"Delicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... look for the delicate apprehension and tact, which can only be formed in a highly polished state of society, nor for the indignation of insulted morality expressed by the ancients: it is altogether a caricature, not of finished individual portraits, but of a single type;—a clownish sensual German ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... merely stimulated his ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect of delicate apology, 'I hope I'm not disturbing you any,' I broke down and laughed, and that delivered me into his hand. He immediately said to me that now he would tell me about a friend of his, who had a pretty large family, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... briefly all the cases known to me of male quadrupeds differing in colour from the females. With Marsupials, as I am informed by Mr. Gould, the sexes rarely differ in this respect; but the great red kangaroo offers a striking exception, "delicate blue being the prevailing tint in those parts of the female which in the male are red." (19. Osphranter rufus, Gould, 'Mammals of Australia,' 1863, vol. ii. On the Didelphis, Desmarest, 'Mammalogie,' p. 256.) In the Didelphis ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire for Tookey's defeat and for the preservation of ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... is the maker of this feast or banquet: and again, you have heard what meat is prepared for the guests; what a costly dish the house-father hath ordained at the wedding of his son. But now ye know, that where there be great dishes and delicate fare, there be commonly prepared certain sauces, which shall give men a great lust and appetite to their meats; as mustard, vinegar, and such like sauces. So this feast, this costly dish, hath its sauces; but what be they? Marry, the cross, affliction, tribulation, persecution, and all manner ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... same ideas and sensations in the more southern parts of America which it formerly did in the southern parts of Europe. Nor does it appear to be a rash conjecture that its young swarms might often be tempted to gather honey in the more blooming fields and milder air of their luxurious and more delicate neighbors. They who well consider the history of similar divisions and confederacies will find abundant reason to apprehend that those in contemplation would in no other sense be neighbors than ...
— The Federalist Papers
... whispered. She seemed to be incapable of speaking beyond a whisper. But the whisper was delicate and agreeable; and perhaps it was a mysterious sign of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the logic of it. I only point out the fact. To do that is to acquiesce, really. I acquiesce; I have to. But one may long for the more delicate appreciations that seem to flower where life has gone ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... capture the Frenchmen stripped him and put him in the hold, and had it not been for a Madame Allaire, who kept his money for him, he might very possibly have perished from the exposure of an imprisonment in France, for his lungs were delicate. Moreover, at this time of his life he was always a pauper, for he was not only naturally generous, but so innocent and confiding as to fall a victim to any clumsy sharper. Of course he reached London penniless ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... of the genital organs by poisonous antiseptics, sprays, tampons or other local applications only tends to aggravate the chronic conditions. Curetting (scraping) the womb does not cure the catarrhal affection, but only serves to destroy its delicate mucous lining and to suppress catarrhal elimination. Holding up the womb by means of a pessary in order to strengthen its muscles and ligaments is about as reasonable and effective as to try to strengthen a weak arm by carrying ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... place they call 'The House Under the Sea.' It is built for those who cannot escape the sleep-time otherwise. I am to go there when my husband sails for Europe. I have asked to accompany him and am refused. There are less delicate ways of reminding a woman that she has ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity."** "O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal: remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. They nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen.... Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... there! This is well; for hadst thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear's cub in Epidaphne that would not have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off—let us take our departure!—for we shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!—the whole town ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... swept round from behind in a misty cloak, the two colors mingling with and gently obscuring each other; while, between them, the palest memory of light, in the golden cincture, helped to bring out the somber richness, the delicate ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera. Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate boy. Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again. The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at home for a few years, and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... wherefrom doth spring That mighty commerce which, confined To the mean channels of no selfish mart, Goes out to every shore Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands; Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; And gladdening rich and poor, Doth gild Parisian domes, Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes, And only bounds its blessings by mankind! In offices like these, thy mission lies, My Country! and it shall not end As long as rain shall ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... over the edge of the rock ledge to peer down at a beach of fine sand, pale pink sand with here and there a glitter of a crystalline "shell"—or were those delicate, fluted ovals shells? Even the waves came in languidly. And the breeze which ruffled his hair, smoothed about his sun-browned, half-bare body, caressed it, did not buffet on its way inland to stir the growths which the Terran settlers called "trees" but which possessed long ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... sanction of authority That 'tis a very honorable thing To thrive by dirty ways. But let me rest On better ground the unanswerable defense. The pig is a philosopher, who knows No prejudice. Dirt?...Jacob, what is dirt? If matter,...why the delicate dish that tempts An o'ergorged epicure to the last morsel That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more. If matter be not, but as sages say, Spirit is all, and all things visible Are one, the infinitely modified, Think, Jacob, what that pig ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... claim for a book that has been strangely omitted by most of the excellent judges who have contributed to your columns. I mean the Greek Anthology. The beautiful poems contained in this collection seem to me to hold the same position with regard to Greek dramatic literature as do the delicate little figurines of Tanagra to the Phidian marbles, and to be quite as necessary for the complete understanding ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... pearls of fair size, and here and there great almond-shaped ones, while fewest of all were the softly rounded perfectly shaped gems, running from the size of goodly peas to here and there that of small marbles, lustrous, soft, and of that delicate creamy tint that made them appear like solidified drops of molten moonlight, fallen to earth in the silence ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... when there is a probability that it will prove, to some extent, an undermining drain on the constitution? Some constitutions can bear much less excitement than others; and in every family of children, there is usually one or more of delicate organization, and consequently peculiarly exposed to dangers from this source. It is this child who ordinarily becomes the victim to stimulating drinks. The tea and coffee which the parents and the healthier children can use without immediate injury, gradually sap the energies of the ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... captain of a ship; and indeed, as he looks from his windows, as from those of an anchored vessel, he sees a boundless level plain, which inspires him with just such sentiments of freedom and solemnity as are awakened by the sea. The trees that surround his house like a green girdle allow only a delicate broken light to enter it; boats freighted with merchandise glide noiselessly past his door; he does not hear the trampling of horses or the cracking of whips, or songs or street-cries; all the activities of the life that surrounds him are silent and gentle: all breathes of peace and ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... discoveries of chemistry, showing the composition of water, the nature of gases, the properties of metals; the laws and processes of physics, from the strains and pressures of mighty masses to the delicate vibrations of molecules, are all recorded here. Every department of human industry is represented, from the quarrying and the cutting of the stones, the mining and smelting of the ores, the conversion of iron into steel by the pneumatic process, to the final shaping ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... in black, hung above a crimson couch, whereon lay a child of exquisite beauty. Her tiny form was wrapped in the purest muslin, and a light blue cashmere shawl was thrown negligently over her. One little foot, encased in a delicate slipper, hung over the edge of the couch, and her long dark curls fell about the pillow ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... with whose over-mastering hatred of slavery he really sympathised. In the following chapter we are more concerned with the other half of his trial, the war itself. Of his minor political difficulties few instances need be given—only it must be remembered that they were many and involved, besides delicate questions of principle, the careful sifting of much confident hearsay; and, though the critics of public men are wont to forget it, that there are only twenty-four ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... in the world what concerns him. "He carries in his head a coherent system of tone-images, in which every element has its place and value; he perceives delicate differences of sound, of timbre; he succeeds, through exercise, in penetrating into their most varied combinations, and the knowledge of harmonious relations is for him what design and the knowledge ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... accommodate the engine room crew. In the same manner, therefore, that he had imprisoned the men of the deck department in the forecastle, Mr. Reardon now proceeded to imprison the men of the engine department in the sterncastle. This delicate mission accomplished, he went up top-side and measured the diameter of the ventilators, in order to make certain that the thinnest of his German canaries could not fly the cage via that difficult route. Having satisfied himself that he had no need to worry on this ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... reassumed some of its genial power, I walked in the forest with my family. It was one of those lovely winter-days which assert the capacity of nature to bestow beauty on barrenness. The leafless trees spread their fibrous branches against the pure sky; their intricate and pervious tracery resembled delicate sea-weed; the deer were turning up the snow in search of the hidden grass; the white was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and trunks of the trees, rendered more conspicuous by the loss of preponderating foliage, gathered around like the labyrinthine columns of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... snapped again; I never see such a neck since I was raised. It sprung right out o' the breast and shoulder, full round, and then tapered up to the head like a swan's, and the complexion would beat the most delicate white and red rose that ever was seen. Lick, it made me all eyes! I jist stood stock still, I couldn't move a finger, if I was to die for it. 'What ails you, Sam,' says she, 'that you don't hook it?' 'Why,' says I, 'Lucy, dear, my fingers is all thumbs, that's ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... possible that my father might have reaped some advantage from this change; but the school was too near home, and his mother, though she tormented his existence, was never content if he were out of her sight. His delicate health was an excuse for converting him, after a short interval, into a day scholar; then many days of attendance were omitted; finally, the solitary walk home through Mr. Mellish's park was dangerous ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... then; and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you look—and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry—I've had to—so it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link up with me, I should have the thing ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... thre felows / might haue lyued / vppon the Kinges table / and haue eaten most fyne and delicate meates / but they did rather chose to lyue together with potage / and water / and vtterly to forsake thos pleasures / and delicacies / then they wold defile them selues with the meates of the vnbeleauers. Moses also / as it is writon in the epistle ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... like his mother and Nesta. Eustace and little Becky were the two who were like their father, brown-haired and brown-eyed. Peter had a delicate, sensitive face, and he was always wondering about things in a queer, ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... with his delicate features, the softness of his voice, and the smallness of his hands. There were other points, besides, in the tournure of the boy's figure that had appeared singular to me. I had frequently observed the eyes of this ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... him further to pay visits of farewell; to all the neighbours, and so far as possible to apologise where necessary. Nikolay agreed with great alacrity. It became known at the club that he had had a most delicate explanation with Pyotr Pavlovitch Gaganov, at the house of the latter, who had been completely satisfied with his apology. As he went round to pay these calls Nikolay was very grave and even gloomy. Every one appeared ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... want an old friend's advice, and an old friend's protection against your own generous impulses. If I could have helped you in this way, I would; but Mrs. Lecount gave me indirectly to understand that the subject to be discussed was of too delicate a nature to permit of my presence. Whatever this objection may be really worth, it cannot apply to Miss Garth, who has brought you both up from childhood. I say, again, therefore, if you see Mrs. Lecount, see her ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... most of these roots are very slender and many very delicate. How did they manage to reach out into the soil so far from the plant? Or where does the root grow in length? To answer this question I will ask you ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... was a new era in my boyish life. I grew henceforth both better and worse. Application and I having once shaken hands became very good acquaintance. I had hitherto valued myself upon supplying the frailties of a delicate frame by an uncommon agility in all bodily exercises. I now strove rather to improve the deficiencies of my mind, and became orderly, industrious, and devoted to study. So far so well; but as I grew wiser, I grew also more wary. Candour no longer seemed to me the finest of virtues. I thought ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him. But a consciousness that her mother's delicate health, and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged,—the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... had the primitive instincts of the pure individualist; fine notions of honour and delicate concepts of propriety had no influence on his ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... gloves, with a very handsome message. To this the lady rejoined that she regretted that her barren island contained nothing worth Raleigh's acceptance, yet sent him 'four very great loaves of sugar,' with baskets of lemons, oranges, pomegranates, figs, and most delicate grapes. During the three days that they rode off Gomera, the Governor and his English lady wrote daily to Sir Walter. In return for the fruit, deeming himself much in her debt, he sent on shore a very courteous letter, and with it two ounces of ambergriece, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... ankle-deep in the thick earth, fell back as this grim embodiment of authority passed and stole fearful glances at him as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of one of their number who was throwing stones out of the roadway. She was a slender girl, almost too delicate for housework, one would have said, and her face bore an expression of utter listlessness—the listlessness that comes from long fatigue and lost hope. Her eyes had the startled, terror-stricken look of a frightened animal as she looked up into the ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... good opinion but my hearty desiring it; I wish I had that imagination you talk of, to render me a fitter correspondent for you, who can write so well on every thing. I am now so much alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing you books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars. I am trying whether it be possible to learn without a master; I am not certain (and dare hardly ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... details on various inherited malformations and diseases, I will confine myself to one organ, that which is the most complex, delicate, and probably best-known in the human frame, namely, the eye, with its accessory parts. To begin with the latter: I have heard of a family in which parents and children were affected by drooping eyelids, in so peculiar a manner, that they could not see without throwing ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Cardinal, Lorenzo Pucci, who redrafted the documents so as to make them useless for Henry's purpose. The deluded envoy returned to England under the impression that he had achieved a diplomatic triumph. But the King saw that he must leave the management of such delicate matters to Wolsey. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... sovereigns who ever ruled over Spain. Yesterday we visited the royal chapel, and beheld the beautiful monument erected to their memory. In its architecture it struck me as being exceedingly unique, the work of consummate skill and exquisite taste. It is of delicate alabaster, and was wrought, it is said, at Genoa, by Peralla. It is about twelve feet in length by some ten in breadth, profusely covered with figures and ingenious designs in relief, while upon it, as upon a bridal couch, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... tell the truth! You're the real credit to our family, Roseta girl! The rest of us? Hogs, hogs, beginning with me! Me! No, Roseta, you're all there—something nice, delicate-like, about you. You see through things, with the cleverest of them. But you say things—oh, I don't know—you say things, diplomatic-like, so's they don't come down on a fellow like a thousand of brick! Oh, I remember, I do! On the way home through the Grao, that day! Other people, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... them, Mr. James Edward Fitzgerald, a Canterbury settler of brilliant abilities, figured as the Colony's first Premier. An Irish gentleman, an orator and a wit, he was about as fitted to cope with the peculiar and delicate imbroglio before him as Murat would have been to conceive and direct one of Napoleon's campaigns. In a few weeks he and his Parliamentary colleagues came to loggerheads with the old officials in the Cabinet, and threw up the game. Then came prorogation for a fortnight ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... him, with mighty little zest, yet lingering not one moment, even though her delicate nostrils showed wide their crimson depths, and her satin flanks heaved like bellows through the speed in which she had ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... pools are lined with flags and reeds, and contain numbers of small fish resembling trout, similar to those found in the Lyons and Gascoyne Rivers. A very handsome tree, resembling an ash, grew on the margin, bearing a beautiful white flower, four to five inches across, having on the inside a delicate tinge of yellow, and yielding a sweet scent like violets. Several natives were met in the course of the day, but would not come near us; in one instance, however, we came upon one so suddenly that he had only time to jump into a pool to escape ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... unconsciously into green. Against it the tops, one might say the turrets, of the clipt and ordered trees were outlined in that shade of veiled violet which tints the tops of lavender. A white early moon was hardly traceable upon that delicate yellow. MacIan, I say, will remember this tender and transparent evening, partly because of its virgin gold and silver, and partly because he passed beneath it through the most horrible instant of ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... He must not be assured that my heart is his, previous to the tender of his own; but he must be convinced that it has not been given to another; he must be supplied with space whereon to build a doubt as to the true state of my affections; he must be prompted to avow himself. The line of delicate propriety,—how hard it is not to fall short, and not ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... deferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation; but I have delayed the task till it cannot be performed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision with me has suffered a singular disorder,[A]—a disorder which no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experience can expound; so much remains concerning the frame of man ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward her husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and spirits, which are the greatest blessings in life. Who would believe, to look at you all, that you were the same children that I brought away from Arnwood? You were then very different from what you are now. You are strong and healthy, rosy and brown, instead of being fair and delicate. Look at your sisters, Edward, do you think that any of your former friends—do you think that Martha, who had the care of them, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... she; "you will do Miss Clara more good than all the doctors put together. But you must break the news to her carefully, before she sees the letter. Please to make it out better news than it is, for the young lady is in very delicate health." We went upstairs—such stair-carpets! I was almost frightened to step on them, after walking through the dirty streets. The housekeeper opened a door, and said a few words inside, which I could not hear, and then let me in where the ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... but this is rather a delicate matter. You know we were a little surprised to find you all on board; and you, Herr Bhme, did you always take such a deep interest in small yachts? I am afraid that it was at a certain sacrifice of comfort that you inspected ours!' And I glanced at ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... deliberation, when I shall have had time to assemble the necessary words. But, the more I look at you the more uneasy I feel as to what my fiancee of to-morrow may be like. Almost pretty, I grant you, you are,—in virtue of quaintness, delicate hands, miniature feet, but ugly after all, and absurdly small. You look like ouistitis, like little china ornaments, like I don't know what. I begin to understand that I have arrived at this house at an ill-chosen moment. Something is going ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... refinements of princely life which the Middle Age found possible in such places, and of which the impression is so fascinating in Homer's description, for instance, of the house of Ulysses, or of Menelaus at Sparta. Rough and frowning without, these old chteaux of the Argive kings were delicate within with a decoration almost as dainty and fine as the network of weed and flower that now covers their ruins, and of the delicacy of which, as I said, that golden flower on its silver stalk or the golden honeycomb of Daedalus, might be taken as representative. In these metal-like ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... as the best photographers. Every prominent Roman availed himself of their services. Mr. Baring-Gould, in his Tragedy of the Caesars, arranges, examines, and interprets these portraits of Augustus; I shall give you the gist of his conclusions, which are illuminating.—First we see a boy with delicate and exceedingly beautiful features, impassive and unawakend: Octavius when he came to Rome. A cloud gathers on his face, deepening into a look of intense anguish; and with the anguish grows firmness and the clenched expression of an iron will: this is Octavian in the dark days ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... in many a flowering Garden, trimm'd for a lord's delight, Stands some delicate hyacinth. Yet you tarry. The day declines. (90) Forth, fair bride, to the ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... up in the fishermen's nets. Hermit Crabs take possession of the deserted shells of the univalves, and crawl in pursuit of garbage along the moist beach. Prawns and shrimps furnish delicacies for the breakfast table; and the delicate little pea crab, Pontonia inflata,[3] recalls its Mediterranean congener,[4] which attracted the attention of Aristotle, from taking up its habitation in the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... drove the flock of goats down the steep mountain trail which led from the plateau where the pasture lay she glanced across the valley. Against the blue sky a tracery of delicate green was showing. ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... proletariat, and of the poorest peasantry led by it—and, hence, also in the Socialist revolution in Russia inaugurated by us on November 7, 1917, consists in the positive and constructive work of establishing an extremely complex and delicate net of newly organized relationships covering the systematic production and distribution of products which are necessary for the existence of tens of millions of people. The successful realization of such a revolution depends on the original historical creative ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... men in the battery executed their duty. In a minute the match was applied, and the gun was discharged. Though all her companions uttered invocations to the saints, and other exclamations, and some even crouched to the earth in terror, Ghita, the most delicate of any in appearance, and with more real sensibility than all united expressed in her face, stood firm and erect. The flash and the explosion evidently had no effect on her; not an artillerist among them was less unmoved in frame, at the report, than this slight girl. She even imitated ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I caught a look in Rosalie's eyes which almost made my heart stop beating. I had not seen it since Perry's death. I had seen it first when she had stood in the door of his room on the night that I tucked him up in bed and gave him the hot oysters. It was that look of distaste—that delicate shrinking from ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... little flower she blushed. It told her that Prosper had avenged her—more, had owned her for his. This last grain of news it was which held her seed. If he owned her abroad—amazing thought!—it must be that he loved her. As she so concluded, a delicate, throbbing fire fluttered in her side, and stole up to burn unreproved and undetected in her cheeks. Her reasoning was no reasoning, of course; but she knew nothing of knightly honour or the dramatic sense, so it seemed incontrovertible. At this discovery she was as full of shame ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has managed weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously illustrates (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 147-184) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... facing a narrow mirror when she reached the gingham counter and the clerk, taking one look at her fresh, beautiful face with its sharp contrasts of black eyes and hair, rose-tinted skin that refused to tan, and red cheeks and lips, began shaking out delicate blues, pale pinks, golden yellows. He called them chambray; insisted that they wore for ever, and were fadeless, which was practically the truth. On the day that dress was like to burst its waist seams, it was the same warm rosy pink ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... TELEPHONE WORKS. A telephone is much like a delicate and complicated telegraph in which the vibrations started by your voice press the "key," and in which the sounder can vibrate swiftly in response to the electric currents passing through the wire. The "key" in the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... vision was clothed in white, a soft white, that fell in folds and had no kinship with starch. Marjorie had never seen this kind of white dress before; it was a part of Miss Prudence's loveliness. The face was oval and delicate, with little color in the lips and less in the cheeks, smooth black hair was brushed away from the thoughtful forehead and underneath the heavily pencilled black brows large, believing, gray eyes looked unquestioningly ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... form of the unfortunate soldier under a tree and passed on. Here half an hour after he was found by the ambulance men and brought to the hospital, where the surgeon discovered that the heroic heart, still faintly beating, animated the delicate frame of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... stole a cautious glance from the taff-rail of my eye and saw a white figure standing hesitantly by the door, in an appalled and embarrassed silence. The Director saw it, too, for he was leaning as far away from the fire as he could without jibing his chair, and through the delicate haze of roasting tweed that surrounded him I could see something wistfully appealing in his glance. The Lawyer, too, had a mysterious shimmer in his loyal eyes, but his old training in the P. and O. service had been too strong for him. He ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... came into her chamber the three unerring Fates who spin the destinies of men. White-robed and garlanded, they stood beside the babe, and with unwearied fingers drew out the lines of his untried life. Clotho held the golden distaff in her hand, and twirled and twisted the delicate thread. Lachesis, now sad, now hopeful, with her long white fingers held the hour-glass, and framed her lips to say, 'It is enough.' And Atropos, blind and unpitying as the future always is, stood ready, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... love has wonderful chords which vibrate to the secret things in the souls of others. Indeed, the gift of love is just the gift of delicate correspondence, the power of exquisite fellow-feeling, the ability to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep." When, therefore, the soul of another is exultant, and the wedding-bells are ringing, love's kindred bells ring a merry peal. When the soul of another ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... or the want of sound business habits might inflict injury even on their pecuniary interests. They made him one of the two curators of the College chambers, the forty lodgings provided for students inside the College gates. And when there was any matter of business that was a little troublesome or delicate to negotiate, they seem generally to have chosen Smith for their chief spokesman or representative. It was then very common for Scotch students to bring with them from home at the beginning of the session as much oatmeal as would keep them till the end of it, and by an ancient ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... canopies and moth-eaten curtains had probably been brought from England a hundred years before. In small chambers off their rooms, with marble walls and floors, and windows filled with thin slabs of alabaster carved in the most exquisite tracery as delicate as lace, galvanised iron tubs to be used as baths ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... and smiled faintly as she looked at his thin old features, where the lights and shadows were touched in with delicate colour more artfully than any actress's, superficially concealing the lines traced by years of affectation and refined egotism; and she thought of Giovanni's strong manly face, passionate indeed, but noble and bold. A moment later she resolutely put ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... destroyed within a few years. In rocks of unequal resistance the harder parts are left in relief, while the softer are etched away. Thus in the pass of San Bernardino, Cal., through which strong winds stream from the west, crystals of garnet are left projecting on delicate rock fingers from the softer rock in ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate light for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towards her, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he lost her. She knew how he loved her—almost inhumanly, elementally, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... perceived that Pansy's ambiguities were simply her own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe any one could care so much—so extraordinarily much—to please. But since then she had seen this delicate faculty in operation, and now she knew what to think of it. It was the whole creature—it was a sort of genius. Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was constantly extending her conquests she took no credit for them. The two were constantly ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... with them in the fetid ships into which they were inhumanly crowded. Reduced to the most frightful indigence, they were seen to beg bread for themselves and families. Among those who were nurtured in the lap of opulence, many passed suddenly from the most delicate and the most elegant style of living, to the rudest toils, and to the humblest services. But humiliation could not triumph over their resolution and cheerfulness; their example was a support to their companions in ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey
... rate, a change for them to find that their new king was in every respect the opposite of his father. Instead of the burly, hot- headed, self-willed, cruel Henry, they were now to be ruled by a frail, delicate, mild boy of nine, inheriting neither his father's vices nor his faults, and resembling him as little in mind as in body. But the chief difference of all was this—that ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... said Malcolm at length, "what is to become of this delicate smoothness in my great rough hand? Will it not ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... he found in the wide upper hall without his door, spread upon a small leaf table, a meal frugal and delicate. A breeze came through the open window, and with it the scent of jasmine. The wind blew the candle flame until his mother, stepping lightly, brought a glass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths flew in and out, and like a distant ground swell came ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the tongue is slander. I am not of course, speaking now of that species of slander against which the law of libel provides a remedy, but of that of which the Gospel alone takes cognisance; for the worst injuries which man can do to man, are precisely those which are too delicate for law to deal with. We consider therefore not the calumny which is reckoned such by the moralities of an earthly court, but that which is found guilty by the spiritualities of the courts of heaven—that is, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... and half withdrawn The delicate wind-flowers blow, And the bloodroot kindles at dawn Her spiritual taper of snow; Where the limits are met and spanned By a waste that no husbandman tills, And the earth-old pine forests stand In the ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... landed at the decorated quay. Bands of gay music greeted her arrival, and accompanied her every step she took. During the time she was passing through the center of town, and treading beneath her delicate feet the richest carpets and the gayest flowers, which had been strewn upon the ground, De Guiche and Raoul, escaping from their English friends, hurried through the town and hastened rapidly towards the place intended ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the throne, whose only symphonies are love. When indulged, the frown of the holy universe is fastened upon us. It is violating the laws of our mental frame,—an instrument so exquisitely attuned that the slightest vibration of its delicate chords awakens notes of joy or wailings of sorrow; and it thus becomes the source of irritation and remorse here, and of disquieting premonitions of the most appalling woes in the world to come. Hear what God hath spoken: ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... was a bowl of dark crimson carnations on the little work-table, and a cluster of the same fragrant flowers relieved the sombreness of Mrs. Blake's black gown. She was looking handsomer than ever this afternoon; she wore a little lace kerchief over her dark glossy hair, and the delicate covering seemed to enhance her picturesque, Mary Queen of Scots beauty, and to heighten the brilliancy of her large dark eyes. Audrey had never seen her look so charming, and her soft playful manners completed the list of her fascinations. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of "the one with the delicate face," he returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... So if the delicate heart of his father's machine were utterly destroyed, Paul Brennan would be extremely careful about preserving the life of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Utricularia neglecta. In bladders about 1/100 of an inch in diameter, the inner surface is studded with papillae, rising from small cells at the junctions of the larger ones. These papillae consist of a delicate conical protuberance, which narrows into a very short footstalk, surmounted by two minute cells. They thus occupy the same relative position, and closely resemble, except in being smaller and rather more prominent, the papillae ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... civilization varies with the varying fortunes of contending parties in England. Energetic efforts were made by the Company under Sandys, the friend of Brewster, to send out worthy colonists; and the delicate task of finding young women of good character to be shipped as wives to the settlers was undertaken conscientiously and successfully. Generous gifts of money and land were contributed (although little came from them) for the endowment of schools and a college for the promotion ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... hours, and days and weeks, forming fleeting pleasures and seeing novel sights. My brother Freddie had entered very sparingly into my pleasures, as our tastes were vastly different, and his health on the whole rather delicate, he was a pretty boy in a sailor costume, when I saw him after our long separation, with mild blue eyes and a pallid countenance. He was sickly looking, with an expression of helpless peevishness about his otherwise pleasing mouth; his hair was wavy and of a golden colour, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... the most difficult negotiation in the world," said Bianchon to himself, remembering, as he rose next morning, the delicate commission intrusted to him. "However, I have never asked the smallest service from my uncle in Court, and have paid more than a thousand visits gratis for him. And, after all, we are not apt to mince matters between ourselves. He will say Yes or ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... You are grizzled, I know, But from Russia you come; Ah me, there lies home!" called him back to his mother country, whose true son he remained despite all he suffered at her hands, and all the delicate revenges of the artistic prodigal that ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... for men, think you, that those delicate nuances and tints and shades are harmonised and put together? Such a conceit is only pardonable in a set of beings who possess not the delicate faculty of "detail," and who, with a limited knowledge ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... motion—was, to get an appetite for dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of a custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... late arrival in the place. She had selected Templeton as a residence on account of its cheapness, and, having neglected to comply with the forms of the world, by hesitating about making the customary visit to the Wigwam, she began to resent, in her spirit at least, Eve's delicate forbearance from obtruding herself, where, agreeably to all usage, she had a perfect right to suppose she was not desired. It was in this spirit, then, that she sat, conversing with Jenny, as the maid of all work was called, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... rising, entered where the subtle power Of Vivian's eyes, forgiving while accusing, Finding me weak, had won me, in that hour; But Roy, alway polite and debonair Where ladies were, now hung about my chair With nameless delicate attentions, using That air devotional, and those small arts Acquaintance with society imparts To men gallant by nature. 'T was my sex And not myself he bowed to. Had my place Been filled that evening by a dowager, Twice his own age, he would have given her The same attentions. But they served ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... into technical terms, Mr. Burton, I will say that your son has a very rare trouble. There is only one known relief, and that is a certain very delicate operation. Even with that, the chances are about fifty-fifty that he ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... never love any other man, but when she was told her real name and understood fully what that name carries with it, she declined to saddle him with her shame. That's her story, Miss Weeks; one that hardly fits her appearance which is very delicate. And, let me add, having once accepted her father's name, she refuses to be known by any other. I have brought her to Shelby where to our own surprise and Reuther's great happiness, we have been taken in by Judge Ostrander, an act of kindness ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... heretic Poussette as a "big stone barn full of bad pictures". Finally there emerged upon the scene, proceeding in a deliberate, dainty, mincing manner along the garden walk, now rapidly drying in a burst of fierce August sunshine, the most wonderful, the most imposing, yet the most exquisite and delicate object Ringfield's eyes had ever beheld. If a moment before he had thought of retracing his steps and turning away from a house too full of people on a hot Sunday afternoon to permit of further lingering in its vicinity, now, he found it impossible ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... real importance of the flying machine has not stopped short with a little delicate, graceful thing like walking on the air instead of ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... like her father's. You would have liked her, everybody did,—yet you would have thought that nature had failed in self-confidence for once, she was so pointedly designed to express the ancient dame's colour-scheme, even to the delicate auriferous down on her youthful cheek and the purse-proud look of her faintly retrousse nose; though in fact she never had had a purse and scarcely needed one. In any case she had an ample ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was a youth anxious to make or sustain a reputation for gallantry, and he accepted the sharp rebuff with docility.) But news came from Miss Loriner that Lady Douglass, after years of the luxury of imagining herself in delicate health, was now genuinely ill, and Henry went down from town each evening by a late train to make inquiries, returning in the morning. Miss Loriner added that some of Lady Douglass's indisposition might be due to the fact that the executors ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... can be little doubt from the researches of Sachs and H. de Vries, that they are due to unequal growth; but from the reasons already assigned, I cannot believe that this explanation applies to the rapid movements from a delicate touch. ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... Death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate Death. Praised be the fathomless universe For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise For the sure enwinding arms of cool, enfolding Death. Dark Mother, always gliding near with soft ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Dissolve the flour first in half a teacupful of water; it must he strained in gradually, and boiled hard twenty minutes. As the child grows older, one-third water. If properly made, it is the most nutritious, at the same time the most delicate food that can be ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the young girl, stretched out her slender length, her white delicate profile showing against the black arm ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... octaves; C of the G clef having 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations cease [Page 27] at 38,000, but our organs are not fitted to hear beyond those limitations. If our ears were delicate enough, we could hear even up to the almost infinite vibrations of light. In one of those semi-inspirations we find ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... long and half as wide, in which were huddled the horses and ponies to the number of about twenty. Eight of the ponies carried pack saddles, and so busy were Raven and the Indian with the somewhat delicate operation of assembling the packs that he was close upon them before they were aware. Boxes and bags were strewn about in orderly disorder, and on one side were several small kegs. As Cameron drew near, the Indian, who was the first to notice ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... straight is really a thing of subtle curves. The funeral bas-relief that seems to represent in the simplest possible manner a woman saying good-bye to her child is arranged, plane behind plane, with the most delicate skill and sometimes with deliberate falsification of perspective. There is always some convention, some idealization, some touch of the light that never was on sea or land. Yet all the time, I think, Greek art ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... down to a delicate Louis XVI. desk, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, a telephone-book, a telephone, a lamp and much distinguished stationery. Between the tasselled folds of plushy curtains that pleated themselves with the grandeur of painted curtains in a theatre, he glanced out at the lights ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... short one, her husband being obliged to leave her in two days to join his regiment. She never saw him again. She could neither read nor write, and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however, handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of the family of her benefactor Gluck. As for her first husband, she sent him sums of money until 1705, when ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... handkerchief and raised her head again, fighting for self-control. She was a quaint little figure, with soft grey hair drawn back smoothly from a gentle-featured face in which each wrinkle seemed the seal of some loving thought for others. Her bonnet and gown were of excellent material in delicate soft colours, but cut in the style of an earlier decade. The capable lines of her thin little hands showed through the fabric of her grey gloves. Her whole attitude bore the impress of one who had adventured far beyond the customary routine of her home circle, adventured out into ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... (1793-1874) wrote a single volume of lyrical poems, which he gradually enlarged in succeeding editions. He was a consummate artist in verse, and his impressions are given with the most delicate exactitude of phrase, and in a very fine strain of imagination. He was a quietist and an epicurean, and the closest parallel to Horner in the literature of the North. Most of Bdtcher's poems deal with Italian life, which he learned to know thoroughly during a long residence in Rome. He ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... determined, however, to have an explanation with Brace and ask his advice. I knew that I could trust him, but it was a delicate point; and I resolved to approach him with caution. He might be angry with me; for he, too, was engaged in the same nefarious companionship. He might be sensitive and reproach ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... them; they must come, I say, and take the care and charge of our soul, to conduct it safely into Abraham's bosom. It is not our meanness in the world, nor our weakness of faith, that shall hinder this; nor shall the loathsomeness of our diseases make these delicate spirits shy of taking this charge upon them. Lazarus the beggar found this a truth; a beggar so despised of the rich glutton that he was not suffered to come within his gate; a beggar full of sores and noisome putrefaction; yet, behold, when ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... island clad in verdure; behind, the towering mountains; then farther off, a lesser peak, sloping down to the sea; a promontory jutted out at the right, ribbed with terraces from which peeped forth tiny shoots of delicate green. Scarcely had I time to catch a glimpse before the panorama changed. This scene was repeated with slight variations until suddenly there appeared a break, and in a cove were moored many little boats; next came a tall mountain sloping down to the sea, with a wealth of foliage ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck |
