and to those she was always favourable and full of pleasant speech. But the more that some pleased her, it was thought by good judges ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... browned, and the tea brewed perfectly, and Sally placed them on a dainty tray which she ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... so sweetly; round and round with eyes half-closed swirl their bodies; and, just as you think they are going round again, they surprise you by teasingly stepping out the music in a straight line across the lounge; and, when you least expect it, they are retracing dainty steps along the same straight ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... eldest—a fair, dainty creature with that indescribable "air" which invariably wins the admiring regard of all beholders. Whatever gown the girl wore looked appropriate and becoming, and her manner was as delightful as her appearance. She was somewhat frivolous and designing in character, but warm-hearted and staunch ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... the tangled box-planted walks she strolled, swinging her dainty hat of straw and old lace in her hand; on through the small gate that bound the first yard, then through the shaded lawn, unkept now and rank with weeds, but still holding the old trees which, in other ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... once, on Christmas Eve, Would hang, your cot adorning, And Father Christmas, we believe, Would fill them ere the morning; But since he spied your dainty toes To exchange the parts he's willing: He thinks it's his to send the hose And yours to find the filling. He lays his offerings at your feet And hopes you won't deride them, For he has nothing half so neat As ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... Linda, You shall hear all," said Percival; "but now, That brain of yours must tranquillize itself Before you try to sleep; and so, to-night, Let us have 'Annie Laurie,' 'Bonnie Doon,' And songs that most affront the dainty ear Of modern fashion." Linda played and sang A full half-hour; then, turning on her chair, Said, "Now shall mother sing that cradle ditty You made for me, an infant. Mother, mine, Imagine you are rocking me to sleep, As ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... are of the same general order with "Little Classics," which have proved so universally popular, but smaller every way, except in type. Their typographical beauty, fine paper, tasteful binding, dainty size, and, yet more, the sterling and popular character of their contents, have gained for them ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... propose at once and get it over. When Mamie joined the garrison of No. 90 a year later the dashing feat was still unperformed. There was that about Mamie which unmanned Steve. She was so small and dainty that the ruggedness which had once been his pride seemed to him, when he thought of her, an insuperable defect. The conviction that he was a roughneck deepened in him ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... moment then broke into a fresh grin for a dainty little code had suggested itself. It would be rather amusing to talk to a group of financiers in the language of flowers. A memory of Isabel's last words put the idea into his head when she had given him the dog rose on the evening ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... chains. You've never lost freedom, my lad, so you have never felt what it is not to be able to believe you've got it back. You don't know what it is to turn nervous at the responsibility of being your own master for a whole day, or to wake in a dainty room, with the birds singing at the open window, and to shut your eyes quickly and pray to go on dreaming a bit, because you feel sure you're really in your hammock ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... win the most dainty proud dame, No gall can resist the soft sound of that same; Wid the blarney, my boys—if you doubt it, go thry— But hand here the bottle, my whistle ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... lesson hour passed while Peter sat alone in the Cabin waiting. That night two letters were brought to him. The superscription of one was scrawled in a boyish hand. The other was scented, dainty, of pale lavender, and bore a familiar handwriting and a familiar coronet. In amazement he opened this first. It was from the Princess Galitzin, written in the polyglot of French, English and Russian which ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders bare Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair, Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell Of fear and pity, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... to seat herself on the one straight-backed chair in the room. From this she was promptly driven by Mrs. Taylor and established in one corner of a lounge with a soft silk cushion behind her, and further propitiated by the proffer of a cup of tea in a dainty cup and saucer. All this, including Mrs. Taylor's musical voice, easy speech, and ingratiating friendliness, alternately thrilled and irritated her. She would have liked to discard her hostess from her thought as a light creature ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... of economist. His use of the word "haughty" is so fitting, and it sounds so nobly from his lips, that we could wish its employment were forbidden henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. But his special, constitutional, word is "fine," meaning something like dainty, as Shakespeare uses it,—"my dainty Ariel,"—"fine Ariel." It belongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong to Keats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators are easily recognized. "Melioration" ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... would have given something for their well-remembered frying pan, just at that time, and some pieces of salt pork with which to sweeten the dainty morsels which were to constitute their luncheon. They were true scouts, however, and could make the best of ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... It was a dainty little cottage, perched in an angle of the cliff, well apart from all the rest and looking straight down upon the great Spear Point. He tended the strip of garden with scrupulous care, and it made a bright spot of colour against the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... and regular detachment of the trans-Hudson army. Pleasant it is (I can hear the parody-fiend murmur), when things are green and price of meat is low, to move amid the market-scene, where gourmands stout and housewives lean with baskets come and go. Tempting too, alike to the dainty and the thrifty. Like Robinet in the "Evenings at Home," it adds much to the relish of one's little supper to have selected it one's self out of a whole marketful and to inhale its imaginary savors all the way ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... sill to herself, started upon a rather restricted coon dance in order to prove to her opposite neighbor that the nickname belonged to her by good right. Oh, but it was fun for the Marchioness! She clapped her hands to show her approval and catching up the skirt of her dainty white frock, slowly raised one leg at a right angle to her body and stood so for a moment, to the intense ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... gesto gesture. girar to gyrate, turn round. gitano gypsy; gitanico (dim.). globo globe. gloria glory. glorioso glorious. gobierno government. golpe m. blow; golpecito (dim.) tap. golleria dainty, excess in eating. gordo fat, corpulent. gorjeo quaver, chirp. gorra bonnet, cap. gorro cap. gozar to enjoy. gozoso joyous. gracia grace, pardon; pl. thanks. grado degree. graduar to grade, estimate. granadero ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee; 95 But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so. To the king's ship, invisible as thou art: There shalt thou find the mariners asleep Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain Being awake, enforce them to this place, ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... religious complexion to the sacrifices and to make God command the people to bring their choicest fruits and grains and meats. It was very easy for these accomplished prestidigitators to substitute the offal for sacrifices on their altars, and keep the dainty fruits and meats for themselves, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... constant ring of bitter self-reproach. But in the innermost depths of his being there lurked a sense of happiness very soothing to his soul. Was it a result of the peaceful country life, the summer, the fresh air, dainty food, beautiful home, or was it due to the fact that for the first time in his life he was tasting the sweetness of contact with a woman's soul? It would be difficult to say. But he felt happy, although he complained, and quite sincerely, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... hospitality all who came to her door, to beautify her home with such means as she could command, to embroider and fashion clothing by hand for her children; but her great gift was conceded by all to be the making of things to grow. At that she was wonderful. She started dainty little vines and climbing plants from tiny seeds she found in rice and coffee. Rooted things she soaked in water, rolled in fine sand, planted according to habit, and they almost never failed to justify her expectations. She even grew trees ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... it especially at time—Harriet says I never see anything really worth while, by which she means dishes, dresses, doilies, and such like but as I remembered afterward the table that Mrs. Vedder set was wonderfully dainty—dainty not merely with flowers (with which it was loaded), but with the quality of the china and silver. It was plainly the table of no ordinary gardener or caretaker—but this conclusion did not come to me until afterward, for as I remember it, we were in ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... floor with blue silk, and lighted by the soft rays of lamps shaded by Venetian globes of delicate hues. The scent of cedar wood was in the air, and on the hearth in a velvet tray were some tiny puppies. A dainty disorder reigned everywhere. On one table a jewel-case stood open, on another lay some lace garments, two or three masks and a fan. A gemmed riding-whip and a silver-hilted poniard hung on the same peg. And, strangest of all, huddled away behind the door, I espied a plain, black-sheathed ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... and the pleasure of submitting to her will was so great that I would have risked even greater mischief. The soup was served, and Toddie immediately tilted his plate so that part of its contents sought refuge in the folds of Miss Mayton's dainty, snowy dress. She treated that wretched boy with the most Christian forbearance during the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... open thine arms—rounded, gleaming, white— To thee eternal glory I will give. Over goddess of earth, fair and bright, Thy name above immortal shall live. I kiss the dainty bloom of thy cheek, To thy lustrous eyes the love-light I bring, From the masses of thy silken hair I speak, To thy beauty, peerless one, I sing. White pearls are thy ruby lips between— With might of godly words I thee endow; An eloquence for which a Grecian ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... came a little closer, just to see. Ye gods, her looks and form were not alarming! A graceful, sweet-faced, dainty maiden she, Completely charming. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... man" could not go, would not venture at the "Mitre" with Boswell alone. At Boswell's last "Mitre" evening with Johnson, May, 1778, Johnson would not leave Mrs. Williams, the blind old lady who lived with him, till he had promised to send her over some little dainty from the tavern. This was very kindly and worthy of the man who had the coat but not the heart of a bear. From 1728 to 1753 the Society of Antiquaries met at the "Mitre," and discussed subjects then wrongly considered frivolous. The Royal Society had also conclaves at ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... not gone yet. Mark procured a small plate of dainty sandwiches and a glass of port wine which he forced Beatrice to take. To her great surprise she found that she was hungry. Breakfast she had had none; now that the crisis had passed, her natural healthy appetite had returned. The feeling of faintness ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... water bordering the lawn was a finny sanctuary. Once, he halted, and looked fixedly at a dormer window in a cottage just visible above the trees on the opposite slope. Such a highly presentable young man might well expect to find a dainty feminine form appearing just in that place, and eke return the greeting of a waved hand. But the window remained blank—windows refused to yield any information that morning—and ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... jaded beast of burden, Agnes, if always full laden with the present, and the actually existent. Happily, like Pegasus, it has broad and strong pinions—can rise free from the prisoner's cell and the rich man's dainty palace. Free! free! How the heart swells, elated and with a sense of power, at this noble ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... were galloping just as hard as they could lay hoofs to the ground. One of the whips dropped back, however, as some of the hounds were tailing off, and that brought them down to five. Then Foley's thoroughbred strained herself, as these slim-legged, dainty-fetlocked thoroughbreds will do when the going is rough, and he had to take a back seat. But the other four were still going strong, and they did four or five miles down the river flat at a rasping pace. It ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and Webb had found that the heat of the day had so far developed half a dozen Jacqueminot rosebuds that they were ready for gathering. These with their fragrance and beauty were beside her plate in dainty arrangement. They seemed to give the complete and final touch to the day already replete with joy and kindness, and happy, grateful tears rushed into the young girl's eyes. Dashing them brusquely away, she said: "I can't tell you all what I feel, and I won't try. I want you to know, however," ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... will make the red rogues scamper like so many dun deer. Savages, quotha! at sight of him, their copper skins will turn pale as silver, with the very alchemy of fear. Come, a few kisses, en passant, and then away! cheerly, my dainty Alice. [Exeunt ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... in her dainty gown, her wonderful black eyes gleaming with fun, as a sample of Lake City dishonesty appealed to the sense of humor of her audience and they all laughed, though Lydia felt her throat tighten strangely as she did so,—Margery, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... care. It means leave to rest, the which, even if it be unused, is a new mercy every moment. To the old it means so much of the pride of life as no one would deny them, the late revelation of unknown delights, an hour of idleness, a distant journey, a dainty or a purchase indulged in without anxious thought, the hundred and one things desirable ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... down on the end of her bed while she thirstily, greedily, drank the tea he had brought her. In all her gestures there was something bird-like and exquisite. Even when she was greedy Bubbles was dainty too. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... relief offered them at the castle, but one old man remained. He was never known by any other name than "Monsieur," and was beloved by every individual member of the household. A French emigre of the old school, with the dainty, gallant ways of the ancien regime, he still clung to the dress of his earlier days, and wore a veritable queue, silk stockings and buckled shoes. For some time he remained a welcome guest in the "red chamber," where the host's little children would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... And afterwards I discovered that she had forgotten her music, and evidently enjoyed her meals. Yet I for one can witness that five years ago there was that about her—I can only extend my arm with quivering digits. But it was something very sweet and dainty, something that made her white and thoughtful, and marked her off from the rest of womankind. I sometimes fancy it may have been anaemia in part, but it was certainly poverty and mourning ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading the room—Feathertop with his dainty stride, and no less dainty grimace, the girl with a native maidenly grace just touched, not spoiled, by a slightly affected manner which seemed caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. The longer the interview continued, the more charmed was pretty Polly, until ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... His face was wrinkled and his hair silvered; but an intelligent observer would have recognized at once the stigmata of passion and the furrows of pleasure which appeared in the crow's-feet and the marches-du-palais, so prized at the court of Cythera. Everything about this dainty chevalier bespoke the "ladies' man." He was so minute in his ablutions that his cheeks were a pleasure to look upon; they seemed to have been laved in some miraculous water. The part of his skull which his hair refused to cover shone like ivory. His eyebrows, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... going to be a mother," he said sadly. "She hides her condition with a certain modesty, but from my window, I have often seen her making the dainty layette." ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... plack hat toorned to red Or e'er de stars vere gone, Dere came de shtep of a paardeken Soft tromplin, tromplin on. A laity fair climped off on him Und trip mit dainty toes:- Boot oh, mijn Gott! - how she vas shkreem Ven she trot on her ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... variation of the favorite entree, and most dainty of them all in appearance, are thin rolls of croquette mixture (or, better still, quenelle meat) not thicker than a small cigar. These are rolled in pastry, thoroughly deadened, pinched very securely, and ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... he views. To the sentimentalist they are only animals; and he is kind to them as he would be to an ailing dog at home. If the sentimentalist's womenfolk go with him, the tour is made still more pleasing. The ladies shudder with terror as they trail their dainty skirts up noisome stairs; but their genteel cackle never ceases. "And you earn six shillings per week? How very surprising! And the landlord takes four shillings for your one room? How very mean! And you have—let me see—four from six leaves two—yes—you have two shillings ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... kissed by the sun and wind of the plain. There was a wild-rose pink in her cheeks to enhance the whiteness, which made it but the more dazzling. She had masses of golden hair wreathed round her dainty head in a bewilderment of waves and braids. She had great dark eyes of blue set off by long curling lashes, and delicately pencilled dark brows which gave the eyes a pansy softness and made you feel when she looked at you that ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... rock. His back was as straight and square as a grenadier's, and he switched at the pebbles with his stick in his exuberant vitality. In the button-hole of his well-brushed black coat there glinted a golden blossom, and the corner of a dainty red silk handkerchief lapped over from his breast pocket. He might have been the eldest son of the weary creature who had ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him: "Art thou dainty, alien? Wouldst thou have flesh? Well, give me thy bow and an arrow or two, since thou art lazy- sick, and I will get thee a coney or a hare, or a quail maybe. Ah, I forgot; thou art dainty, and wilt not eat flesh as I do, blood and all together, but must needs half burn it ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... ever ready with a brisk compliment to pretty maid or pretty woman, or pretty matron, answered her as swiftly as you please, "She shall be named by your name, dainty, if you will lend me a kiss ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... whole range of human thought—logic, rhetoric, oratory, physics, ethics, politics, esthetics, and physical culture. These outdoor talks were called exoteric, and there gradually grew up esoteric lessons, which were for the rich or luxurious and the dainty. And there being money in the esoteric lessons, these gradually took the place of the exoteric, and so we get the genesis of our modern private school or college, where we send our children to be taught great things by great men, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... The dainty-fingered May with gentle hand shall fold and put away The snow-white curtains of his winter tent, and spread above him her green coverlet, 'Broidered with daisies, sweet to sight and scent and Summer, from her outposts ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the plowman's heart up-keeps And equals it with tyrants' thrones, That wipes the eye that over-weeps, And lulls in sure and dainty ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand; Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand! The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Than ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... brow A sable velvet feather covers quite, Even like the forehead-cloth that, in the night, Or when they sorrow, ladies use to wear: Their wings, blue, red, and yellow, mix'd appear; Colours that, as we construe colours, paint Their states to life;—the yellow shows their saint, The dainty Venus, left them; blue, their truth; The red and black, ensigns of death and ruth. And this true honour from their love-death sprung,— They were the first ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... and field corn. Potatoes and onions can be procured only from Manila, bought by the crate. If there be no local commissary, tinned foods must be sent in bulk from Manila. The housekeeper's task is no easy one, and the lack of fresh beef, ice, fresh butter, and milk wears hard on a dainty appetite. The Philippines are no place for women or men who cannot thrive and be happy on plain food, plenty of work, and isolation. Nor is there any sadder lot than that of the American married woman in the provinces who ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... first designed To suit the palates o' mankind; Yet as I ponder now I find, Thy fame is gone: Wee dainty dish thou art ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... narciso. Dagger ponardo. Dahlia dalio. Daily cxiutage, cxiutaga. Dainty frandajxo. Dainty frandema. Dairy laktovendejo. Daisy lekanto. Dale valeto. Dally malfrui. Dam bestopatrino. Dam akvosxtopilo, digo. Damage difekti. Damage difektajxo. Damask damasko. Dame sinjorino, patrino. Damn ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... music man could make There they heard in plenty; Timbrel, psaltery, lyre, and lute, Harp and viol dainty; Voices that in part-song meet Choiring forte, lente; Sounds ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... 'He would fain have filled his belly,' saith our Lord, 'with the husks that the swine did eat' (Luke 15:16). But the broken-hearted man has a relish that is true as to these things, though, by reason of the anguish of his soul, it abhors all manner of dainty meat (Job 33:19,20; Psa 107:17-19). Thus I have showed you one sign of a broken-hearted man; he is a sensible man, he has all the senses of his soul awakened, he can see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and that as none ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the morning of the murder, after you and the coroner had gone, I found the bullet for which we had searched unsuccessfully, and from that hour to this I have known, what before I had suspected, that this dainty little weapon of Mr. Mainwaring's played no part in the shooting. Here is the bullet, you can see ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... I am of the opinion that all this is due to animal magnetism, and to the unconscious efforts of the audience, who are ever anxious for the ghost to come and something startling to happen. The ladies, in particular, I would point out, press a little hard with their dainty but determined hands, or with their self-willed knees resort to a few sly pushes. When this does not happen, I think it is quite possible that an elemental or some other equally undesirable type of phantasm does actually attend the seance, and, emphasising its arrival ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell |
