"Dilly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you ought to invite Dilly to your party, Mildred," said Mrs. Fuller. "She lives so near us, and you've invited every other little girl on ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... high-chair, wherefore the restraining hand which seized her ankles at intervals. It was Mrs. Triplett's firm hand which clutched her, and Mrs. Triplett's firm hand which fed her, so there was not the usual dilly-dallying over Georgina's breakfast as when her mother held the spoon. She always made a game of it, chanting nursery rhymes in a gay, silver-bell-cockle-shell sort of way, as if she were one of the "pretty maids all in a row," just stepped ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... now, Ivan Aleksandrovich, now, 'pon my word. To be sure, it's a great honor and all that. But really we'd better go as quick as we can. You see, they've taken you for somebody else, honest. And your dad will be angry because you dilly-dallied so long. We'd gallop off so smartly. They'd give us ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... years later, mail trains were at once put on,—the directors undertaking to perform the distance of 113 miles within 5 hours by day and 5.5 hours by night. As additional lines were opened, the old four-horse mail coaches were gradually discontinued, until in 1858, the last of them, the "Derby Dilly," which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the opening of the Midland ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... shape. I can give you sixty seconds to find that I'm the North Star. Ach! I have the Doctor von Herzlich been ge-speaking with—come, come! What's the use of any more delay? I've wasted nearly three hours here now, dilly-dallying along. But then, a woman never ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... like a skeetur Afore he lights,—all is, to give the other side a millin', An' arter thet's done, th' ain't no resk but wut the lor'll be willin'; No metter wut the guv'ment is, ez nigh ez I can hit it, A lickin's constitooshunal, pervidin' We don't git it. Jeff don't stan' dilly-dallyin', afore he takes a fort, (With no one in,) to git the leave o' the nex' Soopreme Court, Nor don't want forty-'leven 'weeks o' jawin' an' expoundin' To prove a nigger hez a right to save him, ef he's drowndin'; Whereas ole Abram'd sink afore he'd let a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... told you already! When the time came and I asked her if she liked me, she said she liked no man half so well: and that being as it should be, the next thing was to put up the banns. There wasn't time that holiday: like a fool, I had been dilly-dallying too long, though I believe now I might have asked her a month before. So the wedding was held in the April following, my father going out to the Gunnel for a couple of days, so that Old John might be ashore to give his ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... preparation for the act of coitus is: do as lovers do when they are "courting." And everybody knows what that is! And note this—that nobody ever hurries when they are courting! They delay, they protract, they dilly-dally, they "fool around," they pet each other in all sorts of possible and impossible ways. They kiss each other—"long and passionate kisses, they again and again give and receive"—they hug each ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... declared would do the job quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter, seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left them drinking and gambling the overnight, stared with amazement like ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... before I left, an' we was standin' at the gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and—well, I'll tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men that had had experience with women, too)—I've heard 'em say that the chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie, never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter firm with a girl that won't make up her mind—that women like to have a man show that he ain't ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... take the oath of allegiance, by a prompt refusal—falling back 'for reasons' on State rights. There should be, in these times, but one way of dealing with all such State rights gentlemen—arrest as traitors, and trial under military law. This is no day for dilly-dallying and quibbling about 'State rights.' There is only one right in such cases—the right of the Union, and fidelity to it. This rebuff is generally spoken of by the press as 'the Nashville Snag.' There be such things as snag-extractors, and we trust that our Government is free enough from red-tape ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of last season, on the Eureka, who was the first every morning, between four and five to sing out 'Great works?' Who was the last dilly-dallying at the cradle after sunset? I appeal to ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... "What's the marter, Dilly?" said her grandfather, in the same slow, mellow, jubilant tone with which he had propounded his discovery, and not withdrawing his fond smile from the heavens; "'s the log tew reoundin' for ye ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... work of river improvement is undertaken in a modern way it can not have results that will meet the needs of this modern nation. These needs should be met without further dilly-dallying or delay. The plan which promises the best and quickest results is that of a permanent commission authorized to coordinate the work of all the Government departments relating to waterways, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was the scientific name of the creature, but the fact that it looked like a silicon armadillo had given it the popular name of "silly dilly." Apart from its desire ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Daffy-Down-Dilly O!" one of the quaintest bits of loving child rhyme in all the Scots tongue, composed soon after the birth of her ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... becomes of the ink-pots of glory? The conduit from which Boswell drew, for Charles Dilly in The Poultry, the great river of his Johnson? The well (was it of blue china?) whence flowed Dream Children: a Revery? (It was written on folio ledger sheets from the East India House—I saw the manuscript only yesterday in a room at Daylesford, Pennsylvania, where much of the richest ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... Lovett's proposal to quit my beloved country. But all hope of life here is now over; and really, during the last ten days I have been so hunted from corner to corner, so plagued with polite invitations, similar to those given by a farmer's wife to her ducks, 'Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed!' that my patriotism has been prodigiously cooled, and I no longer recoil from thoughts of self-banishment. 'The earth,' my dear Ned, as a Greek sage has very well observed,—'the earth is the same everywhere!' ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... year invite), equipped with red boots and plumes of purple velvet, to enchant the coy lady ducks in soft water, and eclipse the familiar and too legal drake. For a while they revel in the change of scene, the luxury of unsalted mud and scarcely rippled water, and the sweetness and culture of tame dilly-ducks, to whom their brilliant bravery, as well as an air of romance and billowy peril, commends them too seductively. The responsible sire of the pond is grieved, sinks his unappreciated bill into his back, and vainly reflects ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... walk down to the Piraeus and see if any merchantman has come in from Ephesus. It worries me to have my son dilly-dallying there so long and ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... made a large bag had ordinary precautions been taken. These, however, were not deemed necessary by the majority of the party, who walked down in the open to the river's edge, smoking and chattering as though they expected the 'dilly-dills to come and be killed' merely for the asking. The result, I need not say, was our return almost empty-handed. Late in the evening we assembled round a large fire, to eat the dinner which our servants had already prepared; after which we courted sleep ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... her there were no minutes in which I could dictate as many words as that, even if I wanted to, and that there would be many minutes in which I should not dictate any words at all, she said she was afraid that if she fell into a dilly-dally, poky way of working it would impair her skill, and it might be difficult, when she left my employment, to regain her previous expertness. She was quite willing, however, to engage with me, and thought ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... enuf!" says Woodley first sighting it. "I reck'n the skunk's tellin' us the truth, 'bout that stick o' timber being a finger-post. Tharfor, no more dilly-dallying but on to't quick as our critters can take us. Thar's a man's life in danger; one that's dear to me, as I reckon he'd be to all o' ye, ef ye knowed him, same's I do. Ye heerd what the old kurnel sayed, as we war startin' out: cost what it mout, Charley Clancy ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... and involved sentences were well known on the platforms where he advocated parliamentary reform. On May 17, 1784, Johnson dined at Mr. Dilly's. Among ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... harm ye,' he said. 'Only I reckon what 'tis a special turn o' Providence, meetin' wi' ye oop here. I reckon what ye'll hev t' give me a square answer noo. Ye canna dilly-dally everlastingly.' ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... boy was Jack,— He would not work, and he would not play; And so poor, that the jacket on his back Hung in a ragged fringe alway; But 'twas shilly-shally, dilly-dally, From day ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... "For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings. The Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!" And he went on writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. "If you have anything to say, say it. These two things can ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... bandit asked. He was thoroughly weary of Gilbert's dilly-dallying, so foreign to his ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... her walked the little brownie Marie, looking for all the world like the bobbing daffies in her white basket. One wanted to sing the old nursery rhyme: "Daffy-down-dilly has come to town," for they were nodding a friendly greeting from her hat, and seemed to lend their golden sheen to the satin beneath the white ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... and the reciprocating properties of the fields of the grid suit itself made a dilly of a combination. Before, the closed-plenum mesh kept Lonnie from leaving traces. Now, anything once embraced within the palpitating fields of the grid moved with and how the suit moved; not in accord with the natural laws of the ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... honesty"—here he made a slight obeisance—"the words may fall trippingly off the tongue, as though we were used to the title, and wore our honours like they who be born to them, sir. Proceed, sir. Why stand dilly-dallying here? Am ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... make a merit of it, . . . and if you ask me," pursued Mrs Polsue, "one half of your palpitation is put on. You're nervous what show you'll make in the drawing-room, and that's why you're dilly-dallyin' with your questions ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... contented, will only succeed in producing a South Africa which is poor and discontented. Those, too, who wish well for South Africa and are at the same time sympathizers of the present Government, let them also strive to induce the Ministry to cease its policy of dilly-dallying and of equivocation at the expense of the coloured tax-payers. So that the Dutch throughout South Africa, as did the Dutch of Cape Colony, under the able leadership of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, may pursue a fresh course — ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... uttered these words, she put on a serious look, and gave orders that he should be taken out and administered twenty blows with the bamboo. When the servants perceived that lady Feng was in an angry mood, they did not venture to dilly-dally, but dragged him out, and gave him the full number of blows; which done, they came in to report that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... days, Mrs. Bennett's father, Mr. J.P. Dilly, took us out about six miles and left us to hunt and camp for a few days. We were quite successful, and killed five nice, fat deer, which we dressed and took to Mineral Point, selling them rapidly to the Cornish miners for twenty-five cents a quarter for the meat. We followed this business ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... plain sight from the camp. Certainly I could not turn off, nor turn back. Not now. It was make or break. Hesitate I did, with involuntary action of muscles; I thought that she momentarily hesitated; then I drove on, defiant, and so did she. The fates were resolved that there should be no dilly-dallying by the principals chosen for this drama that ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Queen, and was then at liberty to retire and to dream that she was chatting with her brother by the quiet hearth in St. Martin's Street, that she was the centre of an admiring assemblage at Mrs. Crewe's, that Burke was calling her the first woman of the age, or that Dilly was giving her a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Daffy-down-dilly came up in the cold, Through the brown mould Although the March breezes blew keen on her face, Although the white snow lay in many ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... sum of 10 pounds he sent across to the honest fellow from whom he had borrowed it, with an apology for his delay; which, since it had extended over a period of twenty years, was not superfluous. I wonder whether he ever repaid Mr. Dilly the guinea he once borrowed of him to give to a very small boy who had just been apprenticed to a printer. If he did not, it was a great shame. That he was indebted to Sir Joshua in a small loan is apparent from the fact that it was one of ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... will,' said she; 'with your good leave, talk of what you know something about. Tell him I want him. Why does the minx dilly-dally so?' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... said to my Lord Carteret.(22) "So," says he, "my Lord came up to me, and asked me," etc. "No," said I, "my Lord never did, nor ever can come up to you." We all pun here sometimes. Lord Carteret set down Prior t'other day in his chariot; and Prior thanked him for his CHARITY; that was fit for Dilly.(23) I do not remember I heard one good one from the Ministry; which is really a shame. Henley is gone to the country for Christmas. The puppy comes here without his wife,(24) and keeps no house, and would have me dine with him at eating-houses; but I have only done it once, and will ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed," Drew repeated to himself that tag from some childhood rhyme or story as he waited at the mouth of the gorge to play his own part in the action to come. A small force of mounted men, scouts, and volunteers from ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... running between Ashbourne and Derby, which out of courtesy to the French was named a "diligence," the French equivalent for stage-coach; but the Derby diligence was soon abbreviated to the Derby "Dilly." The roads at that time were very rough, macadamised surfaces being unknown, and a very steep hill leading into the Ashbourne and Derby Road was called bete noire by the French, about which Canning, who was an occasional passenger, wrote the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... is no time for dilly-dallying. The Second Mate and I will go aloft, and I want about half a dozen of you to come along with us, and carry lights. Plummer and Jessop here, have volunteered. I want four or five more of you. Step out now, ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... friends, Messieurs Dilly in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well-covered table I have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other except that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, had invited me to meet Mr. Wilkes and some more gentlemen on Wednesday, May 15th. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... work to collect the beans, make the shell-planes, and do the shredding. In the first place the beans are cooked, the oven consisting of hot stones covered with leaves. In three or four hours they are taken out and planed, a dilly-bag (basket made of narrow strips of lawyer cane or grass) full of the shavings is immersed in running water for two or three days, the food being then ready for consumption without further preparation. In ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Judge Eckels, who had left his home in Indiana immediately after receiving his appointment, and started across the Plains with his own conveyance. Near Fort Laramie he was overtaken by Colonel Smith, whom he accompanied in his progress to the main body. Governor Cumming, in the mean while, dilly-dallied in the East, travelling from St. Louis to Washington and back again, begging for an increase of salary, for a sum of money to be placed at his disposal for secret service, and for transportation to the Territory,—all which requests, except the last, were denied. Towards the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Birt's crime of stealin' the grant an' yit not tellin' on him. An' I'd take ter hopin' an' prayin' the boy would confess, so ez I wouldn't hev ter tell on him. I hev been mightily pestered in my mind lately with sech dilly-dallyin'." ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... and lean and his darkly nervous self, except that he dilly-dallied on his heels like a much-too-tall boy ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... presence was easy. When sometimes she glanced towards him it was with the thought, "Fancy being one of the rising young men at the Bar, being the rising young man—the Bar, with silk and ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before you—and being that, doing that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... and undone I take in the "Dilly" my place; By Zurich and Basel to London I rush, as if running a race. My quest and my troubles are over; As I drive through the desolate street To my Club in Pall Mall, I discover Sweet Solitude's ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... thought o' the plan he went right to work to carry it out. He says it was one o' them plans as dilly-dally is death on. So he begun by makin' sure as she was pastin' labels on pickle-jars in the back wood-house 'n' then he went out by the shed 'n' got some old clothes-line as was hangin' there 'n' come round to where ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... age of 8, the matter should be taken firmly in hand. There should be no dilly-dallying, no foolish belief in the possibility of outgrowing the trouble, for whatever chances once existed are now past. First of all, the child's case should be diagnosed by an expert with the idea of ascertaining the exact nature of the speech disorder, the probable progress of the ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... so I prophesied; she's not the thing for him: he has some strength of mind—some soul—above vulgar prejudices; so must a woman be to hold him. He was caught at first by her grace and beauty, and that sort of stuff; but I knew it could not last—knew she'd dilly dally with Clary, till he would turn upon his heel ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... leaders at the North were willing to allow us the right, while none denied it. The leading journal at the North said: "Let the erring sisters depart in peace." But all of our overtures were rejected by the administration at Washington, and a policy of evasion, or dilly-dallying, was kept up by those in authority at the North. All the while active preparations were going on to coerce the State by force of arms. During this time other States seceded and joined South Carolina, and formed the "Confederate States of America," with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... of Johnson's friends, Edward and Charles Dilly, the booksellers. Here, in the year 1773, Boswell and Johnson dined with the Dillys, Goldsmith, Langton, and the Rev. Mr. Toplady. The conversation was of excellent quality, and Boswell devotes many ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... 'ee wot it is, Nelly Blyth," said the man, in a somewhat stern tone of voice; "it won't suit me to dilly-dally in this here fashion any longer. You've kept me hanging off and on until I have lost my chance of gettin' to be mate of a Noocastle collier; an' here I am now, with nothin' to do, yawin' about like a Dutchman in a heavy swell, ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... yes— From that evening I date the first dawn of my bliss; When we both rattled off in that dear little carriage, Whose journey, BOB says, is so like Love and Marriage, "Beginning gay, desperate, dashing, down-hilly, "And ending as dull as a six-inside Dilly!"[1] Well, scarcely a wink did I sleep the night thro'; And, next day, having scribbled my letter to you, With a heart full of hope this sweet fellow to meet, I set out with Papa, to see Louis DIX-HUIT Make his bow to some half-dozen ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... no time like the present. Why dilly-dally? We both realize that this is a crying need. Then why not do something about it? If you will find out who is the best man for us, I'll ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... The Sheriat el Menadhere is formed by the united streams of the Nahr Rokad [Arabic], which flows from near Ain Shakhab, through the eastern parts of Djolan; of the Hereir, whose source is in the swampy ground near Tel Dilly, on the Hadj route, between Shemskein and El Szannamein: of the Budje, which comes from Mezareib, and after its junction with the Hereir, is called Aweired [Arabic], and of the Wady Hamy Sakkar, besides several other smaller Wadys. The name of Sheriat, is first applied to the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Dilly Danforth, the poor washerwoman, had seen better days; but the drunken dissipation of a husband, who was now in his grave, had reduced her to abject, despairing poverty. Her unfortunate marriage and persistence in clinging to the man of her choice, and enduring all his abuses, excited ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... folly or of desperation. If I could hope to contend successfully against him, it would be necessary for me to be as foolish and as desperate. I must go in for a headlong game. It was to be a regular steeple-chase. No dilly-dallying—no shuffling—no coquetting—no wooing—but bold, instant, and immediate action. And why not? Our intercourse on the ice had been less than a day, but those hours were protracted singly to the duration of years, and we had been forced into intimacy by the peril ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille |
