"Fussy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unless I inspect them personally. These are the patients who try one's soul, Babe. I would rather deal with Asiatic cholera than with one fussy old woman with a digestion. They eat hot bread and fried steak, and then ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... however, did exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand of Great Britain was weakened, as her adversary had doubtless calculated that it would be, by an earnest but fussy and ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... could not expect a little brook to be noisy, fussy, energetic. If it were not lazy, it would be ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... I suppose it does hurt, and I ought to be sorry. But I'm not. I'm glad of it. I wish her face would stay that way all winter! She's so fussy about her looks she won't put her nose out of her room till she's pretty again. Oh, Billy Boy, I wish ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... OF BARBARISM.—Amid the fussy pomposity of the Queen's jubilee, the voice of the thinkers has not been entirely silent. The utter failure of her reign to present a single noble thought or impulse, a single evidence of sympathy with the immense mass ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... his looks, eh? Yer powerful fussy. He ain't the best lookin' feller I ever did see, but ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... dear. I've got my own ways, you see. I'm a fussy old fellow. And I've got my servant—my blackamoor. He'd frighten all the neighbours. And you'd fuss yourself, thinking I wasn't comfortable. I'll come up to-morrow afternoon and stay on to dinner, if you like. And just leave the boy to me a bit. Good night, ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... It was Mr. Weatherley who appeared. Mr. Weatherley was distinctly fussy and there was some return of his ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... truth! but not the sober-faced, pompous, dignified Hector of the household of M. le Comte de Cambray, but a red-visaged, excited, fussy Hector, who for the moment seemed to have forgotten where he was, as well as the etiquette which surrounded the august personality of his master. He certainly contrived to murmur a humble if somewhat hasty apology, when he found himself confronted at the door by Mme. la ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... alone in the schoolroom near the closed door of the little room whence the scenes were lit, she felt herself in a vast space. The ceilings and walls seemed to disappear. She wanted a big scene, something quiet and serious—quite different from the fussy little absurdities they had been rushing through all the evening. A statue... one of the Germans. "You think of something this time," she said, pushing the group of ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... a fad,— Its advocates, in fact, as bad As those who want Cremation. A set of foolish, fussy fools Whose misplaced ardour nothing cools— A nuisance to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... burlesque creature impresses me always with a sense of unreality, of incongruity, of strange happening, like a jesting clown in a procession of monks, like a strain of low comedy in the sober religious drama of early New England Puritan life; so out of place, so unreal is this fussy, pompous, restless tithingman, with his fantastic wand of office fringed with dangling foxtails,—creaking, bustling, strutting, peering around the quiet meeting-house, prodding and rapping the restless boys, waking the drowsy sleepers; for they slept ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... that they might have acquired a sufficient stock of bankers and mechanics by this time, and be able possibly to discover a vacancy for a public-school man with a fairish knowledge of the world and some other things—one who, moreover, had himself served in a cranky and fussy Government Department and, though working in another sphere, had been thanked officially for certain labours—once by the Admiralty, twice by the Board of Trade; and anyway, hang it! one was not so infernally venerable as all ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... caused the damp, grey foliage to smile once more with aniseed and red raspberry, and to sparkle with the gold of their mildew. Also, there came hovering about us goldfinches with their little red-hooded crests, and fussy tomtits in their cravats of yellow, while a nimble, dark, blue woodpecker scaled the stem of an apple tree. And everywhere, yellow leaves fluttered to earth, and, in doing so, so closely resembled birds as to make it not always easy to distinguish whether a leaf or ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... colonel will very likely be some fussy individual who magnifies his own importance, and who will send a squad of volunteers to escort me, and I want to avoid that. These officers always stick by each other; they're bound to. I want to go alone with Stoliker. I have a score to ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... world. The very carts and vans and cabs that Wellington Street poured out incessantly upon the bridge seemed ripe and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious barges slumbered over the face of the river-barges either altogether stagnant or dreaming along in the wake of fussy tugs; and above circled, urbanely voracious, the London seagulls. She had never been there before at that hour, in that light, and it seemed to her as if she came to it all for the first time. And this great ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... to the rock as they traced it downward, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge and from slippery stone to stone. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl's arm and held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy nor needlessly concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all. Had she been alarmed, her companion's manner would have been more comforting than persistent solicitude. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... he communicated with his god. It was surely a great step in advance when all the Elohims were combined into one Supreme Elohim that was everywhere present and ruled the world. Instead of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful, fussy, boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or doing other things quite as useless, it was a great advance to have one Supreme Being, dispassionate, a God of Love and Justice, "with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... in Liverpool, which he amiably, termed "a picture among paint," he observed to him on the occasion of their first meeting: "Paint things exactly as they are. I always do. Young men think they should paint like this or that painter. Be quite simple; no fussy foolishness, you know; and don't try to be what they call 'strong.' When a picture 'smells of paint,'" he said slowly, "it's what ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... gang of stevedores, their laboring bodies steaming in the sharp air, could handle the muddle, the numerous cases and crates were hauled aboard the vessel we have noticed and lowered into her capacious holds by a rattling, fussy cargo winch. The shouts of the freight handlers and the sharp shrieks of the whistle of the boss stevedore, as he started or stopped the hoisting engine, all combined to form a picture as confused as ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... character and attainments. Who would guess it who read all these trivial comments, these catalogues of what he had for dinner, these inane domestic confidences—all the more interesting for their inanity! The effect left upon the mind is of some grotesque character in a play, fussy, self-conscious, blustering with women, timid with men, dress-proud, purse-proud, trimming in politics and in religion, a garrulous gossip immersed always in trifles. And yet, though this was the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... last may, and does have the best of it, in the mere physical part of the strife; but in the more moral, if such a word can be used, the quiet ascendency of better manners and ancient recollections is very apt to overshadow the fussy pretensions of the vulgar aspirant, who places his claims altogether on the all-mighty dollar. It is vain to deny it; men ever have done it, and probably ever will defer to the past, in matters of this sort—it being much with ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... "but he had a sort of fussy irritable way that old gentlemen sometimes have and I somehow got it fixed in my mind that he was old. As a matter of fact, he was about forty-five, he may ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... not at home to welcome the new-comer, nor could he be present at high tea. When he returned, towards nine o'clock, he found Polly with a very red face, and so full of fussy cares for her guest's comfort—her natural kindliness distorted to caricature—that she had not a word for him. One look at Miss Tilly explained everything, and his respects duly paid he retired to the surgery, to indulge a smile at Polly's expense. Here Polly soon joined him, Tilly, fatigued by ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... great circle that was spread beneath his eyes were none of those toiling specks that tell of a Hunt in labour. The check was brief; the hurrying hounds, busy as ants, cast themselves right and left forward, combining in fussy groups, that would suddenly disintegrate as if by an access of centrifugal force; crowding each other jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into the patches of bog, snuffing greedily at the orange stems of the bracken. Soon, reiterated squeals from a leading ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... or that she was seducing him from his work, while she would just sit numbed until the enchantment came again. Without it there were moments when he seemed just ridiculous with his masses of papers, and Mr Clott, and his fussy insistence on being a great artist.... It was a keen pleasure to her to bring him back suddenly to physical things like food and clothes and to care for him. Sometimes he would forget everything except food and clothes, and then she lived ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... him? Oh, no! A fussy busy-body! He knows so many ways of making himself unpleasant that everybody is afraid of him. It's just a game for the likes of him, making trouble for everybody. I must be off now! Mustn't keep work waiting, you know! I'll drop in again to-morrow ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... recalled. He accepted that reality as a proof, scarcely needed, of the already established shallowness of his own nature—a brawling stream always ready to rave round any little impediment in its path; a mere miniature of the torrent, with no resolute strength or purpose in it, but full of a fussy vivacity and self-importance which he could most heartily and bitterly despise. All his life long the same futile story repeated: the same headlong impetuosity, the same want of steadfast force, the same absence of control. And yet, even in the depth of self-reproach, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... one does, always," he remarked placidly. "I sometimes think that accounts for a good deal! There's a man, now—see that fussy little fellow getting out of his motor ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... steps on the gravel walk, a fussy, fidgety little woman appeared from the room beyond, and stopped in astonishment at sight of the giant coming up the steps. Before she had a chance to express her surprise, however, he spoke, addressing the panting child fanning herself with ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... revenges itself by haunting us and upsetting whatever we undertake. Instead of giving to the problem of Judaism the careful deliberation that it requires, we get busy with a thousand and one things, whereby we hope to escape the need of concentrated attention. We have become fussy and fidgety. We are divided into committees and sub-committees. In place of clearness of thought we have a confusion of tongues. Our case illustrates the truth which Pascal enunciated, that most of the evils in the world can be traced to the inability ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... don't want any fussy old freaks with false fronts and shawls. They'd expect to be read aloud to and waited on within an inch of their lives. I'd like some babies to take down to dig and paddle. Do say you'll ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... of light, of fire, candle, and moon, mixed in with monstrous shadows and commonplace figures—some meaningless countenance surmounting a satin whose every shining thread is distinguishable, and the pattern of whose lace trimming could be copied for a fashion plate; he is, in short, a fussy, loud individual, with money to buy and some out-of-the-way ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... them beyond platitudes which he has not tested. In the story of Mary and Martha, which is a very mysterious one, it is quite clear that Martha was rebuked, not for being hospitable, but for being fussy; but it is not at all clear what Mary was praised for—certainly not for being useful. She was not praised for visiting the sick, or for attending committees, but apparently for doing nothing—for sitting still, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and contemptuous disdain of public opinion. But the inconsistency may very well be one solely in appearance. It may well happen that the avoidance of all companionship with the stereotyped social surfaces of life, the ignorance—really, the happy and hieratic ignorance—of what "people" in the fussy sense, are supposed to be saying and doing, may actually help the poet to come more fruitfully and penetratingly to what lies under the surface, to what is essential and permanent and notable in the solid earth of human character. Hence, I think it not improbable that the poetry ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... not expect to enjoy the frills of a private room and special nurses and think the doctor will take care of you for a nominal fee; there is no reason why he should. Having a baby is not a disease, and you will not need to have fussy care. ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... any bishop to order Madame Eglentyne to give up her dogs, she could not even be parted from them on a pilgrimage, though they must have been a great nuisance in the inns, especially as she was so fussy about their food. ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... next morning in solitary state, contrived to maintain the adopted attitude until the front gates were safely passed. Then she relaxed and looked out of the brougham windows with a fussy brightness more consonant to the joys of impending union with the Miss Minetts and the day's impending trip. She made no further effort to secure Damaris' participation in the social and educational advantages which it promised. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... servant to other functions, the decent performance of which was utterly beyond the range of an illiterate man. Many of our readers may be acquainted with the witty satire in which, with a perpetual side glance at the fussy self-importance visible in Bishop Burnet's History, Pope writes 'the Memoirs of P.P., Clerk of this Parish.' With what delightful complacency this diligent representative of his class speaks of taking rank among 'men right worthy of their calling, of a clear and sweet voice, and ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... His friends were the best Englishmen alive; the club which Johnson established bore on its roll the most illustrious names in the country; at the home of the Thrales Johnson tasted and appreciated all that was best in the home life of the time. He had a devoted friend in the person of a fussy, fantastic, opinionated, conceited little Scotch gentleman, Mr. James Boswell of Auchinleck, who clung to his side, treasured his utterances, cherished his sayings, and made himself immortal in immortalizing his hero. It is good to remember that ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Cornford, widow of the late Archibald Reynolds Cornford, Pepperharrow Road, Hants. All Torrence knows of the subsequent proceedings is what he got in official reports of Uncle Bash's death from the consul-general at Tokyo. He was buried over there and the life-insurance companies were rather fussy about the legal proof, Torry says. Whether the widow expects to come to America ultimately or will keep moving through the Orient marrying husbands and burying them is a dark mystery. If she should turn ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... honest and straightforward bit of criticism, if we examine it closely: and, firstly, as to its author? Is there not something very characteristic in its general tone, something dimly sketching a shadowy outline of a kindly, fussy, busy, querulous old man, much given to tiny minuti, acareful copier with a clean pen, indefatiguable in collecting "contributions" to minor history; one jealous of all appearance of slight to his office, even to being moved to wrath with Master Speight for printing "Harolds" instead of ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... sheep at a fence, and replied laconically that they had come to see "the general himself"; it was evident that they were firmly determined. The unnatural shouting of the police ceased, and was quickly succeeded by deliberations, mysterious whispered instructions, and stern, fussy perplexity, which wrinkled the brows of the police officers. The head of the police preferred to await the arrival of the "governor himself." It was not true that he galloped to the spot with three horses at full speed, and began ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... now sorely disappointed in her boy, and made remarks to the effect that if she had looked after his bringing up instead of entrusting him to an indulgent grandmother, affairs at this time would not be in their present state. Parents are apt to be fussy: ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... ought to be vindictive and take every opportunity to put a crimp in the business for the owners. I envied the owners (we've all got a touch of that in our system), because they were rich and were making profits. I knew what their profits averaged. By calling fussy little strikes often enough I could have kept the profits close to the zero mark. Thus the men would be making wages out of the business and the owners would be making nothing. But I declined to let my actions be governed by envy. The Ten Commandments forbid covetousness. The Golden Rule also forbade ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... not an evil; and the great evil is, as I always supposed, in the effect upon the whites. The few Southern gentlemen that I know interest me from their courtesy, agreeable manners, and ready speech. They also strike me as childlike and fussy. I catch myself feeling that I am the man and they are women; and I see this even in the captain of a steamer. Then they all like to talk sentiment—their ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... she is fussy and loses her head, the work accumulates, I am slow, the boy is clumsy. There is a stimulus unsuspected in working to get a job done. Before this I had worked to make the time pass. Then no one took account of how much I did; the factory ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... is the best—walking length, and of good material. "Fussy" styles should not be chosen for street wear, and the hat or bonnet should be rather plain ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... had not cared very much for the latter end of his breakfast, as he was a light eater, and rather particular, "fussy" Step-hen called it, "which we will proceed to cancel by a heavy dose of dough. Give him my share, boys, and welcome. I've got too much respect for my poor stomach to cram ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... They resent the interference of laymen in matters purely professional. They resent such interference as would a reputable physician, a reputable lawyer, a reputable engineer. They resent officious patronage and "fussy" meddling. They resent all these things manfully, vigorously. But your true craftsman will not whine. If the conditions under which he works do not suit him, he will fight for their betterment, but ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... time—and how careful we were about our clothes, and our amateur barbering. Terry, in particular, was fussy to a degree about the cut of his beard, and so critical of our combined efforts, that we handed him the shears and told him to please himself. We began to rather prize those beards of ours; they were almost our sole distinction ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... matter, friends, after all? The slow, the skilful, the dull, the clever, The snake-swift "swell" and the splashing 'ARRY, the puffing launch, and the trim outrigger, The calm canoest who hugs the timbers, the fussy punter who toils like a nigger, All will anon be well out in the cutting, the old gates shutting slowly behind them, And where are those who so shoved to the front? At the tail of the race you may presently find them. The G.O.M. (with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... and gave one the idea of a set of fussy individuals who were superintending, or even bullying, their new neighbors, who appeared from amongst the ruins and debris of the ant city, carrying in their mouths certain oval bodies of a dirty-white color, and measuring each about one-third of an inch in length. Each of these bodies ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... in his uncle's house, he began to be comforted by his luxurious surroundings, the same bright fire burned that Honor loved to see and the easy chairs and soft rich carpet suggested satisfaction to the most discontented. A few minutes of fussy preparations and the gloomy twain were immersed in dry business. Apart from the monotonous scratching of their hurried pens there was but an occassional short remark uttered until the welcome sound of the tea-bell broke the spell of sullenness ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... lovely this afternoon. He agreed eagerly; and Lavinia wondered whether she had been clumsy. She simply couldn't imagine marrying Cesare Orsi, but she knew that such a match for Gheta was freely discussed, and she hoped that her sister would not make difficulties. She wouldn't have dresses so fussy as Gheta's—in figure, anyhow, she was perhaps her sister's superior—fine materials, simply cut, with a ruffle at the throat and hem, a satin wrap pointed at the back, with a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... house, but quiet in the movements of all persons in the room; speaking, not in a whisper, but in a low and gentle voice; walking carefully, not in a silk dress nor in creaky shoes, but not on tiptoe, for there is a fussy sham quietness which disturbs the sick far more ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... that, even before this era, when "old maids" were open to all kinds of insult, there were women brave enough to refuse to barter their souls for the animal comforts of food and shelter. Speaking about "old maids," by which term we mean now a prim, fussy person, it is well to remember that there are male "old maids" as well as female who remain so all through life; also that many "old maids" marry, and ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... by the officer whose wards we were. He was a fussy, quick-tempered, withal kind-hearted little fellow, and kept dashing in and out of the room, really perplexed over housing accommodations for the night. The spy-hunters had been successful in their work of rounding up their victims from all over ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... fussy than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... opened and shut, and how often during the day, and the different ways in which it was opened for the various visitors. He knew Braun's step: he used to visualize the doctor coming back from his rounds, stopping in the hall, hanging up his hat and cloak, always with the same meticulous fussy way. And when the accustomed noises came up to him out of the order in which he had come to look for them, he could not help trying to discover the reason for the change. At meals he began mechanically to listen to the conversation. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... seven o'clock the following morning, and were ready to start. Of course the gentlemen were very fussy about their equipments, and hung themselves all over with cartridges and bags of bullets and powder-flasks; then they had to take care that their tobacco-pouches and match-boxes were filled; and lastly, each carried a little flask of brandy or sherry, in case of being ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... a strict watch on all his movements those last few days, of course, and when I found he had given Candace a letter to mail, I told her I would look after it, and I brought it up to my room and read it, for I suspected just some such thing as he had done. He was very fussy about Betty and her rights, you remember, and he had always insisted that this was Betty's house, her mother's wedding present from the grandfather, and therefore not ours at all, except through Betty's bounty. I was determined that we should not be turned out of here, ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Ch'un and Hsi Ch'un interposed with an ironic laugh, "what's the use of the hurry-scurry you're in the whole day long! Even when you're having your meals, or your tea, you're in this sort of fussy helter-skelter!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... has surely good grounds. It is all very well for lazy and nervous people (like myself for instance) to retreat into tubs, and holes, and corners, anywhere out of the dust, and wonder within ourselves, "what all the fuss can be about?" The fussy people might have the best of it, if they know their end. Suppose they were to answer this March or May morning thus:—"Not bestir ourselves, indeed! and the spring sun up these four hours!—and this first of May, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron, as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of Duerer's relations with his clients; ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... their work by the fire. There was only one candle on the table, and they poked their heads so near the flame as they talked that she wondered the caps did not catch light, particularly Maria's, which was very high and fussy in front. Susan began to count the narrow escapes she had, but before she had got far she became so interested in the conversation that she gave ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... of which he expected to spend the evening with the Grays he found it not a little difficult to keep his mind upon his work with the Judge, and that gentleman seemed to him extraordinarily particular, even fussy, about having every fact brought to him painstakingly verified down to the smallest detail. When at last he was released, and he rushed home in his car to dress, he discovered that his spirits were dancing ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... abandoned to pleasure, ever murmuring pleasant nothings and tossing light persiflage from table to table, is truly an interesting study of the lighter sides of life. One sits on a magnificent markee-covered, glass-enclosed terrace, overlooking the Thames with its ever-changing scenes of fussy ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... a bit of difference," Delia announced. "Frank has a steady beau now and they'll take the parlor. And then, I suppose, it'll be my turn. I shall just hate to be grown up and have long skirts on and do up my hair, and be so fussy about everything. When I think of that I wish ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... every important department should have had the misfortune to have her affairs entrusted to Ministers and officials who were childishly incompetent and ludicrously vindictive. Men of meagre mental calibre, who hold office under the Crown or anywhere else, are invariably fussy, pompous, overbearing, and stifling with conceit. This condition of things was in full swing during the Napoleonic regime and captivity, and that is the period we are concerned about. There does not appear to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... ways. These also the irascible redwing decided to be foes, flying about their heads threateningly, and never ceasing his doleful cries so long as they were in sight. I hoped his brown-streaked mate down in the marsh knew what a fussy and suspicious personage she had married, and would not be made anxious by his extravagances; but she too distrusted the bird gazers, adding her protests to his, and such an outpouring of "chacks" and other blackbird maledictions one—happily—is ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... can have a right good time first, anyway, if you keep away from ugly things and fussy people. And I reckon you really go to Heaven afterwards if you haven't been ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... interest in the failing health of his wife. No one replied to her remark, and Mrs. Bates continued: "It really used to make my heart ache to see the little forlorn thing sit there in the gallery, fixed up so old and fussy, and then to see her sister prinked out like a milliner's show window, a puckerin' and twistin', and if she happens to catch her sister's eye, I have actually seen her turn up her nose at her,—so—" and Mrs. Bates's nasal organ went up towards her eyebrows in imitation of the ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use, said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm too fussy about what the town ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... that Miss Reston sent me a grand feather-boa—grey, in a present? I've aye had a notion o' a feather-boa, but I dinna ken how she kent that. And this is no' yin o' the skimpy kind; it's fine and fussy and soft ... Here, did the Lord send Miss Jean a present?... I doot he's aff for ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... her relief, and said she was feeling blue because Harry would not be present! Just before the hour for the party Lucy descended to the parlor, where her father was reading, in order, as she said, to let him see whether her dress were fussy enough to suit him. He approved her taste, and after asking if Lizzie, too, were dressed in the same manner, resumed his paper. Ere long the covered sleigh stood at the door, and in a few moments Lucy and Lizzie were in Anna Graham's dressing-room, ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... sure, it was with him a general rule to find fault with her about everything. He did not spare her his reproaches on a multitude of subjects; all day long he was worrying her about small trifles with which he should have had nothing to do. It is a mistake to suppose that a man can not be brutal and fussy at the same time. M. de Talbrun was proof ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... before them," said he, glancing ruefully at his rotundity, and chuckling wheezily at his own little joke. Last of all came Headingly, slight and tall, with the student stoop about his shoulders, and Fardet, the good-natured, fussy, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whenever the Duchess gives a pay-up party to the stuffy people Lili Estradina won't be bothered with, there are days when I never lay eyes on Paul, and barely have time to be waved and manicured; but, apart from that, Raymond's really much nicer and less fussy ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... epoch here opens itself to us. In this case, also, we shall gain the conviction that a true genius takes the liveliest interest in the fate of his own nation, and does not occupy himself with distant, abstruse problems (such as fussy metaphysicians would fain philosophise into 'Hamlet'), whilst the times are going out of joint. The greatest Englishman remained, in the most powerful drama of his, within the sphere of the questions that agitated his ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... is an expensive and fussy piece of work, too. It must be accurately done, and done by men who are experienced in that special kind of work. One misprint will cause a discord and throw the music out of sale. Of course if a song turns out to be popular, a small fortune is often reaped from it; but ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... served to deepen in him the conviction that his influence on the men against the evils which were their especial snare was as the wind against the incoming tide, beating in from the North Sea. He could make a ripple, a certain amount of fussy noise, but the tide of temptation rolled steadily onward, unchecked ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... glad Gwalior was a success. I think a good native state is the most satisfactory kind of Government for India in many ways; but (a) so few are really good, if you go behind the scenes and think of such fussy things as security of life and property, taxation and its proportion to benefits received, justice and administration, education, freedom of the subject, and so on. (b) It spells stagnation and the abandonment of the hope of training the mass of the people to responsibility; ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... hen sitting upon eggs or leading about a brood of little pheasants. This gentleman was more sad than joyous, for he could not take his handkerchief from his pocket without bringing out the corpse of a baby pheasant with it—one that had been trodden to death by a too fussy foster-mother. I owe him a debt for having led me a charming walk by moonlight to see a dolmen—the largest and best preserved of all those I had already seen in Southern ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... little creek whose shallow waters flowed through lovely meadows where boneset plants were white with bloom and giant eupatorium lifted its rosy heads. A red-headed flicker flew screaming from a field as they passed, and a fussy wren scolded at them from a ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... apology for a once White Ensign, and they were men-of-war, very much men-of-war. They had been at the game for nearly twenty-four months, and, through long practice, they elbowed their way in and out of the traffic with all the fussy, devil-may-care assertiveness of His ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... wife that the husband should learn the true value of things—his own dignity, his position, and even his secondary position by her side as manageress. But, if she be wise, she will not make this too apparent. Directly the voice gets too loud, the tone too commanding, and the manner too fussy, the unhappy man begins to suspect that he is being "managed," and in nine cases out of ten sinks into utter imbecility, or breaks away like an obstinate pig. Both these symptoms are bad, and perhaps the first is the worst. No true woman can love and reverence ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... truth, though not in the clearest style, the more the lawyer sifted her testimony, the clearer and more evident its truthfulness and point became; until there seemed at length nothing to do but acquit the prisoner. But courts of law are proverbially fussy, and now the State's Attorney was doing his best to invalidate the testimony of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... them, and she had treated Nan to the aforesaid hugs; "for you were so brave, darling, and actually took the wind out of my sails!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Phillis. "Miss Drummond is not so bad, after all, is she, in spite of her dowdiness and fussy ways?" ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... which he carried in his breast pocket, young Shotwell could inform any grand lady or any pompous or fussy gentleman what was the "asking price" of any particular residence marked for sale upon the diagrams of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... life have been put aside that she may be "entertained." Elaborate meals are planned; there is a straining after hospitality which defeats its own purpose and makes the visitor uncomfortable, because the hostess has so manifestly incommoded herself. The fussy hostess puts too ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... said Aunt Marjorie in her fussy tones. "Judy, I hope Hilda is not going to encourage you in silly sentimental talk of that kind. You say your heart aches with pleasure. Really, my dear, I have no patience to listen to you. I should like to know what a ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... kind of vague idea that Smithson would call to-day. He was so fussy about those tickets for the Metzikoff recital. I hate pianoforte recitals, and I detest that starched old duchess, but I suppose I shall have to take you there—or poor Smithson will be miserable,' said Lady Kirkbank, watching Lesbia keenly over ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... been made up and may appear any minute in its place. The sunshine beating through the glass roof, the heat of travel, the dust of the station, the moving carriages with their various colours, the shouts of railway officials, the recurring panics of fussy passengers, begin to affect the nerves. Conversation becomes broken, porters are beset on every side with questions they cannot answer, rushes are made on any empty carriages within reach, a child is knocked ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... your brown eyes for being so sharp, my pretty Sally," said the man who had just entered, whilst worthy Mr. Jellyband came bustling forward, eager, alert and fussy, as became the advent of one of the most favoured ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... for it so happens that Colonel Fitz-James is known to be an epicure, to be fussy and finical about all things pertaining to the table, and what is worse takes no pains to disguise it, and in consequence is considered an undesirable dinner guest by the most experienced housekeepers in the regiment. All this ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... up to the Alethea's side, discharged a fussy inspector on the brigantine's deck, and panted impatiently until he, the examination concluded without delay, was ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... of this fashion in phrasing for several years, I have come to the conclusion that the plain "Sir" of former times,—which, to the "well-brought-up" child, was a practical application of the Fifth Commandment,—is much to be preferred to the fussy elaboration of personal address that has superseded it. Indications at present are, that the old-fashioned "Sir" and "Madam" are coming into their own again, among ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... almost a uniform—skirt and blouse. But she had secretly sewed for herself another sort of dress—house-dresses for the afternoon, of inexpensive, but delicate and light-colored fabrics, made a little "fussy." These she never wore. Old Mrs. Bray never wore fussy clothes; and it had not been Nell's way. The gray-and-lavender challis had been in the nature of an experiment. Old Mrs. Bray was plainly pleased; but she rarely wore it. She said ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... if bent on tormenting her. "You had lost your bright color to be sure, but there was something very winsome in your face and eyes, and manner; and he might better have married you than the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, fussy Martha Craig, who, like the Martha of old, is troubled about many things, and leads the minister a stirred up kind ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... as he had me feelin' like I ought to be led out and shot at sunrise, the old Major comes bustlin' in fussy. I could have ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Meantime, a fussy, talkative man was endeavouring to impress the rapidly collecting crowd with the advisability of their entering all together and approaching the ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... read and thought enough to deduce that the only vital interest in life after one's secret happiness—which one would not dare spread out too thin if one could in this American life—is necessary work well done. And that is quite different from those fussy interests and fads we create or take up for the sake of thinking ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... when he and the other members left for the ceremony the anxious Boswell was committed to the hospitality of Lady Di, whose "charming conversation" was not entirely adequate to keep up his spirits. In a short time, however, the glad tidings of his election came, and the fussy little Scotsman hurried off to the place of meeting to be formally received. It is impossible to read without a smile the swelling sentences with which he closes his narrative. He was introduced "to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... shop appeared invitingly before him, denuded as it was by wartime. A sign in English said: "Tea." Walking in, he sat down in a fussy little parlor where the tables had red cloths, and a print, in pinkish and greenish colors, hung in the middle of the imitation brocade paper of each wall. Under a print of a poster bed with curtains in front of which eighteen to twenty people bowed, with the title of "Secret d'Amour," sat three ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... did not; but I sent Shawn Keogh with the ass cart for to bear him home. (Trying cupboards which are locked.) Well, isn't he a nasty man to get into such staggers at a morning wake? and isn't herself the divil's daughter for locking, and she so fussy after that young gaffer, you might take your death with drought and ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... it, and I don't mean to, but it's so much easier to get along if you ain't very fussy about being exactly true. I used to tell 'em because I was afraid of father and Nicolo, and now I do sometimes because the boys laugh at me. I know it's bad, but I forget," and Nat looked much ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... pleasantly, that as this was the first country of Europe that I had seen, it was impossible for me to judge what particular trait distinguished its nobility. While I was saying this, a little fussy woman, wearing a showy dress and lace mantilla, came up to us and called Miss Eaton ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... not head of Richards', as Johnstone had been longer in that form, and was consequently senior to him. Johnstone was, however, small and slightly built, and cared little for rowing, cricket, or football. He had gained his place in the Sixth by sheer hard work rather than by talent. He was fussy and irritable, with a strong sense of the importance of his position as a Sixth town boy and head of Richards'. Between him and Frank there was no cordiality, for it irritated him that the latter was upon ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... matter; and the fact that he could at last let himself go deepened his sense of the sympathy and the understanding that had always existed between him and Lois. He hated fuss; and his other sisters were tiresomely fussy and maddeningly disingenuous. In half an hour Lois had learned all she cared to know of the family history. She merely dipped into the bin, brought up a handful of wheat, blew away the chaff, eyed the remaining kernels with a sophisticated ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the first few days after the delivery, she was fussy with the nurse so that two in succession had to be discharged. On the fifth day she woke up and seeing a nurse lying on the couch beside her bed thought the latter was colored. On the seventh day she had a dream in which she thought she "nearly died ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... party was good enough," said Mr. St. Clair, "you're too fussy about trifles, Isabel. Come, children, scurry off to bed, you'll get no ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... other picture to finish, which he hoped to get ready in time to be a New Year's present, since Olga had insisted on Lucia's being done first. He had certainly secured an admirable likeness of her, and there was in it just all that his stippled, fussy representation of Lucia lacked. "Bleak December" and "Yellow Daffodils" and the rest of the series lacked it, too: for once he had done something in the doing of which he had forgotten himself. It ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... barmaid in white apron and lovely collar and cuffs stood in the doorway, ready to serve the thirsty. The red-coated driver pulled in on the tavern side, and men in neckerchiefs, hobnailed shoes, blue woolen stockings and knee-breeches made fussy haste to water the horses. Old Brick-Dusty climbed down to see a man in the tavern, and the Michigan contingent and Colonel Littlejourneys slid down the other side and went into Wythburn Church. There isn't another church in England so peculiar and so interesting. A pew is marked sacred to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Again it was dull, with an incipient drizzle as we started out at six o'clock. The fish were now rising, at any rate, in my pool. At the very entrance to it, which was, in fact, the connecting run from The Rocks, I killed, after a fussy tussle and plenty of leaping out of the water, a grilse of 4 lb.; and we had barely rowed out into the stream when a fish of 6 lb. or 7 lb. leaped head and tail out of the water at my fly without touching it. The overcast character of the evening ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... enough offers," Mrs. Klein answered. She laid the rug over the porch railing. "But she's a fussy stubborn girl." She sat in her chair. "You a ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... you know, I've none of the fussing, baby-tending, herb-tea-making recommendations of Aunt Sally, and divers others of the class commonly called useful. Indeed, to tell the truth, I think useful persons are commonly rather fussy and stupid. They are just like the boneset, and hoarhound, and catnip—very necessary to be raised in a garden, but not ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... seemed to see his father as a pathetic cheated simpleton, and to hear the innumerable children of his sister crying for food; he remembered that in the old Bursley days he had always distrusted John Stanway, that conceited fussy imposing young man of twenty-two whom his father had taken into partnership and utterly believed in. He forgot that he had hated his father, and his mind was obsessed by a sentimental ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... hand, and a small yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the other. Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism about him which his mother rather encouraged. "I'd rather he'd be this way than the other," she said when people were inclined to smile at his little fussy habits. "It won't hurt him any to be nice and particular, if ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... real little home—to take care of," said Bel. "Not fine, nor fussy; but real sweet and pleasant. Sunny windows and flowers, and a pretty carpet, and white curtains, and one of those chromos of little round, yellow chickens. A best china tea-set, and a real trig little kitchen; pies to make for Sundays and Thanksgivings; just enough work to do in the mornings, and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... his attention were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear. Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two fussy, jealous bourgeoises, were others as importunate and aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact—that of having missed ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... as were their ancestors on both sides. My mother was uniformly religious, but not fussy about it. I have seen her intensely happy, but never heard her shout. Her religion was a deep, smooth, current without fluctuation. My father was religious more by spells, but still he never went to extremes, and could never "get religion" at the altar, in the Methodist fashion. This ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... a sweeping curtsey and vanished, and Mr Martin stood for some time in his deserted parlour feeling far more uncomfortable than he liked to confess. He was methodical and fussy, but he was by no means an ill-natured man. He thought Mrs Potts most impertinent, but her news distressed him. After reflecting for a few moments, he went across to the fireplace, and pulled his bell sharply. After a ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... as the young moving picture operator looked to her for confirmation. "I'm not a bit fussy," she added. "I've done harder things than crawl on my hands and knees out of an ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... King of Ts'u is a sage, and understands the Great Way (tao)." On the other hand, only fifty years before this, when in 538 Ts'u, with Tsin's approval, first tried her hand at durbar work, the king was horrified to hear from a fussy chamberlain (evidently orthodox) that there were six different ways of receiving visitors according to their rank; so that Ts'u's ritual decorum could not have been of very long standing. The following year ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... his habits and ways of doing business. A swift reader and a surprisingly swift writer, he was always occupied, and was skilful in using even the scraps and fragments of his time. No pressure of work made him fussy or fidgety, nor could any one remember to have seen him ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... snatch a hurried meal out of a tin can, drink unboiled water and walk or ride in the sun without a pith hat or an umbrella. Some foreigners who ought to know better are careless about these things and good-naturedly chaff one who is more particular. But while one should not be unnecessarily fussy, yet if he is courageous enough to be sensible, he will not only preserve his health, but be physically benefited by his tour, while the heedless man will probably be floored by dysentery or even if he escapes that scourge will reach his destination so worn out that he must take days or perhaps ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... of surpassing beauty, rhythmical and eloquent as the music of the spheres, if it might only be given to a man to read it. There was an absence, too, of all attempt at feminine self-glorification which he did not analyse but thoroughly appreciated. There was no fussy amplification of hair, no made-up smiles, no affectation either in her good humour or her anger, no attempt at effect in her gait, in her speech, or her looks. She seemed to him to be one who had something within ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... waiting for her, with the precious "Michael" struggling to free himself from his coverings. Hawkes soon had a cab alongside. He helped Peg into it: then she stretched out her arms and O'Farrell opened the sail-cloths and out sprang "Michael," dusty and dirty and blear-eyed, but oh! such a happy, fussy, affectionate, relieved little canine when he saw his beloved owner waiting for him. He made one spring at her, much to the lawyer's dignified amazement, and began to bark at her, and lick her face and hands, and jump on and roll ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that he had never been before. It was with the most insulting precautions that he examined every Sunday his wife's accounts. He took a look at the grocer's, and settled it himself every month: he had the ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... look very happy over this, for they both hated any fuss. But when they got into the big kitchen they found it was all right. The miller's wife was not a fussy person at all, and they were at home with the old lady in a minute. The little girl was sitting beside the fire in a big chair. She looked very pale, but was ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... British reformers, how could Pitt and Grenville look on the philanthropic professions of Maret as anything but a snare, and Miles as his dupe? Miles had ever been officious. Clearly the time had come to stop his fussy advances to an unofficial agent, which Lebrun might once more ascribe to Pitt's ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... few days which elapsed before the due arrival of official permission for X. to leave the jungle, it might have been observed that he was changed. The hitherto sedate individual became fussy and worried, and members of The Community agreed that he was "journey-proud"—a happy expression used by one of the neighbouring Malay potentates when wishing to describe his feelings at a time of emerging from the security of his own retreat. But there was much to do—clothes ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... inclined to see danger where there is none," returned the aunt. "I would not for the world be as anxious and fussy about my children as you are about yours. Besides, I think it quite right to let their father's relatives do for them when they are ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... offices of the law firm, Mr. O'Brien, a short, fussy, albeit comfortable-looking little person, greeted all the members of the family and the various heirs and assigns with a hearty handshake. He had been personal counsel to Archibald Kane for twenty years. He ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... those who had been kind to him (such as his publisher, Mr. John Murray for instance) to show that no one could be more loyal or more grateful than he who has been depicted as the incarnation of all that is spiteful, fussy, and mean. There is no need for the world to be told here that the author of "Lavengro" is a delightful writer, and one who is more sure than most authors of his time to win that little span of life which writing men call "immortality." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... exile in consequence of their duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight the Marquis of Beuvron on the Place Royale. The Marquis's second, M. de fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. M. de Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le- Brule and brought back to Paris; and the king immediately ordered Parliament ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot |
