"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assumed the direction of affairs, and continued to entertain or be entertained. Her energy and resource seemed inexhaustible. The officials of both governments treated her with punctilious respect, and the prestige gained in this way she used to enhance her reputation as a hostess. Soon she became the social dictator of the city, and the most exclusive circles, American and Panamanian alike, allowed her ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... snuff-box. Such familiarities were not rare in that day between the gentlemen of New France and their old servants, who usually passed their lifetime in one household. Felix was the majordomo of the Manor House of Tilly, trusty, punctilious, and polite, and honored by his mistress more as an humble friend than as a servant ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Provence, arrived from Italy, to be married to the Comte d'Artois, for the bride was even less attractive than her sister. According to Mercy, she was pale and thin, had a long nose and a wide mouth, danced badly, and was very awkward in manner. So that Louis himself, though usually very punctilious in his courtesies to those in her position, could not forbear showing how little ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... characteristic trait, and in some of its phases rather astounding to a stranger. A common thing in the streets of Moscow is to see a couple of sturdy beggars, uncouth as grizzly bears, meet and stop before each other with the utmost and most punctilious gravity. Beggar number one takes his greasy cap from his head slowly and deliberately, gives it a graceful sweep through the air, and, with a most courtly obeisance, exhibits the matted tuft, or the bald spot on the top of his head, to his ragged friend. Beggar number two responds ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... likes a good dinner, and a good story which he tells to perfection. Sir Ralph never took the head of the table, liking best a less prominent seat; but his seat, wherever he chose to sit, always seemed to be to the central place. Never lacking natural dignity, he was not punctilious in mere matters of form. Secure in his authority, to its outward semblance he was rather indifferent. Another delightful guest was Sir George (then Mr.) Morris, brother of the late Lord Morris, the distinguished judge. Until a few months previously, Mr. Morris had been a director of the ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Still smarting under Winifred's reproach of his unpoetic literality, he did not intend to force her to marry him exactly at the end of the twelve-month. But he was determined that she should have no later than this exact date for at least 'naming the day'. Not the most punctilious stickler for convention, he felt, could deny that Mrs. Grundy's claim had been paid to ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... a polished gentleman of the old school, and was excessively proper and punctilious in manner and conversation. I soon perceived that he thought I needed considerable toning down before reaching England. I was quick to see and understand that his criticisms of others in a general way and the drift ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... commenced to tell her a story, his manner so forcibly reminded her of Buckingham's mimicry of him, that she burst out laughing in the earl's face. This being utterly uncalled for by the circumstances of his tale, and still less by the manner of its narration, Lord Arlington, who was serious, punctilious, and proud, became enraged, abruptly left her presence, and abandoned his schemes of governing the king through so ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... a pang how punctilious they were in England about asking gentlemen to perform this duty, and I received one more impression of the permanence of British ideas of propriety. But Dicky declined; said he couldn't undertake it—for ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... sorts of contrary things that I did not happen to like, and call it America. I am not sure of what it really means, but I rather fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well as an impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same order of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in telegrams. The order of clocks and set hours which ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... severe precipitancy, without impartial evidence of the facts, and without taking into consideration the Conde of Onis' brilliant career in the Service, the king deprived him of his commission, and all the crosses and decorations in his possession. The punctilious old soldier was completely crushed by this unexpected blow. His comrades snatched the pistol from him just when he attempted his life. Accompanied by a faithful attendant, he left Madrid and came to Lancia, where his wife and son of tender age were awaiting him. The family life was a sedative ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors' description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Beaumaroy interrupted this conversation. "Well, how do you like this little place, Mrs. Radbolt?" he asked cheerfully. "Not a bad little crib, is it? Don't you think so too, Dr. Arkroyd?" Throughout this gathering Beaumaroy was very punctilious with his "Dr. Arkroyd." One would have thought that Mary and he ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... leave its traces on Herr Linders. It was less known than guessed that the state of things between Courvoisier and von Francius was less peace than armed neutrality. The intense politeness of von Francius to his first violinist, and the punctilious ceremoniousness of the latter toward his chief, were topics of speculation and amusement to the ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... you can make me out an I O U some time, and get Jimmy to witness it, if you're so damned—what's the word?— punctilious. If you can't do me this simple favour, why then you must sign the business over to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hospitably inclined; he kept in touch with his old associates; he liked to meet them at luncheon at the University Club or at the monthly dinner of the Chit-Chat Club, which he had seldom missed in thirty-nine years of membership. He was punctilious in the preparation of his biennial papers, always giving something of interest and value. His intellectual interest was wide. He was a close student of Shakespeare, and years ago printed a modest volume on the Sonnets. He also published a fine study of the Ministry of Jesus, and a ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... her sense of truth and justice intervened. She had not come back to sing again at the bidding of a highly excited boy, but of a deeply moved man; and his emotion was of no ordinary kind. That Garth Dalmain should have been so moved as to forget even momentarily his punctilious courtesy of manner, was the highest possible tribute to her art and to her song. While she played the Handel theme—and played it so that a whole orchestra seemed marshalled upon the key-board under those strong, firm finger—she suddenly realised, though ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... them himself, and in securing the observance of them by the bishops, at least in cases where he was himself responsible for the first committal. It is to be feared that he forgot that he was a judge in his eagerness to be a partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal scruples to interfere with the more important object ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... he acquired in Dona Victorina's eyes the reputation of being brave and punctilious, so she decided in her heart that she would marry him just as soon as Don Tiburcio was out of the way. Paulita became sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls called cochers could occupy Isagani's attention, for the name had certain ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... But the same day Dale came in and asked Prime to loan him over night the sum he had just paid in, as a personal favor. Prime says he hesitated, not because he suspected anything, but on grounds of common prudence. It seemed to him, however, that it would be churlish and punctilious to refuse to accommodate the man to whom he owed his good fortune, and so he lent the money. Next day, Dale failed disgracefully. Of course Mr. Prime feels bound in honor to pay his customers their profits, which ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... go on in the same groove, educating her children and managing them, as her husband had been educated and as she herself had been managed by the old couple. Her husband grew more and more like his father, punctilious, rigid; a strict observant in religious matters, a pedant in little things, prejudiced against all change; too satisfied to desire improvement, too scrupulously conscientious to permit any retrogression from established rule, a model of the immutability of an ancient ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... and striving for the highest, to the bitter end. His industry grew almost maniacal. Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise. His very recreations became duties. He enjoyed himself by time-table, went deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch—it was the right thing to do. The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency, but it ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's joints, he came to see us—a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most stately manner ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... incoming Indians, had shaken hands with their leaders, ordered rations for the families until the agency could again take them under its wing, had detailed escorts to conduct them by easy stages to the reservation set apart for them, but, as punctilious to the keeping of one part of a promise as to another, he sent forth his scouting parties to look up those Indians who had not come in, with strict orders to stick to it until the fate of the Bennett boys was definitely settled, and the scattered ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... surprise upon his face as she had stepped forward to greet him, as if he had been unprepared for her presence, and he had flushed uncomfortably at being reminded of his promise. Dreda stood looking on somewhat blankly while he greeted the other occupants of the room—Mrs Saxon with punctilious politeness, Maud with a smile and a jest, Rowena in silence with a short grip of the hand. Why did he not speak to Rowena? Were they still at cross purposes as on the occasion of their first meeting? Dreda watched ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fitted for the post, but because he had influence—frequently that of some lady—with the person with whom the appointments lay, or because he was in need of an opportunity for making money easily. That there have always been statesmen and subordinate officials above all such self-seeking, men of punctilious honour and of absolutely clean hands, is known to all; but such men—as Espartero, for instance—too often threw up the sponge, and would have naught to do with governing nor with office of any description. Espartero, who is generally spoken of as the ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... kill each other. This is by far the most economical way of getting rid of them." The astute monarch's calculations were admirably exposed by a clever remark of the Prince of Ballybunion. "Faix, Harry," says he (with a familiarity which the punctilious son of Saint Louis resented), "you and him yandther—the Emperor, I mane—are like ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his pride became his post, and his punctilious behaviour merited all the ridicule which could be attached to it: he quitted her abruptly, with all the fine advice he had prepared for her, and was almost tempted to carry it to Lady Castlemaine, and to unite himself with her interests; or immediately to quit the court party, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... King to seek him for a companion seemed to have vanished with his feebleness and timidity. The manhood that had been awakened was not the chivalrous, generous, and gentle strength of Henry and his brothers, but the punctilious pride and sullenness, and almost something of the license, of the Scot. The camp had not proved the school of chivalry that James, in his inexperience, had imagined it must be under Henry, and the tedium and wretchedness ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... therefore set up a worship of angels which tended to thrust Christ from His true position in the creed of the Church. They treated the body with unsparing severity (ii. 23), they abstained from meat and drink, and paid a punctilious attention to festivals, new moons, and sabbaths (ii. 16). St. Paul calls these practices "material rudiments" (ii. 8), elementary methods now superseded by faith in Christ. Moreover, it is almost certain that ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... lips. "It won't do to make such rash statements, and draw such damaging conclusions—in such a loud voice, Sis," and he whispered the last words. "These walls are very thin, you know, and these Spanish gentlemen are very punctilious on points of honor. I don't want to be called on to fight a duel ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... majority was sharply defined, and the Protestant children were the more thoroughly indoctrinated. Rev. John Philip Steiner, the Protestant pastor of Waldorf, a learned and faithful minister, was as punctilious in requiring from the children the thorough learning of the Catechism as a German sergeant was in exacting all the niceties of the parade. Young Astor became, therefore, a very decided Protestant; he lived and died a member of the Church in which ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... It was nothing new to receive such epistles from desperate men whom he had been called upon to judge. He felt no alarm. Later on he showed the letter to Littlefield, the young district attorney, for Littlefield's name was included in the threat, and the judge was punctilious in matters between himself ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... of publicity, which had been overshadowed by his anxiety, now took complete possession of him. With punctilious formality he handed Bobby on deck, then, with a manner sufficiently forbidding to discourage all questions and remarks, pushed his way haughtily through the laughing ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of all his privileges and dignities. Under his sway, the immunities of the Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to enter the fortress with firearms, or even with a sword or staff, unless he were of a certain ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was a man who would naturally be quite unable to say what he had and what he had not signed. And then, even into the Beargarden there had filtered, through the outer world, a feeling that people were not now bound to be so punctilious in the paying of money as they were a few years since. No doubt it suited Melmotte to make use of the money, and therefore,—as he had succeeded in getting the property into his hands,—he did make use of it. But it would be forthcoming sooner or later! In this way of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... to him as a slave. But the mistake is obvious to me, and so I think that we ought to act as though Sabina had ordered him to be freed in express terms, since she certainly was under the impression that she had ordered it. I am sure that you will be of my way of thinking, for you are most punctilious in carrying out the intentions of a dead person, which are, with honourable heirs, tantamount to legal obligations. For with us honour has as much weight as necessity has with others. So I propose that we should allow Modestus to have his liberty and enjoy ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... was compelled to repeat so often that I heartily wished them all in Spain, and felt very much inclined to send them all thither, or to some other warm climate, but that Don C. cautioned me not to trifle with these punctilious privates: as on one occasion an Englishman, annoyed as I had been, having answered the fiftieth hail disrespectfully, in his own language, was marched off to the Calaboose, where he was detained all night, and only released the next morning upon the payment of a heavy fine, with the hint that ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... communication between the chief and the head of the stranger party is not customary. In approaching they often ask who is the spokesman, and the spokesman of the chief addresses the person indicated exclusively. There is no lack of punctilious good manners. The accustomed presents are exchanged with civil ceremoniousness; until our men, wearied and hungry, call out, "English do not buy slaves, they buy food," and then the people bring meal, maize, fowls, batatas, yams, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... hand upon De Stancy's arm. 'Captain, we are both warm, and punctilious on points of honour; this will come to a split between us if we don't mind. So, not to bring matters to a crisis, lend me ten pounds here to enable me to ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... people are abroad much at night. All you see are stars overhead and the glowing eyes of cat ladies, of lithe silken ladies who pass you, or of stiff-whiskered men. Beware of those men and the gleam of their split-pupiled stare. They are haughty, punctilious, inflammable: self-absorbed too, however. They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you are lost. They take offense in a flash, abhor strangers, despise hospitality, and would think nothing of killing you or me on their way ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... "peculiar, but very learned and efficient." The stories of his difficulty with the English language are many, and most of the classic stories told of various members of the French Faculty by successive student generations were originally told of him. He was the first "infiddle," though he was always punctilious in attendance at chapel, which he adjourned on one occasion because the "praying Professor" did not appear. His "vocabul'-ary" was good, but in the words of the time-honored song, "He went ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... marry him, and coolly taken her resolution to accept him. This morning, on the reception of a handsome Christmas gift from him, and discovering in his actions something more pointed than his customary punctilious devoirs, and in his didacticism the outermost of the closing circle of pursuit she had furthermore concluded that his happy thought was to celebrate the festal season by his betrothment. She was quite ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... prison.[2597] He would seem to have been less difficult to guard than Jeanne and also less important. But the English had recently learnt what was involved in a trial by the Inquisition; they now knew how lengthy and how punctilious it was. Moreover, they did not see how it would profit them if this shepherd were convicted of heresy. If the French had set their hope of success in war[2598] in Guillaume as they had done in Jeanne, then that hope was but short-lived. To put the Armagnacs to shame ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... pamphlet on "Taxation and the Sliding-Scale"; the conclusion of which had been suspended during the excitement of the moving; for during that agitating period Thuillier had been unable to give proper care to the correction of proofs, about which, we may remember, he had reserved the right of punctilious examination. La Peyrade had now reached a point when he was forced to see that, in order to restore his influence, which was daily evaporating, he must strike some grand blow; and it was precisely this nagging and vexatious fancy about the proofs that the barrister ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... frame, nor before services the nature of which would have outraged her pride, had it not been to her, as Saint-Simon says, une meme chose d'etre et de gouverner. That gilded servitude is described with a charmingly punctilious complaisance in her letters to the Marechale de Noailles and the Marquis de Torcy, and notwithstanding the commiseration which she claims for it, it may be clearly seen that Madame des Ursins enters into the details of her domestic service far less for the purpose of carrying a complaint to ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Norman declared, after his study and observation of the Far East,[31] that only the respect in which Japan differed from other oriental despotisms lay in "the ruling influence among her people of the strictest, loftiest, and the most punctilious codes of honor that man has ever devised," he touched the main spring which has made new Japan what she is and which will make her what ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... so much afraid of his elder brother. He has come up to town now merely because Brotherton sent to him, and when he went to Scumberg's the Marquis would not see him. He is just like his sisters,—priggish, punctilious and timid." ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... of active mind, something of a busy-body—dogmatic, punctilious in her claims to respect, proud of the acknowledgment by her acquaintances that she was not as other tradespeople; her chief weakness was a fanatical ecclesiasticism, the common blight of English womanhood. Circumstances had allowed her a better education than generally falls to women ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... who could spare an hour to pray at a street corner, but had not a minute for a dying fellow-man lying in his blood in a lonely pass. In the judgment of these, Jesus was the prince of unbelievers. Punctilious adherence to the letter, practical disbelief ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the saga, which it was not for Schiller to make over but to render dramatically plausible. It may be urged, perhaps, that a poet who had made Joan of Arc die in glory on the battle-field need not have been so punctilious in following the exact line of Tschudi's story. But the cases are not exactly parallel. There the alternative was a scene of unmitigated and revolting horror, which would have destroyed the effect of the tragedy; here ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... so unceasingly punctilious in all the finer details of living that all who infringed upon them felt her mere presence a reproach. Children were never rough or loud-voiced or naughty when Miss Camilla was near, though she never admonished otherwise than by example. As ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hour of this that the tears came, which is saying a good deal for her courage. It seemed to her then that Manley must be dead. What else could keep him so long away from her, after three years of impassioned longing written twice a week with punctilious regularity? ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... having started earlier. But he had already made appointment by letter to meet the Surveyor and the Assistant Surveyor at noon on the headland, to measure out and discuss the site of the proposed fortification; and he was a punctilious man in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... civil death to religious apostasy. It was impossible not to revere the heroic constancy of that class, and the personal virtues of many among them. But they were, perhaps, constitutionally, too timid and too punctilious to conduct a popular movement to a successful issue. They had, after much persuasion, lent their presence to the Committee, but on some alarm, which at that time seems to have been premature, of the introduction of French ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... fashion of wearing ruffs, and their companion cuffs or sleeves. Catherine de Medicis induced one Frederic Vinciolo to come from Italy and make ruffs and gadrooned collars, the fashion of which she started in France; and Henry III. was so punctilious over his ruffs that he would iron and goffer his cuffs and collars himself rather than see their pleats limp and out of shape. The pattern-books also gave a great impulse to the art. M. Lefebure mentions German books with patterns of eagles, heraldic emblems, hunting scenes, and plants and leaves ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... do not exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty of Man, or from The Academy of Compliments! We confess, we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The want of punctilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the 'license of the time', or else belongs to the very excess of intellectual refinement in the character, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... us to Plymouth we were not, I will allow, altogether satisfied with our personal appearance, and still less so when we stepped on the quarter-deck of the seventy-four, commanded by one of the proudest, most punctilious men in the service, surrounded by a body ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... darkness of the outer world was soon dispelled by a broad gleam of light, as the great front doors were thrown open. An old, gray-haired butler stood on the threshold, and greeted them with rather pompous respect and punctilious deference. The interior was quite in keeping with the outside view of the house. But though the old carved rafters and wainscoting were dark and heavy, cheerful lamps were in abundance, and in the halls and drawing-rooms, wax ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... represent them as engaged with objects more worth their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... to work at once, Rupert, for although you must of course appear in uniform, that somewhat war-stained coat of yours is scarcely fit for the most punctilious court in Europe. However, as they will have this coat for a model, the tailors will soon fashion you a suit which would pass muster as ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... too punctilious," remarked Mrs. Hsueeh, "as to entertain such notions! No such ideas as these crossed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Captain Bonnet of the Revenge was a punctilious man when the rules of society were concerned, be that society official, high-toned, or piratical. Thus it was a positive duty, in his mind, to return Blackbeard's visit on the next day, but until afternoon he was not able to do ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... morning he dressed himself in his best, and presented himself at the door in Mount Street, exactly as the clock struck twelve. He had an idea that these people were very punctilious as to time. Who could say but that the French ambassador might have an appointment with Madam Gordeloup at half-past one—or perhaps some emissary from the Pope! He had resolved that he would not take his left glove ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... months had passed" since that first up-stream voyage of the Votaress, or, to be punctilious, something under a hundred and two. It was the opening week of that mid-autumn month in which it became evident that Abraham Lincoln would be the next president. Another new boat, new pride of the great river, the fairest yet, still in the hands of her contractors, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... his attachment to a military life, Colonel Washington possessed in too eminent a degree the proud and punctilious feelings of a soldier, to submit to a degradation so humiliating as was produced by his loss of rank. Professing his unabated inclination to continue in the service, if permitted to do so without a sacrifice too ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... did not forget his punctilious salaam before departing. Never had he seemed more the beautiful serpent with the shining scales than the instant he bent gracefully at Democrates's feet, the red light falling on his gleaming ear and nose rings, his smooth brown skin and beady eyes. The door turned on its pivots—closed. Democrates ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Cobber Carkeek. There's a spring above his head, And his mattress is a special kind of clay. He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed, And he makes it with a ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His voice ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... I was worth my salt-horse and hardbread. Of course while on duty Ben Gibson, the young second mate, and I must of necessity hold to "quarterdeck etiquette;" he was "Mr. Gibson" and I was "Webb." We were punctilious indeed about these niceties of address. Off duty, however, we were two boys together, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... situation. When Inman learned how he had been outwitted he was enraged to the point of ordering an attack at once, with the resolve to give mercy to no one. He even threatened to visit his fury upon Fred Whitney, who had shown such punctilious regard for his parole, for it would seem that under the circumstances he would have been warranted in staying behind ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... with the lofty look of the old race, dressed with the punctilious care of person which is not foppery in men of birth, but seems part of the self-respect that appertains to the old chivalric point of honour. The horse of one of these cavaliers made a caracole which brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to cross. The rider, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presented to him. He was punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an introduction in the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... most punctilious English courtesy, sang the praises of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Lady Clifford surveyed her eldest son with a sigh that such breeding was denied him, as she observed one or two little deficiencies in what would be called his table manners—not very important, but revealing that he had grown up in the byre instead of the castle, where there was a very strict and punctilious code, which figured in ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... won't be punctilious with me. For we have nothing to write about, except it be how much we all love and honour you; and that you believe already, or else you don't do ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... of her youth. Her child, her estate, and her few tried friends absorbed her. For the sake of her daughter's future, she ordered out her ancient coach and made the round of the Island once a year. The ladies of St. Kitts were as moderately punctilious. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... stoutish gentleman, on the fair side of forty, in a high grey hat, whose countenance, obscure as yet against the quarter from which it came, mainly presented to view the large outward twist of its moustache. M. de Mauves saluted his wife with punctilious gallantry and, having bowed to Longmore, asked her several questions in French. Before taking his offered arm to walk to their carriage, which was in waiting at the gate of the terrace, she introduced our hero as a friend of Mrs. Draper and also a fellow ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... teaching, but also its authority, that was strange. The scribes spoke with authority enough of a sort, lording it over the despised common people—'men of the earth,' as they called them—and exacting punctilious obedience and much obsequiousness; but authority over the spirit they had none. They pretended to no power but as expositors of a law; and they fortified themselves by citations of what this, that, and the other rabbi had said, which was all their learning. Christ ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... of 'Jackanapes' the law of Principality is very clearly demonstrated. Jackanapes is the one important figure. The doting aunt, the weak-kneed but faithful Tony Johnson, the irascible general, the punctilious postman, the loyal boy-trumpeter, the silent major, and the ever-dear, faithful, loving Lollo,—all and each of them conspire with one consent to reflect forth the glory and beauty of the noble, generous, recklessly ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... at all in the sense that virtue is its own reward—I do not think that that would have seemed an adequate return to Ptah-hotep—but in the sense of material welfare rewarding, as a matter of course, an honourable life. Following his reasoning, if a man be obedient as a son, punctilious as a servant, generous and gentle as a master, and courteous as a friend, then all good things shall fall to him, he shall reach a green old age honoured by the King, and his memory shall be long in the land. This theory, which is not {32} found satisfactory in our day, is ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... into a smart brick house on the other side of the church, and gave receptions and dinner parties, and was punctilious about making his calls. The people therefore liked him very much—so much that they raised the debt on the church and bought a chime of bells, in their enthusiasm. Every one was lighter of heart than ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... a little more clearly made out than it was at the beginning, that they said officially, 'As for this fellow, we know not whence He is.' They 'knew' when He did not seem to be trenching on their prerogatives, or driving His Ithuriel-spear through their traditional professions of orthodoxy and punctilious casuistries. But when He trod on their toes, when He ripped up their pretensions, when He began to show His antagonism to their formalism and traditionalism, then they did not know where He came from. And ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... unendingly. At one table the girls sign the register, at another they learn of vacancies. Some of the girls fail to go to the second table. An attendant, if you ask the cause, will tell you this is a frequent occurrence. The girls are punctilious in signing the register, which they must do to obtain the unemployment dole, but they are less particular about finding the work which will bring it to an end. At present they are content with the enjoyments of the streets and picture ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Hinman smiled, and said quietly that he guessed there would be "a little more speaking before the close of the session." Then laying his hand on my shoulder, with most punctilious but chilling courtesy, he invited me to the rostrum. The "rostrum" was twenty-five feet distant, but I arrived there on schedule time and only touched my feet to the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... disposed, even anxious, to treat him well, to get in his good graces. Possibly most of these were what we would call the worst elements; and by that we would mean not only the roughnecks of the police or sheriff's offices, but also the punctilious, smooth-mannered Southerners who practically monopolized the political offices. These men would have been little considered in the South; in fact, in many cases, they had left their native states under a cloud or even with prison records; but their natural charm, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... for completeness and magnificence, so all the learned professors tell me! Brave old fellows, Doctor, and put their lives into their books as you gentlemen don't pretend to do nowadays. And good old fellows, Doctor,—high-minded, scrupulous, conscientious, punctilious,—remembered their duties to man and to woman, and felt all the responsibilities of their confidential relation to families. Did you ever read the oldest of medical ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... by his fervour: but she remembered that her husband had been very punctilious about visiting, as men in the country often are, the duty of keeping up all social connections falling upon their wives, and not on themselves. The brougham was ordered, accordingly, and she set out alone, though Minnie would willingly have strained a ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... off the mock majesty of the stage; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his Life of Garrick, gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these punctilious parties. "The manager," says he, "was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became a man of his prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... punctilious chap. Then you would be neutral, as you call it, and let Villarayo smash up and murder everybody, because Don Ramon has not been acknowledged ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... cold, and continues to blow his nose and wipe it—pardon the naive statement—with the sole of one of his sandals! The action struck me as rather uncleanly and undignified in a prince; but Kailouees are not punctilious. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... of profound content settled upon Simeon Caley. The jug went round and round. Gordon grew a shade more punctilious than customary, he wiped the jug's mouth before passing it to Sim—at the premature retirement of Rutherford the glasses had been discarded as effete; but not a degree of the other's manner betrayed the influence of his Gargantuan ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... have not the same regularity in their meals, or time for sleep, as we have, but consult their appetites and inclinations like other animals. But they make amends for this irregularity, by a very strict and punctilious observance of festivals, which are regulated by the motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, like the hopes which the approach of that benignant luminary inspires. The others ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... beginning of this retrospect, mention again that Mr. Razumov's youth had no one in the world, as literally no one as it can be honestly affirmed of any human being, is but a statement of fact from a man who believes in the psychological value of facts. There is also, perhaps, a desire of punctilious fairness. Unidentified with anyone in this narrative where the aspects of honour and shame are remote from the ideas of the Western world, and taking my stand on the ground of common humanity, it is for that very reason that I feel a ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... reverie about his proposed visit to Mrs. Adams. Last night it had appeared to him an easy and natural thing to do. He was not so sure of his position this morning. Mr. Adams might be present; he was punctilious in the extreme, and a call without an invitation at that early hour might be considered an impertinence—especially if he had no opportunity to enlighten Mrs. Adams about his love for Miss Moran, and so ask her assistance. Then he began to doubt whether his mother ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... accordingly graciously requested by Lady Staunton to remain during dinner. During this visit his studious and punctilious complaisance towards the lady of rank was happily contrasted by the cavalier air of civil familiarity in which he indulged ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... week of the trial, she had seen him but twice, and immediately after he had been summoned to attend some suit in New Orleans, and had hurriedly bidden her adieu in the presence of others. With punctilious regularity he wrote studiedly polished, graceful yet merely friendly letters, and like ice morsels they slowly widened the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... accepted; and uncompromisingly black they accordingly are on most of the wayside chapels for many a mile around Oropa. Yet in the chapels we have been hitherto considering—works in which, as we know, the most punctilious regard has been shown to accuracy—both the Virgin and Christ are uncompromisingly white. As in the shops under the Colonnade where devotional knick-knacks are sold, you can buy a black china image or a white one, whichever you like; so with the pictures—the black and white are placed side by ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... require that it be rendered by both the senior and the junior, as bare courtesy requires between gentlemen in civil life. It is the military equivalent of the laymen's expressions "Good Morning," or "How do you do?" Therefore be punctilious about saluting; be proud of the manner in which you execute your salute, and make it indicative of discipline and good breeding. Always look at the officer you are saluting. The junior salutes first. It is very unmilitary to salute with the left hand in a pocket, ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... halter be a silken one, then," laughed Amyas, "for I am just dubbed knight." And he stepped down as a storm of bullets rang through the rigging round his head; the Spaniards are not as punctilious as he. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... member for Cavan set himself in deliberate fashion to outrage Parliamentary traditions and usages. He finished by becoming a punctilious practitioner of Parliamentary forms, a stickler for the minutest observation of order. Whilst Mr. Gladstone and other members of old standing were content to preface their speeches with the monosyllable "Sir," nothing less than "Mr. Speaker, sir," would satisfy Mr. Biggar. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... smiled encouragingly. I was getting interested, and I hoped he would keep on talking. On the platform the guest of honor was holding a miniature reception. He was the picture of polite attention and punctilious responsiveness; but I thought I detected a quick glance now and then toward the roped-off section where sat his wife and I wondered again—had he ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... Wildmere, who had entered the parlor, which she must cross to reach her room beyond. Mrs. Muir began to laugh immoderately, and Mr. Muir followed his brother's eyes with vexation. Graydon was on the qui vive instantly, and Madge drew a step nearer and began to smile. For once the punctilious and elegant Graydon forgot his courtesy, and looked at Madge in utter astonishment—an expression, however, which passed swiftly into ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the Hall. His mother would sometimes be there a short time, and would drive about in a coach and four black horses. This would be in 1844, when he was 36. He used to walk by himself, slowly, with a Skye terrier. I was rather afraid of him. He seemed a proud and very punctilious man. I think he was at this time going often of an evening to Bernard Barton's. He did not come to us, except occasionally, till 1846. He seemed to me when I first saw him much as he was when he died, only not stooping: always like a grave middle-aged man: never seemed very happy or light-hearted, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... merchants,—"My friend," (as the story is related by Dr. Shaw,) "do not you know that my subjects are a band of robbers, and that I am their captain?"—better it would be a thousand times, and a thousand thousand times more manly, than an hypocritical process, which, under a pretended reverence to punctilious ceremonies and observances of law, abandons mankind without help and resource to all the desolating consequences of arbitrary power. The conduct and event of this cause will put an end to such doubts, wherever they may be entertained. ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spoke, in his every action, which distinguished him from his companions. They themselves felt it. He was sometimes ridiculous, poor man, and they laughed together over his carefully chosen language, over the grand sweep of his bow and his punctilious attention to the smallest promise or shadow of a promise. These things amused them, but at the same time they felt that he could never be what they were, and that those manners and speeches of his, which, if they had imitated them, would ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... cut-and dried formalism in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and devotion to the good. The letter killeth, and a punctilious observance of rules may choke out the aspirations ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... conviction; for, oh, the blaze of light that enters our souls when our fate puts us in his place—in her place—in their place—whom we used to strike, never realizing how it hurt them! He is respected for his intelligence and good-nature; he is sober, industrious, pushing and punctilious in business. One trait of the Bohemian remains. About every four months a restlessness comes over him; then the wise Jenny of her own accord proposes a trip. Poor Tom's eyes sparkle directly; off they go together. A foolish wife would have made him go alone. They come ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... died in 1574, leaving an only son, Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of homicide, and which had helped to win ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... that fine morals do not always go with fine manners, and that Lovelace had a fascination of address which John Knox lacked. The chaff and slang of the Bayard of to-day are at least decent, and his morals probably purer than those of the courtly and punctilious old Sir Roger de Coverleys. Possibly; but it has been wisely said that hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue. The good manners of a bad man are a rich dress upon a diseased body. They are the graceful form of a vase full of dirty water. The liquid may be poisonous, but the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... to you before because I had not been introduced—but the pianist is Mr. Mills," remarked this punctilious person. "I, however, could speak to you, although we had not been formally presented. The roof was a sufficient guarantee of your respectability, and I thought from your not answering that you were deaf ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Captain Brownrigg was killed in a struggle with an Arab slaver, owing chiefly to his own punctilious respect for the French flag under which the dhow was sailing. Not wishing to begin hostilities, he came alongside the Arab without arming his men, who were powerless to make any resistance when boarded by the enemy. The Captain, who wore his sword, kept up a gallant fight single-handed, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... matter of much discomfort to the crew that the new cook took his duties very seriously, and prided himself on his cooking. He was, moreover, disposed to be inconveniently punctilious about the way in which his efforts were regarded. For the first day the crew ate in silence, but at dinner-time on the second the ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... he was making his usual circuit when he came to the second level. What he discovered justified all the years of punctilious discharge of his duties. He was startled to see a man kneeling on the floor, just above where the main power lines ran. He had torn a hole in the composition floor, and as Yudovich watched, he reached in and pulled ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss |
