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More "Neatness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slap on the face. I instantly struck out in a state of fury—was stopped with great neatness—and received in return a blow on the head, which sent me down on the carpet half stunned, and too giddy to know the difference between ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... boy who has not formed habits of punctuality before the age of fifteen will ever be entirely trustworthy in matters requiring precision in this line. The girl who has not, before this age, formed habits of neatness and order will hardly make a tidy housekeeper later in her life. Those who in youth have no opportunity to habituate themselves to the usages of society may study books on etiquette and employ private instructors ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a similar furbishing, a tornado of dust and water lasting for four hours. It was Rosalie's wish to display her neatness to Zephyrin on the Sunday. That was her reception day. A single cobweb would have filled her with shame; but when everything shone resplendent around her she became amiable, and burst into song. At three o'clock she would again ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... years as a barrack and as a prison, part of it comes from the presence of restoring stone-masons, who have woven over a considerable portion of it a mask of scaffolding. There is a good deal of neatness as well, and the restoration of some of the parts seems finished. This process, at Amboise, consists for the most part of simply removing the vulgar excrescences of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... little rooms were simply but comfortably furnished, the small courtyard was flagged with large stones, and round the walls of the hall were ranged narrow benches with soft cushions. We were greatly astonished at this appearance of neatness and order; but our wonder rose when we made the discovery that the Jews, who are very numerous at Tabarith, are not clothed in the Turkish or Greek fashion, but quite like their brethren in Poland ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... poor, though very industrious, and cultivating every inch of ground, with even English care and neatness;—so ignorant and uncultivated, while so finely and strongly made by Nature. May God grant now, to this people, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and extended rice-fields, less marked by terraces than those we had seen before; therein is situated the quaint village of Garoet, a favorite hill resort, where we found the noted Hotel van Horck with its reputation for neatness and restful hospitality. The one-story building has suites of rooms looking out on a spacious garden, conventional in style, with its wealth of trees, shrubs, and flowers, also busts and statues. A large oval bed of brilliant crotons on one side of the garden, and another foliage bed that formed ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... the "fore rooms," so called, of the house was his shop; the floor was of immaculate neatness, and carefully sanded every morning. On one side stood a cluster of barrels, one empty barrel surmounted by a board, exactly a yard long, the edge notched for the quarters and inches. This was his counter, and held a clumsy pair of scales. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... silk from one to two hundred years old, which, if I could have got it, for half its value, I should much like to have bought. I sat in the cool of the church while he sat in the doorway, which was still in shadow, snipping and snipping, and then sewing, I am sure with admirable neatness. He made a charming picture, with the arched portico over his head, the green grass and low church wall behind him, and then a lovely landscape of wood and pasture and valleys and hillside. Every now and then he would come and ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Somebody is sure to remember a class of New England housekeepers who spend all their time scrubbing floors and have no spirit left for anything else, and ask if they have the visible stamp of a lady. The idea of neatness is so distorted in them that we cannot admire it very much, yet perhaps it is their one connecting link with refinement. Such women, however, are, curiously enough, seldom particularly neat in their personal habits. Their dress is often untidy, their hair uncombed, they are careless about bathing, ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... hour, by the end of which, all was restored nearly to its former neatness. Mrs. Costello came out and found them busy at the vine. Maurice was on a ladder nailing it up, while Lucia handed him the nails and strips of cloth, as he wanted them. She felt a lively pleasure in seeing them thus occupied. Maurice was too dear ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... to-day will be surprised to learn that a boy a hundred and more years ago might reach the age of fifteen in a good grammar school of that period and yet not be able to use the multiplication table. As late as 1823 Lamb writes: "I think I lose a hundred pounds a year owing solely to my want of neatness in making up accounts: how I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder!" There is no evidence, however, to show that Lamb did not overcome his lack of preparation. The contrary impression sometimes prevails, due, perhaps, to his supposed apology for his late arrival by his representation that he ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... a daintiness that corresponds with the neatness of its illustrations. It has the attractiveness which du Maurier had such skill in giving. But though dealing with Bohemia, the author is conventional; that is, he keeps strictly to the surface of things. And every true sentiment of the book is spoilt by the quickly following laugh in which ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... opera. The guests were the Count and Countess Olisco, Count Tornik, Don Cesare Carpazzi, and Prince Minotti. Don Cesare Carpazzi, a thin swarthy youth, sat just across the corner of the table from Nina. Although his appearance was one of great neatness, it was all too evident, if one observed with good eyes, that the edges of his shirt had been trimmed with the scissors until the hem narrowed close to the line of stitching; and his evening clothes in a strong light would ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... straw was spread on the shanty floor, and the neatness of the ground before it, and around the little opening, gave evidence of the neatness and interest of Julia Fabens. All declared it a pleasant afternoon, and just in the nick of time for a sugar party. Uncle Walter was called ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... boxes," replied Mrs. Haddo. "And now come with me and I will show you the room which shall be your private property and where you can keep your pets. By the way," she added, "I am exceedingly particular with regard to the neatness of the various rooms where my pupils sleep; and these bits of heather and these curious stones—oh, I can tell you plenty about their history by and by—might also be put into what we will ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... eyes. Admirable sanitary regulations exist in all the cities and villages of the land, which insures them pure air. I may state here that every private-house looks as carefully to the condition of its atmosphere, as we do to the material neatness of ours. ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... whose smooth plane rose higher to the eye than the town itself. The salt and the sand were everywhere, but though there had been no positive prosperity in Corbitant for a generation, the place had an impregnable neatness, which defied decay; if there had been a dog in the street, there would not have been a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... characteristics of the people the moment you were in Peru was considerable, and striking was the neatness of the buildings. Iquitos was a pleasant little city, the streets of which needed paving badly, but were otherwise well aligned and tidy. There were numbers of foreigners there, including a small English colony made up of employes of the Booth ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... came to examine the houses more closely, they were particularly struck with the neatness with which they were constructed and the extreme labour that must have been expended ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is allowed to grow. As to other symptoms of devastation and obstruction, such as deserted houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The carcasses of horses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the garden, like a smiling image of repose, comfort and happiness. In every direction where the rays of light fell, whether upon a piece of old china, or upon an article of furniture, shining from excessive neatness, or upon the weapons hanging against the wall, the soft light was as softly reflected; and its rays seemed to linger everywhere upon something or another agreeable to the eye. The lamp which lighted the room, while the foliage of jasmine and climbing roses hung in masses from ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I was told that my supper was ready. I was very hungry, and the neatness with which the table was laid was a pleasant surprise in Spain. I was sorry that I had had no opportunity of expressing my satisfaction to Don Diego, but I sat down to supper. Then indeed I thought the cobbler a hero; the Biscayan ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... learn to concentrate just as he can learn to do anything else. Habits of concentration, of ignoring distinctions and interruptions, of putting all one's power into the work in hand, are just as possible as habits of neatness. The laws of habit formation apply in the field of attention just as truly as in every other field of mental life. Laboratory experiments prove the large influence which training has on concentration and the great improvement that ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... to furnish hand training, to give pupils practical instruction in the care of their own clothes, and to provide an opportunity for preparing the apron for the cooking lessons. The lesson course should tend to develop habits of thrift, industry, and neatness. The pupils should be encouraged to learn to sew, both to improve their own home conditions and to give them suggestions as to a possible means of livelihood. If sewing-machines are available and are in use in the homes, it is well to have lessons ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... said our host, "I have been greatly disappointed. I was told before I came here that I would have trouble in teaching the pupils habits of neatness, and that they were naturally lazy. I find them just the opposite. They are exceptionally neat and tidy about their persons and their rooms. As for being lazy, we could not ask for more diligent students as ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... Prayers, hymns, scripture readings and illuminated bits of choice literature were projected on a screen. I trained young men to put up and take down the screen noiselessly, artistically, and with the utmost neatness and dispatch. I discovered that many men who either lacked ambition or ability to wear collars came to that meeting, and they sang, too, when the lights were low. When in full view of each other they were as close-mouthed as clams. The ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... Morgan. He has been in the city but a short time, yet by his efficient work and careful attention to duty, he has built up an enviable reputation and an excellent custom among the best families of the city. All work done with neatness and dispatch. We strive ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... new clothes, it struck Tom that it would be a good plan to take a bath. I should not like to say how long it was since he had washed himself all over, but it is well known that excessive neatness is not a characteristic of street-boys. It had never troubled Tom much to have a spot of blacking on his face, or to see his hands bearing the traces of the business by which he made his living. Now, however, he determined to turn ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... eyes and sepulchral voices. They were clothed in uncleanly rags, many without caps, and most without shoes. Their hair and beards were overgrown and matted. The condition of their teeth was the only appearance of neatness about them: and these were as white as ivory, from eating bread made of corn and cobs ground up together. A piece of such bread four inches square daily, with a morsel of meat once a week and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the house. She had been told that she was ill of a fever when she was brought down from the Mountain; and she could only remember waking one day in a cot at the foot of Mrs. Royall's bed, and opening her eyes on the cold neatness of the room that was ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... constrained by this friendly violence, went along with the Conrector. On entering the house they were met by Veronica, attired with such neatness and attention that Conrector Paulmann, full of amazement, asked her: "Why so decked, Mam'sell? Were you expecting visitors? Well, here I bring you Herr Anselmus." The student Anselmus, in daintily and elegantly kissing Veronica's ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the Godhead would shine around them all. She grew to hate her life, the dull barrier of the flesh that stood between her and her ends. Still she ate and drank enough to support it, still dressed with the same perfect neatness as before, still lived, in short, as though Arthur had not died, and the light and colour had not gone out of ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... cut into a hundred pieces. The Seigneur de Beauvoir had reason, in the brief letter which gave an account of this exploit, to assure her Highness that there were "some very valiant fellows in his little troop." Certainly they had accomplished the enterprise entrusted to them with promptness, neatness, and entire success. Of the great rebellious gathering, which every day had seemed to grow more formidable, not a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it should be stylish and well-kept. A "second-best" gown, though neat enough for informal calls, may not be elegant enough for a tea or for formal visiting. But if a lady's means are limited, and her well-preserved old gown is the best that she can command, perfect neatness and a delicate disposal of lingerie will disguise the ravages of time, and make the "auld cla'es look a'maist as weel's ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... end; the doors are formed of little panes of glass, and in the lower divisions the glass windows are made to lift up. The books are all arranged in double rows; but by the ingenious plan of placing small books in front of large ones, the letterings of all can be seen. Neatness was a mania with Pepys, and the volumes were evened on all the shelves; in one instance some short volumes have been raised to the required height by help of wooden stilts, gilt ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... had no time to speak correctly, nor to be comely or clean, was yet a millionaire before whom Wall Street trembled—while he, Gerald Bennet, with all his education, and polish, and care, and scrupulous neatness and politeness, was a poverty-stricken, shiftless vagabond; and what good had grammar done him? The ruined gentleman stood before the president—who was seated in his large armchair at the bank—holding his hat uncertainly, the nervous smile glimmering like heat lightning ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... example—physicians, professors, stenographers. Many of them are now on the highest rounds of the ladders from which their lack of superior education formerly excluded them. This is especially true of stenography. Yet some one has recently written, that, owing to their superior tact in arrangement, their neatness, their unobtrusiveness, their faithfulness, and numerous other excellent qualities, the demand for women in this capacity is steadily increasing. We find them filling lucrative positions in banking, commercial and publishing houses; in brokers' and insurance ...
— Silver Links • Various
... of his host, our Englishman had looked around with increasing surprise at the contents of the parlor. The furniture was of the most simple description, yet marked by a certain neatness and gracefulness of arrangement, indicative, as he could not but think, of a cultivated taste. The same mingling of even rude simplicity of material and tasteful arrangement prevailed in the chamber to which his host now conducted ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... thin and meticulous man, and he operated his ship with mechanical perfection. He was well liked in the front offices of Mikkelsen Space Lines, where Old Man Mikkelsen pointed to Captain Somers' reports as models of neatness and efficiency. On Mars, he stayed at the Officers' Club, eschewing the stews and dives of Marsport. On Earth, he lived in a little Vermont cottage and enjoyed the quiet companionship of two cats, a ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley
... is heavy and languid; he seldom indulges in an illustration, and those which he gives are far from lively; it is only at rare intervals that his logical ingenuity in stating some intricate argument clothes his thought in language of corresponding neatness. He has, in fact, the faults natural to an isolated thinker. He gives his readers credit for being familiar with the details of the labyrinth in which he had wandered till every intricacy was plainly mapped out in his own mind, and frequently dwells at ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... for the night to rest and refresh himself. He rode on and in a short time came in sight of a very neat and comfortable looking house not many rods from the road. He arrived in front of it and found that everything about the house had the appearance of neatness and comfort, and that he would probably be accommodated for the night. So he dismounted from his horse and opened the gate and proceeded to the house. The proprietor must have been very fond of fox ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... He bravely dug postholes, but they were pretty poor, and the completed fence was not so very straight. He was genial and uncomplaining, and he made a few good friends. He was an agreeable guest, and at our house was fond of a game of whist. He was often facetious, with a neatness that was characteristic. One day, on a stroll, we passed a very primitive new house that was wholly destitute of all ornaments or trimming, even without eaves. It seemed modeled after a packing-box. "That," he remarked, "must be of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... the period entitled "A portion of a Journal lost in the destruction of Kolobeng (September, 1853) by the Boers of Pretorius." Livingstone appears to have kept journals from an early period of his life with characteristic care and neatness; but that ruthless and most atrocious raid of the Boers, which we shall have to notice hereafter, deprived him of all them up to that date. The treatment of his books on that occasion was one of the most exasperating of his trials. Had they been burned or carried off he ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Charles G. Grafton a Fond du Lac man said: "Bishop Grafton was remarkable for the neatness and point of his pulpit utterances. Once, during a disastrous strike, a capitalist of Fond du Lac arose in a church meeting and asked leave to speak. The bishop gave him the floor, and the man delivered himself of a long panegyric upon captains of industry, upon the good they do by giving men work, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... woman and, like a French woman, essentially clever and chic. She may be a trifle more superficial than the composers I have mentioned, but her music is clean-cut, clear as a crystal, and, like everything about a refined woman, the quintessence of neatness. It is quite as if Mme. Chaminade's maid laid out her musical thoughts as well as her dresses, being sure to have every frill and furbelow in its place, whether it be the robe d' interieur which she is to wear at breakfast, her robe de ville for calling, or her robe de ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... have a bright, fragrant nosegay in one's buttonhole, or to carry a bouquet to one's home. On such days you may see hundreds of splashed and muddy men on the great thoroughfare, utterly hopeless of preserving any outward semblance of neatness, but each with his nosegay in his buttonhole; and as he glances down at it, from time to time, you may see his weary face soften and brighten, and an expression of cheerfulness steal over it, which renders him proof against even ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... of the "Eldorado" road-house—the only building in Westmore on which fresh paint was freely lavished—then the company "store," the machine shops and other out-buildings, the vast forbidding bulk of the factories looming above the river-bend, and the sudden neatness of the manager's turf and privet hedges. The scene was so familiar to Amherst that he had lost the habit of comparison, and his absorption in the moral and material needs of the workers sometimes made him forget the outward ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... hastily picture to yourself a forlorn-looking establishment, you will be moving straight away from the fact. Neatness, order, excellence, are prevalent qualities in all the details of the main house's inward garniture. The furniture is old-fashioned, rich, French, imported. The carpets, if not new, are not cheap, either. Bits of crystal ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the professor, who shewed the place. At our going in he was apparently much out of humour, and unwilling to talk, but grew gradually kinder, and more communicative; and I had at last a thousand thanks to pay for an attention that rendered the sight of all more valuable. Nothing can surpass the neatness and precision with which this elegant repository is kept, and the curiosities contained in it have specimens very uncommon. The native gold shewed here is supposed to be the largest and most perfect lump in Europe; wonderfully beautiful it certainly is, and the coral here ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... kitchen of the cabin. The room was large, and had a delightful atmosphere of order and neatness. Over the fire swung an immense iron crane, and on the crane were pot-hooks of various sizes, and on one of these hung ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... a system of 'points' will be established for the course, by which the patrols may be credited for certain accomplishments in the line of this particular training, in addition to the points won by the neatness and accuracy of the reports. The patrol winning the highest final rating will be given the title: Official Geological ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... the costume of the country, and with a neatness and trimness that made her seem almost dainty in the homely dress, while on her head she wore a large, coarse straw hat, over which a bright handkerchief had been thrown, and was tied under ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to his wife in 1777: "Host and hostess sit at the table with you and do the honors of a comfortable meal, and on going away you pay your fare without higgling." Dr. Dwight said the best old-fashioned New England inns were superior to any of the modern ones. Brissot said: "You meet with neatness, dignity and decency, the chambers neat, the beds good, the sheets clean, supper passable, cyder tea punch and all for fourteen pence a head." Alackaday! the good ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... no creature with which man has surrounded himself that seems so much like a product of civilization, so much like the result of development on special lines and in special fields, as the honey-bee. Indeed, a colony of bees, with their neatness and love of order, their division of labor, their public-spiritedness, their thrift, their complex economies, and their inordinate love of gain, seems as far removed from a condition of rude nature as does ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... overlooking one of the loveliest of the small lakes which form a pleasing feature in New England scenery. From this place the atmosphere and associations of the prison are excluded. The discipline is strict, as a matter of course; but it is that of a well-regulated home or school-room,—order, neatness, and harmony within doors; and without, the beautiful 'sights and sounds and healthful influences of Nature. One would almost suppose that the poetical dream of Coleridge, in his tragedy of Remorse, had found its realization in the Westboro' School, and that, weary of the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the familiar little inn. He entered by the ivied porch, and within, as usual, found Miss Fouracres, who sat behind the bar sewing. Miss Fouracres wore a long white apron, which protected her dress from neck to feet, and gave her an appearance of great neatness and coolness. She had a fresh complexion, and features which made no disagreeable impression. At sight of the visitor she rose, and, as her habit was, stood with one hand touching her chin, whilst she smiled ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... troops were formed in line, and the general and staff were escorted to the ground by the Twentieth New York, of Neill's brigade, in splendid style. The regiment was composed entirely of German Turners. Their drill surpassed that of any regiment of regulars, and the exquisite neatness they displayed in their dress and in the care of their equipments, together with the perfection of their movements, made them the finest appearing regiment in the service, when on parade. It is to be regretted that the prestige of the regiment was not always sustained on the battle-field. ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... and every piece of furniture in it, were cleaned; even the cobwebs and dust were cleared away, and the sofa and table brought from the corner to the centre of the room; the melancholy little prisons were removed; and when Amine's work of neatness was complete, and the sun shone brightly into the opened window, the chamber ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... room they called the breakfast-room. Looking upon it with the housewife's desire for neatness Mrs. Day often spoke of it as the Pig-sty, but it was the room they all of them loved best in the house. It was here the children learned their lessons for school, the ladies worked, Franky played. It was spacious and cheerful, and held nothing that rough usage would spoil. All the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... and barnacles and eel-grass cling to the piles of the crumbling wharves, where the sunshine lies lovingly, bringing out the faint spicy odor that haunts the place—the ghost of the old dead West India trade! During our ride from the station, I was struck, of course, only by the general neatness of the houses and the beauty of the elm-trees lining the streets. I describe Rivermouth now as I ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was the perfection of neatness, and from a friendly rivalry the residency and fort were as smart and neat; perhaps never did they look to greater perfection than on the day after the adventure of Bob Roberts and ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... with hands of refinement, still fastidious, his long years of solitude notwithstanding, as to general neatness of attire, he might at any moment of the day have walked up the great stair of honour at Pulwick without by his appearance eliciting other remarks than that his clothes, in cut and colour, belonged to fashions now ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the fireside. She talked softly to him, as she went about the room, attending to those details of forethought of which mothers have the secret. He watched her putting everything in place with silent pleasure. He noted her deft, clever ways, the exquisite neatness of her dress, her small feet so trigly shod, her lovely face bending over the most trivial duty with a smile of sweet contentment; and he could not help thinking hopefully of Harry. Indeed her atmosphere was so afar from whatever was evil or sorrowful that John wondered ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... still fewer instances, were these ravages repaired. Hence, notwithstanding the improved condition of all other classes of buildings, general dilapidation was the fate of these. Industry, and the increasing pecuniary ability which it creates, had given comfort, neatness, and even elegance to private dwellings. Public spirit had erected commodious and costly churches. Counties, though largely taxed, had yet uncomplainingly paid for handsome and spacious court-houses and public offices. ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... garden. The shadows of the ilex-avenue chequered her straw bonnet, her prim black cape, her white skirt. There had been no meddling of freakish hands with her dark hair this morning. It was tightly plaited at the back of her head. Her plain sun-shade, her black kid gloves were neatness itself—middle-class, sabbatical neatness. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I have since repented. I gained, however, a more perfect, and a more sublime idea of the architectural wonders of St. Peter's, than I had before; and I was equally pleased and surprised by the exquisite neatness and cleanliness of every part of the building. We drove from St. Peter's to the church of St. Onofrio, to visit the tomb of Tasso. A plain slab marks the spot, which requires nothing but his name ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the poor thing. She has had so much schooling, and gained so little by it, that if I could get a good writing and maybe a ciphering master to attend her, I think I could do the rest myself, and impart to her some of the old-fashioned notions of industry, and neatness, and management. But this is a subject I wanted to consult you and Mrs. Fairchild about, for I so much like your plans with ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... proprietor recognized the desirability of having pieces by various hands, and so made long extracts from Prior, Gay, and Fenton. Although there was a considerable number of epitaphs, riddles, and fables, nearly all the jests were well known and trite. But the subjoined have a certain amount of neatness. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... In gathering peas, most people tug and pull at these as if anxious to see how much strength the pods can possibly bear. In this instance, as in others where the same carelessness is employed, the plants get severely disturbed, and a consequent short crop is put down to the score of bad seed. Neatness, order, and care are principles of great ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... person, as often happens in New England, was, in refinement and even elegance, a marked contrast to that of her male companion and to the humble vehicle in which she rode. There was not only the most fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of colors, an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement, and the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance with the usages of fashion, which struck one oddly in those ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... divisions of a church are much like the divisions of a sermon; they are always right so long as they are necessary to edification, and always wrong when they are thrust upon the attention as divisions only. There may be neatness in carving when there is richness in feasting; but I have heard many a discourse, and seen many a church wall, in which it was all carving ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... paleness, leanness, waking, sighing, &c. Quest. An delur pulsus amatorius? or Of mind. Bad, as Fear, sorrow, suspicion, anxiety, &c. A hell, torment, fire, blindness, &c. Dotage, slavery, neglect of business. or Good, as Spruceness, neatness, courage, aptness to learn ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... come over Clarence; his spirit was too aspiring to be bound by rules of constant neatness, and he grew jealous of Pete's increasing ability. So he proposed a partnership on new terms; namely, that the cash on hand should be devoted to the purchase of some new fonts, and that afterwards the earnings ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... summer and winter, hung the roller towel, and near by the mirror and family horn comb. In the dark the mirror was of doubtful use, but with a few well-directed strokes of the comb he managed to get a semblance, at least, of neatness to his hair. He shivered a little as he finished—just as his uncle appeared, milk ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... 16.-Return to Strawberry. His tragedy of "The Mysterious Mother." Bad taste of the public. Garrick's prologues and epilogues. French chalk and dirt contrasted with English neatness and greenth—560 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the massive gates were swung open for our entrance. Within the palace we ascended a magnificent wide marble staircase, the balusters of which were made of clear glass. We admired the intricately carved alabaster bath-rooms and wondered if their neatness had ever been disturbed. We passed through a multitude of richly decorated chambers and salons where every article was arranged in perfect order, and walked on carpet strips laid for visitors' feet around the beautiful ball-room, not daring to tread on the highly polished hard-wood ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable, and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness and industry and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and sharp and severe, that there wanted not some men (strangers to his nature and ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... the linen. In fact, the Short-Hair view of dress would be found on examination to be, in nearly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, something of this kind: that the constant care of the person which produces an impression of neatness and appropriateness, and makes a man look "genteel," is the expression of a certain state of mind; that a man would not take so much trouble to make himself look different from the ordinary run of people whom he meets, unless ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... inaugurated in his Lettres Provinciales: clarity, simplicity and wit—these supreme qualities it possesses in an unequalled degree. But these qualities, pushed to an extreme, have also their disadvantages. Voltaire's style is narrow; it is like a rapier—all point; with such neatness, such lightness, the sweeping blade of Pascal has become an impossibility. Compared to the measured march of Bossuet's sentences, Voltaire's sprightly periods remind one almost of a pirouette. But the pirouette is Voltaire's—executed with all the grace, all the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... the effective disposition of the rockery, and in the bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration. "How simple and manly!" she cried: "none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is so detestable in a man!" Hard upon this, telling him, before he had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile, and ascended the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were broad and square, the chest was full, the figure erect, and the head finely poised. He was dressed with unusual neatness for one of his race and surroundings, at the time of which we write. One comprehended at a glance that this worker and learner was also deformed. There was that in his surroundings which showed that ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... 88):—'Notwithstanding the gay disposition of the French, their houses are all gloomy. After all it is in England only where we must look for cheerful apartments, gay furniture, neatness, and convenience.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that of grandeur, (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich Hospital,) but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern foraging-cap. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a great admirer of Lord Macaulay's writings and read them constantly, as he found in them most of the qualities which he admired— great descriptive power, political acumen, satire, neatness of phrase, apt comparisons and analogies, and shrewd analysis of character. Many passages he made me read over and over again at different times. I reproduce a few of his favorite paragraphs for the purpose of showing what ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... and at first there often came over him a longing for something different, a yearning for the refinements of his early home among the Northern hills, and a wish to infuse into Chloe, the colored housekeeper, some of his mother's neatness. But a few attempts at reform had taught him how futile was the effort, Aunt Chloe always meeting him ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... few symbols, and most of the words were spelt with letters. Each letter was of the easy sloping form, which came from its being made with a reed or pen, instead of the stiff form of the hieroglyphics, which were mostly cut in stone. But there is a want of neatness, which has thrown a difficulty over them, and has made these writings less easy to read ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... skill and rapidity in his homely task. A shining needle darted in and out of the gray cloth, and the rent that had seemed hopeless was being closed up with neatness and precision. No one derided him because he was engaged upon a task that was usually performed by women. The Army of Northern Virginia did ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... improvement in the general condition of the houses which formed this suburb was plainly visible to the casual observer. The houses were, if possible, more unpretentious than those of the serfs, yet there was an air of home-like comfort about them, an impression of neatness and cleanliness prevailed, which one would seek for in vain among the semi-barbarous peasants of Southern Russia. To the inhabitants of these poor huts, home was everything. The ordinary occupations, the primitive diversions of the serfs, were forbidden ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... 7. NEATNESS.—Neatness is also of great importance. A fair white sheet with handsomely written words will be more welcome to any reader than a blotted, bedaubed page covered with erasures and dirt, even if the matter in each be of equal ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... whole, Iena was much pleased with his wife for her neatness and attention to the things in the lodge, and he lived a contented and happy man. Being industrious, she made him beautiful bags from the bark of trees, and dressed the skins of the animals he killed in the most skilful manner. When spring opened, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... corn to husk. My barn-floor at this time is nearly covered with stooks. How dare I leave my barn in confusion, and, by my disorderly doin's, run the risk of my wive's bein' so disgusted with my want of neatness and shiftlessness, as to cause her to get dissatisfied with home and husband, and wander off into paths of dissipation and vice? Oh! I dassent, I dassent, take the resk! When I think of all the terrible ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... about 1,000 houses; being so densely crowded, perhaps 5,000 would more closely approximate. The houses in the town are eminently African, but of the best type of construction. The fortifications are on an Arabic Persic model—combining Arab neatness with Persian plan. Through a ride of 950 miles in Persia I never met a town outside of the great cities better fortified than Simbamwenni. In Persia the fortifications were of mud, even those of Kasvin, Teheran, Ispahan, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... his work. Once he had to drag the door to a better-sheltered spot. Bullets from the church were pecking up the dirt about him. Three times the piece of timber was tried, to find that the hole in the door was not quite large enough, but at last it went through and the giant smiled at the neatness of the work. And now the ram was ready. The firing from the church had fallen ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... ornament and site, So well was neatness mingled with neglect, As though boon Nature for her own delight Her mocker mock'd, till fancy's self was check'd; The air, if nothing else there, is th' effect Of magic, to the sound of whose soft flute The blooms are born with which the trees are deck'd; By ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... distance. Smooth macadam roads wound back and forth, over which government wagons rolled, drawn by sleek army mules; flower gardens blazed forth in gorgeous colors; women and children, all clean and white and American, were sitting upon the porches or playing in the yards. Everywhere was a military neatness; the town was like the officers' quarters of a fort, the whole place spick and span ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... of light escaped from the heavily curtained windows, and, to add to the general sense of melancholy, a cold, raw wind was blowing down from the North Sea and a drizzling rain had set in. Though La Panne is within easy range of the German batteries, which could eliminate it with neatness and despatch, it has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have been repeatedly ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... surprise the little girl imitated the letters, as she told Miss Mary, with a neatness and precision which ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... the wards expecting to find something of the neatness and order which in the Richmond hospitals had charmed ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... decidedly active part she took in household duties. Innocent Captain Argent was unaware that the faultless hot bread at breakfast was wrought by her hands; that the omelets and ragouts at dinner owned her as cook; that the neatness of the little parlour was attributable to her as its sole housemaid. The mighty maiden called Liberia had enough to do in other departments, outdoor as well as indoor, besides being rather a ponderous person for ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... exceeded three, while its greatest width was about eight. Its bottom and banks were as those of the pond—if a defect could have been attributed, in point of picturesqueness, it was that of excessive neatness. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... affectation of knowledge. She was of middle size; her complexion very fair, her eyebrows and hair dark brown, her teeth superb, her smile enchanting, and her whole person graceful. She was seen almost always in a demi-toilet, remarkable only for neatness and good taste. I do not think I ever once saw diamonds about her, even at the climax of her fortune, when she had the rank of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... first time realising that her presence in that house, however adventitious and innocent, wouldn't be easy to explain to one of a policeman's incredulous idiosyncrasy; the legal definition of burglar, strictly applied, fitted Sarah Manvers with disconcerting neatness. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... or lying forward in every attitude of agony. Some of them clasped their wounds; some of them pointed with their hands. Their faces had changed to every colour and glared at us like swollen bruises. Their helmets were off; with a pitiful, derisive neatness the rain had parted ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... proved beyond a doubt by the discovery of numerous bones with the old wounds completely cicatrized. "In several examples," says Dr. Prunieres, speaking in this connection, "we can make out the fractures set with a neatness which gives us a very high opinion of the skill of the Neolithic bone setters. The setting of one fracture at the lower end of the tibia and of another at the neck of the femur, are not inferior to what we should expect from the most skilful surgeons of the globe."[191] A remarkable fact ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... monotony which I expected. All was gayety, wit, and sprightliness. Saint A. is a very accomplished lady. In manners and appearance a good deal like Mrs. Merry. All, except two, appear to be past thirty. They were dressed with perfect neatness; their veils thrown back. We had a repast of wine, fruit, and cakes. I was conducted to every part of the building. All is neatness, simplicity, and order. At parting, I asked them to remember me in their prayers, which they all promised with great promptness ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... And, for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which they have in power; Which to neglect for a self-loving neatness, Is ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... sympathy with the distresses of the poor. In his house, and about it, there was much, no doubt, to be commended, for there was much to mark the habits of the saving man. Everything was neat and clean, not so much from any innate love of neatness and cleanliness, as because these qualities were economical in themselves. His ploughs and farming implements were all snugly laid up, and covered, lest they might be injured by exposure to the weather; and his house was filled with large chests and wooden hogsheads, trampled ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... from the first, not only a delight to the clever young housewife and her friends, but it performed the miracle of changing the average servant into a careful and excellent one, zealous for the cleanliness and perfection of her small domain, and performing her kitchen functions with unexampled neatness. ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... linen, and thereto costly cupboards of plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds to be deemed by estimation. But, as herein all these sorts do far exceed their elders and predecessors, and in neatness and curiosity the merchant all other, so in times past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas now it is descended yet lower even unto the inferior artificers and many farmers, who, by virtue of their old and not of their new leases, have, for the most part, learned ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... thousands of English visit this city (I have met at least a hundred of them in this half-hour walking the streets, "Guide-book" in hand), and as the ubiquitous Murray has already depicted the place, there is no need to enter into a long description of it, its neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique splendor. The tall pale houses have many of them crimped gables, that look like Queen Elizabeth's ruffs. There are as many people in the streets as in London at three o'clock in the morning; the market-women wear bonnets of a flower-pot shape, and have shining ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like ladies, but they pay no attention to what their mothers say about neatness,—such as keeping their hair in order and their shoes clean. These girls are also like ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... ground by the Twentieth New York, of Neill's brigade, in splendid style. The regiment was composed entirely of German Turners. Their drill surpassed that of any regiment of regulars, and the exquisite neatness they displayed in their dress and in the care of their equipments, together with the perfection of their movements, made them the finest appearing regiment in the service, when on parade. It is to be regretted ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... the skipper through me, followed by the summons of the second mate, and, finally, the capture of my insignificant self. It was much too subtle a scheme to be evolved by the uninventive brain of the average British shellback, and I fancied that I recognised a certain Bainbridge-like neatness of touch and finish in it all. But perhaps I was prejudiced, for I never liked the fellow. Yet, if he was not in it, why was he still free, instead of being down in the forecastle, a captive, like the rest of us? I remembered now that on several occasions ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... man, majestic as a stranded sea-God, was sitting in an arm chair, his broad Quaker hat on his head, waiting to receive me. He was spotlessly clean. His white hair, his light gray suit, his fine linen all gave the effect of exquisite neatness and wholesome living. His clear tenor voice, his quiet smile, his friendly hand-clasp charmed me and calmed me. He was so much gentler and sweeter than I ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... elegies, and other occasional verses thrown off by Burns and diligently collected by his editors need little discussion. They not infrequently exhibit the less generous sides of his character, and but seldom demand rereading on account of their neatness or felicity or energy. One may be ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... science and is usually prescribed by the instructor. Reports of experiments are usually written up in the order: Object, Apparatus, Method, Results, Conclusions. When detailed instructions are given by the instructor, follow them accurately. Pay special attention to neatness. Instructors say that the greatest fault with laboratory note-books is lack of neatness. This reacts upon the instructor, causing him much trouble in correcting the note-book. The resulting annoyance frequently prejudices him, against ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... remarked in the characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood which rouses the passion of a Frenchman, and the bile which exasperates an Englishman. The anger of a Frenchman is more violent, that of an Englishman more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... where a hole is left for the smoke to escape; the remainder of the roof is covered with a treble coat of birch bark, and between the first and second layer of bark is about six inches of moss; about the chimney clay is substituted for it. On entering one of the houses I was astonished at the neatness which reigned within. The sides of the tenement were covered with arms,—bows, arrows, clubs, axes of iron, (stolen from the settlers) stone hatchets, arrow heads, in fact, implements of war and for the chase, but all arranged in the neatest order, and ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... common and unlearned Beholder: Some Parts are made stupendiously magnificent and grand, to surprize with the vast Design and Execution of the Architect; others are contracted, to amuse you with his Neatness and Elegance in little. *So, in Shakespeare, we may find Traits that will stand the Test of the severest Judgment; and Strokes as carelessly hit off, to the Level of the more ordinary Capacities: Some Descriptions rais'd to that Pitch of Grandeur, as to astonish you with the Compass ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... though she was in her thirty sixth Year. The Minister before this, was under no Apprehension that she would fail in her Aim at Zeokinizul's Heart. The artificial Charms with which she concealed the Loss, or want of natural ones, the exquisite Neatness and Elegancy of her Dress, with the Gracefulness of her Deportment, rendered the Conquest certain. Besides, it was no Novelty for a Kofiran King to keep a Mistress older than himself, and some have been even known to retain ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... and enclosed country, where arable and pasture ground was agreeably varied with groves and hedges. Descending now almost close to the stream, our course lay through a little gate, into a pathway kept with great neatness, the sides of which were decorated with trees and flowering shrubs of the hardier species; until, ascending by a gentle slope, we issued from the grove, and stood almost at once in front of a low but very neat building, of an irregular form; and my guide, shaking me cordially ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of study, manifested a particular inclination for caligraphy: thus he arrived every morning at the College des Oratoriens, where his mother sent him gratis, with his exercises and translations full of faults, but written with a neatness, a regularity, and a beauty which it was charming to see. The little Buvat was whipped every day for the idleness of his mind, and received the writing prize every year for the skill of his hand. At fifteen years of age he passed from the Epitome Sacrae, which he had recommenced five times, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... state and emblem of neatness, Beauty and grace abide in thy form; Not in thy blood alone courses a sweetness, Thy ev'ry unfolding is ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... would have remarked that Elton's visage possessed a clean-cut compactness of expression despite its rotund contour. His closely trimmed whiskers, his small, clear, penetrating eyes, and the effect of neatness conveyed by his personal appearance were so many external indications of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... their grass-eaves, real furniture inside, and real beds of daisies and pansies at their doors. In the Colonel's bungalow a big bunch of spring flowers bloomed on the table, and everywhere we saw the same neatness and order, the same amused pride in the look of things. The men were dining at long trestle-tables under the trees; tired, unshaven men in shabby uniforms of all cuts and almost every colour. They were off duty, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... and astir long before the November sun. Dressed Madame could scarcely be called—the costume in which she assisted Babette and queer wizened old Pierrot in doing the morning's work, horrified Cicely, used as she was to Mistress Susan's scrupulous neatness. Downstairs there was a sort of office room of Monsieur's, where the family meals were taken, and behind it an exceedingly small kitchen, where Madame and Pierrot performed marvels of cookery, surpassing those ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them long ago. There would have been a little schoolhouse and a teacher. A new wharf, he was sure, would have taken the place of the rickety old thing; and by degrees the women would have learned thrift and neatness, and the men energy and industry. To be sure, it seemed a great deal to do for such dull, apathetic people, who seemed not to have a particle of energy and ambition about them; but papa, he thought, could ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the pose which Girodet's portrait of Monsieur de Chateaubriand has rendered ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... quizzically. "Great Scott, what a turn out! You look like a magician in the midst of a magic circle. Are you going to witch the lot into newts and toads? Whence this thusness? You won't persuade me that it's a fit of neatness and you're actually tidying. Doesn't exactly seem ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time dropped almost unconsciously ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... was the only thing he really cared about. To abuse himself was one thing, the privilege which an Englishman is ready enough to exercise; to have his thoughts uttered to him by his sister with feminine neatness and candour was quite another matter. Mrs. Rossall had in vain attempted to stem the flood of wrath rushing Channelwards. Overcome, she clad herself in meaning silence, until her brother, too ingenuous man, was compelled to return to the subject himself, and, towards the end of the journey, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... forfeited. She looked as if she did not wish her return to be noticed, stealing softly behind the romping lads and lasses with noiseless motions, and altogether such a contrast to them in her cool freshness and modest neatness, that both Kinraid and Philip found it difficult to keep their eyes off her. But the former had a secret triumph in his heart which enabled him to go on with his merry-making as if it absorbed him; while Philip dropped out of the crowd and came up to where she was standing silently by Mrs. Corney, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Doc Peets' best raiment, so, as Peets says, he looks professional like a law sharp should. An' bein' as we devotes to Billy all the water the windmill can draw in a hour, he is a pattern of personal neatness that a-way. ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... be called the Epigraph—the brief sententious effort, answering somewhat to the epigram as understood and practised by the Greeks, but unlike the Latin, French, and English epigram in being sentimental instead of witty, and aiming rather at all-round neatness than at pungency or point. Our language abounds, of course, in examples of short lyrical compositions, such (to name familiar instances) as Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Lay a garland on my hearse,' Congreve's 'False though she be ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Damer particularly excelled; the most difficult sermon she could transcribe almost word for word. This had excited the spirit of envy in Miss Vincent. The week after the dispute upon the medal, when Miss Damer opened her book, wherein she had written a sermon with extreme neatness, she found every line so scrawled, that one word could not be distinguished from another. Surprised at this proof of secret malice, she involuntarily gave the book to Miss Cotton, who was seated by her. Mrs. Adair, however, desired to look at it. After examining every ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... I am keeping in so much," she said; "and—and, oh! I do wish you were not all quite so tidy. I am just mad for somebody to be wild and unkempt. I feel that I could take down my hair, or tear a rent in my dress—anything rather than the neatness. Oh! I hate your landscapes, and your trim hedges, and your ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... ventilation, and the exhibits of hygienic glazed tiles arranged around a desert lecture-theatre. Hygienic tiles stimulate the eye vigorously rather than relax it by any aesthetic weakness; and the crematory appliances are so attractive as they are, and must have such an added charm of neatness and brightness when alight, that one longs to lose a relative or so forthwith, for the mere pleasure of ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... village one day, they were struck as they approached by the far greater appearance of comfort and neatness than generally distinguish African villages. The plots of plantations were neatly fenced, the street was clean and well kept. As they entered the village they were met by the principal people, headed by an ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact name of the god, for, say ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... In such schools, whatever else the child may be allowed to do, he must not be allowed to do anything by or for himself. He must not express what he really feels and sees; for if he does, the results will probably fall short of the standard of neatness, cleanness, and correctness which an examiner might expect the school to reach. At any rate, the experiment is much too risky to be tried. In the lower classes the results produced would certainly be rough, imperfect, untidy. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... a little cottage on the bank of the Peiho; finery never enters it, and neatness never leaves it. The singing of birds, the rustling of the breeze, the murmuring of the waters are the only sounds that they hear. Their windows will shut, and their door open,—but to wise men only; the wicked shun it. Truth dwells in their hearts, innocence guides their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... will go out every day at this hour when it is pleasant, and then she will not be missed at home. "'Tis so nice to have that comfortable covering for Winnie, for now she can hide her scanty apparel, and she will look quite respectable and neat;" for Nannie has some idea of neatness, and really tries to better the condition of the family. She learned a great many good ways at the school, and she does not forget them, although she has not been since baby's birth, and they will tell greatly upon the whole of ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... bread, which is made only at feast times, is baked in adobe ovens outside the house. When not in use for this purpose the ovens make convenient kennels for the dogs and play-houses for the children. Neatness is not one of the characteristics of the Zunyians. In the late autumn and winter months the women do little else than make bread, often in fanciful shapes, for the feasts and dances which continually occur. A sweet drink, not at all intoxicating, is made from the sprouted wheat. The men ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... stranger. He had paused on one of the small stone islands that break the current of traffic, and was waiting for an opportunity to cross the street. In the glare of light from the lamp above his head, Chilcote saw for the first time that, under a remarkable neatness of appearance, his clothes were well worn—almost shabby. The discovery struck him with something stronger than surprise. The idea of poverty seemed incongruous is connection with the reliance, the reserve, the personality of the man. With a certain ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Henry Battersleigh lived, during his city life, in a small, a very small room, up more than one night of stairs. This room, no larger than a tent, was military in its neatness. Battersleigh, bachelor and soldier, was in nowise forgetful of the truth that personal neatness and personal valour go well hand in hand. The bed, a very narrow one, had but meagre covering, and during the winter ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... and looked at me coldly through spectacles that hooked behind ears the natural prominence of which was enhanced by her grayish hair being drawn up tightly and rolled into a "bun" on the very top of the head. She was the personification of neatness, if such be the word to characterize the prim stiffness of a flat-figured, elderly spinster. She wore large, square-toed, common-sense shoes, with low heels capped with rubber cushions, which, as I was shortly to discover, had earned for the lady the sobriquet of "Old Gum Heels." What her real ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... some easy-chairs, but not too many of them. She has a table near one of the windows, with books and papers on it. She tells me that she sees herself that the place is kept just as she wishes it, for she has rather a passion for neatness, and you never can trust servants not to stand the books on their heads or study a vulgar symmetry in the arrangements. She never allows them in there, she says, except when they are at work under her eye; and ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... them all in all," added Mrs. Lemmington with warmth, "you will find nothing common about them. Look at their dress; see how perfect in neatness, in adaptation of colors and arrangement to complexion and shape, is every thing about them. Perhaps there will not be found a single young lady in the room, besides them, whose dress does not show something not in keeping with good taste. Take their manners. Are they ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... Not only is this composer a woman, she is a French woman and, like a French woman, essentially clever and chic. She may be a trifle more superficial than the composers I have mentioned, but her music is clean-cut, clear as a crystal, and, like everything about a refined woman, the quintessence of neatness. It is quite as if Mme. Chaminade's maid laid out her musical thoughts as well as her dresses, being sure to have every frill and furbelow in its place, whether it be the robe d' interieur which she ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... 'The Double Dealer,' was at first moderate, although that highly respectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured it with her august presence, which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory style, though with less point and neatness than those ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... qualities generally welcome in a nurse are neatness, thoughtfulness, a sympathetic nature, an even disposition, and a cheerful view of life. Since a short interview is insufficient for taking the measure of a nurse, patients usually rely upon the opinion of someone else in selecting her. The judgment of her ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... lasted more than a week or ten days. His editors know him as a brilliant genius, irresponsible, unreliable, but at times inestimably valuable. He cares little for personal appearance beyond a certain degree of neatness. He is quick on the trigger, and in a time of over-heated argument can go some distance with his fists; in fact, his whole career is best ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... "The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the brethren of the order, are well fitted to strike the man of the world with the conviction that 'there is another and a better' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the words were spelt with letters. Each letter was of the easy sloping form, which came from its being made with a reed or pen, instead of the stiff form of the hieroglyphics, which were mostly cut in stone. But there is a want of neatness, which has thrown a difficulty over them, and has made these writings less easy to read ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... hands with the Warreners, who looked with surprise on the neatness which prevailed in this crowded little room. On the ground, by the walls, were several rolls of bedding covered over with shawls, and forming seats or lounges. On the top of one of the piles two little children were fast asleep. A girl of six sat in a corner ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... much strength the pods can possibly bear. In this instance, as in others where the same carelessness is employed, the plants get severely disturbed, and a consequent short crop is put down to the score of bad seed. Neatness, order, and care are principles of great moment ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... for colour, which I suspect exists very strongly, but is certainly at present under a thick veil of paint, owing, I fancy, to too much continental study. One undoubted excellence it has—facility, without much neatness or ultra-cleverness in the execution, which is greatly like that of Paul Veronese; and the colour may mature in future works to the same resemblance, I fancy. There is much feeling for beauty, too, in the women. As for purely intellectual qualities, expression, intention, etc., there ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... his books, barometer, thermometer, portmanteau, and two or three camp-stools, formed the bulk of his moveables. His diet being plain, the paraphernalia of the table were proportionably simple, though every thing had the appearance of comfort, and even of neatness, the walls being covered with green cloth formed into panels with red tape, and his bed festooned with curtains of yellow cotton-stuff. If, in speculating upon the absolute wants of man in such a state of seclusion, one ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... air of pathos and aloofness from things. His mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry James's earlier novels of about the time of the Portrait of a Lady. And I like him. I knew that at once. He's effete and old-worldish and probably ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... sunset of the second day from Gleason's we reached our home. Every thing was radiant with neatness and good order. With the efficient aid of our good Manaigre and his wife, the house had been whitewashed from the roof to the door-sill, a thorough scrubbing and cleansing effected, the carpets unpacked and spread upon the floors, the furniture arranged, and, though ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... The board at which the master of the house presided in person, and at which he entertained his most distinguished guests, was said to be more luxurious than that of any prince of the House of Bourbon. For there the most exquisite cookery of France was set off by a certain neatness and comfort which then, as now, peculiarly belonged to England. During the banquet the room was filled with people of fashion, who went to see the grandees eat and drink. The expense of all this splendour and hospitality was enormous, and was exaggerated by report. The cost to the English ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lead and hurried to the anchor. I swung her round head to wind, Tommy let down the mainsail, and the next moment we brought up with a grace and neatness that would almost have satisfied ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... where the great light of the Godhead would shine around them all. She grew to hate her life, the dull barrier of the flesh that stood between her and her ends. Still she ate and drank enough to support it, still dressed with the same perfect neatness as before, still lived, in short, as though Arthur had not died, and the light and colour had not gone out ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... each ornament and site, So well was neatness mingled with neglect, As though boon Nature for her own delight Her mocker mock'd, till fancy's self was check'd; The air, if nothing else there, is th' effect Of magic, to the sound of whose soft flute The blooms are born with which the trees are deck'd; By flowers eternal ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... know how to make a coarse kind of matting, and a coarse cloth of the bark of a tree, which is used chiefly for belts. The workmanship of their canoes, I have before observed, is very rude; and their arms, with which they take the most pains in point of neatness, come far short of some others we have seen. Their weapons are clubs, spears or darts, bows and arrows, and stones. The clubs are of three or four kinds, and from three to five feet long. They seem to place most dependence on the darts, which are pointed with three bearded ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... and I sent for a man to put the vicinity of the well in order and give it the air of neatness which characterizes ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... oceanic surface, which it presented so short a time since, when to make it was a service not to be thought of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when the patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome neatness, and decencies which his shaken frame deprecated; then to be lifted into it again, for another three or four days' respite, to flounder it out of shape again, while every fresh furrow was a historical record of some shifting ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... about noon when Captain Waverley entered the straggling village, or rather hamlet, of Tully-Veolan, close to which was situated the mansion of the proprietor. The houses seemed miserable in the extreme, especially to an eye accustomed to the smiling neatness of English cottages. They stood, without any respect for regularity, on each side of & straggling kind of unpaved street, where children, almost in a primitive state of nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by the hoofs of the first passing horse. Occasionally, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the deep rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous brown eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she smiled, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ask Mr Kilbourne in to supper to-night!" she commanded her brother. She lived with him in another little bow-windowed house, with a purple clematis over the bow-window, a crimson rambler over the door, and about it the same air of sweetness, of neatness, of wholesomeness its mistress wore. "He is looking ill and wretched. Try to ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... one see such a scene?" mused Mrs. Pitt. "Not in Italy surely, for there the 'picturesque dirt,' as they call it, is so much in evidence. For my part, I prefer the exquisite neatness ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... stone corridors that opened through Gothic windows on a courtyard, in which statues of German super- people stared with blind eyes, there was nothing now but bald military neatness and economy. Hurrying up an uncarpeted stone stairway (Grim seemed to be a speed-demon once his mind was set) we followed a corridor around two sides of the square, past dozens of closed doors bearing department names, to the Administrator's ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... that we now have, they are among the noblest in the world. For aggregate comfort, convenience, safety, speed, and cheapness, they are not equalled by the most famous British lines. More luxurious tables, more neatness, cleanliness, and roominess, more general comforts than have always been characteristic of our Havre, Liverpool, and California lines, can not be found in the world. The only objection to them is, ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... square near the wharf was the scene of an early market, and afforded my first glimpse of the neatness and good taste that characterize nearly everything in France. Twenty or thirty peasant women, coarse and masculine, but very tidy, with their snow-white caps and short petticoats, and perhaps half as many men, were chattering ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... who had taken Mr. Clive's case in hand, now produced her shining knife, and executed the first cut with perfect neatness and precision. "We are come here, as I suppose you know, Mr. Newcome, upon family matters, and I frankly tell you that I think, for your own sake, you would be much better away. I wrote my daughter a great scolding when I heard that you were ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hates dirt and loves neatness, and does not like to hear her girls called tom-boys, may and does find it hard to cultivate this free out-door life for her girls even when easy means make the matter less difficult than it is for the caged dweller in cities ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... the side porch and looked about her with a glance of pleasure in the neatness and charm of the little place. House and fence had been painted and mended, put in tidy order. A new gate and a cement sidewalk in front running down to the corner of the street spoke for the industry of Harvey Spencer who ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... next morning, we first ate our supper, and then strolled out. The graveyard, removed, as is usually the case in this country, some little way out of town, attracted our attention, and was admired for the extreme neatness with which it was planted and otherwise kept. From the top of an eminence behind the inn, likewise, we obtained a view of the surrounding country, which we should have pronounced fine, had we not previously looked down upon it from ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... washed out, and then came quarters, and drilling with muskets or broad-swords. After this, if there was nothing else to be done, the outside of the vessel was scrubbed, or the chimneys repainted. In short, the Michigan was the pattern of neatness, and her crew, being constantly drilled, knew exactly what was required of them, and were ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... there. A man owes it to himself and his business to appear well pressed. It's a slogan of mine. Clothes may not make the man, but neatness often goes a long way toward making the opportunity. Don't you worry about me becoming baggy, Lilly. I'm going to send one of those folding ironing boards up ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot admit any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all means,—they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness! Al-Kyris was truly a Vision,—the rest was,—What? Merely the working of a poetic imagination under ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... about one half what healthy and honest slaves would cost him; but he sells them as both honest and healthy, mark you! So soon as he has completed his 'gang' he dresses them up in good clothes, makes them comb their kinky heads into some appearance of neatness, rubs oil on their dusky faces to give them a sleek healthy color, gives them a dram occasionally to make them sprightly, and teaches each one the part he or she has to play; and then he sets out for the extreme South.... At every village of importance he sojourns for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... and the diving platform were gay with flags; the tents had been tidied up to wax-like neatness and decorated with wild flowers until they looked like so many royal bowers; in Mateka an exhibition of Craft Work was laid out on the long tables—pottery and silver work and weaving and decorating. Hinpoha's ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... his face aside and spitting with the greatest neatness and pulchritude towards his shoe, "I am not the kind of man either for La Gorja or other similar earthly matters, or because a steel tongue is sheathed in my body, or my weasand slit, or for any other such trifle, to be provoked or vexed with such ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... little man with a heavy sandy beard and such bushy eyebrows and hair that he reminded Edith of a Scotch terrier. But her first glance around convinced her that he was a gardener. Neatness, order, thrift, impressed her the moment she opened his gate, and she perceived that he was already quite advanced in his spring work. Smooth seed-sown beds were emerging from winter's chaos. Crocuses and hyacinths were in bloom, tulips were budding, and on a sunny slope in the distance she ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... cases no doubt there was ground for the feeling. The girls and lads, eager to introduce the new lessons of order and neatness which they had learned, may have gone too fast and acted with too much zeal, although their teacher had specially warned them against so doing. Hence the feeling of hostility to the movement was strong among a small section of Stokebridge, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... white, as is usual in the smaller American towns; though a better taste was growing in the place, and many of the dwellings had the graver and chaster hues of the grey stones of which they were built. A general air of neatness and comfort pervaded the place, it being as unlike a continental European town, south of the Rhine, in this respect, as possible, if indeed we except the picturesque bourgs of Switzerland. In England, Templeton would ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... boy was sitting at his little desk with a series of white cards bearing the figures from one to twenty-five. It was very early—not ten o'clock—but the Child was as spruce and neat as he had been in the afternoon of the day before. He bore already that mark of energy combined with neatness which ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... street, it is true, is wide and the houses large, but they have a dirty gloomy forlorn aspect, which gives them an uninhabited appearance, or as if the inmates did not belong to them; as no care appears to have been taken to give them some degree of neatness and comfort; in fact, to bestow upon them an air of home; the stranger continues rattling over the stones between these great lumbering-looking dwellings, until his eye is attracted by the Porte St. Denis, which is a triumphal arch ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... avowedly a sick room; and Miss Ophelia day and night performed the duties of a nurse,—and never did her friends appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well-trained a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in every art which could promote neatness and comfort, and keep out of sight every disagreeable incident of sickness,—with such a perfect sense of time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact accuracy in remembering every prescription and direction of the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the Italian cities of the Middle Ages. There is, indeed, great similarity in the style of buildings, and, with the exception of Maestricht, in the south of the country, which is mediaeval and Flemish, one always feels that one is in Holland. The neatness of the houses, the straight trees fringing the roads, the canals and their smell, the steam-trams, the sound of the conductor's horn and the bells of the horse-trams, the type of policeman, and above and beyond all the universal cigar—all these things are of a pattern, and that pattern is seen ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... apparent contentment and even with certain advantages. Their experience as soldiers, so far from unfitting them for the duties and callings of Peace, seem rather to have proved an admirable school, and to have given them habits of promptness and punctuality, order and neatness, which added largely to their efficiency in whatever field they were called to labor. After the Continental Army was dissolved, its members were found to be models of industry and intelligence in all the walks of life. The successful mechanics, the thrifty tradesmen, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... these four personages revealed a neatness due to the most scrupulous personal care. The same hand, and it was that of Manon, could be seen in every detail. Their coats were perhaps ten years old, but they were preserved, like the coats of vicars, by the occult power of the servant-woman, ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Miss Pritty—and a pretty sight she is when we turn to her! In her normal condition Miss Pritty is the pink of propriety and neatness. At the present moment she lies with her mouth open, and her eyes shut, hair dishevelled, garments disordered, slippers off, and stockings not properly on. Need we say that the sea is at the bottom of it? One of ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... metals, which he adapted, on his return to Mainz, to the art of printing. These new means enabled him to cast movable leaden types in a copper matrix, with greater precision than before, and thus to give great neatness to the letters. It was by this new process that the Psalter, the first book bearing a date, was printed in 1457. Soon afterward the Mainz Bible, recognized as a masterpiece of art, was produced under the direction of Gutenberg, from types founded by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... written and prayed, slept soundly for some hours. On her waking, Bault's daughter dressed her and adjusted her hair with more neatness than on other days. Marie Antoinette wore a white gown, a white handkerchief covered her shoulders, a white cap her hair; a black ribbon bound this cap round her temples .... The cries, the looks, the laughter, the jests of the people overwhelmed her with humiliation; her colour, changing continually ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Scotch Gipsies—Yetholm (Kirk), a small village nestling at the foot of the Cheviots in Roxburghshire. Here I saw the abode of the Queen, a neat little cottage, with well-trimmed garden in front. Inside all was a perfect pattern of neatness, and the old lady herself was as clean 'as a new pin.' As I passed the cottage a carriage and pair drove up, and the occupants, four ladies, alighted and entered the cottage. I was afterwards told that they were much pleased with their visit, and that, in remembrance ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... well-kept. A "second-best" gown, though neat enough for informal calls, may not be elegant enough for a tea or for formal visiting. But if a lady's means are limited, and her well-preserved old gown is the best that she can command, perfect neatness and a delicate disposal of lingerie will disguise the ravages of time, and make the "auld cla'es look ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... finish of the thing. There was, of course, a trial, at which Hicks and Bevans were convicted out of hand and duly sentenced to be hung—a sentence that was carried out with neatness and despatch in the near future. Also, I did manage, in the fullness of time, to deliver La Pere's ten thousand dollars ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... table, seemed, from the end of the garden, like a smiling image of repose, comfort, and happiness. In every direction where the rays of light fell, whether upon a piece of old china, or upon an article of furniture shining from excessive neatness, or upon the weapons hanging against the wall, the soft light was softly reflected; and its rays seemed to linger everywhere upon something or another, agreeable to the eye. The lamp which lighted the room, whilst the foliage of jasmine and climbing ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather-beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain's calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer—a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent—looked no more like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... element, the right time must be chosen for each lesson, an exact arrangement observed, and the suitable apparatus, which is necessary, procured. It is in the arrangement that especially consists the educational power of the lesson. The spirit of scrupulousness, of accuracy, of neatness, is developed by the external technique, which is carefully arranged in its subordinate parts according to its content. The teacher must therefore insist upon it that work shall cease at the exact time, that the work ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... infinitely higher than in England, and the appreciation more correct. As draughtsmen, the French and German painters are incomparably superior to our own; and with art, as with any other commodity, the demand will be found pretty equal to the supply: with us, the general demand is for neatness, prettiness, and what is called EFFECT in pictures, and these can be rendered completely, nay, improved, by the engraver's conventional manner of copying the artist's performances. But to copy fine expression and fine drawing, the engraver himself must be a fine artist; and let anybody examine ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she had left her own room, Miss Haye was informed that a black girl wished to speak with her. Being accordingly ordered up, said black girl presented herself. A comely wench, dressed in the last point of neatness, though not by any means so as to set off her good accidents of nature. Nevertheless they could not be quite hid; no more than a certain air of abundant capacity, for both her own business and other people's. She came ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... in a robe of soft brown stuff, shaped with a degree of taste and style beyond the garb of her class. Neatness in dress was the one virtue she had inherited from her mother. Her feet were small and well-shod, like a lady's, as the envious neighbors used to say. She never in her life would wear the sabots of the peasant women, nor go barefoot, as many of them did, about the house. La ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... appearance in line or on guard, highly improved. Only think of how you would dress yourself if you were going out deer-stalking, and you will come to something of this kind—barring the pockets of your shooting-coat, which are certainly inadmissible, from motives of military neatness and discipline; and barring, too, the buttoning up to the chin, which, on the mountain's side, you had perhaps rather dispense with; but which the soldier must adhere to, if he would keep up the essential degree ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... literature. My first attempt in fiction, and in round-hand, on carefully pencilled double lines, was a story of two sisters, a good sister and a wicked, and I fear adhered more faithfully to the lines of the archetypal story than the writer's pen kept to the double fence which should have ensured neatness. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... the sailing-master, "it has the neatness of his kitchen or his storehouses; but if his cables were coiled on his yard-arms or his anchor hung up to dry upon the main shrouds, he would not know that anything was wrong. It was Big Sam Loftus who fitted out the Revenge, and I myself have kept everything in good order and ship-shape ever since ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear and bright. She ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... was a pattern housekeeper, a model of neatness. Everything in her house shone, from the parlour windows to the kitchen stove. Her cake was always light, her bread sweet. No table could compare with hers for delicious variety. Her housekeeping was a fine art, before which everything else was made to bow. ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... The poorer a family, the greater struggle it is to keep up the appearance of cleanliness, and no surer sign of rapid progress on a downhill road can be found than neglect of those practices which tend toward personal neatness. As the life of the farmer, then, becomes easier, as his condition becomes more prosperous, and as his family make more requirements, so, inevitably, is there in the farmhouse a greater demand for water in the kitchen, in the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... a whip or two, and several pairs of spurs, and in the other were to be found the dishes from which the inmates had eaten breakfast, all neatly washed and put away. Tom was surprised at the air of neatness that ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... as Stuart has painted him in full-length portrait—in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee-buckles and square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned with most scrupulous neatness; black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and waist, a light dress sword, his hair profusely powdered, fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag ornamented with a large rose or black ribbon. He held his cocked ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... was not impudent either, he had a footman's feeling towards those whom he fancied no better than himself. He had set the table with his customary neatness and method, and he served the soup with as much regularity as he would have done had we sat there in our proper characters, but then he withdrew. He probably remembered that the landlord, or upper servant ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... city. He wore a sailor's jacket, (possibly, because skirts would have been a superfluity to his figure,) and had a remarkably broad-shouldered and muscular frame, surmounted by a large, fresh-colored face, which was full of power and intelligence. His dress and linen were the perfection of neatness. Once a day, at least, wherever I went, I suddenly became aware of this trunk of a man on the path before me, resting on his base, and looking as if he had just sprouted out of the pavement, and would sink ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... had begun life as a working potter; nevertheless John Stanway spoke easily and correctly in a refined variety of the broad Five Towns accent; he could open a door for a lady, and was noted for his neatness in compliment. ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... be known as a "reserved, isolated, dreamy man, of high-strung nerves, proud spirit, and fantastic moods," with a haunting sense of impending evil. His home was poor and simple, but impressed every visitor by its neatness and quiet refinement; Virginia, accomplished in music and languages, was as devoted to her husband as he was to her. Both were fond of flowers and plants, and of household pets. Mrs. Clemm gave herself completely to her "children" and was the ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... ready to fit on the haft. There was a bundle of hafts in a corner of the workshop. One of these, a tough thick one without knot or flaw, and about five feet long, he fitted to the iron head with great neatness and skill. The polishing of this formidable weapon he deferred to a period of greater leisure. Having completed this piece of work, Erling next turned to another corner of the forge and took up the huge two-handed sword which he had made ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... richest of carpets and furniture; even a grand piano adorned her parlor. But with all its costly appointments, the house was a wilderness of disorder. Like other of her race, she despised anything akin to neatness. Her dresses were gaudy in color and extravagant in style. Pearl necklaces, diamond brooches and rings were worn on all occasions. She owned fine carriages and many spirited horses. As a horsewoman, she was an expert and as a ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... not remember a newspaper acquaintance whose penmanship is so characteristic of the exacting neatness and sharp, clear cut style of the man, as is that of Eugene Field, of the Chicago News. As the "Nonpareil Writer" of the Denver Tribune, it was a mystery to me when he did the work which the paper ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... door. In response to my invitation to enter a short, dark, Jewish-looking person, with olive complexion, shiny black hair and black mustache, presented himself. He carried a very immaculate silk hat and was dressed with great neatness. He had the air, however, of a man who is ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those Gentlemen Radicals who had voted a monument to Palmer, etc., it was proposed to erect statues to such murderers as should by their next-of-kin, or other person interested in their glory, make out a claim either of superior atrocity, or, in equal atrocity, of superior neatness, continuity of execution, perfect preparation or felicitous originality, smoothness or curiosa felicitas (elaborate felicity). The men who murdered the cat, as we read in the Newgate Calendar, were good, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... convince him of his cleverness. I had no more than a second's peep at the flap, but that was quite enough to show me that it had been tampered with. I had finished off my work that morning with an even neatness. The bold Captain Barlow had left two ends of thread sticking out from the place where he had ended his stitch. Besides, my thread had been soaped, to make it work more easily. The thread in the flap now was plainly not soaped; it was fibrous ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... were equally stagnant; and, except the continual skirmishing with the Prussian foragers, undertook nothing. "Shamefully ill-clone our foraging, too," exclaims Schmettau again and again: "Had we done it with neatness, with regularity, the Country would have lasted us twice as long. Doing it headlong, wastefully and by the rule-of-thumb, the Country was a desert, all its inhabitants fled, all its edibles consumed, before six weeks were over. Friedrich is not now himself ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... like Ch. Ba. Shepherd very much—- as much, I think, as any man I have learned to know of late years. There is a neatness and precision, a closeness and truth, in the tone of his conversation, which shows what a lawyer he must have been. Perfect good-humour and suavity of manner, with a little warmth of temper on suitable occasions. His great deafness alone prevented him from being Lord Chief-Justice. I never ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... not merely manual dexterity, but also an exercise of the judgment, which in the child has not yet become sufficiently developed. But when the girl has lived fourteen years, we will say, and has been trained in other ways into habits of neatness and order, she has also acquired judgment enough for the purpose, and needs only a few words of direction. The sewing of bands to gathers, the covering of cord, the cording of neck or belt, the arrangement of two edges for ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... little kitchen leaning her elbows on the table. She was a tall, thin, sallow girl, aged twenty-three, by nature slatternly and careless but trained by Anna into superficial neatness. Her drab striped cotton dress and gray black checked apron increased the length and sadness of her melancholy figure. "Oh, Lord!" groaned Miss Mathilda to ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... impossible to secure the binding of every single sheaf. Here and there, even with the best binders, an occasional miss will occur, in which the corn is thrown out unbound. However, with Messrs Samuelson's machine this was extremely rare, and the neatness of the sheaves produced was remarkable. No doubt the shortness of the crop in the portion allotted to this machine may have had something to do with this, as a longer straw is more likely than a shorter one to connect two sheaves and produce that hanging ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... though they might now and then be annoyed by petty tyranny, she still inspired them with sincere respect, and not a little affection. They were, moreover, grateful to her for many habits she had enforced upon them, and which in time had become second nature: order, method, neatness in everything; a perfect knowledge of all kinds of household work; an exact punctuality, and obedience to the laws of time and place, of which no one but themselves, I have heard Charlotte say, could tell the value in after-life; with their impulsive natures, it was positive repose to have learnt ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... law, but history and the humanities were of greater interest to him. Even in the child two traits were observed that later characterized the man and the poet: he had a most scrupulous regard for neatness and cleanliness, and he lived and experienced more deeply in memory than in the immediate present. Meyer found himself only late in life; for many years also, being practically bilingual, he wavered between French and German. The Franco-German ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
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