"Martinet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dare-devil air, not swaggering because there is no need, that has been the key to most of the sublime surprises of all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddle and toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackle forlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year lunacy to the martinet with ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Mr. Perkins, martinet though he was, would hardly, I think, have inflicted such a punishment on Cecily, who was a favourite of his, had he known the real nature of that luckless missive. But, as he afterwards admitted, he thought it was merely a note from some other girl, of such trifling ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... see the parallel, yet. These old ladies haven't waked from a dream, that I see." Thus the General, and Gwen told him he was a military martinet, and lacking in insight. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... a bit huskily. I saluted, and Commander Jamison acknowledged the gesture with stiff precision. Commander Jamison always had the reputation of being something of a martinet. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... trice he clothed himself from top to toe as a Uhlan full lieutenant. He stood before the small glass tacked in the corner and twirled and stiffened his mustache with pomatum. When he turned and strode before Ruth again he was the typical haughty martinet who demanded of the rank and file the goose-step and "right face ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... collapse. Though Jasper Losely knew himself to be still called a magnificent man,—one of royal Nature's Lifeguardsmen; though confident that from top to toe his habiliments could defy the criticism of the strictest martinet in polite costume, no sooner did that figure, by no means handsome and clad in garments innocent of buckram but guilty of wrinkles, appear on the threshold than Jasper Losely felt small and shabby, as if he had been suddenly reduced ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... editor of a great New York daily was known in the newspaper world as a martinet and severe disciplinarian. Some of his caustic and biting criticisms are classics. Once, however, the tables were turned upon him in a way that ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... burned house and perform the rites of burial before the corps left the hill; whereupon the face of the young girl more fully repaid him by its expression of true gratitude, than did even her words of sad thankfulness. There are men who have called Colonel Warren not only a martinet but a man devoid of feeling: let his action on this occasion prove how little those know him who speak of him ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... 'Their fellow Subjects' did not, of course, include any 'papist or popish Recusants Convict.' Among the 'Grievances and Distresses' enumerated were 'the oppressive and severely felt Military government,' the inability to 'reap the fruit of our Industry' under such a martinet as Murray, who, in one paragraph, is accused of 'suppressing dutyfull Remonstrances in Silence' and, in the next, of 'treating them with a Rage and Rudeness of Language and Demeanor as dishonourable to the Trust he holds of Your Majesty as painfull to Those ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... the note into a neat little roll, and slipping out the back way went down to leave it at the florist's, to be sent to Dorothy— securely hidden in a big bunch of English violets, lest any martinet of a nurse should see fit to suppress it—the very first thing in the morning. On the way back to her room she danced up the stairs in her most joyous fashion, and when Mary Brooks, coming up from escorting Roberta to the door, intercepted her and demanded ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... smallish, weazened man, with bushy eyebrows and full white beard, dressed in a frock coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on the poop ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was that he had left his chair empty at such a convenient moment. But he was impressed notwithstanding. The funeral pomp to which custom makes the old Parisian indifferent, the long line of knapsacks, the muskets that fell on the flags with a single blow (at the command of a boyish little martinet, with a stock under-his chin, who was probably performing on this occasion his first military duty), and, above all, the funeral music and the muffled drums, filled him with respectful emotion: and as always happened when he felt keenly, rimes began to rise. He had actually got a good ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... holdings were shared by his wife Hester (Pitt) and six of his seven children. The eldest son was excluded from his inheritance as Colonel Bridger, evidently a martinet with his family as well as in his official capacity, added in the codicil a directive cutting him off with 2000 pounds of tobacco because Joseph Jr. had been disobedient to him and had gone out in "diverse ways." In friendly suits with his brothers, after his father's death, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... rendered such encumbrances; and in less time than we have taken to relate it, the marine was completely equipped for his departure. In the mean time, Captain Borroughcliffe raised himself to an extremely erect posture, which he maintained with the inflexibility of a rigid martinet. When he found himself established on his feet, the soldier intimated to his prisoner that he was ready to proceed. The door was instantly opened by Manual, and together they ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was Lady Jane's uncle-in-law, whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. He was a charming old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and declared he remembered hearing of Barty as the naughtiest boy in the Guards; and took an immediate fancy to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... unworthy declamations against Napoleon's responsibility in the Duc d'Enghien affair with their silence on Nelson's in breaking the truce already referred to, and the awful consequences set forth in Mr. Fox's speech, which is reminiscent of the powerful disciplinary methods of that manly martinet Ivan the Terrible, who was responsible for the massacre of men by the thousand, flaying of prisoners alive, collecting pyramids of skulls, slaughtering of innocent men, and the free use of other ingenious forms of refined scientific torture which tires the spirit to relate. It ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... his way to the head-quarters of the Upper Fourth. The classroom was rather quieter than the one he had left, Mr. Rowlands being somewhat of a martinet. ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... Commodore Wilkes, in command of the famous United States Exploring Expedition, 1836-40. He was a noted martinet, and was called Le ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... work. The editio princeps is cherished by collectors because of the 1,008 coloured plates ("Planches Enluminees") in folio, the text itself being in quarto, by the younger Daubenton, whose work was spiritedly engraved by Martinet. Apparently anxious to illustrate one section exhaustively rather than several sections in a fragmentary manner, the artist devoted himself chiefly to the birds, which monopolise probably nine-tenths of the plates, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... inches. It was intensely dark, and we could not see to pick our way. Splashed from head to foot, and wet through for hours, we had then one of the most dismal experiences I remember. I had not been well since the terrible heat of the 15th, and Strahan, putting on the air of a martinet, sternly ordered me to mount his horse while he took charge ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... pillow—she could easily have buried her arms in it to the shoulder. The elaborateness of Nina's clothes filled the contessa with satisfaction, for she thought them barbarously inappropriate, and she knew that Giovanni was a martinet ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Salisbury. This is not a court-martial, but an informal investigation, and I shall be glad to have you and Dr. Connelly entirely free to ask any questions you please," replied the captain, who was anything but a martinet. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... find out, too, what a martinet I am," she added. "There's no telling how often I'll put you under arrest and mount ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... sufficient guide, not because it cumbers us with a mass of wretched little prescriptions such as a martinet might give, about all sorts of details of conduct. That is left to profitless casuists like the ancient rabbis. But the broad principles will effloresce into all manner of perfectnesses and all fruits. He that has in his heart these thoughts, that the definition ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... in the course of his narrative by the President, General W., a severe martinet, who reminded him that an attempt to criminate his superior officers would only injure his ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... body of the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers. Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not so. One of his generals—a martinet of the first class—told me that McClellan waits for the organization of the regulars, to have them for the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West Point martinets will become the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... then, rather a different man from the stern little martinet who had stood in the throat of the arcade. He ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... to the point. He was a volunteer patriot of high standing in his community. As a citizen of the Republic, wearing its uniform, he represented its dignity and power. He had been grossly insulted by a military martinet from West Point and he proposed to test the question whether an American citizen had any ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of careful preparation, and the establishment by order and system in every branch and department of the service. No martinet of the schools was ever more alive to the necessity of rigid method and exact discipline, for he knew that without their inauguration and strict observance, it would be impossible to even partially discharge the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... was a man of sense. If he had been a martinet, it would have been worse for us all. Of course, there is no telling how far people will accept the story; but we may as well try to act as if it were true." There was a pause. Then Bobby inquired, "Well, and now what are you going to ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... had its political significance which the military martinet who commanded the post understood. It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... posts. He deserted us in the end, after he had squandered the fortune. My mother made no effort to compel him to provide for her or for me. She was proud. She was hurt. To-day he is in India, still in the service, a martinet with a record for bravery on the field of battle that cannot be taken from him, no matter what else may befall. I hear from him once or twice a year. That is all I can tell you about him. My mother died three years ago, after two years of invalidism. During those years I tried to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... responded, "married to a regular martinet who, whilst treating her in the same austere manner he treated his soldiers—he was colonel of a line regiment—was jealous to the verge of insanity. It was when I was attending him for a slight ailment ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... Moossy's day, and now there is a graduate of the University of Paris and a fearful martinet to teach young Muirtown French, and a Heidelberg man with several degrees and four swordcuts on his face to explain to Muirtown the mysteries of the German sentence. Indignant boys, who have heard appetising tales of the days which ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... instance, outside Orchard Glen, knew that young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with the rod, and her children were the terror of the village? And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny Minns scolded Mitty all day long ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... where we lay. After securing the watering-place, and what we had there ashore, I sent the launch, well manned and armed, under a lieutenant, to see what she was. The launch returned about noon, reporting that she was the Ruby, formerly an English man-of-war, but now one of the squadron under Martinet, and commanded by Mons. La Jonqniere. She was in, the Spanish service, but most of her officers and crew were French, to the number of about 420. Yet they had no intention to molest us, having quitted the South Sea on report of a rupture between France and Spain. M. La Jonquiere was a man of strict ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Were he likely to be content with the mere fact of the child's death, apart from the process and leisurely expansion of its mental agony—in that case there would be no hope. But, because our present murderer is fastidiously finical in his exactions—a sort of martinet in the scenical grouping and draping of the circumstances in his murders—therefore it is that hope becomes reasonable, since all such refinements of preparation demand time. Murders of mere necessity Williams ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... to say to you," announced the new sergeant coolly. "I intend to preserve discipline in this squad room, though I don't expect to do it like a martinet. Some of you groaned, just now, when my back was turned. Soldiers of the regular Army are men of courage. No real man fights behind another man's back. Has any man here anything that he wishes ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... of a martinet, and would have no crowding and pushing, and always made the boys stand aside till the girls had a good look; but he never hurried them, and allowed each an ample time to see the pictures, which were of a better class than those in most travelling peep shows. There was some murmuring, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... you, gentlemen," exclaimed the old martinet, "does this young man's story strike you as ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the yesterday! Christmas day in the morning is taking it out of her. "No men cooks about me", growls Sir Humphrey Desart, "we'll keep Sarah." So Sarah is kept, and though she be fat, aye, and getting on to three score, yet her strength faileth not, as you may observe. Somewhat of a martinet, yet kindly withal and leading the hubbub in the kitchen with all the gusto of twenty years ago. My lady will descend presently to see if all goes on properly, and Sarah must lose no time. Heavens, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... find it a shocking nuisance," she said, coolly. "Besides, it would not be allowed. You will find that when my father has once marshalled you, escape is a thing not to be dreamed of. Every one says that he is a perfect martinet where a ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the author of our common good fortune, by putting boldness into our play. Pippi was a faint-hearted fellow, who was always cowardly when he began to win. My uncle (I speak with great respect of him) was too much of a devotee, and too much of a martinet at play ever to win GREATLY. His moral courage was unquestionable, but his daring was not sufficient. Both of these my seniors very soon acknowledged me to be their chief, and hence the style of splendour ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... General Werder acted under superior orders. But, sir, you must perceive that in these discretionary situations there is no such dangerous man as the innocent executant, the martinet, the person of routine, the soldier stifled in his uniform. I saw Werder after the capitulation. A little man, lean and bilious. Such was the opponent who reversed for us successively, like the premisses of an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... When I had given my name, but not my business, I was ushered up, perhaps after an interval of ten minutes, to a sitting-room on the first floor, and there I found myself face to face with a fat, red-faced man in evening dress; and if ever there was a martinet down Montey way, this fine gentleman was that same. He was fat, I say, and forty—but to write that he was fair would be impossible, for he hadn't more than about half a dozen hairs on his head, and those had drifted down his neck to get out of the ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... his 32nd men. The palanquins with the women, the children, and the wounded follow, the latter bandaged up with strips of women's gowns and petticoats, and fragments of shirt-sleeves. And then come the fighting-men—a gallant, ragged, indomitable band. A martinet colonel would stand aghast—for save a regimental button here and there, he would find it hard to recognise the gaunt, hairy, sun-scorched squad for British soldiers. But let who might incline to disown these few war-worn ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... rang on the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top. Saluting with martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear view of the Rajputni. "As I've said many times, ma'am, the one house in the world where Tom Tripe may sit down ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... up-stairs in her arms, as she had done many a time before, and did not perceive his condition till she saw the blood on her gown. The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant and had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet. Hence, divers causes were suspected. The wound failed not to mend, the trousers were repaired: Peace about the same time was made, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with me, and I'll place you as right guide," called Cadet Brayton with the air and tone of a budding military martinet. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... little. They are a good deal like such officials anywhere. The warden is a Pennsylvania Dutchman; the deputy a young Kentuckian, gigantic and fresh faced; his first assistant is a stalwart man of middle age, a good deal of a martinet, but the men are inclined to like him because they see in him a solid, masculine creature, who stands pat, says what he means, and does what he says. Then there are the prison doctor, the steward of the commissary department, and the parole officer, and under them are ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... her. The reason was not farther to seek than a few doors off in London, when the Ladies Bawne occupied their sombre old corner-house in Grosvenor Square. It was Lady Bridget-Mary's dearest Lucy and bosom-friend, who had married that handsome, grey-moustached martinet, Richard's Colonel. In Lady Lucy Hawting's drawing-room Lord Castleclare's elder daughter had met Captain Mildare, the hero of Futtehabad and Ahmed Khel. The Colonel's wife was a pretty, delicate, graceful creature, some three years older than her black-browed ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... us that he carried before him a prisoner charged with desertion to the enemy. "Marion released him, saying to me, 'let him go, he is too worthless to deserve the consideration of a court martial.'" Such a decision in such a case, would have shocked a military martinet, and yet, in all probability, the fellow thus discharged, never repeated the offence, and fought famously afterwards in the cause of his merciful commander. We have something yet to learn on these subjects. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... as you like, you martinet! I will put up with anything patiently, if only I know that you still love me, and that you will be mine, all mine, as soon as this terrible war no longer stands between us like a ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... that streams of trade could be diverted violently so as to link the parts of the Empire by common interests, and they were persuaded, I still think mistakenly, that Tariff Reform would have an immense popular appeal. They were also very keen on military organisation, and with a curious little martinet twist in their minds that boded ill for that side of public liberty. So much against them. But they were disposed to spend money much more generously on education and research of all sorts than our formless ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her, steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... improve Roberval's temper. The new Viceroy was a soldier and a martinet, and his authority had been defied. With his two hundred colonists, taken from the prisons of France, commanded by young French officers,—a Lament and a La Salle among others,—he proceeded up the coast of Newfoundland to enter the St. Lawrence by Belle ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... more comfortable quarters, and rumours were abroad of an approaching engagement; but it did not take place, and a period of comparative relaxation succeeded one of severe hardship and arduous duty. Men and officers made the most of the holiday. There was never any thing of the martinet about the Duke. He was not the man to harass with unnecessary and vexations drills, or rigidly to enforce unimportant rules. Those persons, whether military or otherwise, who consider a strictly regulation uniform as essential ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... his fist and pounded the soft side of it on his thigh, drawing in his breath, puffing it out with a long exasperated "Hellll!" For the Greek professor, the comma-sized, sandy-whiskered martinet, to whom nothing that was new was moral and nothing that was old was to be questioned by any undergraduate, stalked into the room like indignant Napoleon posing before two guards and a penguin at St. Helena. A student in the back row thriftily ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... iron sway; tight grasp; brute force, brute strength; coercion &c 744; strong hand, tight hand. hard lines, hard measure; tender mercies [Iron.]; sharp practice; pipe-clay, officialism. tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian^, martinet, stickler, bashaw^, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture; accipitres^, birds of prey, raptorials^, raptors^. V. be severe &c adj.. assume, usurp, arrogate, take liberties; domineer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rounded, the leaves are broader or narrower, with or without white spots of a curious pattern. They may be more or less hairy and so forth. Even the seeds exhibit differences in size, shape or color, and of late Martinet has shown, that by the simple means of picking out seeds of the same pattern, pure strains of clover may be obtained, which are of varying cultural value. In this way the best subspecies or varieties may be sought out for separate cultivation. Even ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... employed many of this character. He has made efforts to lessen his expenses; but then he deals in military affairs, and that swallows up his savings, and Heaven only knows whether he will bring [Neapolitans] to fight, which the Martinet system alone will never do. His health is undermined by epileptic fits, which, with his great corpulence, make men throw their thoughts on his brother Prince Charles. It is a pity. The King is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... signal favor, kindliness and respect: the respect that is frequently entertained by a man after he has grown up toward the head master who caned him when he was at school. Indeed, William seems never to be able to forget that he was for several years under the old martinet's direct command. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... was more than a martinet. He was known as "Bucko" Belchior in every port where the English language is spoken, having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his days as second and chief mate, he would whirl belaying-pins, heavers, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... one; do they not? You took off my shoes and dried them for me at a woodman's cottage. I am obliged to put up with my maid's doing those things now. And Miss Blink the mild is changed for Lady Baldock the martinet. And if I rode about with you in a wood all day I should be sent to Coventry instead of to bed. And so you see everything is changed as well ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... soldier and a gentleman, and he maintained that without rigid discipline there could be no order and no safety at home or in the army. But between him and Don John there was all the difference that separates the born leader of men from the mere martinet. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... dull story to relate the trivial incidents of my first year of service in the navy. I spent five months at sea, and seven on shore, and Captain Vincent being a martinet. I had to work hard for my pay of four shillings a day (on shore it was cut down to two shillings). My diligence in studying navigation pleased him; and when a little affair in which I had been concerned came to his ears, he took me, in a ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... been known before his accession as a mere martinet, a good colonel for parade days, wonderful in detecting soiled uniforms, terrible in administering petty punishments. It seems like the story of stupid Brutus over again. Altered circumstances made a new man of him; and few things are more strange than the change wrought in his whole bearing and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... o'er-worried By ultra-Martinet; Into unwisdom hurried, Be sure Bull won't forget. But England's Redcoats must not ape The Hyde Park howl, that's clear; So no more row, row, row, row, From the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... officer of courage, skill, and judgment. His crew was thoroughly disciplined, and his ship a model of efficiency. No officer in the service understood better than he the difference between the discipline of a martinet and the discipline of a prudent and sagacious commander. His ship might not, like the "Peacock," merit the title of "the yacht;" but for active service she was always prepared. James, an English naval historian, turns from his usual occupation of explaining the American naval ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the poet for ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... the country; but from subsequent talk Polly gathered that, for one thing, Zara had found her position at the head of John's establishment—"Undertaken in the first place, my dear, at immense personal sacrifice!"—no sinecure. John had proved a regular martinet; he had countermanded her orders, interfered about the household bills—had even accused her of lining her own pocket. As for little Johnny—the bait originally thrown out to induce her to accept the post—he had long since been sent to boarding-school. "A thoroughly bad, unprincipled ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... inherited military aptness and knowledge. The old captain was a flaming son of Mars, whose nose militia, war, general training, and New England rum had painted with the color of glory and disaster. He was one of the gallant old soldiers of the peaceful days of our country, splendid in uniform, a martinet in drill, terrible in oaths, a glorious object when he marched at the head of his company of flintlock muskets, with the American banner full high advanced, and the clamorous drum defying the world. In this he fulfilled his duties of citizen, faithfully teaching his uniformed companions ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of drill from Frederick of Prussia; and there is still many a martinet who would carry his high-pressure system of discipline into every other service over which he had any control, unable to appreciate the difference of circumstances under which they may happen ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... considering Baden-Powell's character, that though he meets you with a smile on his face he carries a stick in his hand to prevent you from taking liberties with his good nature. The best-tempered fellow in the world, and blessed with the keenest sense of humour, he can be as uncompromising a martinet as the sternest fire-eater of old days—when there is ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... seriez que Perrette ou Margot,[133] quand je vous aurois vue, le martinet a la main, descendre a la cave, vous auriez toujours ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... all places! She was married at eighteen to a young officer; they ran away, and I believe grandpa never forgave her. He was a General, a strict old martinet, and she was his favourite daughter. After they had been married a couple of years, Aunt Flora's husband was killed in an accident and she was left rather badly off. People out there were very kind to her. She had ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... passed away since the races had begun. Hardy had thrown himself into the spirit of them so thoroughly, that he had not only regained all his hold on Tom, but had warmed up the whole crew in his favour, and had mollified the martinet Miller himself. It was he who had managed the starting-rope in every race, and his voice from the towing path had come to be looked upon as a safe guide for clapping on or rowing steady. Even Miller, autocrat as he was, had come to listen for it, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... sympathetic interest he took in settling these people on the lands of Canada, and in alleviating their difficulties by all the means in the power of his government. In these and other matters of Canadian interest he proved conclusively that he was not the mere military martinet that some Canadian writers with inadequate information would make him. When he left Canada he was succeeded by Sir Guy Carleton, then elevated to the peerage as Lord Dorchester, who was called upon to take part in great changes in the constitution of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... swift and edged with wit. Now and then he made reprisals, for when, as happened once or twice, a load of gravel nearly swept the foreman down the bank, Kermode was engaged in the vicinity. Another time, the bullying martinet was forced to jump into the muskeg, where he sank to the waist, in order to avoid a mass of ballast sent down before its ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... those governors who succeeded Alexander Macdonell—the Grasshopper Governor. The first of them was Captain Bulger, an unfortunate martinet, though a man of good conscience and high ideals. He had a most uncompromising manner. He quarreled with the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Garry on the one hand, and with old Indian Chief Peguis on the other. A whole crop of suggestions made by the Captain on the improvement ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... years of age. He was tortured by rheumatism from the long years of exposure in a damp climate. Because he was not of noble birth, though he had received title of nobility, he was subject to insults at the hands of any petty martinet who came out as officer on the Russian vessels. Against these Baranof usually held his own at Sitka, but they carried back to St. Petersburg slanderous charges against his honesty. Twice he had asked to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... had a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Washington had an opportunity of seeing a force encamped according to the plan approved of by the council of war; and military tactics, enforced with all the precision of a martinet. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... been an easy subject for the wisest and kindest of spiritual guides; but no influence, repellent or attractive, could have been more disastrous for that passionate, quick-witted and yet eminently puzzle-headed mixture of Philistine and genius, than the crabbed old martinet whose regulations forbade the students access to Gluck's scores in the library, and whose only theory of art (as distinguished from his practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from Berlioz's Grande Traite de l'instrumentation et d'orchestration: ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... was not assigned to the watch that night, but he could not sleep for a long time. Among these borderers there was discipline, but it was discipline of their own kind, not that of the military martinet. Ned was free to go about as he chose, and he went to the great plaza into which they had driven the cattle. Some supplies of hay had been gathered for them, and having eaten they were now all at rest in a herd, packed close against the western ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... approach at that side. The pieces were heavy, the appliances crude and clumsy, a shrewd east wind was driving in a sea-fog of the chillest description, and Standish, although he toiled and tugged with the best, proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in the heat of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army in Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these moments, and neither the truly devout Carver, nor the elegant Winslow, nor formal Allerton, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... elicited from the Lieutenant a grunt of approbation, as Tom intended that it should do; shrewdly arguing that the old martinet was no friend to the modern superstition, that all which is required to cast out the devil is a smattering ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... were filled with hand-grenades and fire-pots, the deck strewn with sand, the magazine opened and powder passed up. Stede Bonnet was careful to see for himself that all things were in order. At such times he was a martinet of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... was surrounded by enemy's ships, who mowed down the men every broadside. At half past eleven o'clock, having only three lower-deck guns that could defend the honour of the flag, it became necessary to put an end to so disproportioned a struggle, and Citoyen Martinet, captain of a frigate, ordered ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... your duty to have some one find the man who offered one of the stolen securities to your friend, and in that way discover the identity of the guilty person. I shall be sorry for him when found; Mr. Gibbs is a martinet when it comes to duty, and the one who took those papers will undoubtedly have occasion ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your past are rising ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Judge, but you know we have a martinet in yonder, a regular Turk, and he splits seconds ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... on deck, when this movement took place. He watched our proceedings narrowly, and, when he saw us descend into the boat, he very coolly slipped down the ship's side, and took his place in the stern-sheets, with as much quiet dignity as if he had been captain. Marble was a good deal of a ship's martinet in such matters, and he did not more than half like the familiarity and impudence ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... this case, Herndon's theory of Lincoln's powers of judgment does not apply. Though probably unfair on the one point of McClellan's attitude to Pope, he knew his man otherwise. Lincoln had also discovered that Halleck, the veriest martinet of a general, was of little value at a crisis. During the next two months, McClellan, under the direct oversight of the President, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... of them; the only difference at the moment being, that Rose was awake and discharging for that day the duties of elder sister—duties thus divided between then, according to the fancy of their guide, who, being an old soldier of the empire, and a martinet, had judged fit thus to alternate obedience and command between ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Yuma and concealed from the military authorities his knowledge of their crime, that it should be proved he was a professional "card sharp," expert manipulator and blackleg he never had contemplated as even possible, and yet, with calm and relentless deliberation "that cold-blooded, merciless martinet of a West Pointer," as he referred to the judge advocate at an early stage in the proceedings, had laid proof after proof before the court, and left the case of the defense at the last without a leg to stand on. And then Nevins dropped the debonair and donned the abject, for the one friend or ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Martinet! thought Rachel, nearly ready to advocate the boys making no toilette at any time; and the present was made to consume so much time that, urged by her, Fanny once more was obliged to summon her boys and ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... concerned, and it is just as well that he cannot give your names. I expect the ship to be ordered up to Constantinople in a day or two, and I hope we may be off before any inquiries are made. One can never say how these big-wigs may take things. Sir George Brown is a tremendous martinet, and he may consider that it would have been far better that five officers, who chose to go to a gambling-house, should be killed, than that Gallipoli, full as it is of valuable stores, and munitions of war, should run the risk of being destroyed by fire. There, now, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... no fire, however hot, and no crisis, however unexpected, could take him by surprise; he grasped the situation in a moment, and issued his orders without hesitation, inspiring all ranks with confidence in his power and capacity. He was somewhat of a martinet, and was more feared than liked by his men until they realized what a grand leader he was, when they gave him their entire confidence, and were ready to follow ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... principles. His deviations from the tone of philosophical discussion were not numerous, but they were marked. The chief police magistrate he compared to the lamplighter, by whom gas is detested. In praising that officer's administrative talent, he observed that he belonged to the martinet school, and that his estimate of human nature depressed it below ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... story—the martinet father and his poor crushed wife, as well as the pair of lovers—are indicated with an appreciation of the value of dramatic contrast that might make the little story effective on the stage. One of the Tales in this ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... phrases that grow harder to understand the more we think about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion of boat accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a professional mariner or some landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen boldness in ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... honest, open-hearted sailor, inclined to be a martinet, but with very little power to discriminate character and (like a great many other people in the world,) without painstaking sympathy, as the prisoners found to their cost in many ways, though ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... musket, and the rapidity and certainty of fire vastly increased. The undisciplined independence of the officers commanding regiments and companies was suppressed by the rigorous and methodical Colonel Martinet, whose name has remained in other armies besides that of France as a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson |
