"Overdone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling, half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it was, detached himself from the person he was talking to, and came forward and gave him a sufficiently cordial welcome. The person with whom ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Turkey Oriental splendor! Original first shoddy contract mentioned in history Overflowing his banks People talk so glibly of "feeling," "expression," "tone," Perdition catch all the guides Picture which one ought to see once—not oftener Polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot Relic matter a little overdone? Room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat Saviour, who seems to be of little importance any where in Rome Self-satisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of America Sentimental praises of the Arab's idolatry of his horse She assumes ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... is a mighty fine thing, takin' it by and large; but it kin be overdone. It's barely possible that some of this here new crop of your well-wishers and admirers will be makin' little business propositions to you—desirin' to have you go partners with 'em in business, or to sell you desirable pieces of real estate; or even to let you loan 'em various sums of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... mind and remained silent. So the topic dropped, but that it stood very straight upon its feet in Mr. Knight's mind was clear from the compression of his thin lips and the ill-humour of his remarks about the coldness and overdone character of the beef and sundry other household matters. As soon as the meal was concluded and he had washed it down with a last glass of water and with a very wry face thanked Providence for all that he had received, he retired into ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... has not laughed in his sleeve to see it acted?—Who has not admired and wondered at the cold and formal bow and shake of the hand, the tender inquiries after the health of the maiden aunt and the baby, the carelessly expressed wish that we may meet somewhere—all so palpably overdone? That the heroine of the impassioned scene at which we had unfortunately to assist an hour ago! Where are the tears, the convulsive sobs, the heartbroken grief? And that the young gentleman who saw nothing for it but flight or a pistol bullet! There, all the world's a stage, and ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... that the larger the loaves the slower must be the baking, otherwise they will be overdone on the outside and underdone ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... made a short run of about 1/2 mile, and then after a short halt to cool, a long non-stop for quite 3 miles. The Barrier, five geographical miles from Cape Armitage, now looked very close, but Lashly had overdone matters a bit, run out of lubricant and got his engine too hot. The next run yielded a little over a mile, and he was forced to stop within a few hundred yards of the snow slope leading to the Barrier and wait for more lubricant, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... railway station; so large is it, in fact, that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter of size, at first; but at the end of a few months it was perceived that the mistake was distinctly the other way. The error is to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was younger than ever and more like Nora Viveash and more different. When the door closed on them Philippa turned to him with her radiance (the least bit overdone). ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... nothing to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course, and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting of the Red Cross Committee was held at the hospital, and I was sent ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... from perfect. His artistic sense did not aspire to exquisite achievements. He delighted unduly in alliteration, assonance, and rhyming effects, all which he sometimes carried to excess. In the first stanza, for example, of The Conquered Banner, popular as it is, the rhyme effect seems somewhat overdone:— ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... soprano has executed a flamboyant cadenza or the tenor has reached a higher note than usual. Their appreciation is slow but hearty and always worthily disposed. The French are given to exaggerating an emotion and to applauding an eccentricity. Even their subtlety is overdone. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Italian band on board; for the general desired to serenade the governor during the evening. It was an hour too early; for the commander had been so solicitous that the company should not be late, that he had overdone the matter. The landlord was to have the carriages at the landing at half-past six, and there was an hour to wait. But the princess and Mrs. Sharp declined to leave their seats in the launch, for fear of mussing up their dresses; and the general called upon the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... overdone manner was not calculated to abate Mrs. Kilgore's astonishment, and she continued to stare at him with an expression in which a vague terror began to appear. There are few shorter transitions than that from panic to anger. Seeing that her astonishment at his ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the supper there was of real physical value to me. Well might I write, in 1879, when Thomas Scott lay dead: "It was Thomas Scott whose house was open to me when my need was sorest, and he never knew, this generous noble heart, how sometimes, when I went in, weary and overdone, from a long day's study in the British Museum, with scarce food to struggle through the day—he never knew how his genial 'Well, little lady', in welcoming tone, cheered the then utter loneliness of my life. To no living man or woman—save ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... home," she exclaimed, with a rather overdone carelessness. "Marilla had a headache this afternoon, and I'm sure the twins will be in some dreadful mischief by this time. I really shouldn't have ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... press his hand. They walked along almost like old acquaintances; she was so amusing, the darling little creature, it became her so prettily Rudy thought, when she described what was laughable and overdone in the dress of the ladies, and ridiculed their manners and walk. She did not do this in order to mock them, for no doubt they were very good people, yes! kind and amiable. Babette knew what was right, for she had a god-mother that was a distinguished English lady. She was in Bex, eighteen ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... swell and to force the sides of the flask outwards into their original shape. The swelling proceeds rather rapidly after it has once commenced, so the operation requires watching, lest it should be overdone and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... exact opposite of what one ought to be," she laughed, "and it almost makes me feel not legally married. But don't—don't, please, if you love me, use that awful word 'parson' again. I can't stand it. Don't you think it sounds just like the crackle of cold, overdone toast?" ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... whole affair began to grow clear. She even saw how Linda, having friendly association with no man save Peter, would naturally use him for a model. The trouble was that, with her gift of penetration and insight and her facility with her pen, she had overdone the matter. She had not imitated Peter; she had BEEN Peter. Marian ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... preferred to the tough bread. They proved to be the so-called "seafoam" biscuit from New York. The potatoes never came on the table looking like new fallen snow, as we have them at home. We were surprised to find both mutton and beef overdone, according to our American taste. The French talk about the Briton's "bifteck saignant," but we never saw anything cooked so as to be, as we should say, "rare." The tart is national with the English, as the pie is national with us. I never saw on an English table that excellent substitute for both, ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... recommended as an admirable corrective to foolish flights of imagination. There is something concrete about butter-making which counteracts an overplus of sentiment— especially when the butter will not come. And hot water may be overdone. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... this transept was put up in 1894, in memory of Wm. Philip Price, M.P. This window is too full of detail, and the canopy work is overdone. The glass ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... whole; but a large head and shoulders are quite sufficient for a dish, and contain all that is usually helped, because, when the thick part is done, the tail is insipid and overdone. The latter, cut in slices, makes a very good dish for frying; or it may be salted down and served with egg sauce and parsnips. Cod, when boiled quite fresh, is watery; salting a little, renders ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... theory, my dear," he said, "but it can be overdone. There is such a thing as going too far. You have to compromise even if you don't look as well as you might. You can't be too very conspicuously different from your neighbors, even in ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... stimulants with a view to amassing enough nerve to propose to Alice Faraday: and, now that he had drawn her away from the throng to this secluded nook and was about to put his fortune to the test, a horrible fear swept over him that he had overdone it. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... is usual. Many things could be said against their sufficiency as instructors in matters of thought; and many more against the low and barbarous tone of their morale—the inhumanity and brutality of both their principles and their practice. All this might no doubt be very easily overdone, and would certainly be so, if undertaken in the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... pruning is a devitalizing process. On the contrary it is often stimulating and may actually increase the vigor of a weak or declining tree. All practical experience teaches us that pruning is a reasonable, necessary, and advantageous process. True, it is often overdone, and improperly done. As in many other things, certain fundamental principles underlie and should govern practice. When these are known and observed, pruning becomes ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... South Carolina, there is a man called Josiah Wormwood; I am ashamed to say he is a Connecticut man. For a considerable of a spell, he was a strollin' preacher, but it didn't pay in the long run. There is so much competition in that line in our country, that he consaited the business was overdone, and he opened a Lyceum to Charleston South Car, for boxin', wrestlin' and other purlite British accomplishments; and a most a beautiful sparrer he is, too; I don't know as I ever see a more scientific ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... be a very pretty one—very graceful, I mean. I suppose a graceful woman would be graceful even when a disembodied spirit. I should think she would be getting a little tried with all this questioning; but perhaps we're only reading the fatigue into her. The ghost may be merely overdone." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to understand you at last," retorted Stanton. "You have been smitten yourself, and this is your strategy to conceal the fact. The trouble is that you have overdone the matter, and revealed your transfixed heart long before I should have suspected the wound. Had you not better commence on the picture soon, for this matter may ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... circle him round and round the pen easy enough, but when I try to head him through the gate, he just sets back and blinks them hog eyes at me and grunts. To get near him at all I had to act simple, and I reckon I've overdone it. Now he thinks I don't know enough to know that old Bodge is mostly whiskers and guesses. He's known Bodge longer'n I have, and Bodge don't seem to be right bait. I can't get into his wallet ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... apparently overdone and overworked their premature peace efforts and have made things worse for them. They've ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... increased, and by the end of the second year the boat, on nearly every trip, was filled with Chinese. The trade became so lucrative that another boat was brought from England and placed on the route, which continued to be a source of profit until the business was overdone by opposition lines. As soon as the treaties permitted, steamers were introduced into the coasting-trade of China, and subsequently upon the rivers and other inland waters. The Chinese merchants perceived ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... says he, quickly. "Here, come and sit down. No, I don't want an answer. It was an absurd question. You have overdone it a little, that ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... had struck. From this moment the respect shown to Bill, and to Gus also, by those who had no desire to do otherwise was really almost overdone, his classmates being generally proud of him, and the teachers and seniors pleased to have him a member of the school. But the sophs mostly grew more inclined to consider both boys a menace to their peace ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellect of many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey and melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and incompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are like Boucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so that all ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... "ailment". The false fit, as a rule, is very much overdone. The face is red from exertion instead of livid from heart and lung embarrassment, the spasms are too vigorous but not jerky enough, the skin is hot and dry instead of hot and clammy, the hands may ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... been pretty clear, then—at the moment. Afterwards (I don't mind confessing to you) I lay for some minutes where the explosion flung me. In my hurry I had overdone ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... it, whatever it was," said Mrs. Belmont, laying her hand soothingly upon his as the camels closed together. "It is no wonder that you are overdone. You have thought and worked for all of us so long. We shall halt presently, and a few hours' ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... consumed by fever, devoured by vermin, poor artisans torn from their workshops, poor husbandmen forcibly taken from the plough, weeping for a wife, a mother, children, a family widowed or orphaned, also without bread and perhaps without shelter, overdone, ill, dying, despairing,—some of these wretched beings succumb, and consent to "ask for pardon!" Then a letter is presented for their signature, all written and addressed: "To Monseigneur le Prince-President." We give publicity to this letter, as ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... continuous labor induced brain-fever and intense suffering, and he never entirely rallied from its effects. A weakness followed, which constantly increased. To one friend he remarked: "The 'Seasons' have brought this trouble upon me. I ought not to have written it. I have overdone;" and to another: "I have done; my head is no longer what it was. Formerly ideas came to me unsought: I am now obliged to seek for them; and for this I feel I am not formed." It is a sad picture, that of the old composer sitting down to work in his seventieth year, distrustful of his ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... stand out in every line of this story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... dressed alike, and their costume excited great attention. At first it was to have been very plain, black and white and a single rose; but it was settled that simplicity had been overdone, and, like a country girl after her first season, had turned into a most affected baggage, so they agreed to be regal; and fancy uniforms, worthy of the court of Oberon, were the order of the day. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... architectural designs to give the effect of a panel let into the wall. Thus painting assumed a more decorative nature. Vitruvius says in effect that in the early days nature was followed in these wall paintings, but later on they became ornate and overdone, showing many unsupported architectural facades and impossible decorative framings. This can be traced in the Roman and Pompeian frescos. There were four kinds of these wall paintings. (1.) Those that covered all ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... time, his tongue, too, and his purse, but to no purpose. Behold, your friend the kaimkam is gloomy and impassive as a camel; what can you do? Whisper in his ear? The Padres have done that before you. Slip a purse into his pocket? They have done that, too, and overdone it long since. Yes, the City Hall of every city in the Empire is an epitome of Yildiz Kiosk. And your kaimkams, and valis, and viziers, have all been taught in the same Text-Book, at the same Political School, and by the same ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—quel coup d'oeil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long one, and left only just time for a peep into the two churches and a study of the hours of their services. St. Kenelm's was decided to be a "perfect gem," ornaments, beauty, and all, a little overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen's opinion, but perfectly ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... surplus carrots, artichokes, potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes— every one nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and was perfectly astonished at the sums of money that could be made. Grapes had been overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made out of everything else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in the London market at two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within five miles of a large town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the Western Road would not ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... organization, Rob thought that a look of embarrassment spread over Jack Curtiss' heavy features, and that even Bill Bender's brazen face took on a shade of pallor. If this were so, however, it could have been only momentary, for the next minute Jack, with what seemed very much overdone cordiality, came forward with: ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... types, and the result makes for legibility. Although several other modern faces of type have been designed on much the same lines, notably one for The Dove's Press in England, the "Montaigne" seems the best of them all, because of its freedom, and its absolute divorce from the overdone, exaggerated, heavy-faced effects of the Morris styles ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... would by no means scoff at the counsel of our Ahitophels. A glance at the newspapers of last month, and their interminable advertising columns, is quite enough to convince us that the thing may be overdone. True, not one out of five—nay, perhaps, not one out of fifteen—of these swarming schemes, has the chance of obtaining the sanction of Parliament for years to come; still, it is not only a pity, but a great waste and national grievance, that so large a sum as the deposits which are paid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... much matter," remarked the other man. "These sour-tempered folks are mostly handy at business, and know pretty well what they are about. But, as you say, I don't think she'll do much. This business of keeping cent-shops is overdone, like all other kinds of trade, handicraft, and bodily labor. I know it, to my cost! My wife kept a cent-shop three months, and lost five ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "though I never even said it justified the suspicion, any more than I said that balls might not easily be overdone, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his shoulders in recollection, "I won't harrer up your feelin's. 'S I told you, he done his best. I was willin' to quit long 'fore he was. Fact was, he overdone it a little, an' he had to throw water in my face 'fore he got through; an' he done that as thorough as the other thing. I was somethin' like a chickin jest out o' the cistern. I crawled off to bed the best I could, but I didn't lay on my back fer a good spell, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... burnt to a cinder. Take it away. And tell your cook, with my compliments, that it's always better to have a thing underdone than overdone, because if it's not cooked enough you can always do it more, but if it's cooked too much you can't do ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... got except theology, and as he read his little unsuccessful circumstances vanished and the wonder of life returned to him, the routine of reluctant getting up, opening shop, pretending to dust it with zest, breakfasting with a shop egg underdone or overdone or a herring raw or charred, and coffee made Miriam's way and full of little particles, the return to the shop, the morning paper, the standing, standing at the door saying "How do!" to passers-by, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... danger with rustic work is the temptation, to which most builders yield, to make it too fancy and intricate in place of practical and simple. Figs. 323, 324, 325, and 326 are as ornamental as one can make them without incurring the danger of being overdone, too ornate, too ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... lively name for the kitchen knave, gets the holly-wand across his quarters when he deserves it; but Tusser seems to feel that discipline may be overdone. It may be waste of good stick ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... of a middle class, and it will be remembered that the growth of the middle class in Europe was also the decisive change between the Middle Ages and Modern Times in Europe. The parallelism should, however, not be overdone. The gentry continued to play a role in China during the Modern Times, much more than the aristocracy did in Europe. The middle class did not ever really get into power during the ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... in short, more intimately with the great general subject; and I mean, of course, not in such a form as the present, but in many another, possible and impossible. It all comes back, doubtless, this vision of missed occasions and delays overdone, to the general truth that the observer, the enjoyer, may, before he knows it, be practically too far in for all that free testimony and pleasant, easy talk that are incidental to the earlier or more detached stages of a relation. There are relations ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... the affectation which for many years past has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one out of humor with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant: a man as good-natured, at the least, as Henry the Fourth; altogether as fond of his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I wanted to dine. It isn't like him either the sentiments or the behaviour. I'm sure he's not himself. Pembroke used to look after the day-boys, and so he can't very well take the lead against them, and perhaps Rickie's doing his dirty work—and has overdone it, as decent people generally do. He's even altering to talk to. Yet he's not been married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run him. I don't see why they should, and no more do you; and that's why I want you to go to Sawston, if only ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... it, and ordered a statue. Sir Matthew White Eidley was much struck by the genius of young Lough, and became one of his greatest patrons. The sculptor determined to strike out a new path for himself. He thought the Greeks had exhausted the Pantheistic, and that heathen gods had been overdone. Lough began and pursued the study of lyric sculpture: he would illustrate the great English poets. But there was the obvious difficulty of telling the story of a figure by a single attitude. It was like a flash of thought. "The true artist," he said, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... its style it was overdone; it was full of pretentious expressions; it lacked the simplicity and good common sense that ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... and is staring with unaffected wonder at them. Their heads are heavily floured, and their cheeks rouged. They have also greatly overdone the burnt hair-pin, as a huge smouch of black under each of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... masters she had had were not likely to take nearly so much interest in her as Mr. Bell; but she was resolved to leave no stone unturned, and went to see several of them. They gave Miss Melville very faint hopes of success. Edinburgh was overdone with masters and mistresses, rents were very high, and classes the most uncertain things possible. But she might apply at one of the institutions. Thither she went, and found that her want of accomplishments prevented her from getting a good situation; and her want of experience was objected ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... to tolerate, and even to treat with a certain respect, the humble elements of constitutional government which he found in existence. There was more manliness in his nature than in that of his brother, more belief in the worth of his own people. The espionage, the servility, the overdone professions of sanctity in Manteuffel's regime displeased him, but most of ail he despised its pusillanimity in the conduct of foreign affairs. His heart indeed was Prussian, not German, and the destiny which created him the first Emperor of united Germany ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... well meant, Judith," he said, "but it was not intended to hurt your feelin's so much. I have overdone the advice, I see; yes, I've overdone it, and I crave your pardon for the same. Fri'ndship's an awful thing! Sometimes it chides us for not having done enough; and then, ag'in it speaks in strong words for havin' done ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... (I suppose I must have overdone it) it was my moral beauty that dished me with the Canon. I had reckoned, you see, ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... delightful afternoon," and "the extraordinary entertainment which they had so much enjoyed," and many regrets that "the poor Adept, who really was so very clever and had mystified them all so delightfully," had overdone himself and got ill, and so on, and so on, through the endless repetitions and variations usual on ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... be an admirable thing, but it can be overdone. I have never believed that, because a certain thing seems obvious, it is necessarily wrong. It was reasonably certain that one, or all of the missing persons, had knowledge of what had happened. It was extremely probable that one ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Stuart's portrait of Washington. This painter's notion of personal dignity has far more of the intellectual quality than Van Dyck. He loves to give us stately, able, fairly conscientious gentry, rather than overdone royalty. His work represents a certain mood in design that in architecture is called colonial. Such portraits go with houses like Mount Vernon. Let the photographer study the flat blacks in the garments. Let him note ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... in 1590. In this the failings mentioned above will be readily recognized, and also in another example, namely, that of a carved oak door from the church of St. Maclou, Rouen, by Jean Goujon, in which the work is very fine, but somewhat overdone with enrichment. This cast is in the ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... when we had returned to our crouching-place under the shadow of the wall, the woman detached herself slowly from the group, and began strolling with almost overdone nonchalance along the road to Geergeh. We could see the little girl was frightened and seemed to expostulate with her mother: fortunately, the Arabs about were too much occupied in watching the suspicious strangers to notice this episode of their own people. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... rate, I confess for myself, that I should not take anything like the same interest in Hogg, if he were not the putative author of the Confessions. The book is in a style which wearies soon if it be overdone, and which is very difficult indeed to do well. But it is one of the very best things of its kind, and that is a claim which ought never to be overlooked. And if Hogg in some lucky moment did really "write it all by ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... He had just given the sacristan ten pounds, and had endeavored to treat the gift as a disinterested pourboire. He felt that he had failed; that he had overdone it, and had made himself a marked man. The ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... go to the South for purposes of traffic may or may not be favored with large profits. All the products of the mechanic arts are very scarce in the interior, while in the larger towns trade is generally overdone. Large stocks of goods were taken to all places accessible by water as soon as the ports were opened. The supply exceeded the demand, and many dealers suffered heavy loss. From Richmond and other points considerable quantities of goods ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... overdone in Art and Literature. Leave them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send a stamp with ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, over done, or come tardy ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... twinkling of an eye came running with the hat; with a clothes-brush, too. "Confound her!" Captain Cai swore inwardly as she insisted on brushing his coat, paying special attention to a dry spot of mud on the right hip-pocket. Feminine attentions may be overdone, and Mrs Bosenna showed more tactfulness than ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... every piece on board the prow, great and small, belched forth a volume of smoke, flame, and metal, but the result was trifling. In his anxiety to do deadly execution, the pirate had overdone his work. He had allowed his foe to come too close, and most of the discharge from the heavy guns passed over her, while the men with small arms, rendered nervous by prolonged delay, fired hastily, and, therefore, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... been said in preceding pages about Puget Sound that it would seem the subject might be somewhat overdone. But it still remains to be said that justice can never be done to the scenic glories of this beautiful inland sea. The views from different points, and from almost every point on the Sound, are of sublime grandeur. On the east are the Cascade Mountains, ranging from 5,000 to 14,444 ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... man than you once denied with cursing and swearing. You've overdone it, just as he did. It's no business of mine, of course, but it's comforting to think that somewhere under the stars there's saving up for you a tremendous thrashing. Whether it'll come from heaven or earth, I don't know, but it's bound ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... to severely strain one's credulity. The Italians not only know where the Austrian headquarters is situated, but they know in which houses the various generals live, and the restaurants in which they eat. This extreme reticence of the Italians seems a little irksome and overdone after the frankness one encounters on the French and British fronts, but it is due, no doubt, to the admonitions which are posted in hotels, restaurants, stations, and railway carriages throughout ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... were not overdone, but were carried on with a fine insistence and a dogged determination. Up to date, however, despite the fine work of their boys, the citizens of the town had been somewhat grudging about affording money for training ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... stories—make them sparkling, electric, galvanic—by using slang, he will find them acceptable to any editor. The only caution to the beginner is that he must be sure every detail is clear to the "fans." Slang can easily be overdone,—much more easily than one would suppose,—with the result that an otherwise good story is choked with near humorous, foggy jargon. Better no slang than ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... little distance unobserved. No; I was not mistaken. The woman was Mary Simms, though without any trace of all her former simple-minded airs; Mary Simms, no longer in her humble attire, but flaunting in all the finery of overdone fashion. She wore an air of reckless joyousness in her face; and yet, spite of that, I pitied her. It was clear she had fallen on the evil ways of bettered fortune—bettered, alas! for ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 'You seem a little overdone to-night, my dear,' said her mother frigidly; she was naturally hurt at the very uneffusive way in which her ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... pinnacle of success and fame Welby occupied in the eyes of the world; she knew how envious were the lesser men—such a man as John Fenwick, for instance—of a reputation and a success they thought overdone and undeserved. But Arthur himself! She seemed to be looking into his face, graven on the dusk, the face of a man tragically silent, patient, eternally disappointed; of an artist conscious of ideals and discontents, loftier, more poignant, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had traveled about more and seen the homes of wealthy folk—to a professional decorator, say, or an expert in furnishing values—the drawing-room into which Judge Priest presently was being ushered might have seemed overdone, overly cluttered up with drapery and adornment. But to Judge Priest's eye the room was all that a rich man's best room should be. The thick stucco walls cut out the heat of the night; an electric fan whirred upon him as he sat in a deep ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... consisted of but one room, and the fire-hearth was placed outside under a small shed. This primitive abode contained neither chairs, tables, nor benches. Sumichrast was full of admiration at this simplicity, which I considered rather overdone; but my friend compared the life of civilization, in which luxury has created so many wants, with the lot of these men who can dispense with almost every thing, and decidedly came to the conclusion that the ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... what it is, and I'll try what I can do. But you won't think I'm so bad as I seem, and 'll forgive me? I know what you think of me, and that's what mortifies me; you think I'm an overdone specimen of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... necessity for a constant and nearly horizontal light, that the shaded portions of the portrait should not be too hard, and yet, at the same time, be sufficiently well developed without the "high light" of the picture becoming overdone, solarized or destroyed. In almost all the early specimens of the Daguerreotype, extremes of light and shade presented themselves, much to the annoyance of the early operators, and seriously objectionable were such portraits. To overcome this difficulty, ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... visited almost daily a distant neighbor, far gone in consumption, whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she passed their house in returning home, too much overdone to call, as she thought to do, and had gone a quarter of a mile toward home, when it occurred to her, Mr. W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as she feared, found him dying. As she sat by his bedside, holding his hand, a sensation never ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... difficulty in saving myself from the superstition of an active Providence. It's irresistible.... The alternative, of course, would be the personal Devil of our simple ancestors. But, if so, he has overdone it altogether—the old Father of Lies—our national patron—our domestic god, whom we take with us when we go abroad. He has overdone it. It seems that I am not simple enough.... That's it! I ought to have known.... And ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... not be the loser by poor McKay's removal," he said, with brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone her part. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... more of a Job's comforter in the literal sense of the term, than he had intended; in fact he had overdone it—the picture was too highly coloured to appear natural, and at once threw back poor Job upon a full view of all his troubles, which Mr Smith perceiving, mildly resumed, "I'm not surprised, my good fellow, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the dinner was ready the doors were thrown open, and the table was revealed, laden with china and cut- glass ware. A watery compound called vegetable soup was invariably served, followed by boiled fish, overdone roast beef or mutton, roast fowl or game in season, and a great variety of puddings, pies, cakes, and ice-creams. The fish, meat, and fowl were carved and helped by the host, while the lady of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... said another, "I am confident that if Joe Berks had been sober he would have eaten him. Besides, the lad was in training, and the other would burst like an overdone potato if he were hit. I never saw a man so soft, or with his wind in such condition. Put the men in training, and it's a horse to a ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... got even here," thought I; for the old woman was dressed in the latest style,—or, rather, she had overdone it sadly; for her gown was nearly up to her knees, and she was nearly as ridiculous an object as some of the young ladies I had seen at home. She had a respectable bonnet on, however, instead of a straw saucer; and her hair was neatly put ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott |
