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Painstaking   Listen
adjective
Painstaking  adj.  Careful in doing; diligent; faithful; attentive. "Painstaking men."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Painstaking" Quotes from Famous Books



... the bell. Then Maggie, the maid, appeared to announce that the Howe motor car was waiting at the curb. A few moments later Mary was in her room adjusting her new hat before the mirror. Ordinarily, adjusting that hat would have been an absorbing and painstaking performance; just now it was done with scarcely a thought. How devoutly she wished that the Howe car and the Howe dinner were waiting for anyone in the wide world but her! She did not wish to meet strangers; she did not wish to go anywhere, above all she did not wish to eat. That evening, ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... plainsmen would think that estimate too low; yet ten per cent would give us five thousand lives as one year's toll paid for the peopling of the Oregon Country. Mrs. Cecilia McMillen Adams, late of Hillsboro, Oregon, kept a painstaking diary when she crossed the Plains in 1852. She counted the graves passed and noted down the number. In this diary, published in full by the Oregon Pioneer Association, I ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... and in some respects the foremost, place among the leaders in America of these investigations into the substructure, if not of the Christian faith, at least of the work of the system-builders, is held by Professor W. H. Green, of Princeton, whose painstaking essays in the higher criticism have done much to stimulate the studies of younger men who have come out at conclusions different from his own. The works of Professors Briggs, of Union Seminary, and Henry P. Smith, of Lane Seminary, have had the invaluable advantage of being ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... nurserymen of this Association. Most nurserymen are intelligent and honest but sometimes they have a tough time of it. Their worst competitor is a nurseryman who sells seedlings for named varieties, who advertises widely and prospers upon the work of others. When we think of the painstaking care of the honest nurseryman, of his days of drudgery, of the thousands of failed experimental trees and plants that he destroys, of the service he renders his fellows, we know that we should make slow ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... he had, in this painstaking manner, discovered and mapped the stretch of coast westward from the head of the Great Australian Bight, charted all the islands, and, by following the two large gulfs, Spencer's and St. Vincent's, to their extremities, had shattered the theory ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... each partner wins by considering the other before the self. Since marriage grows by enveloping, rather than by being enveloped by, any one element, every part of the married life must receive the same painstaking attention. At no point can the domination of either partner over the other ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... Lighting his candle, he made a careful examination of the place, with the result that Esteban's theory of the missing riches seemed even less improbable than it had earlier in the day. The masonry-work, he discovered, had been done with a painstaking thoroughness which spoke of the abundance of slave labor, and time had barely begun to affect it. Here and there a piece of the mortar had loosened and come away, but for the most part it stood as solid as the stones between which it was laid. Shoulder-high to O'Reilly there appeared to be a ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... third time, as he signed his name with painstaking care. "There, that's settled! Now where shall I find Professor ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... world? (24) And once more, habits of indolence, along with the fleeting pleasures of the moment, are incapable, as gymnastic trainers say, of setting up (25) a good habit of body, or of implanting in the soul any knowledge worthy of account; whereas by painstaking endeavour in the pursuit of high and noble deeds, as good men tell us, through endurance we shall in the end attain the goal. So Hesiod somewhere ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... Aunt Olivia went in and out. The things she brought out in her arms she folded carefully and packed, but not in the lank old valise. She put them all with tender painstaking into a quaint little carpetbag. When the work was done she set the bag away out of sight, and went about packing her own ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... apportioned among those who participate in the sacrifice, and he who pays most is the first to wound the unfortunate victim. The latter is cut into mincemeat in a moment amid the horrifying cries of his infamous executioners. Thanks to the painstaking vigilance of the authorities of that district, and to the incessant care of the missionaries, so impious and criminal a ceremony is almost entirely eradicated, and is only practiced in secret, in the densest woods. In addition to the huaga, there are true cases ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... dishes, and a translation of Pindar. This was perhaps taxing versatility and omniscience over-much, and it may be taken for granted that the writer made no serious contribution to tactics, cookery, or scholarship. But being a man of a certain intelligence, passably honest, and reasonably painstaking, probably he produced reviews sufficiently useful and just to answer their purpose. On the new system we should have an article on General Hamley's work by Sir Garnet Wolseley, and one on the cookery-book from M. Trompette. It is not certain that this is all pure gain. There ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... appreciate my painstaking care to make everything regular and satisfactory," laughed Jack, very quietly. "Here is a paper, signed by Mr. Farnum, authorizing me to receipt this account in his name. You may keep this authorization along with the receipt. Mr. Forrester, ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... back and forth upon the flat stone until the soft edge was quite fine and sharp. He worked much as a barber does who hones a razor, and with every evidence of similar practice; but his proficiency was the result of years of painstaking effort. Unaided he had worked out a method of his own for putting an edge upon the shell—he even tested it with the ball of his thumb—and when it met with his approval he grasped a wisp of hair which fell across his eyes, grasped it between the thumb and first ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... appreciation the rapid rotation of this planet. In the course of half-an-hour several distinct spots on different belts had moved in a direct line across a tenth of the face presented to us—a distance, upon the scale of the gigantic image, so great that the motion required no painstaking observation, but forced itself upon the notice of the least attentive spectator. The belief of Martial astronomers is that Jupiter is not by any means so much less dense than the minor planets as his proportionately lesser weight would imply. They hold that his visible surface ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... usage that are moved by their own incitement, and only so far as they have an effectually felt need of conformity in these premises. It is true, a dispassionate outsider, if such there be, would perhaps be struck by the degree of such painstaking conformity to canons of conduct which it frequently must cost serious effort even to ascertain in such detail as the case calls for. Doubtless, or at least presumably, conformity under the jurisdiction of the fashions, and in related provinces of decorum, is obligatory in a degree that need ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... by A. and C. In a similar way he proceeds to write down one word at a time, and at once ascertaining its relation to the previous word, and indicating that relation by the appropriate abbreviation. When he has analysed ten words in this painstaking manner he must recall them backward and forward from memory at least five times, and each time faster ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... said; "Professor Bottomly is celebrated for the absolute and painstaking accuracy of her deductions and the boldness and the imagination of her scientific investigations. She is the most cautious scientist in America; she would never announce such a discovery to the newspapers unless she were ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... has the merit of having identified his name with several original variations, and of having revived several older defences, such as the Cunningham Gambit, with no small degree of success. The book has been evidently the result of painstaking and accurate analysis, and it may be confidently recommended to the more advanced players who have graduated in the beaten tracks of the 'Handbuch,' and are willing to follow in the steps of an able and original guide. In addition to the ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... a very swell house, the windows looking south towards Hooge and Hill 60. He came over and welcomed me to St. Julien and showed me his trench diary and plans of the trenches. Colonel Meighen was a very thorough and painstaking officer, very much loved by his men. Several companies of his battalion were French Canadians and they fairly worshipped him. He was a model trench commandant, never tired of strengthening the works, and always ready himself to do anything that ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... more technical qualifications of the story-maker's art, Scott compensated in the more masculine virtues for what he lacked in the feminine. Possessing less of finesse, subtlety and painstaking than some who were to come, he excelled in sweep, movement and variety, as well as in a kind of largeness of effect: "the big bow-wow business," to use his own humorously descriptive phrase when he ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... children, especially when any one of them approached the age which witnessed, to use her own language, 'her resignation of the pomps and vanities of life, and her dedication to the service of her Saviour.' Still, notwithstanding her prayers and painstaking, not one of them had ever been under 'conviction of sin;' at least, none had ever manifested that agony and mental suffering which she considered necessary to a genuine change of heart. She mourned much over such a state of things in her household. What a scandal that not one of her children should ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... in the best possible trim. It lacked two hours of nightfall but Dave had plenty to occupy his mind. For over an hour he sat looking over maps and memoranda, and blocking out his course. He had been very explicit and painstaking in questioning the moving picture man. He had made inquiries concerning Anseton and its vicinity down to the smallest detail. From all this Dave had decided on a permanent landing place, a sort of headquarters from which he could branch out in his personal investigations in the ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... regret that Captain Burton should find no more courteous terms to apply to the useful work of a painstaking clergyman than those where in his note he alludes ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... not unnatural anticipation that, as a result of this painstaking description, this person will find two well-equipped camps of contending locusts in Yuen-ping on ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... aggrieved because they are surpassed in ability, or fortune, or rank by their friends. Most of them, however, are always finding some ground of complaint, or even of reproach, especially if they can plead any service that they have rendered faithfully, in a friendly way, and with a certain amount of painstaking on their part. Such men, indeed, are hateful when they reproach their friends on the score of services which he on whom they were bestowed ought to bear in mind, but which it is unbecoming for him who ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... it at all," he said. "Old Otto is a common enough type of German, painstaking, methodical, stupid, stubborn, ready to commit any crime for Prussia, but the young fellow is of far different material. He has brains and daring and initiative. He is far more alert and more dangerous. I cannot understand his finding ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... long been known as one of the most candid and painstaking of scriptural commentators; but it must always be remembered that he is an Episcopalian, and the ruler of an English diocese. He would be something almost more than human, were he to hold up the scales of testimony with strict impartiality when weighing the claims of his own order. ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... in her quiet kindly pages. There are moreover stories which I should not hesitate to describe as of an appalling banality if they were not concerned with such very nice people. On the whole I don't think it quite fair to the spinster lady to have published her notes. They may well have been painstaking jottings to provide material for polite conversation and have sounded much better than they read in cold print. For myself the real heroine of the book is Maria, the poet's wife, who, on being waked and adjured by her spouse to get up and strike ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various

... fell under the tuition of Bartolommeo Montagna, a Vicentine painter, who had been studying both with Alvise and Bellini. Cima's "Madonna with Saints," painted for the Church of St. Bartolommeo, Vicenza, in 1489, shows him still using the old method of tempera, in a careful, cold, painstaking style, yet already showing his own taste. The composition has something of Alvise, yet that something has been learned through the agency of Montagna, for the figures have the latter's severity and austere character and the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... He yielded to no temptation, vice, or dishonesty, of course, nor to the greater and ever present temptation to idleness, for he constantly worked to the limit of human endurance. He was ready for every emergency, not by accident, but because he made himself ready by painstaking labor, before the opportunity came. His favorite motto was, 'Help yourself and others will help you.' Hundreds of his age in the Prussian army were of nobler birth, thousands of greater fortune, but he made himself superior to them all by extraordinary ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... of a cathedral, and he declined. And now Chanways was a force in the Church and the country, and was making things hum. If he, Conover, after fifteen years of Durdlebury, had accepted, he would have lost the power to make things hum. He would have made a very ordinary, painstaking bishop, and his successor at Durdlebury might possibly have regarded that time-worn wonder of spiritual beauty merely as a stepping-stone to higher sacerdotal things. Such a man, he considered, having once come under the holy glamour of the cathedral, would have been guilty of the Unforgivable ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... was locked in her room with the paper. His name was in large letters in the head-lines. She read the account over many times, with painstaking effort to understand that this meant Johnny McLean. That he was down there now, while she breathed pure air. Many times she read it, dazed. Suddenly she flashed to the window and threw it open and beat on the stone sill and dragged ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... your Service never realize it," Charles Verity returned. "They run in blinkers from first to last.—Not that I underrate their usefulness. They are honest, painstaking, thoroughly reliable, according to their lights. They do excellent journeyman work. But there lies the heart of the whole matter.—Are you content to do journeyman work only; or do you aspire to something ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... years of editorship, save in one or two conspicuous instances, I was never able to assign to an American writer, work which called for painstaking research. In every instance, the work came back to me either incorrect in statement, or otherwise obviously lacking ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... and incessantly trained pupils for the stage. Many of them had appeared with more or less success in the ballets at the Empire and Alhambra, and he was widely known amongst stage-struck aspirants as charging moderately and teaching in a most painstaking manner. He thus made an income which, if not large, was at least secure, and was assisted in the school by his niece, Peggy Garthorne. She was the manager of his house and looked after the money, otherwise the little professor would never have been able to lay aside for the future. ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... Patrick's Supplement, "Craddock's History," the monographs by Professor Paley and Mr Poole, and the Guide of Canon Davys. If I have ventured to differ from some of these writers on various points, I must appeal, in justification, to a careful and painstaking study of the Cathedral and its history, during a residence at Peterborough of more ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... He was a careful, painstaking student. He learned the Spanish language, had copies made of all available manuscripts and records in Europe, and closely compared contemporary accounts so as to be certain of the accuracy of his facts. Then he presented them in an attractive form. His Ferdinand ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... educated,—not only under the care of a strict father, and an idolising mother, but also with all the advantages one of the finest colleges in the States could give him. Always a brilliant scholar, and attaining his successes by leaps and bounds rather than by close and painstaking study, the day came,—as it comes to all finely- tempered spirits,—when an overpowering weariness or body and soul took possession of him,—when the very attainment of knowledge seemed absurd,—and all things, both in nature and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... most important part of Auction tactics. It can be given on either the partner's or the Declarer's lead, should always be used when a continuation of the suit is desired, and should be watched for by the partner with the most painstaking care. The first trick sometimes furnishes this information. For example, the play of the deuce, or of any card which the partner can read as being of necessity the lowest, tells him that either the card is a singleton or that the player is not ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... him something that was not altogether eagerness. It was, at times, a disturbing emotion, a foreshadowing of evil, a warning for him to be on his guard. He used the sweep more, to help their progress in the current, and he began to measure time and distance with painstaking care. He ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... painstaking worker in mosaic, executing some works on a small scale entirely in eggshells of varying tints. In the Baroncelli chapel in Florence is a painting by Taddeo Gaddi, in which occur the portraits of his father, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... usual work of weeding, cultivating, and harvesting of their crops, the pupils should undertake some work in seed selection. This work not only results in the improvement of the plants grown from year to year, but also helps to train the pupils in painstaking observation and the discerning of minute points of excellence. The ambition to produce, by careful selection and thorough cultivation, a grain or flower better than has been, is aroused, and, as the pupil's interest increases, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in "Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the "Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave each ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... the ground, but the most painstaking examination failed to reveal the faintest spark of life. I forced water from my canteen between his dead lips, bathed his face and rubbed his hands, working over him continuously for the better part of an hour in the face ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... all right. The little woman is what d'ye call it, clever and steady; she's living, and what d'ye call it, doing her best. She's all right; the little woman's of the right sort I mean; painstaking and what d'ye call it, submissive; the little woman's all right I mean, all ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... creams one cannot be too careful and painstaking. It is much like preparing a salad or a charlotte russe, either of which can be utterly ruined by lack of care—or too much fussing. The creme marquise is especially difficult for the woman who tumbles things together in a haphazard fashion. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... showed that you are painstaking, accurate, and intelligent. The facts that we have just heard prove you to be exceptionally quick in conceiving ideas, cool in action, and able to think of the right thing at the right time—all qualities that are requisite for a great commander. I warmly congratulate you, that ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... this country. So consummate was the handling of Hoffman's "Race Traits and Tendencies" by Prof. Miller, that we may say that it was the most scientific defense of the Negro ever made in this country by a man of our own blood: accurate, pointed, painstaking, and ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell

... its landing-place, might naturally lead us to think so. It is almost impossible to believe that Heracles would have been allowed inside the pomoerium, had he been introduced by foreigners in the strict sense of the word. No doubt much has yet to be learnt about Hercules in Italy; but recent painstaking researches have made it possible for us to acquiesce in the belief that this Hercules of the ara came from a Latin city,—from that Tibur which by tradition was of Greek origin—"Tibur Argeo positum colono,"—and which, like its neighbour Praeneste, was ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... Senator Dilworthy thought he would run out west and shake hands with his constituents and let them look at him. The legislature whose duty it would be to re-elect him to the United States Senate, was already in session. Mr. Dilworthy considered his re-election certain, but he was a careful, painstaking man, and if, by visiting his State he could find the opportunity to persuade a few more legislators to vote for him, he held the journey to be well worth taking. The University bill was safe, now; he could leave it without fear; it needed his presence and his watching ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... A careful, painstaking study of the work to be performed, so as to become thoroughly familiar with its content and to discover its ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens

... ruffled who suddenly found himself deposed from his authority in the manner in which Silk had been. Had he been one of the most conscientious and painstaking of monitors, he might well have been excused flaring up a little, and, indeed, would have shown a poor spirit had ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... and went over the ground about the mule, examining the dirt for footprints as carefully as possible. Next she visited the hiding place of their provisions and equipment, there to make the same careful, painstaking search of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... aside, she opened her copy-book and turned over the leaves with unalloyed pleasure, for not one of its pages was defaced by a single blot, and from beginning to end it gave evidence of painstaking ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... generally called the Work 'Narratives of the School.' tqϦ, 'Sacrificial Canon of the Sage's Temples, with Plates.' This Work, published in 1826, by Ku Yuan, styled Hsiang- chau (UJ, r), is a very painstaking account of all the Names sacrificed to in the temples of Confucius, the dates of their attaining to that honour, &c. There are appended to it Memoirs of Confucius and Mencius, which are not of so much value. Ql, 'The Complete Works of the Ten ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge

... deeper some pathway that tends toward a habit. The mistake is often made of thinking that habits can be formed only by "taking thought." It is true that some of the finest habits of life are built into character with painstaking effort, but untidiness and selfishness and irreverence and all their kin reach fullest unfolding in the thoughtless outflow of activity, when no one ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... of life, had had an effect upon him not beneficial either to his spirit or his keen sense of honour. Who can boast that he would have supported such a burden with a different result? Mr. Quiverful was an honest, painstaking, drudging man, anxious indeed for bread and meat, anxious for means to quiet his butcher and cover with returning smiles the now sour countenance of the baker's wife; but anxious also to be right with his own conscience. He was not careful, as another might be who sat ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... side, the work is painstaking and exact as all the author's works. The sketches of mines and miners, their courage and their dangers, their lives and their hopes, are carefully studied. So also is the emotional aspect of the deeps ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... whole, in the general plan. Webster planned his orations, Newman planned his essays, Carlyle planned his Frederick the Great. Their works are not a momentary inspiration; they are the result of forethought, long and painstaking. The absolute essential in the structure of an essay, that without which it will fail to arrive anywhere, that compared to which all ornament, all fine writing, is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, that absolute essential is the total effect ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... occasion he rose joyfully and readily to incredible altitudes of high-spirited but harmless recklessness. Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years, Christmas, arrivals, departures, he seized upon with rapture. Each had its appropriate ceremonial, its traditional drink, the painstaking brewing of which was a sacred rite. On such occasions he tossed aside the cloak of the everyday. A "celebration" meant that you were different. Humdrum life and habits must be relegated to the background. It was permitted that, unabashed, you ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... Rise of the Huguenots of France (2 vols., 1879), The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (2 vols., 1886), and The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (2 vols., 1895), is characterized by painstaking thoroughness, by a judicial temper, and by scholarship of a high order. He also published Modern Greece, A Narrative of a Residence and Travels in that Country (1856); a biography of his father, The Life of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... workers; the idlers are always powerless. It is the laborious and painstaking men who are the rulers of the world. There has not been a statesman of eminence but was a man of industry. "It is by toil," said even Louis XIV., "that kings govern." When Clarendon described Hampden, he spoke ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... I hear some one object, and ask what we are to do with the systematic arrangement of the fossils, the so-called "geological succession," that monument to the painstaking labors of thousands of scientists all over the world. This geological series is still on our hands; what are we to ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... find that the facile pen, the painstaking research, and the scholarly taste of Mrs. Lamb, assure her a place with the first of American female writers; and that she deserves most considerate and enthusiastic support. Steel engravings, historical ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... conceive, madame, I used to tease her about that twisted little-finger, in the days before we began to squabble: and it annoys me that Thragnar should not have omitted even Lisa's crooked little-finger on her left hand. Yes, such painstaking carefulness worries me. For you conceive also, madame, it would be more or less awkward if I had made an error, and if the appearance were in reality what it seemed to be, because I was pretty trying sometimes. At all events, I have done that which seemed equitable, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... nothing more." According to the same author he was a Whig of 1688. It is admitted that his personal prejudices were strong; but those who allow this maintain that he had no prejudice as to things, but examined all doctrines and theories with a strong common sense and a clear judgment. His painstaking to inquire after truth is much vaunted by his biographer; but his speeches as leader of the Protectionists do not reveal this quality,—for while no orator of the time, not even Sir Robert Peel, relied more upon statistics, or at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... short stories Seen and Heard (SMITH, ELDER), with the sub-title, Before and After 1914. I say short stories, but actually these have so far outgrown the term that a half-dozen of them make up the volume. They are all examples of the same gentle and painstaking craft that their writers have before now exhibited elsewhere. Here are no sensational happenings; the drama of the tales is wholly emotional. My own favourites are the first, called "The Little Tinker," a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... the end and all that lay between them could easily have been compassed in three words by Quin. But there were things he had pledged himself to tell her before he even broached the subject that was shrieking for utterance. With painstaking exactness he set forth the facts that led up to his dismissal, trying to be fair to Mr. Bangs as well as to himself, and, above all, to claim no credit for taking the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... hilly in the S. and E. The Meuse and Scheldt are the chief rivers, the basin of the latter embracing most of the country. Climate is similar to the English, with greater extremes. Rye, wheat, oats, beet, and flax are the principal crops. Agriculture is the most painstaking and productive of the world. The hilly country is rich in coal, iron, zinc, and lead. After mining, the chief industries are textile manufactures and making of machinery: the former at Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, and Liege; the latter at Liege, Mons, and Charleroi. The trade is enormous; France, Germany, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... render and maintain it so, however, it is necessary that certain well-defined limits should be set upon the licence which its writers are to enjoy; it is necessary that the work should be honest work; that preparation for it should be made by a sound, painstaking study of the period to be represented, to the end that a true impression may first be formed and then conveyed. Thus, considering how much more far-reaching is the novel than any other form of literature, the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... muttered de Spain. He looked questioningly at Nan. She herself, gazing across the dizzy depths, was searching for the danger-point. A third shot followed at a seemingly regular interval—the deliberate interval needed by a painstaking marksman working out his range and taking his time to find it. De Spain watched Nan's search anxiously. "We'd better keep moving," he said. "Come! whoever is shooting can follow us a hundred yards either way." In front of de Spain a fourth bullet struck ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... gives full scope to his inclination for minute analysis; the history of the author of "Rene" explains his works, and these in turn are made to tell his life,—that life so full of love of effect, and constant painstaking to seem rather than to be. Even in his religious sentiments the author of the "Genius of Christianity" appears lukewarm, not to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... been asserted that while a large percentage (practically all) of the deaf can, by a great amount of painstaking and practice, become speech readers in some small degree, a relative degree of facility in articulation is not nearly so attainable. As to the accuracy of this view, the writer cannot venture an opinion. Judging from the average congenital deaf-mute who has had special instruction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... A painstaking observation of the courtesies due to ranks of other services is more than a sign of good manners; it indicates a recognition of the interdependence of the services upon one another. Failure to observe or to recognize ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... the conscientious and painstaking investigations of the Bollandist Fathers, who examine in their careful way all the guarantees and traditions of the manuscript with a jealousy worthy of the most enlightened historians—is not Turgot, who is usually credited with it, but Theodoric, a monk of Durham, who must have shared ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... the list of arrivals by a late steamer, and with some little painstaking, at length ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... ascetics and minstrels—a large collection of poems and hymns to which Kabr's name is attached, and carefully sifted the authentic songs from the many spurious works now attributed to him. These painstaking labours alone have ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... in the Islands; besides, Spanish never penetrated into the very lives of the peasants, as English penetrates to-day by way of the school-house. I have endeavored to offset the disadvantages of the foreign medium by judicious and painstaking directions to my informants in the writing-down of the tales. Only in very rare cases was there any modification of the original version by the teller, as a concession to Occidental standards. Whatever substitutions I have been able to detect I have removed. In ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... thorough, painstaking review of the subject, had taken into account; and he could not see how it could possibly bear upon the matters now finally to be adjusted between Quarrier and himself, because Quarrier was in New York and Mortimer in Saratoga, and unless the latter had already sold his information the former ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... drifts to the road-bed. And on the westerly slope of Baldwin's Hill the ground in the middle of the road was bare for at least forty rods. But, from that point on, whether his progress was fast or slow, Colonel Butler scrutinized the way ahead of him, and the farm-houses that he passed, with painstaking care. He was not looking for any spruce tree here, no matter how straight and tall. But if haply some farmer's boy should be out on an errand for the master of the farm, it would be inexcusable to pass him negligently by; that was all. And yet his vigilance met with no reward. He had ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... possible the exact sites of historical events is with him a sport. The method pursued is that of rigid and scientific inquiry. Paris especially, Marie Antoinette and The Historic Thames in a lesser degree, bear witness to this, which, in a don, we should call minute and painstaking research, but which in our subject we guess to be ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... than the year before. She said that others were complaining of a drought, and that the fruit in consequence was generally inferior in size, so that those who, like myself, had been lucky enough, or painstaking enough, to secure a full crop, were doing better than ever. Then our little strawberry-peddler, Lucy Varick, was doing a thriving business. She established a list of customers among the great ladies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... sober; but when he takes one of his drinking fits, he seems to lose all control over himself, and goes from bad to worse, till a fit of delirium tremens almost kills him. He usually goes for a good while after that without touching a drop, and at such times he is a most respectful, painstaking man, willing to take any amount of trouble to serve one, but when he breaks down he is as bad as ever—nay, even worse. My wife and I have done what we could for him, and have tried to get him to take the temperance pledge, but hitherto without ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... a great difference between two sisters. There is Martha, hard working, painstaking, a good manager, ever inventive of some new pastry, or discovering something in the art of cooking and housekeeping. There is Mary, also, fond of conversation, literary, so engaged in deep questions of ethics she has no time to attend to the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... time before the work in the chamber ceased, and Ned had plenty of time in which to review the strange case he was interested in. The transition from gay New York to that weird apartment seemed almost like a whiff of fancy. Then he recalled the painstaking surveillance of the fellow called "His Nobbs" on the way down, and smiled at the thought that the plans he had made at first sight of the spy had ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... that suggested the idea that his speeches were anything but the inspiration of the moment, but had been made beforehand, and were being reeled off. Indeed, many of those who knew him well maintained that his speeches were at this time the result of painstaking study, care, and elaboration, and that those who had a nose for oratory might detect in them a strong smell of ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... Kephart. This book is the result of painstaking tests and experiments. Practically nothing is taken for granted. Part I deals with the rifle, and Part II with the shotgun. The man seeking guidance in the selection and use of small firearms, as well as the advanced student of the subject, will receive an unusual amount ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... gallantly, if he has a charm of look and manner, if he is a deft performer in the prescribed athletics, he is the object of profound and devoted admiration. It is really physical courage, skill, prowess, personal attractiveness which is envied and praised. A dull, heavy, painstaking, conscientious boy with a sturdy sense of duty may be respected, but he is not followed; while the imaginative, sensitive, nervous, highly-strung boy, who may have the finest qualities of all within him, is apt to be the most despised. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a slovenly woman at the breakfast table. Let woman adorn herself. Let her speak on platforms so far as she may have time and ability to do so. But let not mothers imagine that there is any new way of successfully training children, or of escaping the old-time self-denial and continuous painstaking. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... domestic cares, affianced only to his profession, he early gained an honorable position by the steady exercise of natural abilities well adapted to its pursuit. He was industrious, thorough, minute, painstaking, cautious, persistent, and untiring. "Judge Parker's mode of practice in the trial of cases," writes an early professional associate, who still enjoys a ripe and honored age, "to take down the testimony in full of the witnesses in writing, and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... horse's mane, or tail, denotes that you will be a good financier or farmer. Literary people will be painstaking in their work and others will look ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... overloaded with sail. If she has more than she can comfortably carry she will heel over and drag her sails in the water. Not only this, but she will also drift to leeward when beating to windward. When sailing a new boat, her best trim for various points of sailing and force of wind must be found by painstaking experiments. The boat should always be sailed with her sails as slack as she will take them and keep in her course. In this way she will move faster than when the sails ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... more and more necessary to their existence, and consoles them for their wrongs real or imaginary; and in three or four years they sit down contentedly to their several occupations, as strait-forward, painstaking, plodding men, quite satisfied to follow the routine chalked out for them, and either totally forget all ambitious views, or become too indolent to make any sacrifice to obtain them, and this virtue comes from tobacco!! The German Hippogriff becomes an Ox, dull and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... seen that the final decision to extend the Pennsylvania Railroad into and through New York City by a system of tunnels, and erect a large station in that city on a most eligible site, was not reached in a hurried or off-hand manner, but after years of painstaking study and a full and extended investigation of all routes, projects, and schemes, whether originating with the company or ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles M. Jacobs

... for a puppy!" said old Nutcracker, when his wife repeated these sayings to him. "Featherhead is a fool. Common, forsooth! I wish good, industrious, painstaking sons like Tip Chipmunk WERE common. For my part, I find these uncommon people the most tiresome. They are not content with letting us carry the whole load, but they sit on it, and scold at ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hopping along the narrow rails. Now at a curve or at a crossing the small engine whistled shrilly and carefully—the engineer was afraid lest he might run over somebody. It was strange to think that so much humane painstaking care and exertion was being introduced into the business of hanging people; that the most insane deed on earth was being committed with such an air of simplicity and reasonableness. The cars were running, and human beings sat in them as people always do, and they rode as people usually ride; ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... coincidence both Hungarians. First with Jenoe Hubay, at the National Academy of Music in Budapest, later with Leopold Auer in Petrograd. Hubay had been a pupil of Vieuxtemps in Brussels, and is a justly celebrated teacher, very thorough and painstaking in explaining to his pupils how to do things; but the great difference between Hubay and Auer is that while Hubay tells a student how to do things, Auer, a temperamental teacher, literally drags out of him whatever there is in him, awakening ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... resolved to call in the course of that morning to ask after her health, and take occasion, in bachelor language, to "press his point." Monsieur de Valois considered that such an occasion demanded a painstaking toilet; he therefore took a bath and groomed himself with extraordinary care. For the first and last time Cesarine observed him putting on with incredible art a suspicion of rouge. Du Bousquier, on the other hand, that coarse republican, spurred by a brisk will, paid no attention to his dress, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... learns a good many things by the way; at the very outset, that drawing accurate and clear must be the groundwork of any painting worthy the name. Both in the use of pencil and brush there must be a degree of painstaking observation, wholesome as a discipline and delightful in its harvests. How many of us, unused to the task of careful observation, can tell the number of the musk-mallow's petals, or mark on paper the depth of ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... world of gods, as we have already indicated,(1) was a higher counterpart, an ideal reflection, of the earthly Rome, in which the little and the great were alike repeated with painstaking exactness. The state and the clan, the individual phenomenon of nature as well as the individual mental operation, every man, every place and object, every act even falling within the sphere of Roman ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... without question. Upon leaving for the southward MacNair had told the men to work, therefore they worked unceasingly. Also he had told the women and the children to obey without question the words of the white kloochman, and therefore they absorbed her teaching with painstaking care. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... somewhat affected dress, his tall, wide-brimmed hats, his taper fingers, his big, wide-ended cravats. It had once amused Barthorpe—and many other people—to see Jacob Herapath and his secretary together; nevertheless, Jacob had always spoken of Burchill as being thoroughly capable, painstaking, thorough and diligent. His airs and graces Jacob put down as a young man's affectations—yet there came the time when they suited Jacob ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... in the position of a man who might solve a puzzle by hard, painstaking experiment and inquiry, but rather hoped that some brilliant flash of inspiration or luck might give him the key that would fit it together at once. They rarely ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... issued, and in the end no less than twelve editions of the Principles of Geology were issued, in addition to portions separately published under the titles of Manual, Elements, and Student's Elements of Geology, of all of which a number of editions have appeared. Lyell was always the most painstaking and conscientious of authors. He declared 'I must write what will be read[59],' and he spared no labour in securing accuracy of statement combined with elegance of diction. His father, a good classical and Italian scholar, had done much towards ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... records, and so complete a file of them has now been reassembled at Mt. Vernon that it is possible to follow his career in any phase: officer, business speculator, host, farmer, legislative adviser, and friend. He gave to fishing the painstaking personal attention he gave to all else. As a "fisherman" he directed the manufacture as well as the repair of his nets, and the curing, shipping and marketing ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton

... press was at that stage expressing doubt on this point.] In this connection I may say that I regard Zola as a man of very calm, methodical, judicial mind. He is no ranter, no lover of words for words' sake, no fiery enthusiast. Each of his books is a most laborious, painstaking piece of work. If he ever brings forward a theory he bases it on a mountain of evidence, and he invariably subordinates his feeling to his reason. I therefore venture to say that if he has come forward so prominently in this Dreyfus case it is not because he feels that ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... live their lives, and mind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as best they may. They are wonderfully like human creatures,—forget all that is going on if they don't see it, however dreadful; and never think what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving, and indolent or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no thought whatever of the lava or the flood which may break over them any day; and evaporate them into air-bubbles, or wash them into a solution of salts. And you ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... dispassionate portrait of Edmund Bonner, from the pen of the late Dr. S. R. Maitland, one of the most scholarly and painstaking historians of the last century, forms a vivid contrast to Foxe's caricature of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... great constructive statesmanship, neglect the details of his department, although a complete organisation awaited the painstaking Gallatin a few years later. The States were divided into fifty-nine collection districts regardless of State lines except as they suited the purpose. Each district was supplied with all the machinery necessary for collecting the duties ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... a person of divination or intuition. I think I have rather a commonplace, careful, painstaking mind. But if ever I had an inspiration in my life I think I have one now. Perhaps it is the novelty of it that makes me confide in it with so little reflection. My inspiration, in a word, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... translator has referred to that of 1563, a copy of which is in his possession. The edition which has served as a text for the present translation is that issued and edited by Don Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Mexico, 1849. This edition, like all of Icazbalceta's work, is painstaking. Professor Marshall Saville has been good enough to lend me his copy of this edition, which is very rare, in order that I might have it to work with. Finally, a small portion of Pedro Sancho's narrative was ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... situation with Van Rycke's unfailing patience and aplomb. The Cargo-master seemed in nowise tired by his wasted day and Dane knew that Van would probably sit up half the night, going over for the hundredth time Traxt Cam's sketchy recordings in another painstaking attempt to discover why and how the other Free Trader had succeeded where the Queen's men were up against ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... to have had charge of all the decorative work connected with Louis XII.'s obsequies. In his Legende des Venitiens (1509) John Le Maire de Belges praises Perreal's skill both in landscape and portrait painting, and describes him as a most painstaking and hardworking artist. He had previously referred to him in his Temple d'Honneur et de Vertu (1504) as being already at that period painter to the King. In the roll of the officers of Francis I.'s household (1522) Perreal's name takes precedence ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... achieved." "Chaque oeuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert. Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really means—shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful—is all that reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the inexpressible is never felt. Stammering ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... that he will die early; and more than likely that he will come to grief, when he has lost his nerve, in one or other of the mad exploits which he will be too proud to discontinue. Then will your Richard become the most assiduous and painstaking of nurses that ever humored crack-brained patient. But there! I have made a dozen programmes of what is to happen, and this is but a specimen. Who can tell? I may be heir of Crompton yet, or I may come back to you to-morrow like a bad penny, and with what ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... on to the scaffold in faultless morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... interest in political matters, and had rendered efficient political service by his connection with the Republican Town Committee of Easton, as Chairman and Treasurer, since the formation of the Republican party. As a member of the State Senate he was diligent and painstaking in attendance upon his Legislative duties, and was known as one of the working members of the body. He served during each year of his membership on the Committees on Railroads, and Education. In 1882 he received the Republican nomination for Lieutenant-Governor ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... period in the life of her worldly knowledge. The prize-bred Jersey cows grazed peacefully in the park grounds. Now and again, she would encounter an assiduous bee, which was taking advantage of the fineness of the day to pick up any odds and ends of honey which had been overlooked by his less painstaking brethren. Mavis, with heavy heart, visited stables, dairies, poultry-runs. These last were well at the back of the house; beyond them, the fields were tipped up at all angles; they sprawled over a hill as if each were anxious to see what was going ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful and had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... I was only admitted to the honor of listening to others. I was extremely painstaking, however, and I never lost a note or one of the teacher's words. I worked and thought at home, studying hard on Sebastian Bach's Wohltemperirte Klavier. All of the pupils, however, were not so industrious. ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... had been knitting at privately for some time. He hauled it on over his head at once, and emerged from its embrace into his sister's. There was, too, a model boat, quite beautifully rigged and fitted, the painstaking care with which it was fashioned testifying to the fact that Ken had not been quite so forgetful of his brother's approaching birthday as he had seemed to be. "She's called the Celestine," said Ken, as Kirk's fingers ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... Alberta. Upon arrival at the mine she was given over by Larry to Mr. Switzer's courteous and intelligent guidance, and with an enthusiasm that never wearied, her guide left nothing of the mine outside or in, to which with painstaking minuteness he failed to call her attention. It was with no small degree of pride that Mr. Switzer explained all that had been accomplished during the brief ten weeks during which the mine had been under his care. For although it was quite true that Mr. Steinberg ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... dictum, anyone who examines Jervas's version carefully, side by side with the original, will see that he was a sound Spanish scholar, incomparably a better one than Shelton, except perhaps in mere colloquial Spanish. He was, in fact, an honest, faithful, and painstaking translator, and he has left a version which, whatever its shortcomings may be, is singularly free from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... certain quality for home use, buy grafted trees of that quality. If, on the other hand, you have the urge to probe into the unknown and possibly create a new type, the above project will appeal to you, especially if you should lack training and time for more painstaking work. The following account is an example of the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... also promised to be more painstaking, reserving only the right to rest if they should ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... order to correct a stiff use of the fingers and wrist, and the general faulty touch of his pupil, gives some wonderful etude or a piece with great stretches and arpeggios for the left hand, and gives himself unwearied trouble over it, it is a proof of abundant painstaking; but it is labor thrown away, and only makes the imperfect mode of performance ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... his former Etchings he was careful to give a strong foundation of firm drawing. In these plates, however, he has cast aside this painstaking method." ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... the fate of the ill-starred Southern Confederacy. Every step in his narrative is supported by references to unimpeachable authorities; and the scholarly Monograph bears high testimony to the author's earnest labor, painstaking research and unswerving fidelity. Should the present work stimulate inquiry beyond the scope herein set before the reader, he is most confidently referred to Professor Du Bois' book as containing a complete exposition of the development ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... fear you have deserted the pomp of the play full early for the table of Philippe. Ladies, as you know, I am your devoted slave. Myself and the Vicomte de Bechamel have labored, seriously labored, for your welfare this day. I promise you something of the results of those painstaking efforts, which we both hope will not disappoint you. Meantime, that the moments may not lag, let me recommend, if I am allowed, this new vintage of Ai, which Bechamel advises me we have never yet surpassed in all our ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit of following. Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having been born at the Hall. She was an excellent mother of a family, and a good clergyman's wife, being in both respects more painstaking and assiduous than her husband. But she did maintain something of respect for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool. But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have reached the age of ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... nature, a thing commonly supposed to be impossible except at the end of painful instruction. He had once experimented at painting in oils, he had tried his hand at the stylus, he had made a few figurines in modeling-wax. He wrote his play, then, by the simple process of building first with painstaking accuracy, a model of his stage, the girl's room in that burgomaster's house with the French windows giving upon the little balcony. He modeled the furniture in plastiscene. He bought three little dolls to represent his characters. And then he reported what he saw happening ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... have her painted in. Here, she was quite inimitable. For instance, women, I believe, used to practice in their own room for hours to catch her peculiar way of half-reclining in an arm-chair; but the most painstaking of them all never achieved any thing beyond a caricature. Yet no one could accuse her of studying stage-effects. If a trifle of the Incedo Regina marked her walk and carriage, it was a l'Eugenie, not a ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... Royal Society. It treats of curious animals which the author considers as more nearly allied to the Insecta than to the Crustacea or Arachnidae. It is magnificently illustrated with 78 plates (31 being coloured), and the whole of the illustrations were executed by a painstaking deaf and dumb artist, Mr. Hollick. It will mark an era in the study of those neglected, but intensely curious animals, and we doubt not will repay both author, and artist, and the Society for the labour ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... "Good. It has taken painstaking research and a great deal of psychological statistical analysis, but we have found that one company—and one company only—benefits by these legal changes. Did you ever hear of ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

... an honest, painstaking man, with a large family, and he came to sea for their benefit, after having nearly given up ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... of a noble character, enhanced as it is by the ever-present gift of strength. And as for the sense for rhythm and music, both Unamuno and Wordsworth seem to be limited to the most vigorous and masculine gaits. This feature is particularly pronounced in Unamuno, for while Wordsworth is painstaking, all-observant, and too good a "teacher" to underestimate the importance of pleasure in man's progress, Unamuno knows no compromise. His aim is not to please but to strike, and he deliberately seeks the naked, the forceful, even the brutal word for truth. There is in him, however, a cause ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... fact that the site was given by the bishop may we infer that the Poores were a wealthy family; but his brother Herbert, who was his immediate predecessor in the see, is described in the Osmund Register, as dives et assiduus (rich and painstaking), and Richard Poore before his enthronement was a benefactor to the monastery of Tarrant, in Dorsetshire, his native village. Later we find he gave a large estate at Laverstock to his new cathedral. Hence the old theory that his name was derived from Poor or Pauper, as ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White



Words linked to "Painstaking" :   painstakingness, conscientious, scrupulous



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