"Daintiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because she felt that even his pride would yield to the potent fascination of this woman. As Sylvia looked, her feminine eye took in every gift of face and figure, every grace of attitude or gesture, every daintiness of costume, and found no visible flaw in Ottila, from her haughty head to her handsome foot. Yet when her scrutiny ended, the girl felt a sense of disappointment, and no ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... she rose from her knees to her full height, and he saw that she was slenderly tall and fashioned of gracious curves. The darkness of her clear skin was emphasized by the mass of blue-black hair from which little ears peeped with exquisite daintiness. The mouth was sweet and candid, red-lipped, with perfect teeth just showing in the full arch. The straight nose, with its sensitive ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... country-side, no one better; when they did not go barefoot, they wore stout "rig and furrow" woollen hose of an invisible blue mostly, when they were not black outright; and Dandie, at sight of this daintiness, put two and two together. It was a silk handkerchief, then they would be silken hose; they matched - then the whole outfit was a present of Clem's, a costly present, and not something to be worn through bog and briar, or on a ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ribbons breathe The perfume of her touch; her gloves, Modeling the daintiness they sheathe; Her fan, a Watteau, gay with loves, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... pictures hung on the walls, a graceful bronze Mercury stood on a pedestal between the curtains of one of the windows, growing plants were scattered about, and everywhere were books and flowers. It was all very sweet and lovely: it matched well with Mrs. Erveng, who looked daintiness itself lying back on her silken cushions, and I ought to have enjoyed it; but in some way or other it made me feel uncomfortably big and clumsy and overgrown, and I couldn't get over the feeling. Nora, however, didn't seem to be troubled in this way; I couldn't ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... choir; but it would quite extinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of any man who would eat much and often of it. And although that of old amongst the Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and tarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were presented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the wine relish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to the stomach. For it engendereth bad and unwholesome ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... table that Sheila had set with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken with ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... airs, more joy-giving Than morning's, but as cool as midnight's breath; And night and day lutes sighed, and night and day Delicious foods were spread, and dewy fruits, Sherbets new chilled with snows of Himalay, And sweetmeats made of subtle daintiness, With sweet tree-milk in its own ivory cup. And night and day served there a chosen band Of nautch girls, cup-bearers, and cymballers, Delicate, dark-browed ministers of love, Who fanned the sleeping eyes of the happy Prince, And when he waked, led back his thoughts to bliss With music whispering ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... o' news o' them little children an' the wreck an' the two killed an' all them that was hurt—there was the Sodality settlin' whether the lamb's wool comforter for the bazaar should be tied with pink for daintiness or brown ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... paper, which seemed so emblematic of her; for he had often reflected that her things—even such minute insignia as this—belonged to her. She impressed them not only with her taste, but with her character. The entwined letters, Y. F., of the design were not, he thought, of a meaningless, frivolous daintiness, but stood for something. Then he read the note again. It was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... be easy to quote passages from these volumes illustrative of his acute observation, his largeness of sympathy, his delicacy and daintiness of touch, his sweetness, humor, pathos, and fancy. As a specimen of the playful and beautiful ingenuity of his mind, we extract a portion of his little poem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... or literary man with fine, silken hair, fine, delicate skin, small and finely chiselled features, and a general daintiness of build will express refinement, beauty, tender sentiments, and sensitiveness in his work, while the man with coarse, bushy or wavy hair, coarse, thick skin, large, rugged features, and a general ruggedness and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... our animals safe and sound. What we had to see to in the first place was to let them have as much and as good food as circumstances permitted. As already mentioned, we had provided ourselves with dried fish for their consumption. Eskimo dogs do not suffer very greatly from daintiness, but an exclusive diet of dried fish would seem rather monotonous in the long-run, even to their appetites, and a certain addition of fatty substances was necessary, otherwise we should have some trouble with them. We had on board several great barrels of tallow or fat, but our store was not ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... people called it. Claude had known it well in the "early days." It gave her a certain very modern charm in the eyes of some men. And it suggested a woman who lived in and for the world, who had nothing to do with any work. There was daintiness in it, and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... crown of her head to the coquettish little slippers that set off her dainty feet. And he saw the white gleam of soft shoulders and tender arms where once had been rags and bruises, and held there by the slim beauty and exquisite daintiness of her he stared like a fool, until suddenly she laughed joyously at his amaze, and ran to him with wide-open arms, and kissed him so soundly that Peter cocked up his ears a bit startled. And then she kissed Father John, and after that was mistress at the table, radiant in her triumph ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disorder'd string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... watched her unseen, her lithe figure that seemed always atilt even when wrapped in furs, and her starry eyes gleaming out of her fur hood. Not even Rose could compare with her in that curious daintiness, though Pierre would have been at loss to describe it, since his vocabulary was limited, but he felt it in every slow beating pulse. He had resolved to speak, but she never gave him the opportunity. She flashed by him as if ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the time came to take the two ladies to the Amusement Club. Noreen had very dubiously donned her smartest frock which, having just been taken out of a trunk after a long journey, seemed very crushed, creased, and dowdy compared with the freshness and daintiness of Ida's toilette. Men as a rule understand nothing of the agonies endured by a woman who must face the unfriendly stares of other women in a gown that she feels will invite ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... their art—become an artist, matured, solid, unapproachable. If, therefore, this be what you want, surely the Conservatoire system is the shortest cut to it. It is likely, however, that you, being English, want nothing of the kind. Kickshaws and daintiness are your aversion. The histrionic Roast Beef of Old England is your craving. You do not ask an actor to merge or transform himself into the character he assumes, but simply to employ the author as a medium for the display of his own more or ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... as the day came on, and looked things in the face so long, that her own face got little attention. However, Phoebeand the force of habitsent her down in the usual daintiness, at the usual time, to receive Mr. Falkirk, who after all did not come. But Dingee was on hand, and so Hazel made believe over her breakfast, quite successfully, and carried on her mental fight of questions the while with no success ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... the patient to the doctor or nurse. Hence it is most important that a person acting as nurse should be trained in food values and proper methods of cooking. She should also be capable of exercising daintiness and artistic skill in serving, so that the appearance of the food may tempt the patient to ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... gave him consolation those long nights, but they also gave him doubt. Remembering the daintiness of her as she had come to him, the night of her party, recalling the things to which she had been accustomed since she had opened her eyes on the first light of day, he began to ask himself as every man like him has ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the road to hell, ever to find such a ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... here—what in the world shall I put on?" was her first anxiety. She opened the door of her closet, to find all her last summer's frocks newly "done up" and hanging there in inviting daintiness. She caught at the lilac muslin, now faded by many washings into a mere tint, but looking so like home and good times that it seemed the fitting thing to don, in the absence of her heavier dresses, even upon an ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... the edge of a sword shining bright and a forehead brilliant white and eyebrows which unite and eyes stained by Nature's hand black as night. If she speak, fresh young pearls are scattered from her mouth forthright and all hearts are ravished by the daintiness of her sprite; when she smileth thou wouldst ween the moon shone out her lips between and when she eyes thee, sword blades flash from the babes of her eyes. In her all beauties to conclusion come, and she is the centre of attraction to traveller and stay-at-home. She hath two lips ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... for the second time, and had more reason than ever for believing that, with all his daintiness and fastidiousness, he is altogether a man, hearty and generous, and his books, with all their shifting shadows, but a transcript of himself and of his unacknowledged visions and meditations. His pleasantry, too, is delightful; and, as you cannot question his truthfulness, he gains upon you continually, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... long summer evenings very often I would be taking one of the men with me and a net, and taking the boat from the beach we would go out with the splash-net, for I would be fond of the sport as well as of the daintiness of the eating in salmon trout. In the dusk we would be leaving, and whiles not coming in till it was two or three ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... pulled and twisted the crinkled paper into the most becoming of peasant caps, the large bead ear-rings, tied on with silk, jangled on to her neck, her paper sleeves stood out like lawn, the lace-edged apron was a triumph of daintiness, she wore Patricia's scarlet-kid dancing-slippers ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... cloth gown, ill-fitting and of coarse material; but no costume could destroy the fairy-like perfection of her form or the daintiness of her exquisite features. With downcast eyes and a troubled expression she stood modestly before them until Patsy caught her rapturously in her arms and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... tiny thing, with a round, small head, covered with soft, small curls; and this head is very full of thoughts. Her face, which she rarely shows to a stranger, is like a doll in its delicate daintiness; but the mouth is very resolute, and the eyes very grave. Her hands and feet are sea-shell things of a pretty pinky brown, and her ways are the ways of a sea-anemone in a pool ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... occurred not many months ago, have made noteworthy contributions to American letters—Edmund Clarence Stedman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Of the two, Aldrich was by far the better craftsman, his verse possessing a wit, a daintiness and perfection of finish which sets it apart in a class almost by itself. In prose, too, Aldrich wrote attractively, but always rather with the air of a dilettante, and without the depth and passion of genius. Stedman also possessed wit and polish, though in less degree, and the verse of both ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... late years to numerous cheap reprints, but one and all fall very short of the Nelson Library in daintiness, in ease to handle, in pleasantness ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... tryphes, habrotetos, khlides, khariton, himerou, pothou pater. Translation: "Of daintiness, delicacy, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... acidly. "And oh, by the way, we must oppose this movement of Mrs. Potbury's to have the state clubs come out definitely in favor of woman suffrage. Women haven't any place in politics. They would lose all their daintiness and charm if they became involved in these horried plots and log-rolling and all this awful political stuff about scandal and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to making little gentle thrusts against my arm with the fore paw that was sound. And so we went aft in great friendship and contentment and had a gay dinner together: the cat sitting on the table opposite to me with all possible decorum—but manifesting his daintiness by refusing to eat anything but tinned chicken, and only the white ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... pretty and comfortable in a niggly feminine way. Amateur interior decoration had always been a hobby of hers. Even in the unpromising surroundings of her bedroom at Mrs. Meecher's boarding-house she had contrived to create a certain daintiness which Sally, who had no ability in that direction herself, had always rather envied. As a decorator Elsa's mind ran in the direction of small, fragile ornaments, and she was not afraid of over-furnishing. Pictures jostled one another on the walls: china of all description stood ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... back-porch—railed, roofed and roomy; and there we sat, most of the time, and viewed the scenery and talked, for the weather was May weather, and the soft dream-pictures of hill and river and mountain and sky were clear and away beyond anything I have ever seen for exquisiteness and daintiness. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... none of the Puritanical primness which marked her habit of dress; it was in no way suggestive of the masculine character which she so proudly paraded upon the street. On the contrary, it was a bower of daintiness, and was crowded with all the senseless fripperies of a school-girl. Carefully hidden away beneath her starched shirtwaists was much lingerie—bewildering creations to match the pink wrapper—and this she petted and talked to adoringly ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... lunches Deficiency of food material in the ordinary school lunch Why the after dinner session of school drags wearily Simple lunches desirable Suggestions for putting up the lunch Creamy rice Neatness and daintiness essential The lunch basket Sabbath dinners A needed reform Feasting on the Sabbath, deleterious results of Simple meals for the Sabbath A Sabbath ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... all—not beautiful, or brilliant and witty. Lord Bidborough must see scores of lovely girls. Jean seemed to see them walking past her in a procession—girls who had maids to do their hair in the most approved fashion, constantly renewed girls whose clothes were a dream of daintiness all charming, all witty, all fitted to be wife to a man like Lord Bidborough. What was he doing now, Jean wondered. Perhaps dancing, or sitting out with someone. Jean could see him so clearly, listening, smiling, with lazy, amused eyes. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... been caught in more than one shower, and the black gloves had been many times painstakingly mended. The small feet alone showed that their owner had allowed herself one luxury, that of good shoes—and the daintiness of those feet made a strong ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... found much for delight, even despite the concealment imposed by her present condition. Thus, the stormy glory of her dark hair, great masses that ran a riot of shining ripples and waves. And the straight line of the nose, not too thin, yet fine enough for the rapture of a Praxiteles. And the pink daintiness of the ear-tips, which peered warmly from beneath the pall of tresses. One could know nothing accurately of the complexion now. But it were easy to guess that in happier places it would show of a purity to entice, with a gentle blooming of roses in the cheeks. Even in this hour ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... larger than the ponies ridden by the men, larger than any cow pony, yet not a big horse measured by any standard with which she was familiar. His lines were like those of a thoroughbred, and in his movements, for all his fury, there was a lightness, a daintiness, an eloquence that suggested nothing so much as the airy grace of a young girl skipping and dancing across ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... skilful fingers; always putting a few into her belt and into her hair. Gritli was the child of poor parents, but she was always neatly dressed, and, though her clothes were of the coarsest stuff, yet there was a peculiar look of daintiness about her, which, with the bit of color in flower or ribbon that was never wanting in her costume, gave the impression that she had just been dressed by an artist, as a model for a picture. Many criticised this daintiness and many laughed at it, but it made no difference to ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and refinement,—indeed, we can recall no poet who has written much better at the same age. In all Arthur's compositions we recognize an exquisite delicacy of feeling, without any of the daintiness of mind commonly found in intellectual youths. He seems to have acquired much of his father's command of reading, and to have inherited those rarer faculties of selection and generalization which give to learning its coherence and significance. In contrast to the precise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... excitement caused every fiber of her body to flash out a sort of electric glow. By the time the girl flung herself, quite exhausted, in the dust at his feet, Captain Winter was absolutely beside himself. Such a morsel of heavenly daintiness did not often drop in his path now that he was fasting in this purgatory of a village. His stay there had been one long Lent, during which joys and pleasures ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... on, seeing me not pleased by her manner, 'you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton; and happen you're right: but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her, now? She's as poor as you or I: poorer, I'll be bound: you're saying, and I'm doing my ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... moved by a sudden whim to a change of humour. She sprang from her dejection to the extreme of good spirits. Her singing proved it, for she chose a couple of light-hearted French ballads, and sang them with a dainty humour which matched the daintiness of the words and music. Her shrugs and pouts, the pretty arching of her eyebrows, the whimsical note of mockery in her voice, represented her to Drake under a new aspect, helped to complete her in his thoughts much as her voice, very sweet and clear for all its small compass, ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... breath, or the half of a breath, Graham saw the whole breathless situation, realized that the white wonderful creature was a woman, and sensed the smallness and daintiness of her despite her gladiatorial struggles. She reminded him of some Dresden china figure set absurdly small and light and strangely on the drowning back of a titanic beast. So dwarfed was she by the bulk of ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... museum. That Asiatic poikilia, that spirit of minute and curious loveliness, follows the bolder imaginative efforts of Greek art all through its history, and one can hardly be too careful in keeping up the sense of this daintiness of execution through the entire course of its development. It is not only that the minute object of art, the tiny vase-painting, intaglio, coin, or cameo, often reduces into the palm of the hand lines grander than those of [223] many a life-sized ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... picked up, and then I lead a merry life again. You fuss so at a fall or hurt, And, if you get a little dirt, You keep up such an odious creaking, That where you are there is no speaking; And then your lackey Emery's called, And he, poor thing, is pricked and mauled, Until your daintiness—O, shocking!— Is fit for what? to mend ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... him comically from above a quaint and nondescript garment, to which she had given a certain daintiness with a cleverly placed ribbon or two and an adroit use of pins. Privately, Hal considered that she looked delightfully pretty, with her provocative eyes and the deep gleam of red in her hair ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... silver—old Sheffield-plated candle-sticks, cream ewers and sugar bowls; George III. silver tea-services, and quaint-shaped wine strainers—they stood there in the window in profusion. In themselves, for the daintiness of their design, or the value of their antiquity, they did not interest her. She liked the look of them glittering there; they conveyed a sense of the embarrassment of riches which touched her ideas of romance. It was the tray of old-fashioned ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... its autumnal beauty. Though the trees were bare of leaves, the Oakdale gardens and lawns still flaunted a few late-blooming, rich-hued chrysanthemums. Perhaps it was because of the dark season of suspense through which she and Tom had passed that Grace declared herself for the cheerful daintiness of a pink and white wedding. In contradistinction to the weddings of her chums, who with the exception of Miriam Nesbit had each been accompanied to the altar by a bevy of bridesmaids, Grace announced ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... of course not," she interposed quickly, but with a tightening of the heart he recognised the bitterness of her tone. For all her soft daintiness, there was something of ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... parlour, there came the bestowing of presents which Clarissa had brought for her friends. And they were so many and so satisfactory, that the criticisms of the past night were certainly for the present forgotten; Letitia forgave her cousin her daintiness, and Maria overlooked the gold watch. Matilda as usual said little, beyond the civil, needful words, which that little girl always ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... of a Spanish cavalier, whose youthful features bore that fascinating pallor which ladies generally attribute to an unfortunate—and men, on the contrary, to a very fortunate—love affair. His gait, although naturally carefree, had in it, however, a somewhat affected daintiness. The feathers in his cap were agitated more by the aristocratic motion of his head than by the wind; and his golden spurs, and the jeweled hilt of his sword, which he bore on his arm, rattled rather more than ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... becomes. Evidently the seed must be carried above and must fall below that limit, under circumstances which, to our apprehension, seem just as favourable as those at the altitude of thirty feet. But they do not germinate. Upon the other hand, Odontoglossums show no such daintiness of growth in our houses. They flourish at any height, if the general conditions be suitable. Mr. Roezl discovered a secret nevertheless, and in good ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... after-cabin and inspected—that was all. Now Ugly's supper consisted of two things he could never be induced to eat—ham and cold potatoes; and Harry, from mischief—he knew, however, that the dog had had a hearty dinner—prepared those things purposely, supposing that Ugly's daintiness would fail in a twelve hours fast. But no; ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... a very lovely painting of Mrs. Peter at about the time of her marriage; a sweet, young girl with light curls, and the embodiment of daintiness. Suspended about her neck is, I think, the miniature which General Washington had painted for her as a wedding gift. When he asked her what she wanted she replied "a replica of himself." He was much pleased that a young girl would want a portrait of an old man! The photograph reproduced ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the plot. The scene is laid in a magnificent Austrian castle in North Italy, and that serves as a background for the working out of a sparkling love-story between a heroine who is brilliant and beautiful and a hero who is quite her match in cleverness and wit. It is a book with all the daintiness and polish of Mr. Harland's former novels, and other virtues all ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... things are they from which I must abstain? Hearken, said he; from adultery, from drunkenness, from riots, from excess of eating, from daintiness and dishonesty, from pride, from fraud, from lying, from detraction, from hypocrisy, from remembrance of injuries, ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... course, would be to set him at work; but from this undertaking Mary unconsciously recoiled. She had already recognized that while her tastes and her husband's were mostly alike, they were also strikingly different in many respects. They agreed in the daintiness of things, the elegance of detail; but they did not agree always as to the things themselves. Given the picture, they would choose the same frame—but they would not choose the same picture. They liked the same voice, but not the same song; the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... if by chance he should be brought into contact with any of them they would regard him as a sort of wild animal, to be humoured or avoided purely as a matter of self-interest. The very brightness and brilliancy of their toilettes, the rustling of their dresses, the trim elegance and daintiness which he was able to appreciate without being able to understand, only served to deepen his consciousness of the gulf which lay between him and them. They were of a world to which, even if he were permitted to enter it, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Strabo and Athenaeus; five others in the Anthology are ascribed to him on more or less doubtful authority. He brought to the epigram the utmost finish of which it is capable. Many of his epigrams are spoiled by over-elaboration and affected daintiness of style; but when he writes simply his execution is incomparable. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 21, speaks of "the sweet myrtle-berry of Callimachus, ever full of acid honey"; and there is in all his work a pungent flavour which is sometimes ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... Her foot, Cinderella's for daintiness, ceased its motion; she turned at once. Around her lips a strange little smile flitted but faded almost immediately. Save for her straightness and that proud characteristic poise of the head, she might ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... vexation cease when all hands had recovered from sea-sickness, and become accustomed to the ship, for now broke out an alarming keenness of appetite that threatened havoc to the provisions. What especially irritated the captain was the daintiness of some of his cabin passengers. They were loud in their complaints of the ship's fare, though their table was served with fresh pork, hams, tongues, smoked beef, and puddings. "When thwarted in their cravings for delicacies," Said he, "they would exclaim it was d-d hard ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... was born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. I unpacked my master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. In a twinkling everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as if it were growing ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... colors, silken walls, an oriental magnificence. In here is the ballroom. But wait: what is this in the corner? A large triumphal statue—of a cat overcoming a dog. And look at this dining-room, its exquisite appointments, its—daintiness: faucets for hot and cold milk in the pantry, and a gold bowl ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... and their costumes showed them to be of station. The crinoline of the two filled all the body of the ample coach from seat to seat, and the folds of their figured muslins, flowing out over this ample outline, gave to the face of each a daintiness of contour and feature which was not ill relieved by the high head-dress of ribbons and bepowdered hair. Of the two ladies, one, even in despite of her crinoline, might have been seen to be of noble and queenly figure; the towering head-dress did not fully disguise the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... opportunities of the day. In 1754 he was graduated at Harvard, and after studying with Doctor Pynchon rose to considerable eminence as a physician and particularly as a surgeon. Besides talents and genius of a sort, he was endowed with a rare poetic fancy, many of his verses being full of daintiness as well as of a very pretty wit. He was, however, somewhat extravagant in his habits, and about 1768 had built himself an elegant country house near Boston. It was to sustain this, it is believed, that he sold himself ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... trouble—i.e. some plain boiled fish, fresh indeed, but of queer name and quality, and without sauce, and some steak not distantly related to an old shoe; but both seemed to think so little about it, that the Doctor, who was always mourning over the daintiness of the present day, approved ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... room had "atmosphere," of the indefinable quality that some people impart to a dwelling-place. Entering, one felt refinement, daintiness, and the ability to live above mere externals. Barbara had, very strongly, the house-love which belongs to some rare women. And who shall say that inanimate things do not answer to our love of them, and diffuse, between our ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... longer cooking, in proportion to their size, than game, and never should be underdone. Dark-legged fowls are best for roasting, as their flesh is moister and better flavored cooked in this way than the white-legged ones, which from their greater daintiness of appearance are to be preferred ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... healthiest sleepers may want an alarum clock to wake them up. However this may be, Bernard Shaw certainly has all the virtues and all the powers that go with this original quality in Ireland. One of them is a sort of awful elegance; a dangerous and somewhat inhuman daintiness of taste which sometimes seems to shrink from matter itself, as though it were mud. Of the many sincere things Mr. Shaw has said he never said a more sincere one than when he stated he was a vegetarian, not because eating meat ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... The daintiness of her white dress, with all its pretty details, the touch of blue in her hat, and at her waist, delighted his eyes. It pleased him that there was not a trace in her of Bohemian carelessness in these respects. Everything was simple, but everything was considered. She knew her ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked herself ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... little model of a house, in perforated card-board, which she had cut and worked after a pattern that came in a magazine. It must have cost her a great deal of work; but it partly satisfied her great longing for pretty things, and for the daintiness and art that she had an instinct toward, and never had known. It stood on the best-room table, with a few books, which I suppose she had read over and over again; and in the room, beside, were green paper curtains with a landscape on the outside, and some chairs ranged stiffly against ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... times when circumstances allow,—or, in other words, to be delightfully natural. The old-fashioned education of her sex was directed to the development [365] of every quality essentially feminine, and to the suppression of the opposite quality. Kindliness, docility, sympathy, tenderness, daintiness—these and other attributes were cultivated into incomparable blossoming. "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever: do noble things, not dream them, all day long"—those words of Kingsley really embody the central idea in her training. Of course the being, formed by such training only, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... daintiness, fineness, frailty, refinement, fastidiousness, discrimination, sensitiveness; dainty, tidbit, junket. Antonyms: indelicacy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and wholesome cooking of the said Egiste. In reality, and more simply, Brancadori was the old cook of a Russian lord, one of the Werekiews, the cousin of pretty Alba Steno's real father. That Werekiew, renowned in Rome for the daintiness of his dinners, died suddenly in 1866. Several of the frequenters of his house, advised by a French officer of the army of occupation, and tired of clubs, hotels, and ordinary restaurants, determined to form a syndicate and to employ his ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... potatoes, etc., and she should always be allowed to wash pots, pans and kettles, after the cooking is done. But if the mistress will spend half an hour in the kitchen before each meal, John will soon discover that his food has a delicacy of flavor and is served with a daintiness imparted only by a professional French ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... a village belle, and it was said that she had more beaus in constant attendance than any other girl in Otsego. Dr. Fuller was a favorite with two generations of young men in the village, for he had also two young daughters, who, a few years later, became noted for their qualities of mind and daintiness of apparel. Eliza and Emma Fuller were blue-stockings who knew the value of pretty bonnets and gowns. In the early days of the Presbyterian church, the sabbath splendor of their entrance at divine service, always ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... in her carriage which came of the soil rather than of the city pavement. But it was a robustness in a finer than the wonted sense, a vigorous daintiness, it might be called, which gave an impression of virility with none of the womanly left out. It told of a heredity of seekers and fighters, of people that worked stoutly with head and hand, of ghosts that reached down out of the misty past and moulded ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... yellow hair, or fluttered down the long curls that hung in front of her ears. She laughed again under the caressing shower. Then she tore away the remaining petals and tossed them up with an elf-like daintiness, not at the crouched and expectant kitten this time, but so that the whole red rain floated tenderly down upon her upturned face and into the folds of the white kerchief crossed upon her breast. She waited for the last feathery petal. Her hidden lover saw it lodge in the little ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... presents; and on the receipt of her wages, she always rushed on to the shop like a child with a new shilling. Reading had given Charlotte a few theories on the subject, but her practice had not gone far. She always meant to put into the savings' bank; but hiring books, and daintiness, though not finery, in dress, had prevented her means from ever amounting to a sum, in her opinion, worth securing. The spirit of economy in the household had so far infected her that she had, in spite of her small wages, more in hand than ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... representations of the Keftiu, on the walls of Rekh-ma-ra's tomb, the shoes are white, and have bindings of red and blue, and in some cases are delicately embroidered. Such examples as the shoe on an ivory figure found at Knossos, and the terra-cotta model of a shoe found at Sitia, show the daintiness with which the Minoans indulged themselves in the matter of footwear. In personal adornment the men to some extent made up for their simplicity in the matter of dress. The Cup-Bearer wears a couple of thick ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... and freshly dressed. Immaculate shirt waist, a plain, well-made skirt, with good shoes, stockings and gloves and a quiet, pretty hat, are all any woman needs in meeting her business obligations. And that daintiness which she shows in her dress she must show in her person too, in clean skin and finger-nails, good teeth, and smooth, attractively ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... handsome man. His features were good and clearly cut; his hair and moustache were dark, thick, short and glossy; his dark eyes were quick and bright; his figure was well-made, and better developed; his shapely hands were not only clean, they were fastidiously trimmed about the nails (a daintiness common below the rank of sergeant, especially among men acting as clerks); and if the stone in his signet ring was not a real onyx, it looked quite as well at a distance, and the absence of a crest was not conspicuous. He spoke with a very good imitation of the accent of the officers he had served ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be protected, to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... up wind on a distant slope of green; deer leaping shadows of tree-stems one after another as if the shadows were water, which is one of the deer's prettiest games in the sun: deer trotting off as you try to come nearer to them, with that curious quivering, shaking amble which is born of lissom daintiness and muscles like steel; deer with hot sunlight on their coats—it is the Richmond Park deer which are the creatures to come and see. How many are there? Who should count them? Sixteen hundred fallow deer and fifty red deer, the figures ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... capabilities in a very high decree. His careful choice of epithet and name have even been criticised as lending to some of his narrative-writing an excessive air of deliberation. His daintiness of diction is best seen in his earlier work; thereafter his writing became more vigorous and direct, fitter for its later uses, but never unillumined by felicities that cause a thrill of pleasure to the reader. Of the value of words he had the acutest appreciation. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... pretty things on the table in such a way that the result shall be a picture of daintiness, grace, and symmetry is seemingly a simple matter, but the trick of good taste and a mathematical eye are both involved in it. The manner of setting and serving the table varies somewhat with each meal, but a few suggestions apply ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... toughly seasoned who feels no thrill of pride as she looks upon her piles of shining, satiny table linen, and takes account of her sheet, pillowcase and towel treasure. They are her stocks and bonds, giving forth daily their bounteous, beauteous yield of daintiness and comfort, and paying for themselves many times over by the atmosphere of nicety and refinement which they create. For it is these touches, unobtrusive by their very delicacy, which introduce that intangible but very essential quality known as ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... by a series of formal afternoon calls. No such fashionable sight ever had been witnessed in the town as Mrs. Symes presented when, in a pair of white kid gloves and a veil, she picked her way with ostentatious daintiness across several vacant lots still encumbered with cactus and sagebrush, to the log residence of Mr. and ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... having only the primary hypothesis of human conduct, said she was "proud." She did not join heartily in their conversations when they met her, and had an aloofness about her which could only be explained that way. She had a certain daintiness about her, too, in her way of dressing—even in the way she did her hair—and in her walk, which made the women say with certain resentment, that Mrs. Paine would like ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... true enough the day before; but hunger cures daintiness, and now I was glad of such a mouthful. I bolted it in an instant, and looked for more. He threw me one other crust, saying that was all he could spare; and, finishing the rest himself, went on his way, leaving me ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... my telling, you to know that I did be very dainty with Mine Own Maid that did be all of daintiness; but yet I to be masterful, as did be my nature, and a very proper way it did be with the Maid, so that she did be alway reasonable in the main; and this to come out of her love, which did have pleasure to know that I did be Master unto her, all in the same while that she did fight to show ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... hung up as a transparency before the window—that in some unaccountable way suggested old associations. Charlton had never seen anything of the kind, but he had the feeling of one who half-recognizes a handwriting. The pattern had a delicacy about it approaching to daintiness, an expression of taste and feeling which he seemed to have known, as when one sees a face that is familiar, but which one can not "place," as we say. Charlton could not place the memory excited by this transparency, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... pantaloons neatly made, a short jacket of dark silk, gaily figured, white stockings and thin morocco slippers upon his very small feet. His slight and graceful figure was well calculated for dancing, and he moved about with the grace and daintiness of a young fawn. An occasional touch of the toe to the ground, seemed all that was necessary to give him a long interval of motion in the air. At the same time he was not fantastic or flourishing, but appeared ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... store of "similiter cadences" doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me think of the sophister, that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he may be counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So these men bringing ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... torches fell upon contorted faces. The Baron turned his horse athwart the line of helpless men, and spurred that animal over it from end to end, but the intelligent horse, more merciful than its rider, stepped with great daintiness, despite its unusual size, and never trod on one of the prostrate bodies. During what followed, the Red Baron, shaking with laughter, marched his horse up and down ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... in the shadow of a great tree—stealing over the dark, unruffled depth. A girl dressed in white, with a large diaphanous white hat and a general air of brisk English daintiness, was paddling slowly and with no ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... spoke she slipped on a loose protecting garment above her lilac daintiness, and waved an inviting hand to her guest, smiling so coaxingly that Miss Mathewson yielded without another word of protest. When the hairpins came out, and the mass of fair hair fell upon the shoulders, ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... The daintiness of Rose in cap and apron with a big white fichu at her throat, with one red cheek and the corner of the most kissable mouth on the avenue maddeningly visible, soon drove all memory of the Gladwin mansion and ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... was all the mother she ever knew or needed to know. Heaven made her rich in such maternity as his. Mother instinct is in all good lives, and belongs to man. Maternity and paternity are met in the best manhood. The tenderness of motherhood must soften a man's touch to daintiness, like an evening wind's caress, before fatherhood is perfect. All his youthhood, which knew not any woman's lips to kiss; all his manhood, which had never shared a hearth with wife or child,—all this unused tenderness now administers to the wants of this orphan, Cossette. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... moment later was not at all indicative of the fairly respectable fever within his Scotch breast. Miss Reynier herself was pretty enough to cause quickened pulses. She was of noble height, evidently a woman of the world. She gave Mr. Van Camp her hand in a greeting mingled of European daintiness and American frankness. Her vitality and abounding interest ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... deliciously delicate, was Natalie Rathbawne, like a little Dresden image, with an arbutus-pink complexion, brown hair, and deep-blue eyes, now clouded thoughtfully, but oftener alight with humor, or dilating and clearing under the impetus of conversation. A doll-like daintiness of tiny pleats and ruffles, fresh bows, and fine stitching pervaded everything she wore, and if her voice inspired the hackneyed comparison of running water, it was of water running under moss, the sound whereof is as different from that of an open brook as is music from discord. To John ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... begged the privilege of remaining to help with the supper; and you may be sure every dish was served with a perfection and daintiness of touch only the French can give. Yes, it was a great success; and when, after the last guest had departed, Molly came and told her sister, almost with tears in her eyes, how happy she had been, Sara felt repaid for the sacrifice of quiet ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... that was his principal motive, with great daintiness he said it: but with a kiss of his hand, and a bow to my feet, he hoped, that a fine lady's being my friend did not lessen the merit of the reverence he really had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... one hundred per cent feminine. One could tell just by the way she wore her clothes, by her daintiness, by the tilt of her bonnet and by the way smiled out from under it. I can't describe a baby girl any more than I describe a sunset or moonlight or any of the wonders of God—I can only say that she was everything that a baby ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... grounds. A wideness of sweep and elemental greatness in proportion to the natural majesty of the huge new continent are hardly present; Walt Whitman remains an isolated phenomenon. Instead, we meet in the best American literature an almost aristocratic daintiness and feeling for the refined and select. As compared with the British school, the leading American school is marked by an increased delicacy of finesse, a tendency to refine and refine, a perhaps exaggerated dread of the platitude and the commonplace, a fondness for analysis, a preference ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... prettiest little caressing tricks and graces imaginable; and she perched herself on his knee, and laughed and chatted so gayly, and pulled his whiskers so saucily, and then, springing up, began arraying herself in such an astonishing daintiness of device, and fluttering before him with such a variety of well-assorted plumage, that John was quite taken off his feet. He did not care so much whether what she willed to do were, "Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best," as ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... amount of good solid enjoyment from day to day. He had friends who courted his society, and pursuits both grave and gay to occupy his hours of study and relaxation. He was called the 'Lady' of his college, on account of his personal beauty and the purity and daintiness ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... farmhouses on the Hill are outward signs of excellent homes within. The table is well spread, with a measured abundance, which satisfies but does not waste. The rooms are each furnished forth in spare and righteous daintiness, over which nowadays is poured, in occasional instances, a pretty modern color, timidly laid on, which does not remove the prim Quakerness. Ventures in the use of decoration, however, have been crude in most cases, and the results, so far as they have been effected by the taste ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... bloomed. She was vivid as a wild poppy on the hillsides past which they went flashing. But she had, too, a daintiness, a delicacy of coloring and contour, that suggested the fruit named by ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... pretense. She scarcely touched it, and yet he was sure no other person at the table had discovered the insincerity of her effort, not even Tucker, the enamored engineer. It was likely Tucker placed a delicate halo about her lack of appetite, accepting daintiness of that ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... Bartolommeo is not at his best; for his earlier and more delicate manner, so full of charm and a sort of daintiness, one must go to Lucca, where his picture of Madonna with St. Stephen and St. John Baptist hangs in the Duomo. The grand and almost pompous works in Florence, splendid though they may be in painting, in composition, in colour, scarcely move us at ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... tittivated, tintinnabulant, His bosom aped the true Parnassian pant, As may a housemaid's leathern bellows mock The rock—whelmed Titan's breathings. He no shock Of bard-like shagginess shook to the breeze. A modern Cambrian Minstrel hopes to please By undishevelled dandy-daintiness, Whether of lays or locks, of rhymes or dress. Some bards pipe from Parnassus, some from Hermon; Room for the singer of the Sunday Sermon! His stimulant tepid tea, his theme a text, Carmarthen's cultured caroller ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... service of the Associated Charities, that there was no foulness of disease or misery she feared to look in the face; but her house had always been thoroughly well regulated, she was passionately clean, and she was an excellent woman of business. Now, however, she elevated daintiness to a religion; her interior shone with superfluous friction, with punctuality, with winter roses. Among these soft influences Verena herself bloomed like the flower that attains such perfection in Boston. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... the trays waxed rapidly less and less, the last parcel of all being of exceptional daintiness,—tissue-paper, tied round with a narrow blue ribbon. It was addressed to Betty, and to her rapturous surprise contained a line of congratulation from Cynthia Alliot, and the exact duplicate of an artistic silver and enamel buckle ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... abhorrence, towards excesses and enormities of evil, which are often or ordinarily reached at length by those who are not careful from the first to set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. It generates within the mind a fastidiousness, analogous to the delicacy or daintiness which good nurture or a sickly habit induces in respect of food; and this fastidiousness, though arguing no high principle, though no protection in the case of violent temptation, nor sure in its operation, yet ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... afterward. The mind should be diverted from her condition by good reading, friends, or other amusements. The utmost care and tact should be used in the preparation of her food, and art should be manifested in the daintiness of the tray, etc. We found one mother was nauseated even at the sight of her tray and so we planned a call that should bring us to her home at the meal hour. The tray came in with the attendant in unkempt attire, who said, as she placed it carelessly down on a much-loved book our patient had been ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... five minutes past twelve he saw her turn off the Avenue, and as he strolled along to meet her, charmed and delighted by her daintiness, proud and happy at his possession of her, he did a thing that all wise and tactful husbands do—he forced back an irresistible desire to be humorous at her expense and so won an entry of approval from ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Landale, closely wrapped in her warmest furs, with face well ensconced under her close bonnet, and arms buried to the elbow in her muff, sallied from her room on the announcement that the carriage was waiting. As, with her leisurely daintiness, she tripped it down the stairs, she crossed Mr. Landale, and paused a moment, ready for the skirmish, as she noticed the cynical curiosity with ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... tiny place; it consisted downstairs of one long low room, with a bay window at the extreme end. This room the Mainwarings called the drawing-room, and it was really furnished with great daintiness and care. At one end was the bay window, at the other were glass doors which opened directly into the garden. The kitchen was at the other end of the narrow hall, and this also looked on the garden. Hannah, the one servant, was often heard to object to this arrangement. She gave solid reasons for ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade |
