"Delicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was now an accomplished fact. As long as hostilities should continue in Mexico, California must remain under a military government, and such control was at once inaugurated. The questions to be dealt with, as may well be imagined, were delicate in the extreme. In general the military Governors handled such questions with tact and efficiency. This ability was especially true in the case of Colonel Mason, who succeeded General Kearny. The understanding displayed by this man in holding back the over-eager Americans ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... process of lacquer-making, too, is very interesting. We had, however, to go from house to house to witness it, as only one portion of the process is carried on at each—from the gradual coating of the roughest wood with three coatings of varnish, until it is finally ornamented with delicate designs, and polished ready for sale. In appearance, price, and length of wear there ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... capital. A desperate attempt was made, at Kwa-chau (infra, ch. lxxii.) to recapture the young emperor, but it failed. On their arrival at Ta-tu, Kublai's chief queen, Jamui Khatun, treated them with delicate consideration. This amiable lady, on being shown the spoils that came from Lin-ngan, only wept, and said to her husband, "So also shall it be with the Mongol empire one day!" The eldest of the two boys who had escaped was ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... there was one thing this woman understood better than another, it was the science of the toilet. She wore a dark-brown silk dress and a dark-brown velvet bonnet, and a Russian sable cloak, and cuffs, and muff, and her face was shaded by a delicate black lace veil. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... becomes a hard cake, has been used by the British Navy for a hundred years or more for the preparation of Jack's cup of cocoa. It produces a fine rich drink much appreciated by our hardy seamen, but it is somewhat too fatty to mix evenly with water, and too rich to be suitable for those with delicate digestions. Hence for the ordinary cocoa of commerce it is usual to remove a portion ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... turned out very closely akin to those of Brownie, which were famous. Puddings for dinner had followed, and were now cooling in the dairy. Finally, the joint being in the oven, and vegetables prepared, the cook had compounded Jim's favourite cake, which was now baking; during which delicate operation, with a large dab of flour on her nose, the cook sat at the table, and wrote ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... that moment some little difference of opinion, which was coming to a head in reference to a very delicate matter. When the conversations above related took place, the Babington wedding had been fixed to take place in a week's time. Should cousin John be invited, or should he not? Julia was decidedly against it. 'She did not think,' she said, 'that ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... practical fad, the new textile chemist—a charming youth, disguised in bone-rimmed glasses, who did the honors of his little laboratory with all the manner of a Harvard host. This was the fusing oven for silks. Here was the drying oven. This delicate scale weighed every ounce of the cloth swatches that came in for inspection, to get the percentage of wool and cotton. Not a chance for the manufacturer to slip shoddy ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... at Marmaduke, and hurried away to rejoin the rest outside. As they went through the courtyard, they passed an open carriage, in which reclined a pretty woman with dark eyes and delicate artificial complexion. Her beauty and the elegance of her dress attracted their attention. Suddenly Marian became aware that Conolly was watching her as she looked at the woman in the carriage. She was about to say something, when, to her bewilderment, Elinor ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... disappointment in the brilliancy of Broadway. Several careful reviews of the sunny side failed to detect anything dangerously attractive in beauty, equipage, or attire. It is probable that most of the lionnes had laid them down in their delicate dens, waiting for a more clement season, to renew external depredations; though sometimes you could just catch a glimpse of bright eyes and a little pink nose peering over dark fur wrappings, as a brougham or barouche, carefully closed, swept quickly by. We visited ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... thus all her life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet—there was a rebellious spirit in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Horace in low satire so easily. Let the chastisements of Juvenal be never so necessary for his new kind of satire, let him declaim as wittily and sharply as he pleases, yet still the nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery. This, my lord, is your particular talent, to which even Juvenal could not arrive. It is not reading, it is not imitation of, an author which can produce this fineness; it must be inborn; it must proceed from a genius, and particular ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... windows projecting over the court represented the best period of Arab architecture. Their intricate carven woodwork had once adorned the palace of a Grand Wazir. Agapoulos had bought them in Cairo and had had them fitted to his house in Chinatown. A smaller brass lamp of very delicate workmanship was suspended in each of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... resisting the offers of her maid to assist her in undressing, threw herself on a lounge by the open window. The night air played with the curtains, and lifted the curls from her brow. Her bloom, which of late had been changeful and delicate, had now left her cheek, and languid and depressed she abandoned herself to thought. So absorbed was she, that she was not aware any one had entered the room, until her mother stood near, gently reproving her for ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... favourite of Parisian salons, the pianist in vogue. He was born in 1810, so that he was then twenty-seven years of age. His success was due, in the first place, to his merits as an artist, and nowhere is an artist's success so great as in Paris. Chopin's delicate style was admirably suited to the dimensions and to the ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... individuals, completed before 1350. The roof of the choir remained imperfect till ninety years afterwards, whilst that of the transept is as recent as 1628[5]. The most ancient work is discernible in the transepts, but the lines are obscured by later additions. A cloister gallery fronted by delicate mullions runs round the nave and choir, and the extent and arrangement of the exterior would induce a stranger, unacquainted with the history of the building, to suppose that he was entering a conventual or cathedral church. The parts long most generally admired by the ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... preserving valuable egg shells. One of the most effective ways of preserving them is as follows: After the egg is blown, melt common beeswax and force it into the shell with a discarded fountain pen filler. Set in a cool place until the wax hardens. The most delicate shells treated in this manner can be handled without fear of breaking, and the transparency of the wax will not alter the color, shading, or delicate tints of the egg. —Contributed by L. L. Shabino, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... and historian, born of British parentage in New York, was delicate in early life; his education suffered accordingly, and he travelled in Europe, 1804-6, visiting Italy, France, and England; returning to New York he was called to the bar, put he devoted himself to a literary career, only interrupted by one period of commercial life, and occasional ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... be felt by the whole of society, which is now felt only by a part. It is to the established administration of property and to the apparently narrow principle of self-love that we are indebted for all the noblest exertions of human genius, all the finer and more delicate emotions of the soul, for everything, indeed, that distinguishes the civilized from the savage state; and no sufficient change has as yet taken place in the nature of civilized man to enable us to say that he either is, or ever will be, in a state when he may safely ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... the king, and no intention of mixing myself up with state affairs. This was my plan I can assure you. I flattered myself that I could follow it, not dreaming of those political nuisances into which I was precipitated in spite of myself. I added, nevertheless, that in my situation, which was delicate, I would not refuse the counsels of a faithful servant of the king, and that under this title M. de Chauvelin should be consulted on important occasions. The marquis de Chauvelin had too much good sense, too much knowledge of the world, not to perceive a refusal concealed ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... is a perfect picture of repose in motion. It strikes the eye as more surprising than the flight of a pigeon, and swallow even, in that the effort put forth is so uniform and delicate as to escape observation, giving to the movement an air of buoyancy and perpetuity, the effluence of power rather than the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... desirable that flowers too delicate or too pulpy to be easily analysed when dry should be, also, sent in flasks of weak alcohol or acetic acid much weakened with water; such are those of the Orchides, Balisiers, Aroides, Asclepiades, and all ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... clothed with the habit of the Order, concealing nothing from him, neither his birth, nor his place of residence, nor the circumstances of his vocation, etc. The Prior, observing that he was fragile in appearance and of an apparently delicate constitution, remonstrated, pointing out to him how great were the austerities of the Order, and reminding him of the bleakness of the hills amidst which the monastery was situated, and of the perpetual winter which reigns there. The young man replied insisting that he knew ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... to literally strip a plantation of its field hands, and that, too, at a time of the year when the crops were being gathered, it is perhaps to be wondered that the bitter feelings of the slave-owners did not often find vent in open resistence and actual violence. That this delicate and disagreeable duty was performed in a manner to avoid serious difficulty certainly speaks well for the prudence and good judgment of the officers ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... might evident. Such love as his frank self-love could concede was called forth by an ardent admiration for this supreme stranger. More admiration than love was in his passion, and therefore he was free from a lover's hesitancy and delicate reserve and doubts. Frankly and boldly he courted her favour by looks and tones, and an address that came of natural ease, needless of skill ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... kloof, which was about three hundred yards in length and but sparsely wooded, and then the real fun began. There might be a lion behind every bush—there certainly were four lions somewhere; the delicate question was, where. I peeped and poked and looked in every possible direction, with my heart in my mouth, and was at last rewarded by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving behind a bush. At the same moment, from another bush opposite me out burst one of the cubs and galloped back ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... approaching the Sun, relying for my main motive power upon that tremendous attraction, and employing the apergy only to moderate the rate of movement and control its direction. The latter appeared to me the more delicate, difficult, and perhaps dangerous task of the two; and I resolved to defer it until after I had acquired some practical experience and dexterity in the control ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Japanese, Russian, British, American, French, and German soldiers and marines, prevented the destruction of the beleaguered aliens. When once the foreign troops were in possession of the Chinese capital, diplomatic questions of the most delicate character arose. For more than half a century, the imperial powers of Europe had been carving up the Chinese empire, taking to themselves territory, railway concessions, mining rights, ports, and commercial privileges at the expense of the huge but helpless ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... wherein were pages and black slaves and such a train of servants and attendants and so forth as is found only with Kings and Sultans; and his nostrils were greeted with the savoury odours of all manner meats rich and delicate, and delicious and generous wines. So he raised his eyes heavenwards and said, "Glory to Thee, O Lord, O Creator and Provider, who providest whomso Thou wilt without count or stint! O mine Holy One, I cry Thee pardon for all sins and turn to Thee ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... more pleasing, for she was beautiful, and when she chose to be so was very courteous and agreeable. One evening when George called as usual and asked to see her, he waited a long time, and was about making up his mind to leave, when a fair, delicate looking girl, with deep blue eyes and auburn hair, entered the room, introducing herself as Miss Graham, the cousin of Arabella, who, she said, was indisposed and unable ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The air, indeed, was ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... wishest; mayst thou, the singer, be glad, and give them to thy friends, to the chiefs, that they may rejoice on the earth.' So I gathered in the folds of my garments the various fragrant flowers, delicate, scented, delicious.'" ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... flowery visiter—through the dark winter I have dreamed of thy paleness and thy purity—youngest sister of the lily—likelier, thou art to be loved for thine own sake. Can so delicate a thing spring from an Earthly bed? or art thou, indeed, fallen from the heavens as a Snowdrop? Thus I pluck thee from thy clayey abode, in which, like some of us mortals, thou wouldst find an early grave. I place thee ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... reliefs, representing winged cupids working as gem-cutters and polishers, as chasers of salvers and goblets, and as goldsmiths and silversmiths. The architrave was as ornate as the cornice. The entablature was supported by eight Ionic columns of the slenderest and most delicate type, of dark yellow Numidian marble, while the lining of the wall-spaces was of the lighter yellow Mauretanian marble. Of the eight wall-spaces one was occupied by the doorway, over which was a bronze group representing a combat ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... itself before his eyes. At first it was indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room dimly outlined, delicately veiled, as it were. Then it seemed, not that the mist cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the delicate haze; and now the room became ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Vesuvius cleaves the skies. It was in the spring-time; luxuriant nature seemed to have nothing to do but to grow and bloom, and the huge mountain itself was profoundly at peace,—smiling a welcome, apparently, to the delicate bean-plants and wild vines which clambered up its sides, and wearing a light curl of smoke, like a gay coronal, around its brow. The bay was alive with red-capped fishermen, each one intent on fishing up his inverted brother below him; the beach was thronged with women, who chattered cheerfully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... for American enthusiasm in the war than a settlement of the Irish question, we took pains to ascertain the extent of the belief in liberty at home of these easy champions of Irish liberty. When we found that of the 132 men only 5'7 believed in liberty for American women, we were not delicate in pointing out to the remaining "(5 that their belief in liberty for Ireland would appear more sincere if they believed in a democratic reform such as woman ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... This delicate affair had now been kept rather more than a year with greater secrecy than the vizier at first expected, when being one day in the bath, and some important business obliging him to leave it, warm as he was, the air, which ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... General Mohun, but he verified Adrian's impression of his nephew's soundness, whatever the mysterious comparison might mean; and asked rather solicitously not only after Mr. Underwood but after Gerald, who, he said, was a delicate subject to have made ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... expulsion, the blood not only distends the vessels, but is even regurgitated into the minute branches. Were the eye not properly compressed at that time, and a resistance given to the shock, irreparable injury might be inflicted on the delicate textures of the interior of the eye." He further adds, "If we separate the eyelids of a child to examine the eye, while it cries and struggles with passion, by taking off the natural support to the vascular ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... and serene forehead; with Polly, saucy nose and mischievous eyes, laughing at you like a merry water-sprite; Bell, with her brilliant cheeks glowing like two roses just fallen in the brook; and Gold Elsie, who, if you had put a frame of green leaves about her delicate face and yellow locks, would have looked up at you ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... era in my boyish life. I grew henceforth both better and worse. Application and I having once shaken hands became very good acquaintance. I had hitherto valued myself upon supplying the frailties of a delicate frame by an uncommon agility in all bodily exercises. I now strove rather to improve the deficiencies of my mind, and became orderly, industrious, and devoted to study. So far so well; but as I grew wiser, I grew also more wary. Candour no longer seemed to me the finest of virtues. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cheek on her hand, her elbow on her knee, Imogen leaned forward, as if out of the perplexing, weary world into the sphere of the soul. She smiled deeply at one of her girls while she fell into the listening harmony of attitude, and her delicate face took on ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... stately gates. The only portion of the palace visible from the street is called the Hawal Mahal, or "Hall of the Winds," which Sir Edwin Arnold's glowing pen describes as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness, nine stories of rosy masonry, delicate overhanging balconies and latticed windows, soaring tier after tier of fanciful architecture, a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty, through a thousand pierced screens and gilded arches. Aladdin's magician could have ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Love is delicate; "Love is hurt with jar and fret," and you might as well expect a violin to remain in tune if roughly used, as Love to survive if chilled or driven into itself. But what a pleasure to keep ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... has lately been our British Governor in Ashantee, where he has, as I may truly say, 'bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.' He has now been sent here on this delicate mission, and to no one could it be intrusted by whom it would be performed with more scrupulous honour." This was simply the opinion of Captain Battleax, and expressed in the presence of the gentleman ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... rose a great solitary hill, or rather mountain, conical in form, and clothed in forest almost to the summit. This was the mountain Ytaioa, the chief landmark in that district. As the sun went down over the ridge, beyond the savannah, the whole western sky changed to a delicate rose colour that had the appearance of rose-coloured smoke blown there by some far off-wind, and left suspended—a thin, brilliant veil showing through it the distant sky beyond, blue and ethereal. Flocks of birds, a kind of troupial, were ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... said Madame. "For the complete wave we wind the hair in tight leetle coils on many rods. Eet ees very delicate operations—every hair must be just so, not one crooked, not one must we skeep. Eet takes a long time—two hours for the long hair; and eet hurts, because we must pull eet so tight. We wrap each coil een damp cloths, and we put them een the contacts, and we turn on the eelectreeceetee—and ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... I am!" said she then, while Quennebert still kept up some pretence of delicate embarrassment, although he could not resist casting a stolen look at the bag of crowns lying on the table beside his cloak. "Do you intend to go ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... number of invitations had been given out for the reception at Lady Rosebery's,—over two thousand, my companion heard it said. Whatever the number was, the crowd was very great,—so great that one might well feel alarmed for the safety of any delicate person who was in the pack which formed itself at one place in the course of the evening. Some obstruction must have existed a fronte, and the vis a tergo became fearful in its pressure on those who were caught in the jam. I began thinking of the crushes in which I had been caught, or which ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... impossible to avoid some reference to it here. Notwithstanding that the velocity of light is so stupendous, it has been found possible to measure that velocity by actual trial. This is one of the most delicate experimental researches that have ever been undertaken. If it be difficult to measure the speed of a rifle bullet, what shall we say of the speed of a ray of light, which is nearly a million times as great? How shall we devise an apparatus subtle enough to determine ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... discovery! all my delicate management destroyed! known all over the country! I'm off! and yet to have travelled so far, and not to have one glimpse of her! but then to be pointed at as a poor devil in love, a silly inconsistent boaster! no, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... wonderfully perfect in the harmony of its proportions; and even Rose, less perceptive than her companion, and troubled and disturbed, rather than uplifted, by an emotion to which she had no clue, was moved by the delicate, shadowed beauty of the grey walls and vaulted roof now ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... stiff with many a day's toil, were not familiar with the pen. As he laboured with the coarse, splodgy strokes which ranked as his signature, the sight of the delicate curves of the letters she had made fanned the flame of his wrath still higher. He also stood to sign, not because she had done so, but because he scorned to use a chair which belonged to his enemies. When he drew back from the table he saw how she had been standing almost behind him, looking over ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... he loses his temper, and presumably there is a matrimonial tiff. Very likely most of this is fiction, bred of the popular prejudice. The King loved her, that is certain. She was a beautiful high-spirited woman, so beautiful that many hundreds of years after, when her grave was opened, the delicate oval of her skull excited admiration yet. But the people hated her. Twenty generations after her death it was their custom when passing her grave to spit on it with the exclamation "Out upon thee, Bengerd! God bless the King of Denmark"; for in good or evil days they never wavered in their ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... Spain. His elevation was a boon to the French, because he restored the prosperity of their Church; but it was none to Rome, because his belief was a compromise between Roman doctrine and ethics the reverse of Roman. The delicate negotiation was carried to a satisfactory end by Cardinal D'Ossat, whose despatches were long received, and perhaps still are, as the best in the language, and the model of all diplomacy. Spain followed ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... the professor, dangerously ill "of a typhus fever," might require. He is soon found to be a most active, skillful, faithful nurse. He spares no pains, night and day, to make himself useful to the venerable sufferer. He anticipates every want. In the most delicate and tender manner, he tries to sooth every pain. He fastens himself strongly on the heart of the reverend object of his care. Touched with the heavenly spirit, the meek demeanor, the submissive frame, which the sick bed exhibits, Archy becomes a Christian. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... naturally inherent in them) to conceal, on their landing, the spoils they had procured during their stay. They had also discovered that we thought it shameful to be seen naked; and I have observed many of them extremely reserved and delicate in this respect when before us; but when in the presence of only their own people, perfectly indifferent about ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... advanced by the United States. Long before 1806, experience had demonstrated, what had been abundantly clear to foresight, that a naval lieutenant or captain could not safely be intrusted with a function so delicate as deciding the nationality of a likely English-speaking topman, whom, if British, he had the power ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... mechanism can be demonstrated in the more purely psychic dreams, as well as in this one, wherein we have followed the trial apperceptions of a stimulus, from their incipience, to the point of awaking to a conscious recognition of the source of excitation. Moreover, by a more delicate and intricate use of the reconstitutive method it is possible to discover the stimulus-ideas in those cases where the dreamer is not able to testify to their character, as I was in this simple instance; purposely chosen, I ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... Rehearsal Transposed, Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, and his Political Satires are masterpieces of lofty indignation mingled with grave and ironical banter. Among many others Edmund Waller showed himself an apt disciple of Horace, and produced charming social satires marked by delicate wit and raillery in the true Horatian mode; while the Duke of Buckingham, in the Rehearsal, utilized the dramatic parody to travesty the plays of Dryden. Abraham Cowley, in the Mistress, also imitated Horace, and in his play Cutter of Coleman Street satirized the Puritans' affectation ...
— English Satires • Various
... It has a stone-bench towards the side-aisles, and above that a base, of the age of William of Sens; so that it is clear that the work of De Estria belongs to the upper part only of the enclosure, which consists of delicate and elaborately worked tracery, surmounted by an embattled crest.... The entire work is particularly valuable on account of its well-established date, combined with ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... and, lastly, alarmed, as she finds herself compelled to perform involuntary gyrations, till at length she spins round like a well-whipped top, nearing the dangerous edge of the precipice. It is bold, and certainly quite novel—I think it will do. Portray her delicate little feet, peeping out, pointing downwards, the force of the elements raising her on her tip toes, now touching, now disdaining the earth. Her dress expanded wide like that of Herbele in her last and best pirouette—round, round she goes—her ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... than usual, but I had never seen her look so lovely. The poise of my dear girl's burnished head, the untutored grace of her delicate youth, the gleam of tears behind the tremulous smile, all made mighty ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... Where they stood the chamber had the appearance of a huge letter A, the side walls of which ran together in the distance, but these walls were broken up by the most enchanting series of columns, and delicate entablatures, and the outlines of the figures were like blanched frescoes. It was such a weird and startling sight that the boys could not ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... wedded to the memory of her early love, declined the proposals, notwithstanding they were strongly seconded by the wishes of her parents, who, however, were unwilling to constrain their daughter's inclinations on so delicate a point, trusting perhaps to the effects of time, and the perseverance of her royal ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... dear children small, The cocoa-nut tree gracing Ceylon's fields, Materials for daily uses yields, Makes bread, wine, sugar, vinegar and yeast, Cloth, paper, ships and tents for man and beast. See the strong oak with boldly branching arms, The delicate, light birch of airy charms; The graceful, drooping elms like fountains play; The stately poplar and rich chestnuts gay, The sugar maples towering to the sky, Like antique vases elevated high, All charged with telegrams from God above, In blessed token of His ceaseless love. ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... says, "to show you from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for, though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... time the poet found himself in a very delicate situation. He had referred to the expedition of the Earl of Essex in terms of eulogy, and when that enterprise failed, Essex revolted against his sovereign, aided and abetted by the poet's patron, the Earl of Southampton. Part ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... [366]—we can well picture the emotions that circle round the vast audience—pity itself being mingled with the consciousness to which the audience alone are admitted, that lamentation will soon be replaced by joy, and that the living Orestes is before his sister. It is by a most subtle and delicate art that Sophocles permits this struggle between present pain and anticipated pleasure, and carries on the passion of the spectators to wait breathlessly the moment when Orestes shall be discovered. We now perceive ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by the success of his present, and was so delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse back with her little delicate hand—Diogenes graciously allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance—that he felt it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... purses to go down thither. We went through Nonesuch Parke to the house, and there viewed as much as we could of the outside, and looked through the great gates, and found a noble court; and altogether believe it to have been a very noble house, and a delicate parke about it, where just now there was a doe killed for the King to carry up ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... her, my fond, patient labour of long and happy days, show me these things? Ah, how few of them are in the dim mechanical drawing, and how many in the mind with which I regard it! A fair, delicate girl, in a pretty light dress, trifling with the leaves of a sketch-book, while she looks up from it with truthful, innocent blue eyes—that is all the drawing can say; all, perhaps, that even the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... are deeply indebted to the Rosicrucians for many a graceful creation. The literature of England, France, and Germany contains hundreds of sweet fictions, whose machinery has been borrowed from their day-dreams. The "delicate Ariel" of Shakspeare stands pre-eminent among the number. From the same source Pope drew the airy tenants of Belinda's dressing-room, in his charming "Rape of the Lock;" and La Motte Fouque, the beautiful and capricious water-nymph, Undine, around whom he has thrown more grace and loveliness, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... proposition fraught with such consequences required consideration. To what would he be committing himself if he consented? And what if he should refuse? Besides, under the circumstances, was he free to refuse? That of itself was a question, a delicate one. He and his comrade, Cris Rock, owed their escape to this strange man, whatever he might be; and to separate from him now, even under full permission, would savour of ingratitude. Still more, after listening to what was further said. For, noting his embarrassment, and deeming it ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... over ploughed fields, by the roughest and hardest roads. She was so shaken that she lost the power of breathing; it required all the strength of her constitution to support this barbarous treatment in the delicate condition of a lady so recently confined. They put her to bed again after this cruel drive, and seeing that nobody took her view, she threw herself into the arms of Providence, and consoled herself by religion; the midwife administered violent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in their own to remain [Matt. 7:3], only to the end that others may be stifled by superfluous and unnecessary things, or at least branded as heretics or by any other epithet that occurs to them. One of than is this delicate, pious Romanist at Leipzig. Let us now ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Indian had been ridiculed by the sailors for this unaccountable whim, but he had not been cured; and it so happened, that the fish he had speared this morning were three small rays and a mullet. This last, being the most delicate, he presented to Mr. Westall and me, so soon as it was cooked; and then went to saunter by the water side, whilst the boats' crew should cook and eat the rays, although, having had nothing since the morning before, it may be supposed he did not want appetite. I noticed this in silence ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... of Varuna the fancy of the poet exhausts itself in lofty imagery, and reaches the topmost height of Vedic religious lyric. In the praise of Dawn it descends not lower than to interweave beauty with dignity of utterance. Nothing in religious poetry more graceful or delicate than the Vedic Dawn-hymns has ever been written. In the daily vision of Dawn following her sister Night the poet sees his fairest goddess, and in his worship of her there is love and admiration, such as is evoked by the sight of ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... too delicate to sustain our kind of life," suggested Marcoy. "He is tired of skinning his hands and legs in our service, and eating peccary, monkey and snails as we do. His Bolivians are perhaps quite as useful for our service, and while he is rioting at Cuzco ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... the face of your slumbering child, and then along down through his life, what do you want him to become? Do you want him to grow up to manhood a poor, delicate, frail body with but little energy or vitality with which to meet the sterner duties of life? Do you want him to be indolent, shiftless, unmanly and addicted to such as will bring him to shame, ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... their devotion to their fishing and who differed only in regard to the method to be pursued, did not talk much, but they felt themselves nearer to each other than ever before. Something seemed to weave between them the delicate and firm bonds of a friendship strengthened by a common aim and chastened by a common experience of disappointment. They could afford to be silent together because they were now true comrades. I shall always maintain that both of them received ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... that he may be worthy of his cares, and his freely bestowed pains; that he may walk in the way of honor and happiness. In that way he cannot walk one step without virtue. Such is life, in its relationships. A thousand ties embrace it, like the fine nerves of a delicate organization; like the strings of an instrument capable of sweet melodies, but easily put out of tune or broken, by rudeness, anger, and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... next two years a number of thoughtful articles and publications appeared from his pen. The incessant labour and attention, however, which he bestowed on the spreading of theosophic instruction began to have its effect on a naturally delicate constitution, and in July, 1902, when attending the meetings of the British Convention in London, he was prostrated by an attack of congestion of the brain. The most devoted care was lavished on him, both in London and in Paris, the result being that a rapid, though only temporary, ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... bread well buttered. There is a law of cultivation for humanity as well as plants. Surround a succession of generations with all the advantages of wealth, education and travel, and you produce the aristocrat; just as you get the delicate Solanum Wendlandi from the humble potato blossom. Set your aristocrat in the wilderness to earn his living by the sweat of his brow,—let the rain and wind beat upon his delicate skin,—shut him away from all the elevating ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... inconsistent with the mild dignity of his character. All that was left to them was to assert that his disposition was very far from being so gentle as the world believed, that he was really prone to the angry passions, and that sometimes, while his voice was soft, and his words kind and courteous, his delicate frame was almost convulsed by suppressed emotion. It will perhaps be thought that this reproach is the highest of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... until very stiff. Add other ingredients and place on the wafers. Place under broiler until a delicate brown. ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... was not built until the seventeenth century. This was the picture that the Venetian himself loved to have painted for him, and that the stranger wanted to carry away. Canale painted Venice with a feeling for space and atmosphere, with a mastery over the delicate effects of mist peculiar to the city, that make his views of the Salute, the Grand Canal, and the Piazzetta still seem more like Venice than all the pictures of them that have been painted since. Later in the century Canale was followed by Guardi, who executed smaller views ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... aunt's," he answered; he took her bag from her. "I have brought the trap, Janet thought you might be too delicate to walk." He chuckled to himself at the thought and picking up the reins climbed into the cart beside her. "Don't think Sally has been out twice since you left, see ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the little shanty, they set about their housekeeping at once. The situation might have been delicate in other periods and climes, but here no false sentimentality clouded the grisly facts. Face to face with them stood hunger and cold, two relentless enemies. Hunger, in a land where the temperature burns up the tissues as ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... was mentioned in Suggestions for Cooking Fresh Vegetables that a saving of ash in vegetables meant a saving of both nutriment and flavor. If vegetables of delicate flavor are to be made tasty, it is especially necessary to lose none of the ash constituents. Note that in the methods of cooking the vegetables of delicate flavor in this lesson that either the vegetables are ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... chair, dropped his pipe quietly on the floor, and waited. He knew that Mark Ernshaw, his chum at Eton and his friend at Balliol—this tall, sparely-built man, with dark hair, high, somewhat narrow forehead, and big, deep-set, brown eyes, delicate features, and the somewhat too finely-moulded chin which, taken together, showed him to the eye that sees to be the enthusiast as well as the man of intellect, perhaps of genius—was not thinking in the ordinary meaning of ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... 195; render narrow &c. adj; waste away. Adj. narrow, close; slender, thin, fine; thread-like &c. (filament) 205; finespun[obs3], gossamer; paper-thin; taper, slim, slight-made; scant, scanty; spare, delicate, incapacious[obs3]; contracted &c. 195; unexpanded &c. (expand &c. 194)[obs3]; slender as a thread. [in reference to people or animals] emaciated, lean, meager, gaunt, macilent[obs3]; lank, lanky; weedy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... awkward and ungainly, but such an effort was beyond imagination. Rosalind was startlingly and wonderfully pretty; she had never seen anyone in real life who was in the least like her. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue, with curling dark lashes, her face was a delicate oval, and the pink and white colouring, and flowing golden locks, gave her the appearance of a princess in a fairy tale rather than an ordinary flesh-and-blood maiden. Peggy looked from her to Mellicent, who was considered quite a beauty among her companions, and, oh dear ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... startled me, that I could not repress a cry of alarm. He not only passed over my involuntary act of rudeness in the most indulgent manner—he explained to me the cause which had produced his peculiarity of complexion; so as to put me at my ease before we entered on the delicate private inquiry which had ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... quickly," said Ribby to herself. "It is a pie of the most delicate and tender mouse minced up with bacon. And I have taken out all the bones; because Duchess did nearly choke herself with a fish-bone last time I gave a party. She eats a little fast —rather big mouthfuls. But ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... the perusal, or to judge fairly of the merits of either. One candidate for literary fame, who happens to be of our acquaintance, writes finely, and like a man of genius; but unfortunately has a foolish face, which spoils a delicate passage:—another inspires us with the highest respect for his personal talents and character, but does not quite come up to our expectations in print. All these contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm current of our reflections. If you ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... large light empty place, scantily furnished with a few massive prejudices, not designed to add to any one's comfort but too ponderous to be easily moved. Mrs. Quentin's own intelligence, in which its owner, in an artistically shaded half-light, had so long moved amid a delicate complexity of sensations, seemed in comparison suddenly close and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the glare of the young girl's candor, the older woman found herself stumbling in an unwonted obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... come over to Quolsdorf some time an' look into it all. That'd be best, too. The little girl ... 'tis a purty little thing, with bits o' hands an' feet like that much porcelain, so dainty an' delicate. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Nature, some as sincere or even as ardent as Mr. Tennyson; but it does not follow that even these favoured few possess the privilege that he enjoys. To them she speaks through vague and indeterminate impressions: for him she has a voice of the most delicate articulation; all her images to him are clear and definite, and he translates them for us into that language of suggestion, emphasis, and refined analogy which links the manifold to the simple and the infinite to the finite. He accomplishes for us what we should in vain attempt ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of tears—dim and blurred. Those tears are the tears of the imagination. When I try to recall Mamma as she was then, I see, true, her brown eyes, expressive always of love and kindness, the small mole on her neck below where the small hairs grow, her white embroidered collar, and the delicate, fresh hand which so often caressed me, and which I so often kissed; but her ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... without difficulty. Becoming major-general in 1706, he continued to perform the numerous duties of chief staff officer, quartermaster-general and colonel of cavalry, besides which he was throughout constantly employed in delicate diplomatic missions. In the course of the campaign of 1707, when leading a foraging expedition, he fell into the hands of the enemy but was soon exchanged. In 1708 he commanded the advanced guard ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... instant being enlarged. It does not appear to me that his scientific philological acquirements were extraordinary; but that his memory for words giving him such a command of vocabulary, and so wide a scope for comparison, and his accurate and delicate ear to catch the sounds, and power of reproducing them, were altogether wonderful and very rarely equalled. A man of his faculty of expression and powers of mind could not speak like a native; he spoke better than a native, than a native of Mota ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that "delicacy is a kind of effeminacy." But to be delicate seems akin to intemperance. Therefore effeminacy is not opposed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... remarkable, how persons of the most delicate constitutions will sometimes bear up under the severest toil, and encounter the most trying privations, and yet not fail, but really appear to gain some degree of strength under the ordeal that it seemed, to all human calculation, ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... bridegroom's beauty and talents, and the bride's high lineage and great possessions. After this Donald and Donald's affairs seemed to very little trouble David's humble household. His marriage put him far away from Christine's thoughts, for her delicate conscience would have regarded it as a great sin to remember with any feeling of love another woman's affianced husband; and when the struggle became one between right and wrong, it was ended for Christine. David seldom named him, and so Donald McFarlane gradually ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr |
