"Fussy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incline me rather to represent the Earth as a fine noble young woman, full of the pride which is so becoming to her sex, and well able to take her own part, in case that, at any solitary point of the heavens, she should come across one of those vulgar fussy Comets, disposed to be rude and take improper liberties. These Comets, by the way, are public nuisances, very much like the mounted messengers of butchers in great cities, who are always at full gallop, and moving upon ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... mean-spirited; confined, illiberal, intolerant, besotted, infatuated, fanatical, entete [Fr.], positive, dogmatic, conceited; opinative, opiniative^; opinioned, opinionate, opinionative, opinionated; self-opinioned, wedded to an opinion, opiniatre; bigoted &c (obstinate) 606; crotchety, fussy, impracticable; unreasonable, stupid &c 499; credulous &c 486; warped. misjudged &c v.. Adv. ex parte [Lat.]. Phr. nothing like leather; the wish the father to the thought; wishful thinking; unshakable conviction; my mind is made up - don't bother ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George carrying on two other conversations on topics of the moment), and he was past the censors and free for one night only to add his presence to the chosen inside the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... light, of fire, candle, and moon, mixed in with monstrous shadows and commonplace figures—some meaningless countenance surmounting a satin whose every shining thread is distinguishable, and the pattern of whose lace trimming could be copied for a fashion plate; he is, in short, a fussy, loud individual, with money to buy and some ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... little settlement into a centre of mercantile activity. Seven years ago I journeyed down the Yukon towards Siberia and a problematical Paris in a small crowded steamer, built of roughly hewn logs, and propelled by a fussy little engine of mediaeval construction. We then slept on planks, dined in our shirt-sleeves, and scrambled for meals which a respectable dog would have turned from in disgust. On the present occasion we embarked on board a floating palace, a huge stern-wheeler, as large and luxuriously appointed ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... away the old man, not without some slight compunction. "But in my opinion she's too dark for such somber dresses. I've told her so a score of times." Then as he watched the woman before him rolling up the goods he proceeded to ask with fussy importunity what she thought the express charges were likely to be, for he wanted to pay the whole bill ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... It was Mr. Weatherley who appeared. Mr. Weatherley was distinctly fussy and there was some ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there would, I suppose, be no fear of its desecration at any after time. But lo! only last night, I had to write, on the part of Mr. Carlyle, to a certain ungainly, foolish gentleman who keeps back from him, with all the fussy impotence of stupidity (not bad feeling, alas! for that we could deal with) a certain MS. letter of Cromwell's which completes the collection now going to press; and this long-ears had to be 'dear Sir'd and obedient servanted' till I said (to use a mild word) 'commend me to ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... bless your brown eyes for being so sharp, my pretty Sally," said the man who had just entered, whilst worthy Mr. Jellyband came bustling forward, eager, alert and fussy, as became the advent of one of the most favoured ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... The feminine portion told her their love troubles, the young wives came to her with tangles and little jealousies; and, if she could not always straighten them out, she had a marvellous way of comforting. Young men drifted toward her by some species of magnetism, though she had none of the fussy motherliness of some old ladies. With faculties still keen and bright, a great fund of good-humor that had the sparkle of champagne rather than any insipid sweetness, she never wearied or palled on any one. She kept herself well informed of the world's progress, she knew of ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... trees of the night darkness, and caused the damp, grey foliage to smile once more with aniseed and red raspberry, and to sparkle with the gold of their mildew. Also, there came hovering about us goldfinches with their little red-hooded crests, and fussy tomtits in their cravats of yellow, while a nimble, dark, blue woodpecker scaled the stem of an apple tree. And everywhere, yellow leaves fluttered to earth, and, in doing so, so closely resembled birds as to make it not always easy to distinguish whether a leaf or a tomtit had glimmered ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... business men and fussy, over-dressed women," added Nan demurely, her eyes twinkling at the look of horror that ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie found his room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so as to try to make you feel that the management took a personal interest in you. It was part of their job. Archie ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... they did not want a man to work for them and said he would much like to go with them. So much he got from his talk that they let him join them. It was very cold and there was a driving snow-storm. As the man was so fussy and talkative they gave him a ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... twisting to no purpose; "I don't see why—This must be the right key, because—Well, I declare, if it ain't unlocked already! That's some of Cap'n Elkanah's doin's. For a critter as fussy and particular about some things, he's careless enough about others. Mercy we ain't had any tramps around here ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pith hat or an umbrella. Some foreigners who ought to know better are careless about these things and good-naturedly chaff one who is more particular. But while one should not be unnecessarily fussy, yet if he is courageous enough to be sensible, he will not only preserve his health, but be physically benefited by his tour, while the heedless man will probably be floored by dysentery or even if he escapes that ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... rising wealth. The last may, and does have the best of it, in the mere physical part of the strife; but in the more moral, if such a word can be used, the quiet ascendency of better manners and ancient recollections is very apt to overshadow the fussy pretensions of the vulgar aspirant, who places his claims altogether on the all-mighty dollar. It is vain to deny it; men ever have done it, and probably ever will defer to the past, in matters of this sort—it being much with us, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... of interest had sparkled in her eyes when Gordon's fussy little attorney had mentioned the name of his client, but it had been Dick's genial manner of boyish comradeship that had really warmed Miss Underwood to him. She did not like many people, but when ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... English publishers of Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads manuscripts, including his own—and including mine. He refuses manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm. Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And misprints—especially when he has read the proofs himself—give him neuralgia and even worse afflictions. Indeed ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... procedure, the boy is borne away. Curled up in the German's warm berth, this little eight-year-old bareback rider, wearied with the night's performance, sleeps until the next evening, unconscious of what has happened. Our fussy old 'granny' sits out on deck, rolling and pitching with the boat's motion, wondering what ails that chap ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... interest to be picked out of the following honest and straightforward bit of criticism, if we examine it closely: and, firstly, as to its author? Is there not something very characteristic in its general tone, something dimly sketching a shadowy outline of a kindly, fussy, busy, querulous old man, much given to tiny minuti, acareful copier with a clean pen, indefatiguable in collecting "contributions" to minor history; one jealous of all appearance of slight to his office, even to being moved ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... on missionary health. It does not purpose to instruct you in the rules of hygiene. Rather it inquires into attitudes. Is the missionary to be as particular as he can about everything (fussy, some may call it), or should his faith be great enough so that he overlooks the rules of the doctors? Or perhaps, are there times when the one attitude is desirable, and times ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... everything. He did not spare her his reproaches on a multitude of subjects; all day long he was worrying her about small trifles with which he should have had nothing to do. It is a mistake to suppose that a man can not be brutal and fussy at the same time. M. de Talbrun ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... "Oh, don't be so fussy," said Connie fretfully, "wet feet don't do any harm." But she obligingly soaked her ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the right conclusion, for the very next day a dog-cart was driven to the Cove, stopped at the Colonel's gate, and a little fussy-looking gentleman, with sharp eyes, a snub nose, and grey hair, which seemed to have a habit of standing out in pointed tufts, came up to the door, knocked, and sent in ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... her aunt, not only had a new scarf with silver stars over her frail young shoulders and a band of cherry coloured velvet across her forehead, but she was wearing the first ankle watch ever seen in Red Gap. I couldn't begin to tell you the fussy improvements them ladies had made in themselves—and all, mind you, for the passing child of Nature who had never paid a bill ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... too scared to run, with Teddy, like Fate, grimly at their heels, steadily "pointing" them off the premises. We were a little anxious, therefore, as to how Teddy would take our little terrier, with his fussy, youthful self-importance, and eternal restless poking into other folks' affairs. But Teddy, as we might have told ourselves, had had a long and varied experience of terriers, and had nothing to learn from us. Yet I have no doubt that, with his instinctive courtesy, he divined the wishes of ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... way you really looked, I evidently wasn't as fussy about such things then as I am now," he laughed. "All I remember is that you were the dandiest little playmate I ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... happy ones, until you make conscience of the study of God's Word and 'continue steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching.' You may produce plenty of emotional Christianity, and of busy and sometimes fussy work without it, but you will not get depth. I sometimes think that the complaint of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews might be turned upside down nowadays. He says: 'When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles.' Nowadays ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... that time need not be referred to here; for he himself has related them in clear, life-like, homely terms which reveal one of the sources of his personal influence. Englishmen admire a man who is active without being fussy, who combines greatness with simplicity, whose kindliness is as devoid of ostentation as his religion is of mawkishness, and with whom ambition is ever the handmaid of patriotism. The character of a commander perhaps ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... ugly dispositioned animals, who are always in a ferocious mood, just like certain ill-tempered human beings, who believe everything and everybody is trying to injure them. The common shrew, for example, is noisy, bold and fussy. He seems to delight in calling attention to himself by his grunty, squeaky voice. He advertises himself as a bad animal; and bad he is, for his terrible odour prevents other animals from coming near. Horses and mules are at times quite ferocious, and ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... precious chest from the sudden gusts which freshen the atmosphere of Guerande. He always went armed with a gold-headed cane to drive away the dogs who paid untimely court to a favorite little bitch who usually accompanied him. This man, fussy as a fine lady, worried by the slightest contretemps, speaking low to spare his voice, had been in his early days one of the most intrepid and most competent officers of the old navy. He had won the confidence of de Suffren in the Indian Ocean, and the friendship of the Comte de Portenduere. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... to wash the dishes, And also dry them, too. It makes your paws so soft and white, I really think—don't you? Some folks are awful fussy, When e'er they dust or sweep. They'd rather pile the dirt all up In ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... look very happy over this, for they both hated any fuss. But when they got into the big kitchen they found it was all right. The miller's wife was not a fussy person at all, and they were at home with the old lady in a minute. The little girl was sitting beside the fire in a big chair. She looked very pale, but was quite ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... very stately and queen-like, wrapped in her ample shawl and leaning back in her seat with a quiet grace which Mrs. Harrington attempted in vain to imitate. Indeed, the effort only made the ambitious little woman appear more fussy and affected than ever. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... fussy, and advisory, in his own peculiar free-and-easy fashion; and Mrs. Follingsbee was instructive and patronizing to the very last degree. Lillie had bewailed in her sympathizing bosom John's unaccountable and most ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... fathers; that is to say, he made the money for the rest of the family to spend, and showed himself at Oldport once a fortnight or so—possibly to pay the bills. There was a mother, stout and good-humored, rather vulgar, very fussy, and no end of a talker: she always reminded Ashburner of an ex-lady-mayoress. There were three or four young men, sons and cousins, with the usual amount of white tie and the ordinary dexterity in the polka; and two daughters, both well out of their teens. The knowing ones said that one of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... already in 1867 the strides since 1860 were strikingly visible. In the earlier year I used frequently to visit a friend living at Nichtherohy, on the opposite shore of the bay. The ferriage then was by trig, long, sharp-bowed, black paddle steamers, with raking funnels. They were tremendously fussy, important, puffing little chaps, with that consequential air which so frequently accompanies moderate performance. The making a landing was a complicated and tedious job, characterized by the same amount ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... dining-room, where Madame Beattie seldom went. Esther received him with a cool dignity. She was pale. Grandmother would no doubt have said she made herself pale in the interest of pathos; but Esther was truly suffering. Moore, fussy, flattered, ill at ease, stood before her, holding his hat. She did not ask him to sit down. There was an unspoken tradition in Addington, observed by everybody but Miss Amabel, that Moore was not, save in cases of unavoidable ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... we are on firm ground our guide leads us quickly through some narrow dirty streets, and before we have time to notice anything we are in a noisy, fussy little train, bound ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... "She's fussy on the surface, but nice when you know her," confided Winona to Garnet. "If I'd been staying at the hostel, I expect we should have got on capitally ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... arise over the training and care of the children. Here the different reactions of a man and woman—e.g. to a boy's pranks—causes a taking of sides that is disastrous to the peace of the family. Usually the American father believes his wife is too fussy about his son's manners and derelictions, secretly or otherwise he is quite pleased when his son develops into a "regular" boy,—tough, mischievous, and aggressive. But sometimes it is the overstern father who arouses the mother's concern for the child. If a frank quarrel results, ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... advice, and endeavor to make them live after different fashions from those which are suitable to them, and it will be quite hopeless to attempt to induce the general body of a purely artistic class to make louder and more fussy professions of virtue and religion than other people. In fact, it is a downright insult to the dramatic profession to exact or to expect any such thing. Equally objectionable, and equally impracticable, are the attempts of Quixotic "dramatic reformers" to exercise a sort of goody-goody ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... after her and laughed. "'Youth is a great time, but somewhat fussy,'" she quoted; and the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... is the fussy and troublesome subscriber who gives more bother than he is worth, and who takes a VICIOUS pride in not paying till pushed to the last point. The professional subscriber fights hard for the most favourable terms, and holds it his vested right to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... in his uncle's house, he began to be comforted by his luxurious surroundings, the same bright fire burned that Honor loved to see and the easy chairs and soft rich carpet suggested satisfaction to the most discontented. A few minutes of fussy preparations and the gloomy twain were immersed in dry business. Apart from the monotonous scratching of their hurried pens there was but an occassional short remark uttered until the welcome sound of the tea-bell broke the spell of sullenness that ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... coverings. Hawkes soon had a cab alongside. He helped Peg into it: then she stretched out her arms and O'Farrell opened the sail-cloths and out sprang "Michael," dusty and dirty and blear-eyed, but oh! such a happy, fussy, affectionate, relieved little canine when he saw his beloved owner waiting for him. He made one spring at her, much to the lawyer's dignified amazement, and began to bark at her, and lick her face and hands, and jump on and roll over and over upon Peg ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... elapsed before the due arrival of official permission for X. to leave the jungle, it might have been observed that he was changed. The hitherto sedate individual became fussy and worried, and members of The Community agreed that he was "journey-proud"—a happy expression used by one of the neighbouring Malay potentates when wishing to describe his feelings at a time of emerging from the security of his ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... result, for I had confidence enough in the bravery of the kingbirds to be sure that the end was not yet. Also, I longed to watch the restless pair whose ups and downs I had found so interesting. I should like to see the orchard oriole in the role of a father; a terribly fussy one he would be without doubt. Above all, I most desired to see the infant orioles, to know if they begin their quarrels in their narrow cradle, and if their first note is a scold. But the troubles of this courtship had, like the wars of Augustus ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... note in the sweet melody of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother. The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing it out independently. She ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... up to the Alethea's side, discharged a fussy inspector on the brigantine's deck, and panted impatiently until he, the examination concluded without delay, was ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... to do in preparation for making them is to prepare the design. Simple designs work out better than fussy ones and are more likely to be within the ability of the amateur. Having determined the size of the tray, draw on paper an oblong to represent it. Inside this oblong, draw another one to represent the lines along which the metal is to be bent up to form ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... to admit that probably all these things were really good for me. But it got to where everything I did was something that was good for me—and that was bad. Hell, it isn't natural for a young fellow just out of college to live like a fussy old man of seventy with a grudge against the ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart
... would not believe, or could not see. Nor were the relations of Adams very pleasant with the veteran Franklin himself, whose merits he conceived to be exaggerated, and of whom it is generally believed he was envious. He was as fussy in business details as Franklin was easy and careless. He thought that Franklin lived too luxuriously and was too fond ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... between the company and its workmen, indeed, seem to me to be governed by a sensible avoidance on the part of the company of everything like fussy paternalism; and to this, in some measure, I have no doubt, must be attributed the remarkably smooth and easy working of these relations through so long a course of years. The workmen are treated, not like children, but like reasonable beings, who may be expected to avail themselves ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Your Mrs. Buchanan is what I call a finished product of a wife. I'll never do it in the world. I can get up and talk a jury into seeing things my way, but I get cross-brained when I go to put things to Phoebe. That reminds me, that case on old Jim Cross for getting tangled up with some fussy hens in Latimer's hen-house week before last is called for to-day at twelve sharp. I'm due to put the old body through and pay the fine and costs; only the third time this year. I'm thinking of buying him a hen farm to save myself ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... been clumsy. She simply couldn't imagine marrying Cesare Orsi, but she knew that such a match for Gheta was freely discussed, and she hoped that her sister would not make difficulties. She wouldn't have dresses so fussy as Gheta's—in figure, anyhow, she was perhaps her sister's superior—fine materials, simply cut, with a ruffle at the throat and hem, a satin wrap pointed at the back, with ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... stream, by his generation, had grown much vitiated: it was pure warriorism in Claudius Gothicus, and even in Constantius Chlorus; it was warriorism refined with subtlety and cruelty in Constantine I; it was mere fussy treacherous cruelty in the Spider-Octopus,—and sensual brutality in Julian's brother Gallus. The vices of the latter may indicate how great a self-conqueror the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... in the dusk flitted like a ghost about the room and then she was gone. The doctor's pony cart came rattling up to the door. The fussy little man got out and stamped in the hall, and then disappeared upstairs. There was a long pause during which there ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... more fussy. He condemned the restaurant manager and got at loggerheads with the waiter. He must at least have a Mecklenburg salad as he came from Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The waiter did not know what it was and the irascible Teuton informed him bluntly that he was a Dummkopf. The card player would ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... pursued in the management of the house were the outcome of a naturally malignant disposition. This was, however, not the case. There is no reason to suppose that Mr Kay did not mean well. But there is no doubt that he was extremely fussy. And fussiness—with the possible exceptions of homicidal mania and a taste for arson—is quite the worst characteristic it is possible for a ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... became distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that he had never been before. It was with the most insulting precautions that he examined every Sunday his wife's accounts. He took a look at the grocer's, and settled it himself every month: he had the butcher's bills ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... they seem to think of it so. Once or twice, when I've paid calls with mamma, they were so fussy and show-off. You know how I mean,' ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... carried down and up with his own hands. Thus at the bedside stood a real Chippendale table, with a real Delft vase upon it, filled with such roses as had survived the rain. A drop of water had been spilt upon the table from the vase, and there was something almost fussy in the way that Langholm removed ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... again a different sound would reach the hollow—the dragging tail swish of the water-vole, or the fussy scramble of some belated moorhen. These he soon learned to distinguish from the stealthy, broken, hanging footfall of the beast of prey. When that was heard, both he and his companions would crouch together in the darkest corner of the burrow and ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... rebellious and contemptuous disdain of public opinion. But the inconsistency may very well be one solely in appearance. It may well happen that the avoidance of all companionship with the stereotyped social surfaces of life, the ignorance—really, the happy and hieratic ignorance—of what "people" in the fussy sense, are supposed to be saying and doing, may actually help the poet to come more fruitfully and penetratingly to what lies under the surface, to what is essential and permanent and notable in the solid earth of human character. Hence, I ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... weight—with many falls, of course—and then he began to scurry about on his feet. His usual style of progression at this period was to take from two to four abrupt, jerky strides, rather with the air of a fussy and corpulent old gentleman who had to catch a train, and then to subside in a confused lump, on chest and nose, with tail waggling angrily in mid-air. This was not so annoying to the grey pup as one might suppose, because, though ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... with his mother, he boarded a Key West steamer just as it was leaving its New York pier. He sat on the deck and watched busy ferry-boats in the river, fussy tugs and chug-chugging launches in the harbor, and the white-winged yachts and great ocean steamers in the lower bay. He looked back from the Narrows upon the receding city, to the east upon Coney Island with its pleasure ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... prevailing opinion is that his raising of the new army has been good work but that he has failed with the task of procuring munitions. As for Churchill, he's too restless and erratic and dictatorial and fussy and he runs about too much. I talked with him at dinner last night at his mother's. He slips far down in his chair and swears and be-dams and by-Gods his assertions. But his energy does interest one. An impromptu meeting ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... reason, for she was charming and gracious, but Midget felt she was a nervous, fussy woman, and not calm and capable ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... liddle fussy wife Up an' say she mus' have scissors; An' druther dan to fight, I'd a throwed 'er in three rivers. But she crossed dem fingers, w'en she go down, An' a liddle bit later She ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... else sends up his tripod and his cauldron, but we hear nothing about any, either tripod or cauldron, from King Alcinous. He is very fussy next morning stowing them under the ship's benches, but his time and trouble seem to be the extent of his contribution. It is hardly necessary to say that Ulysses had to go away without the 250 pounds, and that we never hear of the promised ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... had been deprived of their offices or sent into exile in consequence of their duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight the Marquis of Beuvron on the Place Royale. The Marquis's second, M. de fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. M. de Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le- Brule and brought back to Paris; and the king immediately ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he sprang up with alacrity. "Mrs. Maxwell, will you be so kind as to excuse me for a moment?" said he, and went out of the office with a fussy hitch, as if he wore invisible petticoats. Mrs. Field heard his ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... temporized. The lights of Breil showed that it was a town of comparative importance; it was past eight o'clock; and no doubt His Highness's temper was sharpened by a keen edge of hunger. That he—he should be stopped by a fussy official figure-head almost within smell of food, broke down the barrier of his self-restraint—never a formidable rampart, as we had cause to know. In a few loud and vigorous sentences he expressed ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Mrs. King really slept," she said cheerfully. "She said she had a good nap, and dreamed!" She sat down in a low chair and made herself relax comfortably; only her eyes were tense. She never did fussy things with her hands, Honor Carmody; no one had ever seen her with a needle or a crochet hook. She was either doing things, vital, definite things which required motion, or she was still, and she rested people who were near her. "Well, he'll be ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... not to be discouraged, however, and in the end he showed me into the ante-chapel which is curtained off from the quire. There was only one other person in the ante-chapel, a florid, well-dressed man with a rather mincing and fussy way of worshipping. The monks led by Brother Lawrence (who is not even a novice yet, but a postulant and wears a black habit, without a hood, tied round the waist with a rope) passed from the refectory through the ante-chapel into the quire, and Vespers began. They used an arrangement ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... wrong-headed and un-Christian as Suso's advice to "live as if you were the only person in the world."[22] The life of the cloistered saint may be abundantly justified—for the spiritual activity of some of them has been of far greater service to mankind than the fussy benevolence of many "practical" busybodies—but the idea of social service, whether in the school of Martha or of Mary, ought surely never to be absent. The image of Christ as the Lover of the individual ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... a poem to be read there of surpassing beauty, rhythmical and eloquent as the music of the spheres, if it might only be given to a man to read it. There was an absence, too, of all attempt at feminine self-glorification which he did not analyse but thoroughly appreciated. There was no fussy amplification of hair, no made-up smiles, no affectation either in her good humour or her anger, no attempt at effect in her gait, in her speech, or her looks. She seemed to him to be one who had something within her on which she could feed independently of the grosser details of the world ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... moved only along the east and west axis of the Exposition. The north and south development is not without its charm. The terraced city of San Francisco, on the south, without a doubt looks best on a densely foggy day. With its fussy, incongruous buildings - I hesitate to call them architecture - it serves hardly as a background for anything, let alone a group of monumental buildings. The opposite side, where nature reigns, atones for multitudes of sins that man committed on the city's hills. But how great ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... many pygmies they looked now, fussy and excited, perspiring profusely despite the cool ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... again for the evening. Again it was dull, with an incipient drizzle as we started out at six o'clock. The fish were now rising, at any rate, in my pool. At the very entrance to it, which was, in fact, the connecting run from The Rocks, I killed, after a fussy tussle and plenty of leaping out of the water, a grilse of 4 lb.; and we had barely rowed out into the stream when a fish of 6 lb. or 7 lb. leaped head and tail out of the water at my fly without touching it. The overcast character of the evening suggested to me the use of a Bulldog, and we were ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... had been kind to him (such as his publisher, Mr. John Murray for instance) to show that no one could be more loyal or more grateful than he who has been depicted as the incarnation of all that is spiteful, fussy, and mean. There is no need for the world to be told here that the author of "Lavengro" is a delightful writer, and one who is more sure than most authors of his time to win that little span of life which writing men ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... a generous traveller. He felt he had indeed been "led" to this plain, brown-faced, broad-shouldered lady, when he remembered how nearly, after her curt nod from a distance had engaged him, he had responded to the blandishments of a fussy little woman, with many more bags and rugs, and a parrot cage, who was now doling French coppers out of the window of the next compartment. "Seven pence 'apenny of this stuff ain't much for carrying all that along, I DON'T think!" grumbled his mate; and Jane's young porter experienced the double ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... don't care. Papa is fussy, and grandma makes a stir about every blessed thing I do. You will hold your tongue, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... be said about the serrated edges of masses, like those of trees seen against the sky. These are very difficult to treat, and almost every landscape painter has a different formula. The hard, fussy, cut-out, photographic appearance of trees misses ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... were so fussy!" gasped Marie. "I do hope our silkworms won't get frightened and die, or else have something make ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... more, for it so happens that Colonel Fitz-James is known to be an epicure, to be fussy and finical about all things pertaining to the table, and what is worse takes no pains to disguise it, and in consequence is considered an undesirable dinner guest by the most experienced housekeepers in the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... chimney-piece one of his famous trabucos,—"upon my word, I can't guess; if some great reverse of fortune befell him, and he had to work for his livelihood, or if some other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system and jolted it into a fussy, fidgety direction, I dare say he might make a splash in that current of life which bears men on to the grave. But you see he wants, as he himself very truly says, the two stimulants to definite ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... appear fussy, Hood," Deering began good-naturedly, "but would you mind telling me what's ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... him fussy than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen my hands and keep ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... systematic, and deliberate in his habits and ways of doing business. A swift reader and a surprisingly swift writer, he was always occupied, and was skilful in using even the scraps and fragments of his time. No pressure of work made him fussy or fidgety, nor could any one remember to have seen ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... fussy as he always was on the morning of his big shoot, came bustling towards Peter, Baron de Grost, with a piece of paper in his hand. The party of men had just descended from a large brake and were standing about on the edge of the common, examining cartridges, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... press-agenting, all the energy in her, and she had no reserve left for play. War work seemed to mean something to Sophie besides write-ups in the society column and pictures of her in sundry poses. These things besides, surrounded her with all sorts of fussy people, both male and female, and through this cordon Thompson seldom broke for confidential talk with her. When he did Sophie baffled him with her calm detachment, a profound and ever-increasing reserve—as ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... yards by the quartermaster first class on duty; general quarters rung, the executive officer signals full speed ahead, the commanding officer takes charge and manoeuvres for position—and then something happens which the censor may be fussy about mentioning. At any rate, oil and other things rise to the surface of the sea, and the Germans are minus another submarine. The chief machinist's mate, however, comes in for special mention. It seems that he ignored the ladder and literally fell down the hatch, dislocating his shoulder but ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been described as a mental quicksand. There is something in the atmosphere which makes the most industrious man contentedly idle. Here the nervous, irritable, fussy individual, who for years has never known what rest meant, and who has fidgeted when he could not work, finds himself relaxing, against his will, into a condition of what a celebrated statesman described as "innocuous desuetude." ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... in question was in the handwriting of a fussy officious "bumble" friend of the wealthy man, who dwelt in the town of Covelly. It ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... training. They resent the interference of laymen in matters purely professional. They resent such interference as would a reputable physician, a reputable lawyer, a reputable engineer. They resent officious patronage and "fussy" meddling. They resent all these things manfully, vigorously. But your true craftsman will not whine. If the conditions under which he works do not suit him, he will fight for their betterment, but he will ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... party to land was a tall young man in white ducks, while directly behind came another elderly man with a very high forehead and a fussy, excitable manner. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with Valentine and the two girls, but greeted Jack with a cool stare, which the latter returned with interest. Grenford Manor was very different from Brenlands. Aunt Isabel was fussy and querulous, while Mr. Fosberton was a very ponderous gentlemen in more senses than one. He had bushy grey whiskers and a very red face, which showed up in strong contrast to a broad expanse of white waistcoat, which was in turn adorned with a massive ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... Methodists, as were their ancestors on both sides. My mother was uniformly religious, but not fussy about it. I have seen her intensely happy, but never heard her shout. Her religion was a deep, smooth, current without fluctuation. My father was religious more by spells, but still he never went to extremes, and could never "get religion" at the altar, in the Methodist ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... harmless snobbishness is now so completely out of fashion that nobody cares. You are modern enough to laugh at it; I am not; and I still continue faithful to my Classons and Cuyps and Vetchens and Suydams; and to all that they stand for in Manhattan—the rusty vestiges of by-gone pomp and fussy circumstance—the memories that cling to the early lords of the manors, the old Patroons, and titled refugees—all this I still cling to—even to their shabbiness and ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... to be horrid, but Lord! you're getting as fussy as Verona. Ever since she got out of college she's been too rambunctious to live with—doesn't know what she wants—well, I know what she wants!—all she wants is to marry a millionaire, and live in Europe, and hold some preacher's hand, and simultaneously at the same time stay right here in Zenith ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis |
