"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life of a Brahman is intensely religious, yet it is cramped with exactions which are not only abortive but positively belittling. The code of Brahmanism never deals with general principles in the regulation of conduct, but fills the whole course of life with punctilious minutiae of observances. Instead of prescribing, as Christ did, an all-comprehensive law of supreme love to God and love to our neighbor as ourselves, it loads the mind with petty exactions, puerile precepts, inane prohibitions. "Unlike Christianity, which is all spirit and life," ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... regulated all his affairs in the most punctilious manner. The presentiment of the fast-approaching end rendered him doubly careful that all should be in order; and, in his last conferences with his legal friends, he was always anxious to insure the presence of his wife, whose strong practical good sense he knew. During these painful duties ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Lady Hermione; "and were guided by the chief of our outlawed band to the house which had been assigned for reception, with the same punctilious accuracy with which he would have delivered a bale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I was told a gentleman had expected me for two days—I rushed into the apartment, and, when I expected to embrace my husband—I found myself in the arms of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... received caresses until the elders had signified assent. An engagement was quite a solemn thing, not lightly to be entered into. And even to himself Cary seemed very young. All his instincts were those of a gentleman, and in his father he had had an example of the most punctilious honor. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... On the occasion I am referring to, he was a guest at Holkham, where a large party was then assembled. Leicester was particularly anxious to be civil to his powerful neighbour; and desired the members of his family to show him every attention. The little lord was an exceedingly punctilious man: as scrupulously dapper in manner as he was in dress. Nothing could be more courteous, more smiling, than his habitual demeanour; but his bite was worse than his bark, and nobody knew which candidate his agents had instructions to support ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... man for any young woman belonging to the class to which his daughter would belong if he had one. And, speaking of the Australians, Eyre says, 'In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite; ... almost everything that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... many of them about their own land. None had forgotten it, but they all expressed the most ardent desire to see it again. They call themselves captives, not slaves, and are very punctilious upon this point. They labour very hard here, generally in the town, paying their masters eighteen-pence a day, and keeping the rest of their earnings for themselves. The rate of labour must therefore be high; but they wear scarcely any clothes, and their subsistence, which is jerked beef and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... shoulders without anger at this ferocious prejudice. Rejected by his old friends and mistrusting profoundly the advances of royalist society, the young and handsome general (he was barely forty) adopted a manner of punctilious and cold courtesy which at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... time to prepare for the later more difficult hours when she would be alone with him. For he made a practice, rigidly adhered to, of sitting with her in the evenings during the short time she remained downstairs. He was punctilious in that courtesy as in all other acts of consideration. His own bed-hour was very much later and she often wondered what he did, what were his thoughts, alone in the solitary study that was his refuge as the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Florence, yet occupied no office, and assumed no title. He dictated the policy of the government, filled all the offices, and ministered the finances. Incidentally he was a punctilious Churchman—obeying the formula—and the Church at Florence was within his grasp no less than the police. The secret of this power lay in the fact that he handled the "sinews of war"—no man ever yet succeeded largely in a public way who was not a financier, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... miscreant, Caribou,' says Texas Thompson, 'is a mighty sight too punctilious about them drinks; which thar's no doubt of it. Do they ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... needs to express and what youth needs to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to Beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation. But Deronda's last sentence answered ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Espana, which I was compelled to repeat so often that I heartily wished them all in Spain, and felt very much inclined to send them all thither, or to some other warm climate, but that Don C. cautioned me not to trifle with these punctilious privates: as on one occasion an Englishman, annoyed as I had been, having answered the fiftieth hail disrespectfully, in his own language, was marched off to the Calaboose, where he was detained all night, and only released the next morning upon the payment of a heavy fine, with ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... The punctilious old lady opposite raised her thin hand, protesting: "My son, you should never attempt to talk ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... gallant Captain Brownrigg was killed in a struggle with an Arab slaver, owing chiefly to his own punctilious respect for the French flag under which the dhow was sailing. Not wishing to begin hostilities, he came alongside the Arab without arming his men, who were powerless to make any resistance when ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean; order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it soothed my punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode, because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter's hint about its extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the lace-mender by entering her lodgings unawares! ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... pushed originality to eccentricity. He had a passion for violins, and ran himself into debt because he bought so many and such good ones. Once, when visiting his father's house at Ipsden, he shocked the punctilious old gentleman by dancing on the dining-table to the accompaniment of a fiddle, which he scraped delightedly. Dancing, indeed, was another of his diversions, and, in spite of the fact that he was a fellow of Magdalen and a D.C.L. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... does this punctilious objector omit to point out that I merely mention the anti-Pauline interpretation incidentally in a single sentence, [23:2] and after a few words as to the source of the quotation in Cor. ii. 9, I proceed: "This, however, does not concern us here, and we have merely to examine 'the saying of the ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... their apostasy, not a helper of their feebleness. Repentance would have brought God. Dragging the ark thither only removed Him farther away. We need not be too hard upon these people; for the natural disposition of us all is to trust to the externals of worship, and to put a punctilious attention to these in the place of a true cleaving of heart to the God who dwells near us, and is in us and on our side, if we cling to Him with penitent love. Even God-appointed symbols become snares. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is nearly done. But this Last Judgment Has been the cause of more vexation to me Than it will be of honor. Ser Biagio, Master of ceremonies at the Papal court, A man punctilious and over nice, Calls it improper; says that those nude forms, Showing their nakedness in such shameless fashion, Are better suited to a common bagnio, Or wayside wine-shop, than a Papal Chapel. To punish him I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... it for completeness and magnificence, so all the learned professors tell me! Brave old fellows, Doctor, and put their lives into their books as you gentlemen don't pretend to do nowadays. And good old fellows, Doctor,—high-minded, scrupulous, conscientious, punctilious,—remembered their duties to man and to woman, and felt all the responsibilities of their confidential relation to families. Did you ever read the oldest of medical documents,—the Oath ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... blankest surprise upon his face as she had stepped forward to greet him, as if he had been unprepared for her presence, and he had flushed uncomfortably at being reminded of his promise. Dreda stood looking on somewhat blankly while he greeted the other occupants of the room—Mrs Saxon with punctilious politeness, Maud with a smile and a jest, Rowena in silence with a short grip of the hand. Why did he not speak to Rowena? Were they still at cross purposes as on the occasion of their first meeting? Dreda watched with curious eyes and felt confirmed ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... red daughters of Wong-ti of Alderburne," Champion Chaou Ching-ur, of whom her owner says that "in quaintness and individuality and in loving disposition she is unequalled" and is also "quite a 'woman of the world,' very blasee and also very punctilious in trifles;" Pearl of Cotehele, "bright red with beautiful back"; E-Wo Tu T'su; Berylune Tzu Hsi Chu; Ko-ki of Radbourne ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... annoyance, at least never take care not to 'jar each other's elbow-nerves,' or set on edge the teeth that never bit them. We are careful not to wound the feelings or even the weaknesses of a brother. Punctilious courtesy, frank apology for unintentional wrong, is with us a point of honour. Disputes, when by any chance they arise, are referred to the arbitration of our chiefs, who never consider their work done till the ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Ibsen photographing the local doctors and vestrymen of a Norwegian parish, Carpaccio painting the life of St. Ursula exactly as if she were a lady living in the next street to him, are still alive and at home everywhere among the dust and ashes of many thousands of academic, punctilious, most archaeologically correct men of letters and art who spent their lives haughtily avoiding the journalists' vulgar obsession with the ephemeral." Mark Twain began his career by studying the people and ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... less impossible, still he was not at all averse to enjoying the novelty of unaccustomed places, and making the most of strangers indigenous thereto, however unspeakable they might have seemed to him at home. In manner he was suave and courteous to all—if possible a trifle more punctilious toward those he considered of meaner clay than toward the few he mentally ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rear), and that was almost as wide as it was long, with doors opening into rooms on both sides. Here I was presented to Governor Delassus, who received me cordially, and who, with his dark eyes and punctilious manners, was my idea of ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the firelit floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... our cases, our religion, let it be as orthodox as you like, our faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ, let it be as real as you will, our attendances on services and sacraments, let them be as punctilious and regular as may be, are all 'sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.' Get side by side with God; that is the purpose of all these, and fellowship with Him is the climax ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... could have detained his guest. Some professional matter, no doubt—the punctilious lawyer would have allowed nothing less to interfere with a dinner engagement, more especially since Granice, in his note, had said: "I shall want a ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... anticipated, the ambassador occasions me infinite annoyance. He is the most punctilious blockhead under heaven. He does everything step by step, with the trifling minuteness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself. I like to do business regularly and cheerfully, and, when it is finished, to leave it. ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... sea. The 'three days' granted him by Renee were over, and it scarcely troubled him that he should be behind the time; he detested mystery, holding it to be a sign of pretentious feebleness, often of imposture, it might be frivolity. Punctilious obedience to the mysterious brevity of the summons, and not to chafe at it, appeared to him as much as could be expected of a struggling man. This was the state of the case with him, until he stood on French earth, breathed French air, and chanced ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... absence of his family brought him a joyous valor and a sense of bold youthfulness. Although his age might prevent his going to war in the open air, he could still fire a gun, immovable in a trench, without fear of death. Let them come! . . . He was longing for the struggle with the anxiety of a punctilious business man wishing to cancel a former debt ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the course of time, had become the head of the house of his ancestors, proud of his position, punctilious as to his rights, superstitious, and a believer in the legends of his home. He had married twice, losing each wife within a year of his wedding day, and had no child to succeed him. His brother, who had gone abroad ready to serve where-ever there was fighting to be done, had also married. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places, perhaps, especially so. If only for his own protection he did not seek to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But for these two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... nature her natural form, and delineated her in colours so admirable that on the perusal of them I was led to exclaim with extacy Clare everywhere excels in the descriptive. But your literary prowess is too circuitously authenticated to admit of any punctilious commendation from my debilitated pen, and under its umbrageous recess, serenely segregated, from the malapert and hypochondriachal vapours of myopic critics (as I am no acromatic philosopher) I trust every solecism contained in this autographical ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... depart to-morrow. I shall probably see him no more. He is a proud, high-tempered Englishman, of good but not extraordinary parts; stubborn and punctilious, with a disposition to be overbearing, which I have often been compelled to check in its own way. He is, of all the foreign ministers with whom I have had occasion to treat, the man who has most severely tried my temper. Yet he has been long in the diplomatic ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and devotion to the good. The letter killeth, and a punctilious observance of rules may choke out the aspirations ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... dinner one day afterwards, and he took out the cheque and showed it me. There was the Duke's own signature for L500,—'Omnium,' as plain as letters could make it." Armed with this full information, Mr. Slide felt that he had done all that the most punctilious devotion to accuracy could demand of him, and immediately shut himself up in his cage at the "People's Banner" office and went ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... that the master's business is before all things else. My imperial master awaits me at Regensburg, and I shall then have the honor of being permitted to accompany him to Vienna. His Imperial Majesty is a strict and punctilious lord, and has calculated to the very day and hour when I may again reach the imperial palace. For our interview here he allowed me one hour; and, lo! the cock of your great wall clock had just stepped out and crowed eleven as I entered your room, and is already here, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Duke, the finished model of the canine race,—in a word, they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and privations, they gradually grew used ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... actual facts; and secondly, he's not one to ever trouble himself about such petty trifles as trying to guard against animosities. Ever since your youth up, Miss Hsi, you've simply had before your eyes a person so punctilious as cousin Pao-yue, but have you ever had any experience of one like that brother of mine, who neither fears the powers in heaven or in earth, and who readily blurts out ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... made, however, was on Charles alone, and he was surrounded by councillors, so much the more pedantic and punctilious as they were incapable, and placed amidst pressing necessities with which in themselves they had no power to cope. It may easily be allowed, also, that to risk any hopes still belonging to the hapless young King on the word of a peasant girl was in itself, according to every law of ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... as in the event of your being expelled, which I trust will not occur—you may correspond with Mr. Griggs, his secretary. These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory on your part; they are the only payment that Mr. Smith requires, so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training. You must remember that you are writing to a Trustee of the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... horse for some minutes in a quiet punctilious way, for the sour-looking man had gone, and as I waited about, the great yard seemed with its big wall and gates, and dog-kennels, such a cold cheerless place that the trees had all turned the shabby parts of their backs to it ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... for Cavan set himself in deliberate fashion to outrage Parliamentary traditions and usages. He finished by becoming a punctilious practitioner of Parliamentary forms, a stickler for the minutest observation of order. Whilst Mr. Gladstone and other members of old standing were content to preface their speeches with the monosyllable "Sir," nothing less than "Mr. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... observed something which I fancied odd about the ship. I first noticed the manner and discipline, or rather want of discipline, of the crew, far different from what I had read of in books, which told of the exact obedience and punctilious respect between those who served and those who commanded. It might be, however, that those of which I had read were ships of war, and that in others the discipline was very different. As I had no previous knowledge of seamen, or their mode of life, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... By punctilious attention to this sound advice Angus soon began to build up a reputation. He treated war-worn veterans like Bobby Little with immense respect, and this, too, was counted to him for righteousness. He exercised his platoon with appalling vigour. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... Theodora North's tongue to assure him that Lady Throckmorton had been telling her the story of his engagement to Miss Gower, and, as might be anticipated, he was not as devoutly grateful to her ladyship as he might have been. He was careless to a fault in some things, and punctilious to a fault in others; and he was very punctilious about Priscilla Gower. He was not an ardent lover, but he was a conscientiously honorable one, and, apart from his respect for his betrothed, he was very impatient of interference with his affairs; and my lady was not chary of interfering ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is shown by its attitude to religious observances. A bad battalion finds too many engagements to turn out in any strength on Sunday. I used to feel so proud as the old Royals, every available man on parade, would march up behind their pipes and drums, alert, well-groomed, punctilious in all the minor forms that are so important an evidence of a battalion's condition. In rest billets we all got to work; there were marches and manoeuvres, cinematographs and cross-country runs, football matches and boxing competitions. These men ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... was a polished gentleman of the old school, and was excessively proper and punctilious in manner and conversation. I soon perceived that he thought I needed considerable toning down before reaching England. I was quick to see and understand that his criticisms of others in a general way and the drift of his discourses on manners and conversation ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... medium of communicating the master's wishes that the apprentices should meet him in his cabin immediately. The rugged officer was smitten with the comical aspect of his mission, though he carried it out in a strictly punctilious manner. These rough, uncouth men never wilfully offended the susceptibilities of their commanders, unless they became unbearably despotic, then they retaliated with unsparing vengeance. The three apprentices promptly obeyed the command given to them, and were ushered into the presence ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... it is a strict principle that "hearsay evidence" of an utterance will not be accepted in lieu of that of the person to whom the remark was made. Neither can we think it out of probability that such an objection may have been made by some over punctilious judge wishing to restrain Sam's exuberance. A Scotch judge once quoted in court a passage from The Antiquary in which he said the true view of an intricate point was given; but ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... how punctilious they were in England about asking gentlemen to perform this duty, and I received one more impression of the permanence of British ideas of propriety. But Dicky declined; said he couldn't undertake it—for a party, and that Mrs. Portheris must ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fact of their performance. Thus they have become in course of time hallowed; and the shaman who causes lightning to flash through a dark room, or corn to grow and mature in the course of one day, honestly believes in the supernatural origin of the trick. Such men are often very punctilious, and while they will go to the direst extremity in what they regard as their duties and privileges, will with equal scruple avoid going a single step beyond. Imbued with an idea that they are the mouth-pieces of Those ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... unasked, etc. "The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious excess, are said to have considered it as churlish to ask a stranger his name or lineage before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would in many cases have produced ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... surprise of the admiral, he found himself treated with the most punctilious courtesy by Ovando, who even proceeded to the harbour, with a numerous suite, to receive him in state upon his arrival. However, differences soon arose as to the conflicting jurisdictions of the viceroy ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... the Krovitzer with a slight contraction of his brows, "that is causing me some little annoyance. I am very punctilious about some things and exact promptitude as the greatest qualification in my subordinates. I should have had dispatches from London and Paris two days ago. I am out here now waiting for Max to arrive with them. It's a minor matter, but ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... might have been more gallant, and found more difficulty in the selection," she said, pertly. "But since when have you gentlemen become so observant and so punctilious? Would you expect him to be as considerate ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... Senate he was recognised as the Republican leader of his section. A recent biographer says that his skill in dealing with men was extraordinary, due no doubt to his temper of amity and inborn genius for society. "As you saw him once," wrote William Allen Butler, "you saw him always—always punctilious, always polite, always cheerful, always self-possessed. It seemed to any one who studied this phase of his character as if, in some early moment of destiny, his whole nature had been bathed in a cool, clear, and unruffled depth, from which it drew this lifelong ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... one other behind the mushrabieh screens. The niceties of his dress were Parisian, punctilious, perfect. In his right lapel was the unostentatious button ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... uneasiness, in the Contessa's ways. The group of men about her chair, when all the other ladies took their candles and made their way upstairs, wounded Lucy's instinctive sense of what was befitting. She waited, punctilious in her feeling of duty, though the Contessa had not hesitated to make her understand that the precaution was quite unnecessary—and though even Sir Tom had said something of a similar signification. "She is old enough to take care of herself. She ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... voices below. She cried out to herself that it was her doing, and blamed her beloved, and her master, and Dr. Shrapnel, in the breath of her self-recrimination. The demagogue, the over-punctilious gentleman, the faint lover, surely it must be reason wanting in the three for each of them in turn to lead the other, by an excess of some sort of the quality constituting their men's natures, to wreck ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his pride became his post, and his punctilious behaviour merited all the ridicule which could be attached to it: he quitted her abruptly, with all the fine advice he had prepared for her, and was almost tempted to carry it to Lady Castlemaine, and to unite himself with her interests; or immediately to quit the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... be careful. But I do maintain that we may be too punctilious. As a matter of course I shall go ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... do was to go to the clerk at his office. This man, a very fleshy person, decidedly English and punctilious, was most reluctant to divulge what he was pleased to term the professional ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... are scrupulously punctilious about the performance of all these matters of etiquette, attaching a degree of importance to them which, in the eyes of civilized man, approaches the ludicrous; but they look upon them in a very different light. I have seen a number of these sticklers for form kneeling ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... and that there is a certain propriety binding even on a chauffeur and a limit to the freedom of the speech you may apply to your Commandant. This afternoon Tom has exceeded all the limits. The worst of Tom is that while his tongue rages on the confines of revolt, he himself is punctilious to excess on the point of orders. Either he has orders or he hasn't them. If he has them he obeys them with a punctuality that puts everybody else in the wrong. If he hasn't them, an earthquake wouldn't make him move. Such is his devotion to orders that he will insist ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... time and country which had caused the King to seek him for a companion seemed to have vanished with his feebleness and timidity. The manhood that had been awakened was not the chivalrous, generous, and gentle strength of Henry and his brothers, but the punctilious pride and sullenness, and almost something of the license, of the Scot. The camp had not proved the school of chivalry that James, in his inexperience, had imagined it must be under Henry, and the tedium and wretchedness ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strong, and fearless invective, and he never stopped to consider the delicacy of chivalrous sensitiveness, when treason and conspiracy were to be exposed. Probably no man was more feared by the other side of the Chamber, for he could neither be cowed by threats nor restrained within the limits of punctilious courtesy. He dealt with them in the plainest language, and combined with powerful effect argument, sarcasm, and eloquent denunciation. Strong sense is a leading feature of his character, and a practical wisdom which renders him eminently capable in the discharge of details. In private life, he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Court of Admiralty. An inferior court known as the bailiwick tried ordinary civil suits and breaches of the peace. This bailiwick also offered what might be euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising members. True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick could pick up a living by threats of the ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... punctilious letter of the chevalier was considered evasive, and only intended to gain time. The information given by Washington of what he had observed on the frontier convinced Governor Dinwiddie and his council that the French were preparing to descend ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... discourse they reached the castle, and Waverley soon prepared his despatches for Tully-Veolan. As he knew the Baron was punctilious in such matters, he was about to impress his billet with a seal on which his armorial bearings were engraved, but he did not find it at his watch, and thought he must have left it at Tully-Veolan. He mentioned his loss, borrowing at the same time the family ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... intending to cross his interests, it was certainly that of Vienna. This Visit of his to the Emperor was like that of Solon to Croesus [Solon not I recognizable, in the grenadier costume, amid the tobacco-smoke, and dim accompaniments?]—and he returned to Berlin, rich still in his own virtue. The most punctilious censors could find no fault in his conduct, except a probity carried to excess. The Interview ended as those of Kings often do: it cooled [not for some time yet], or, to say better, it extinguished the friendship there had been between the two Courts. Friedrich Wilhelm left Prag ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... left it to him as a slave. But the mistake is obvious to me, and so I think that we ought to act as though Sabina had ordered him to be freed in express terms, since she certainly was under the impression that she had ordered it. I am sure that you will be of my way of thinking, for you are most punctilious in carrying out the intentions of a dead person, which are, with honourable heirs, tantamount to legal obligations. For with us honour has as much weight as necessity has with others. So I propose that we should allow Modestus to have his liberty ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... go slipping and sliding into place in that gigantic hour-glass, striving and fretting in their vanity, but always impotently falling towards that thin neck, where days are numbered and the punctilious turnstile ushers to those mysterious marches where there ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... leave its traces on Herr Linders. It was less known than guessed that the state of things between Courvoisier and von Francius was less peace than armed neutrality. The intense politeness of von Francius to his first violinist, and the punctilious ceremoniousness of the latter toward his chief, were topics of speculation and amusement to the ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... hair, and the other little Martin on the carpet riding on his foot. He carries Mrs. Watson down to supper on one arm, and Miss Martin on the other, and takes wine so judiciously, and in such exact order, that it is impossible for the most punctilious old lady to consider herself neglected. If any young lady, being prevailed upon to sing, become nervous afterwards, Mr. Mincin leads her tenderly into the next room, and restores her with port wine, which she must take medicinally. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the 12th of February, 1446, the conspirators entered the Kremlin. Vassali, who attempted to compensate for his neglect of true religion by punctilious and ostentatious observance of ecclesiastical rites, was in the church of the Trinity attending a midnight mass. Silently the conspirators surrounded the church with their troops. Vassali was prostrate upon the tomb of a ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... morning Mrs. Dampier awakes to find herself in the awkward predicament of Ariadne on the beach of Naxos, with the aggravation (spared to Theseus' bride) that the hotel people absolutely deny that she came with a husband at all. A punctilious if sceptical American senator (refreshingly guiltless of accent) and his enthusiastic son and daughter take pity on her, and the rest of the book resolves itself into a detective story, saved from conventionality ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... were a gentleman as you say all round, he would not be so much afraid of his elder brother. He has come up to town now merely because Brotherton sent to him, and when he went to Scumberg's the Marquis would not see him. He is just like his sisters,—priggish, punctilious ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solicitude for every public account, and to have examined into them with the most ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dusk. Here the traveller had the good fortune to again meet his friend the President of the Landraad, and was introduced by him to the Club. Being introduced to the Club meant being separately introduced to every member then in it, with that punctilious formality which X. had observed in Batavia. The hotel at Bandong was the best which the traveller had yet visited, and, contrary to expectation, dinner was warm and comforting. The others of the party, however, Usoof and Abu, were not so fortunate, for ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... a worship of angels which tended to thrust Christ from His true position in the creed of the Church. They treated the body with unsparing severity (ii. 23), they abstained from meat and drink, and paid a punctilious attention to festivals, new moons, and sabbaths (ii. 16). St. Paul calls these practices "material rudiments" (ii. 8), elementary methods now superseded by faith in Christ. Moreover, it is almost certain that literal circumcision was practised (ii. 11). These things point to Judaism. And yet St. ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... was taken with a fit of pride, and determined to assert his independence. That help which, when he did not want it, he had accepted with ignominious tears, he now, when it was indispensable to him, threw contemptuously away. Having been abject when he might, with propriety, have been punctilious in maintaining his dignity, he became ungratefully haughty at a moment when haughtiness must bring on him at once derision and ruin. He resented the friendly intervention which might have saved him. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty of Man, or from The Academy of Compliments! We confess we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The neglect of punctilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the "licence of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of intellectual refinement in the character, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose upon him. He may be said to be amenable only to ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... flummery. At a given moment the door of the large hall in which the concourse of guests was assembled was opened and he, advancing, shouted, with a loud voice: "The President of the United States!" Washington followed him and went through the paces prescribed by the Colonel with punctilious exactness, but with evident lack of relish. When the levee broke up and the party had gone, Washington said to Colonel Humphreys: "Well, you have taken me in once, but, by God, you shall never take me in a second time."[1] ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... patches of silver. His keen, thoughtful, dark eye marked the nervous and melancholic temperament. A mild and pensive humility of manner seemed to brood over him, like the shadow of a cloud. Everything in his dress, air, and motions indicated punctilious exactness and accuracy, at times rising to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... been punctilious in the matter," said Peyton, but without any increase of deference. "Egad, I think I've been as scrupulous as ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... sense of truth and justice intervened. She had not come back to sing again at the bidding of a highly excited boy, but of a deeply moved man; and his emotion was of no ordinary kind. That Garth Dalmain should have been so moved as to forget even momentarily his punctilious courtesy of manner, was the highest possible tribute to her art and to her song. While she played the Handel theme—and played it so that a whole orchestra seemed marshalled upon the key-board under those strong, firm finger—she suddenly realised, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... away and not wedded with due rites should be set free. That maiden, therefore, was recommended to Vichitravirya for being married by him according to due rites. Doubting my father's words I repaired to others for asking their opinion. I thought that my sire was exceedingly punctilious in matters of morality. I then went to my sire himself, O king, and addressed him these words from desire of knowing something about the practices of righteous people in respect of marriage, 'I desire, O sire, to know what in truth the practices ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in his most punctilious way, "it is in my heart to say much to you. I approve of you—I admire you. Your courage is sublime—and your modesty and goodness ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... at each other uncomfortably. Madame de Lera was not perhaps quite so shocked, either by Pargeter's appearance or by his one exclamation apparently addressed to herself, as the punctilious American supposed her to be. She knew no word of the English language, and in her heart regarded all ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... right is Cobber Carkeek. There's a spring above his head, And his mattress is a special kind of clay. He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed, And he makes it with ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... laundry-men or car conductors. The more exacting places called for occupants. There was a great enlistment in the ranks of teachers. Lee took the presidency of Washington university and gave to its duties the same whole-hearted service, the same punctilious care, that he had given to the command of the army of Northern Virginia. In peace as in war he was an exemplar to his countrymen,—and his countrymen now were spread from Maine ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... dollars. He had borrowed it from a merchant in good circumstances, who could at any time command his thousands, and to whose credit there usually remained heavy balances in bank. But he was exceedingly punctilious in all ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... his shoulders without anger at this ferocious prejudice. Rejected by his old friends, and mistrusting profoundly the advances of Royalist society, the young and handsome general (he was barely forty) adopted a manner of cold, punctilious courtesy, which at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the peculiar ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... from the standpoint of the polite world, from the outlook of social respectability, where self rules every action with the question, 'What will others say?' So should I two years ago, but conditions have somewhat changed my views. Professional necessity can never afford to be quite so punctilious, cannot always choose the nature of its environments: the nurse must care for the injured, however disagreeable the task; the newspaper woman must cover her assignment, although it takes her amid filth; and the actress must thoroughly assume her character, in ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... one or two hack settlers, negotiating sales of timber, from forests where axe had never sounded. Sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing her steps in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying, with lofty grace, to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The life of the town seemed to have its very centre not far from an old mansion, that stood somewhat back from the pavement, surrounded by neglected grass, with a strange ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ministers submitted their papers to Seward "for his own use only." They did not regard the moment well chosen "to be punctilious." Lyons reported that Seward's language and demeanour throughout the interview were "calm, friendly, and good humoured," but the fact remained that the United States had not been officially notified of the Proclamation of Neutrality, and that the American Government, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... even the wide range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he had been behaving himself in a marvellous manner. He had never bothered her. On the voyage back to France he had not bothered her. They had separated with punctilious cordiality. Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he was working diligently and satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her. It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her relations with Mr. Gilman had ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... had become warmly attached to Barbara. For the first time he saw in her the suffering which often causes a metamorphosis in certain traits in a sick person's character extend their transforming power to the entire nature. Passionate love for her art gave her the ability to maintain with punctilious exactness the silence which he had been compelled to impose upon her, and the once impetuous, obstinate creature obeyed his directions and wishes with the patience of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the court, a very punctilious man, had this morning had an unpleasant encounter with his wife, which was caused by her spending her monthly allowance before the month was up. She asked for a sum of money in advance, and he refused. The result was a quarrel. She said that unless he gave her the money there would be no dinner ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... will give us, I think, a faithful index to his character. A man who is punctiliously proper has usually become so in consequence of an attempt to cover up his mental deficiencies or his moral obliquities. Punctilious propriety is always pretentious, and pretentiousness is always an attempt at fraud. A shallow mind is very apt to clothe itself with propriety as with a garment. A brain that cannot handle large things very often undertakes to manage a multiplicity of little things, and runs naturally ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... "You're far too punctilious," remarked Mrs. Hsueeh, "as to entertain such notions! No such ideas as these crossed my mind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... see Cleopatra, for the sake of realizing a childish dream, and impressing her lover, squander vast sums, which diminished the prosperity of her subjects; place great and important matters below the vain, punctilious care of her own person; forget, in petty jealousy, the justice and kindness which were marked traits in her character; and, though the most kindly and womanly of sovereigns, suffer herself to be urged by angry excitement to inflict outrage ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the first time for a week, and even to-day she is scarcely fit to do so; but she remembers that the month is coming round, and her rent will soon be due; and in her feebleness she will stretch every nerve to meet her engagements with punctilious exactness. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... board the cutter which was to carry us to Plymouth we were not, I will allow, altogether satisfied with our personal appearance, and still less so when we stepped on the quarter-deck of the seventy-four, commanded by one of the proudest, most punctilious men in the service, surrounded by a ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... conformable to these erroneous notions that they have framed of this Being. God is always regarded as a man full of passion, sensible to presents, to flatteries, and marks of submission; or rather as a fantastic and punctilious sovereign, who is very seriously angry when we neglect to show him that respect and obeisance which the vanity of earthly potentates exacts ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach |
