"Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the table in the kitchen almost as soon as he had entered the house in the Windberg-gasse, and found his plate full before him. Lotta had felt that there was no need of the delicacy of compliment in feeding a man who was so undoubtedly hungry, and she had therefore bade him at once fall to. "A hearty meal is a thing you are not used to," she had said, "and it will do your old bones a deal of good." The address was not complimentary, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... talk of houses, &c. about the 19th inst. Henry Walton has gone to New-York by the last stage. He is one of those whose good opinion and esteem I wish you to acquire. He has delicacy, taste, and refinement—very, very rare qualities in this country at this day. He will be often at your house; receive ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means finished with the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of a very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he turned ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it seemed to me that Providence had, in Faulkland, shown me whither to transfer without a pause, my grateful duty, as well as my affection; hence I have been content to bear from you what pride and delicacy would have forbid me from another. I will not upbraid you, by repeating how you have trifled with my ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... born at Mugello, in Tuscany; became a Dominican monk at Fiesole, whence he removed to Florence, and finally to Rome, where he died; devoted his life to religious subjects, which he treated with great delicacy, beauty, and finish, and conceived in virgin purity and child-like simplicity of soul; his work in the form of fresco-painting is to be found all ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... We pack our hamper for life's picnic with such pains. We spend so much, we work so hard. We make choice pies, we cook prime joints, we prepare so carefully the mayonnaise, we mix with loving hands the salad, we cram the basket to the lid with every delicacy we can think of. Everything to make the picnic a success is there except the salt. Ah! woe is me, we forget the salt. We slave at our desks, in our workshops, to make a home for those we love; we give up our pleasures, we give up our rest. We toil in our kitchen ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... restrained by these conditions, a strongly marked character, exuberant with power and life, and the play of individual qualities, displayed itself. There were two intellectual sides to his mind—one which made him a poet, quickness and delicacy of observation and sympathetic interpretation, the realising and anticipating power of deep feeling and penetrative imagination; the other, at first sight, little related to poetry, a hard-headed, ingenious, prosaic shrewdness ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... seas, and keeps their fallen day about her: and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as St. Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.' And I say to my friend, 'The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years man had come to desire'; ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... o'clock when Psmith, sliding unostentatiously from his stool, flicked divers pieces of dust from the leg of his trousers, and sidled towards the basement, where he was wont to keep his hat during business hours. He was aware that it would be a matter of some delicacy to leave the bank at that hour. There was a certain quantity of work still to be done in the Fixed Deposits Department—work in which, by rights, as Mike's understudy, he should have lent a sympathetic and helping hand. 'But what of that?' he mused, thoughtfully smoothing ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... laughter from the table silenced the two gentlemen. Soltikow had just related a merry anecdote, which made the Cossacks laugh aloud. One of the Russian generals rewarded them by throwing them two tallow-candles. This dainty little delicacy was received by them ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... part of the Catholics would be done away, as, compared with the rest of the Empire, they would become a minority. You will judge when and to whom this idea can be confided. It must certainly require great delicacy and management; but I am heartily glad that it is ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of a thymo-centric personality may be limited to thinness and delicacy of the skin, narrow waist, rather poorly developed breasts, arched thighs and scanty hair, with scanty and delayed menstruation. Or there may be obesity, with juvenility, if there is a repression of the pituitary secretion for one ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Harry, do take charge of Mary,' a request which he always seemed delighted to obey. Then, after the happy good-night, I would lie my head on the pillow to dream of him and the morning ride we would take together. Why he never spoke to me of his love I cannot tell. It might have been that feelings of delicacy restrained him; my father was rich, while he was but a poor young lawyer; then report had made me an heiress in my own right, as well as a belle, to my worldly mother's great content. That he loved me I am sure, though he never told me ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... the enterprise demanded a physical effort from which his starved body shrank. The ghastly intimacy of a wrestling match with the frozen dead opposing the unyielding rigidity of iron to your violence was repugnant to the inborn delicacy of his feelings. ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... supple and pliant, with a suggestion of swiftness galvanising the delicacy of the lines. Atalanta was ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... but the easier forms of metallurgy and the construction of carts; in manners and customs, included cannibalism, the use of poisoned weapons, and a relation between the sexes destructive alike of all delicacy and of all family affection. The Parthians were, no doubt, rude and coarse in their character as compared with the Persians; but they had been civilized to a certain extent by three centuries of subjection to the Persians ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... out of delicacy to me, but he was mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said. I should only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece of blood and beauty that she or anybody ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... always forbidden you to read these papers, and I know that you have obeyed me. Yes, I had scruples of delicacy. It is not that you are an ignorant girl, like so many others, for I have allowed you to learn everything concerning man and woman, which is assuredly bad only for bad natures. But to what end disclose to you too early these terrible truths of human life? I have therefore spared you the ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... sodium is easy and certain, owing to the strong yellow colour its salts impart to the flame; this, when viewed by the spectroscope, shows a single yellow line.[93] The extreme delicacy of this test limits its value, because of the wide diffusion of sodium salts. It is more satisfactory to separate the chloride, which may be recognised by its taste, flame coloration, fusibility, and negative action with reagents. The chloride dissolved in a few drops ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... of the toilet, different garments being held together by their aid. Later, buttons and attendant button-holes were evolved, now replaced by the devices used in composing the machine-made man. As far as I could see (I have overcome a natural delicacy in making my discoveries public, because it seems unfair to keep all this information to myself), nothing so archaic as a button-hole is employed at the present time by our patent-ridden compatriots. The shirt, for instance, which was formerly ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... Bombay.[1] At Caldera, in Chili, musical cadences are stated to issue from the sea near the landing-place; they are described as rising and falling fully four notes, resembling the tones of harp strings, and mingling like those at Batticaloa, till they produce a musical discord of great delicacy and sweetness. The same interesting phenomenon has been observed at the mouth of the Pascagoula, in the State of Mississippi, and of another river called the "Bayou coq del Inde," on the northern shore of the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... thoroughly awake now; and to his great delight he felt a sharp tug at his line, and striking, found that he had hooked a fish of a manageable size, which he soon hauled into the boat, and recognised as the ikan sambilang, a fish frequently sold to them by the Malays, and esteemed quite a delicacy. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... allowed? I am often accused of being underhand and uncandid in respect to the intentions to which I have been alluding: but no one likes his own good resolutions noised about, both from mere common delicacy and from fear lest he should not be able to fulfil them. I feel it very cruel, though the parties in fault do not know what they are doing, that very sacred matters between me and my conscience are made a matter of public talk. May I take a case parallel though ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the kind and gracious reception which had been accorded him, and the impression which the sight of the happy home-life of Windsor had made upon him, he says: "Your Majesty has also touched me to the heart by the delicacy of the consideration shown to the Empress; for nothing pleases more than to see the person one loves become the ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... diverted himself a while with my surprise and disappointment, then informed me, that the rose had ever been regarded in Morosofia, as the symbol of female purity, delicacy, and sweetness; which notion had grown into a popular superstition, that whenever a marriage is consummated on the earth, one of these flowers springs up in the moon; and that in colour, shape, size, or other property, it is a ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... his care, together with almost unparalleled attachment between pastor and people, afford evidence of the ability and faithfulness with which he has discharged his ministerial duties. To remarkable mental vigor, he adds great delicacy of character and the warmest sympathies; and those who know most of him, regard it as no partial judgment which awards him a front rank ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... experiments, which were eminently unsuccessful. To these poor invalids our embryo doctor was so useful, that after a few days dosing with proper medicine, their health and spirits began to improve rapidly, and their gratitude was such that they heaped upon him every delicacy that the place afforded, such as bananas, plantains, oranges, lemons, pumpkins, melons, sweet potatoes, beef, goat's flesh, venison, and pork, besides filling his pockets with doubloons! Thus it came to pass, that from absolute destitution Will and his comrades suddenly leaped ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand shading her countenance so as to conceal its varying expression, to a brief history of her parentage. Of things subsequent to the time of her entrance into her present home, but little was said. There was an instinctive delicacy on the part of Claire and his wife, now that Fanny was about coming into the possession of property, which kept back all allusion to the sacrifices they had made, and the pain they had suffered on her account, in their contentions with her guardian. In fact, this matter ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... her nervousness and soon began to talk of things not so personal to us. Again, my mistake of treating her as if she were marked "Fragile. Handle with care." I know now that she, like all women, had the plain, tough, durable human fibre under that exterior of delicacy and fragility, and that my overconsideration caused her to exaggerate to herself her own preposterous notions of her superior fineness. We walked for an hour, talking—with less constraint and more friendliness than ever before, and ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... school. It was a longish walk across the moor and along a dusty road to the nearest village. Robbie, although seven years old, was exempted from going on account of the distance and his delicacy. Elsie bore in mind that Duncan had gone before he was that age, but Robbie was such a petted baby. He was not nearly so strong as Duncan ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... been a rightful king. It however serves to shew that it was then generally understood, that the king and parliament had a right to new-model and regulate the succession to the crown. And we may observe, with what caution and delicacy the parliament then avoided declaring any sentiment of Henry's original title. However sir Edward Coke more than once expressly declares[p], that at the time of passing this act the right of the crown was in the descent from Philippa, daughter ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... scenes of Raleigh's life: but most tragic of all are these scenes of vain-glory, in which he sees the better part, and yet chooses the worse, and pours out his self- discontent in song which proves the fount of delicacy and beauty which lies pure and bright beneath the gaudy artificial crust. What might not this man have been! And he knows that too. The stately rooms of Durham House pall on him, and he delights to hide up in his little study among his books and his chemical experiments, ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... them there. In Texas, it is said, it costs more to raise ten chickens than to bring up ten children. (Kennedy, Czarnkowski's translation, 1846, 115.) The independent breeding of fowl is advisable only where there are a great many rich consumers; for the reason that they are naturally a delicacy. Enormous production of pigeons in Cambridge, Huntington etc. (McCulloch, Statistical Account, I, 189.) In Paris the consumption of pork and fowl has gained somewhat since the Revolution. (M'Chevalier, Cours. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... acquainted with) would only be like painting the lily; and, perhaps, I cannot do better in honouring his memory than by quoting the words of Mr. Harley at the annual dinner of the Drury Lane Fund, spoken in the June following Grimaldi's death:—"Yet, shall delicacy suffer no violence in adducing one example, for death has hushed his cock-crowing cachination, and uproarious merriment. The mortal Jupiter of practical Joke, the Michael Angelo of buffoonery, who, if he was Grim-all-day, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... was soon over, for the delicacy of civilized life was not particularly observed, and our long seclusion from the society of females had rendered us little better than savages, as far as ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... living is by no means unbecoming in women. It agrees with the delicacy of their organization, and serves as a compensation for some pleasures which they are obliged to abstain from, and for some hardships to which nature seems to have condemned them. There is no more pleasant ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Daphne Street in the snow, and I turned toward my lonely house. But I remember that I was planning how I would make my table pretty, and how I would add a delicacy or two from the City for this strange holiday feast. And I found myself hurrying to look over certain long-disused linen and silver, and to see whether my Cloth-o'-Gold rose might be counted on to bloom ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable tone and pronunciation. He was sitting on one side of the fire, and his old mother on the other. His spirits always sink in wet weather, and to-day was very rainy, but he was courteous and not displeased to be a little lionised, for his delicacy is not of the most susceptible. He talked about Spain and the Spaniards; the lowest classes of whom, he says, are the only ones worth investigating, the upper and middle class being (with exceptions, of course) mean, selfish, and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... inferior position, which is also supposed to have compensating advantages; and to this position they have conformed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society, and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other ...
— The Republic • Plato
... of my novel will feel that in reckoning on such assistance, and being ready to take his bride, so to speak, from the hands of her protector, Dmitri showed great coarseness and want of delicacy. I will only observe that Mitya looked upon Grushenka's past as something completely over. He looked on that past with infinite pity and resolved with all the fervor of his passion that when once Grushenka told him she loved him ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... front of her to come upon the stage to "assist" him in one of his "experiments," and the girl trembled lest at any moment he might demand a similar favor of her, for though she was reckless enough as a general thing, she had sufficient delicacy to dread being made conspicuous in ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... to do him justice, he is about the last man to wait for a tacit dismissal, or to cause you and Julius to depart from what he knows to be your regular habit out of politeness to him. He is a person of too much delicacy and good breeding to stay when—if—that is to say—" She turned again to the window without completing her sentence, and, though Mrs. Carling thought she could complete it for her, she wisely forbore. After ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... consider himself off duty; and especially so if the war is a revolutionary war, when the enemy is not at the door, but within your very house. At such times the heat of passionate convictions passing into hatred, removes the restraints of honour and humanity from many men and of delicacy and fear from some women. These last, when once they throw off the timidity and reserve of their sex, become by the vivacity of their intelligence and the violence of their merciless resentment more dangerous ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the first place, to cover the face above the chin, except the eyes, and then to expose as much of their bodies as could effectively bear jewelry, including necklaces of either imitation or real stones hanging down over the bosom. Add to the whole a reckless disregard for natural delicacy, and you have a Lahore belle of to-day as she appears on the street. We saw nowhere else in India such freedom and publicity permitted to inmates of the harem. Girls are frequently married here at twelve years, and the number of wives a man may possess, in any part of India, is ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... never fail to challenge admiration. In fall it takes on a coloring of pale gold, and is more attractive than ever. In winter its delicate branches show against a background of blue sky with all the delicacy and distinctness of an etching. No tree that I know of ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... Butler's review of Tennyson, when, to my great surprise, I found your "Haydn." O'Sullivan I have met a great deal, but made no acquaintance. The Tennyson review is very fine. I think she understands him well. Perhaps she is too masculine a woman to judge correctly his delicacy; but she does the whole ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... means for the death of society. The resulting sense of hostility between himself and the community, alienation from his fellow men and from God, fear of detection, actual condemnation by his own conscience, and ideal condemnation by all the world, constitute a hell felt in proportion to the delicacy of his sensibility. The spiritual disturbance and pain thus suffered are the effort of Providence to readjust the inverted relation of his low self interest to the higher interest of the general public, and remove the threatened ruinous consequences of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... closes it, opens it again, counts his prize piece by piece, and adds up its value twenty times over. Our tourist dined at the table d'hote; he was so preoccupied that he ate the trout caught in the Albula without suspecting that they possessed a marvellous freshness, an exquisite flavour and delicacy, and yet it is notorious that the trout of the Albula are the first trout of ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... such as he had never before experienced, and turned away from a delicacy of feeling, lest Lord Reginald should be ashamed of the agitation he was exhibiting. He felt also very anxious to calm the mind of his patient, who in his weak state was ill able ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... so possible thus to estimate a person, I will just select the one opposite to me as an interesting example, for I well remember her. She appeared to be about seventeen, and radiant with youth and freshness, but accompanied with a delicacy and slenderness, as excessive as could be consistent with health. Her manner was completely fascinating, and her voice particularly so, when you observed the lips and teeth from whence it floated. She was a sort of fond person, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... our attention in these creatures is the extreme delicacy and tenuity of their substance. The jelly-fish is chiefly made up of fluid. A quantity of water and a thin membranaceous film, these are its chief component parts. Professor Owen has ascertained that ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched. Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish; Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness, Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving and ingenuous nature. There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant or of ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of thought and feeling is uttered in words, is of necessity uttered imperfectly. For thought and feeling are infinite, and human speech, although far-reaching in scope, and marvellous in delicacy, can embody them after all but approximately and suggestively. Spirit and Truth are like the Lady Una and the Red Cross Knight; Speech like the dwarf that lags behind with ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... with entire propriety, might be interested in inorganic evolution"—and she cheeped "yes, yes" with feverish intensity—"but in our little local paper we cared only for the person who could tell our readers with the most delicacy and precision how many spoons Mrs. Worthington had to borrow for her party, who had the largest number of finger-bowls in town, what Mrs. Conklin paid for the broilers she served at her party last February, and the name of the country woman who raised ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... also called winter-green, or twin-berry; it resembles none of the other winter-greens; it grows in mossy woods, trailing along the ground, appearing to delight in covering little hillocks and inequalities of the ground. In elegance of growth, delicacy of flower, and brightness of berry, this winter-green is little inferior to ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... again required his address of Peter, which having been given, the steward departed. The conversation between the two friends did not return to the course it was taking when they were interrupted, as Moseley felt a delicacy in making any allusion to the probable cause of his sister's refusal. He had, however, begun to hope it was not irremovable, and with the determination of renewing his visit in the morning, he took his leave, to allow Denbigh to attend ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... prevailing disorder and some insulting remarks about "delicatessen food." Emeline sent a few furious remarks after him, and then wept over the sliced ham, the potato salad, and the Saratoga chips, all of which she had brought home from a nearby delicacy shop in oily paper bags only an hour ago. She wandered disconsolately through the four rooms that had been her home for nearly six years. The dust lay thick on the polished wood and glass of the sideboard and glass closet in the dining-room; ashes and the ends of cigarettes ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... prejudices of other people; a hearty desire to be, or at least to seem, interested in their concerns; and a constant recollection that even the most patient hearers may sometimes wish to be speakers. Above all else, the agreeable talker cultivates gentleness and delicacy of speech, avoids aggressive and overwhelming displays, and remembers the tortured cry ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... promoting the happiness of all around them. Conscious that the circumstances which have caused them to lead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and the increased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowed them to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, they live happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all around them. This was not so, however, with Elizabeth. She was jealous, petulant, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... which contained our change of dress for dinner. I wished that the coupe had been an open carriage. I love to drive through those lovely avenues in the park. Princess Metternich suggested that we should take some green corn with us, as the Empress had expressed the wish to taste this American delicacy, and I took some ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... will not, however, deviate too far from the beaten track of life; but will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife as beautiful as the houries, and wise as Zobeide; and with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdad, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... The woman's delicacy, the woman's trembling tenderness welled up from her heart, and touched her voice with a tone of its old sweetness as she ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... is particular in his delicacy, must be careful what he treads upon. He is obliged to wash his body or bathe, if he happens to tread on a bone, or a broken pot, a bit of rag, or a leaf from which one has been eating. He must also ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... being interested by it. It seems to me that to judge these large questions from the personal point of view, to insist upon the whole world without exception living exactly in the manner that suits oneself or accords with one's emotional imagination and the forms of delicacy in which one has been trained, is not the proper way to deal with them. I want as a sane social organizer to get just as many contented and law-abiding citizens as possible; I do not want to force people who would otherwise be useful citizens into rebellion, concealments ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... hath stirred up this action," he repeated again, "to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the freedom of England, which through these long times of peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted. Our delicacy is such that we are already weary, yet this journey is naught in respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for sale. Their weapons are invariably adorned with human hair, and human bones are used as ornaments in almost all their household furniture; they also often gave us to understand by pantomimic gestures that human flesh was regarded by them as a delicacy." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... was to execute a new step on the tight-rope, and when she appeared, led forward by Fanfar, and made the three deep "reverences," there was a hum of admiration. She was charming—her delicacy was fairy-like. She lightly placed her foot on Fanfar's hand and sprang upon the rope. Standing there, she looked at Irene, who was leaning back with an air ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Newman was not very strong, and later in life developed greater delicacy. It will be remembered that Newman's mother and sisters were living at Oxford at this time, and he was anxious some time later to bring his bride to see them. Unfortunately she fell ill, and the treatment given for her illness proved quite a mistaken one; consequently her recovery ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... him to write in the way in which he did. To settle the strifes of this church and to define the relations which Christians should assume towards the political, religious, and domestic institutions of the heathen was a matter of no little delicacy and difficulty. The mastery of Paul is shown in the laying down of principles, in accordance with the gospel of Christ, that were effective not only for the Corinthian church but which are applicable to-day to all such church difficulties and the ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... on some impetuosity as Philip went on speaking; the words were evidently an outlet for some immediate feeling of his own, as well as an answer to Maggie. There was a pain pressing on him at that moment. He shrank with proud delicacy from the faintest allusion to the words of love, of plighted love that had passed between them. It would have seemed to him like reminding Maggie of a promise; it would have had for him something of the baseness of compulsion. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... entered they were greeted with the most enchanting music; but no living creature was to be seen. On entering the salon, the furniture of which was of the most costly kind, they found a rich repast prepared for them, consisting of every delicacy. Beauty's heart failed her, for she feared something strange would soon happen. They, however, sat down, and partook freely of the various delicacies. As soon as they had finished, the table was cleared by the hands. Shortly afterward ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... sites for stations; but otherwise they roamed about almost wherever Shanter led them. Now it would be down some lovely creek, overhung by wide-spreading ferns, in search of fish; now to hunt out and slay dangerous serpents, or capture the carpet-snake, which the black looked upon as a delicacy. Twice over they came across the lyre-tailed pheasant; but the birds escaped uninjured, so that they did not secure the wonderful tail-feathers for ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... significant of all the principles exposed by Claude Monet: the division of tones by juxtaposed touches of colour which, at a certain distance, produce upon the eye of the beholder the effect of the actual colouring of the things painted, with a variety, a freshness and a delicacy of analysis unobtainable by a single tone prepared and ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... applied. Experts in every line made their appearance, and many masterpieces of architecture and sculpture enriched the era. These reflected the change which the spirit of the nation was undergoing in its passage from the delicacy and weakness of the Fujiwara type to the strength, directness, and dignity of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... place in our history, nor should we any of us miss the pathos of it were it not that so large a space is claimed for the exposure. As it is, one has almost to fight a battle to persuade the world that she has downright thoughts and feelings, and really a superhuman delicacy is required in presenting her that she may be credible. Even then—so much being accomplished the thousands accustomed to chapters of her when she is in the situation of Annette will be disappointed by short sentences, just as of old the Continental eater of oysters would have been offended ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... uncertainty as to which side was the pleasanter to walk on. At last I gave it up, and sat down on the side-walk. Now, the wisdom of Vermont, not being at all times equal to grasping all the problems of everybody else's life with delicacy, sometimes makes pathetic mistakes, and it did so in my ease. I explained to the policeman that I had been sitting up half the night on a wild horse in New Zealand, and had only just come over for the day, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... we had pork and flour, besides a small quantity of burnt-pease coffee, which I treasured up as a great delicacy. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... first obvious; the meaning is that the nicest sweetmeats are those which are not too sweet, for made dishes are hostile to digestion; or, as we may say, paraphrasing his diction, "Delicacies are conducive to delicacy." It was from this satura the celebrated rule was taken that guests should be neither fewer than the graces, nor more than the muses. The whole subject of the Menippean satires is brilliantly treated ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... in some respects, a natural objection to urge upon their people perseverance in this old Catholic practice of piety and gratitude. It is one which can be easily understood. Yet, largely owing to this nice delicacy, they are, after their own deaths, forgotten by many bound to them through spiritual gratitude. One of the most experienced priests in New York tells us that for five priests that have died in his house he has not ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... address you. It may be the discovery of a plot for your damage, in which the revelator does not care to take the responsibility of a witness. It may be any one of a thousand things that mean frankness and delicacy and honor and Christian principle. We have received anonymous letters which we have put away among our most ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Queen's Marie, and substitute Darnley (where HE is the lover, which is not always) for the Queen's apothecary, is a license quite in keeping with precedent. Mr. Child, obviously, would admit this. In producing a Marie who never existed, the 'maker' shows the same delicacy as Voltaire, when he brings into 'Candide' a Pope who ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Lord she so closely followed, bent every effort to save him from the thing that had cursed his own and his mother's life. I think I have never heard anything more beautiful than this story of Anna, who with all the delicacy of her nature, her pure, sweet womanhood, her love of the refined that always marked her, and her keen sensitiveness to the niceties of life, laid all, as a sacrifice to her Lord, in the background, and had at the same board with herself and her mother, that miserable ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... that he was not speaking out, or, to put it more plainly, that he was going on meanwhile with his own, very different thoughts. And behind what he did say, there was sure to lurk some imaginary scruple, some rather far-fetched delicacy of feeling which it was hard to get at, and ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... until we reached the level of the pines. Here, sheltered among loose rocks, began to appear little fields of alpine grass, pale yet sunny, soft under our feet, fragrantly jewelled with flowers of fairy delicacy, holding up amid thickly clustered blades chalices of turquoise and amethyst, white stars, and fiery little globes of red. Lakelets, small but innumerable, were held in glacial basins, the scorings and grooves of that old dragon's ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... don't mean to say?" cried Miss Hetty, nearly dropping her load in her horror at the idea, for she had heard of fricasseed frogs and roasted locusts, and thought a new delicacy had been found. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... persistency which triumphs in the long run, had longed to preserve for her grandson the beautiful illusions of life, and had therefore brought him up in the highest principles; she instilled into him her own delicacy of feeling and made him, to outward appearance, a timid man, if not a fool. The sensibilities of the young fellow, preserved pure, were not worn by contact without; he remained so chaste, so scrupulous, that he was keenly offended by actions and maxims to ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... probably springing from it, is purity; which shows itself by a careful avoidance of everything profane, obscene, coarse, or in any way offending delicacy, either in word, tone, or suggestion. This purity cannot be too much insisted upon; for its opposite poisons the fountains of the heart, defiling the temple which should be a dwelling-place for the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... Paderewski first came to us, in the flush of his young manhood, he taught us what a noble instrument the piano really is in the hands of a consummate master. He showed us that he could make the piano speak with the delicacy and power of a Rubinstein, but with more technical correctness; he proved that he could pierce our very soul with the intensity of his emotion, the poignant, heart-searching quality of his tones, the poetry and beauty of ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... greatest sensation, and in this quality they are inimitable. The tambourine performer affects a ludicrous air of pompous sentiment, while the castanet sable hero indulges in all kinds of buffoonery and antics. He is a wonderful player—no Spaniard can rival him in rapidity, delicacy and precision. A scene called a 'Railway Overture,' causes an explosion of laughter; they seem to be endowed with perpetual motion; and the scream of the whistle, at the same time as the noise of the engine, beggars all description. The entertainment is ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Astronomer Royal of Cape Town, says to this effect:—"Do not observe the altitude of the star in taking lunars, but compute it. The labour requisite for that observation is better bestowed in taking a large number of distances." So much delicacy of hand and of eyesight is requisite in taking lunars that shall give results reliable to seven or eight miles, and so small an exertion or flurry spoils that delicacy, that economy of labour and fidget is a matter ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... vertebrata. And through this last class we see a steady ascent from one form of organization to another; from fishes to reptiles, from reptiles to birds, from birds to mammalia, until by steady rise we reach the human body, in delicacy, beauty, and faculty the crown of all. Why should we suppose this the end of bodily existence? Why not rather that this is to pass into a still more noble and beautiful type of organization? After this gradual development, why suppose the enormous change to a purely spiritual ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Twemlow, 'permit me. He might be, or he might not be. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even him to dictate to me on a point of great delicacy, on which I feel ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... rushes. No tribes of flowers have had so great, so varied, or so healthy an influence on man as this great group of Drosidae, depending, not so much on the whiteness of some of their blossoms, or the radiance of others, as on the strength and delicacy of the substance of their petals; enabling them to take forms of faultless elastic curvature, either in cups, as the crocus, or expanding bells, as the true lily, or heath-like bells, as the hyacinth, or bright and perfect stars, like the star of Bethlehem, or, when they are affected by ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... The principal delicacy of the feast, however, was contributed by a fair lady, and to Percy belonged the honour and glory of ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... with a transparent delicacy of complexion. She had greatly grieved over her grandfather's illness and the first change in her happy home; and she must have been much disappointed at Griffith's absence. Emily dreaded her mention of the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in great ways, it is stupid and useless to expect to gain real strength, unless we are working in obedience to the laws that govern its development. We have a faculty for distinguishing order from disorder and harmony from discord, which grows in delicacy and strength as we use it, and we can only use it through refusing disorder and choosing order. As our perception grows, we choose more wisely, and as we choose more wisely, our perception grows. But our perceptions must work in causes, not at all in effects, except as they ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... a bit of natural delicacy, and the sensitive lad, born in a tropic land, felt it as he stood there with his brain filled with bitterness and remorse, heaping self-reproaches upon himself, and more miserable than he had ever ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... the street of the very poor, but one is struck by the excellent diet of these same very poor. They eat as a staple roasted artichokes—a great delicacy with us. They cook macaroni with tomatoes in huge iron kettles over charcoal fires, and sell it by the plateful to their customers, often hauling it out of the kettles with their hands, like a sailor's hornpipe, pinching ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... which no human gaze had ever profaned, save that of Gyges on the day when the veil was blown away, possessed a youthful bloom, a tender pallor, a delicacy of grain, and a downiness whereof the faces of our women, perpetually exposed to sunlight and air, cannot convey the most distant idea. Modesty created fleeting rosy clouds upon them like those which a drop of crimson essence would form in a cup of milk, and when uncoloured ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... might have been of giving you proofs of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... the wide domains of the Empire. No human mind or hand had ever designed or worked out the various hues and shades of such marvellous colours as those which flashed before their eyes, and which possessed a delicacy and beauty such as none of the great artists of the past had ever been able ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... his London-street novels lack certain artistic elements of beauty (though here and there occur glints of rainy or sunset townscape in a half-tone, consummately handled and eminently impressive); and his intense sincerity cannot wholly atone for this loss. Where, however, a quiet refinement and delicacy of style is needed as in those sane and suggestive, atmospheric, critical or introspective studies, such as By the Ionian Sea, the unrivalled presentment of Charles Dickens, and that gentle masterpiece of softened autobiography, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing |
