"Fussy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lavabo in the sacristy of San Lorenzo is also a doubtful piece of sculpture. It has been attributed to Verrocchio, Donatello and Rossellino. It has least affinity to Donatello. The detailed attention paid by the sculptor to the floral decoration, and the fussy manner in which the whole thing is overcrowded, as if the artist were afraid of simplicity, suggest the hand of Rossellino, to whom Albertini, the first writer on the subject, has ascribed it. Donatello made the Marzocco, the emblematic Lion of the Florentines, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... than take the risk of having her three servants desert in a body. When she had unwisely complained to Oliver, he had remarked impatiently that he couldn't be bothered about the housekeeping, and Lucy had openly accused her of being "fussy." ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... waits for Opportunity's bald spot, now does she?" said Uncle Neil, admiringly, as the busy, fussy lady made a leap and caught a grain of corn, in mid-air, while another hen was watching for it to ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... we sometimes speak of as "sensitive." For every machine would be perfectly educated, that is to say, would have the suitable molecular adjustments, which would act not the less infallibly for being free from the fussy accompaniment of that consciousness to which our prejudice gives a supreme governing rank, when in truth it is an idle parasite on the grand sequence ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... now ten or twelve feet below them. They clung to the rock as they traced it downward, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge and from slippery stone to stone. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl's arm and held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy nor needlessly concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all. Had she been alarmed, her companion's manner would have been more comforting than persistent solicitude. He was, she decided, ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... had to admit that probably all these things were really good for me. But it got to where everything I did was something that was good for me—and that was bad. Hell, it isn't natural for a young fellow just out of college to live like a fussy old man of seventy with a grudge against the undertaker. Life ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart
... ravening animal, did not talk. Almost the only conversation was between the owner and the native servants, who waited at table abominably and were noisily reprimanded, and argued back. Each reprimand increased their inefficiency and insolence. Natives detest a fussy, noisy white man. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... in his upper story, dusted, and carried down and up with his own hands. Thus at the bedside stood a real Chippendale table, with a real Delft vase upon it, filled with such roses as had survived the rain. A drop of water had been spilt upon the table from the vase, and there was something almost fussy in the way that Langholm ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... away. But the squint spied a friend, ran to her, and there was a great deal of whispering and sniggering. Presently the pair came sauntering up and sat down; and after some artificial humming and hawing the newcomer began to talk, in a loud and fussy manner, about certain acquaintances of hers called Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Both the fat girl and the squint "split" with laughter. Laura sat with her hands locked one inside the other; there was no escape for her, for she did not know where to go. But when the third girl ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... was not a man of ideas, his merits as a creator—as a realiser of types—were supreme. Many of his dramatis personae no doubt became old-fashioned in a sense; but who can deny the truth to life of the Kirk Elder, the slavey, the policeman, the fussy City man, the diner-out, the waiter (did he not invent "Robert"?), the cabman, the hen-pecked husband, the drunkard, the gillie, the Irish peasant, the schoolboy, and the Mrs. Brown of Arthur Sketchley's prosaic muse? The wealth of his limited fancy, and his power of resolving it into well-ordered ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... they were not capable of doing—except taking reasonable care of their invalids! They either fussed about too much, or else they did not fuss about at all. They all began by doing the right thing: they all ended by doing the wrong. The fussy ones had fits of apathy, when the poor irritable patients seemed to get a little better; the negligent ones had paroxysms of attentiveness, when their invalids, accustomed to loneliness and neglect, seemed to become rather worse ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... murder and ourselves, and one that would need some explanation. Bear in mind that I've kept myself posted in those murders through the newspapers, and also by collecting a certain amount of local gossip. Now—you've a certain somewhat fussy and garrulous old gentleman ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the few persons who happened to be in the quiet upper reaches of the Rue Bienfaisance at half-past eight o'clock the next evening came to see a fat, fussy, red-faced Englishman in a gray frock-coat, white spats, and a shining topper, followed by a liveried servant with a hat-box in one hand and a portmanteau in the other, so conspicuous, the pair of them, that they couldn't ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... fifteen years old, there was a white man or two, but colored leaders mostly got about a thousand colored people to start for the West walking. Warren had sisters and brothers who started on this trip. Warren had some fussy brothers, his mother was afraid would get in jail. They kept her uneasy. They shipped their "stuff" by boat and train. He never saw them any more but he heard from them in Louisiana. Louisiana had a bad name ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Reform? Oh! just a fad,— Its advocates, in fact, as bad As those who want Cremation. A set of foolish, fussy fools Whose misplaced ardour nothing cools— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... they be retained, for "Them's got programs on, and you'll need 'em." On the broad pavement, excited little groups of boys read and reread the announcements amid running choruses of approving comment. Now and then, a fussy, important matron bustled past with a four-or five-year-old following in her wake. Around the door, a baker's dozen of boys with shaggy hair and sadly worn clothes besought the more prosperous of the grown-ups, "Take us in, Mister [or "Missis" as the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... the desk. Forrester, though he supposed some people might be fussy about it, could see no objection whatever to the term Aphrodisiacs. A wild thought dealing with Spheres of Influence strayed into his mind, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Dordogne whenever the Duchess gives a pay-up party to the stuffy people Lili Estradina won't be bothered with, there are days when I never lay eyes on Paul, and barely have time to be waved and manicured; but, apart from that, Raymond's really much nicer and less fussy than he was." ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... need not expect to enjoy the frills of a private room and special nurses and think the doctor will take care of you for a nominal fee; there is no reason why he should. Having a baby is not a disease, and you will not need to have fussy care. ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... of the postage department. Fussy little brute. Won't leave you alone. Always trying to catch you on the hop. There's one thing, though. The work in the postage is pretty simple. You can't make many mistakes, if you're careful. It's mostly entering ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... early that, in the whole stretch of rollicking, tumbling, buoyant waters between bank and bank, only one piece of river-craft could be seen. This pushed onward, cleaving through the little billows in the teeth of the morning breeze. It was a tiny naphtha launch—a horrid, fussy, smoking little thing, cutting through breeze and water, and diffusing a scent of oil and greased iron in the pure and radiant air. A white bird on the bank looked at it, and rose with a startled note of alarm, and a flight of lovely-salmon-coloured colleagues followed. The others merely looked ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... her when I'm not about. So I want a lady, young, and English; and I should like her to be a bit of a sportswoman, don't you know. I mean," he added in careful explanation, "I should like her to be cheerful and good-natured, and not fussy about the things that ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... person or one fussy about the edge of her skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in a corner and be hugged—even that she could now assert with a degree of knowledge—but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told herself gravely, shocked her; only ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dear Davy!" Janet was laughing above her inclination to cry. "I do believe you are right. I'm going to pay particular attention to the little fussy things. Dear knows! if I do them all well, I'll have little time for discontent." She stood up—she and Davy were in the living room, while Mark was doing duty aloft—and flung her strong, young arms ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the school and apparently ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... night without speculating as to possible romantic adventures on the car, on the street, everywhere. They were not quite approved by the rest of the Front Office staff; their color was not all natural, their clothes were "fussy." Both wore enormous dry "rats," that showed through the thin covering of outer hair, their stockings were quite transparent, and bows of pink and lavender ribbon were visible under their thin shirt-waists. It was known ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... snobbishness is now so completely out of fashion that nobody cares. You are modern enough to laugh at it; I am not; and I still continue faithful to my Classons and Cuyps and Vetchens and Suydams; and to all that they stand for in Manhattan—the rusty vestiges of by-gone pomp and fussy circumstance—the memories that cling to the early lords of the manors, the old Patroons, and titled refugees—all this I still cling to—even to their shabbiness and ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... fidgets continually is not to be admired for anything beyond its ceaseless efforts to be doing. Ben Jonson once said: "A busy woman is a fearful nuisance," and it's more than likely that he had in mind some fussy dame whose nervous fingers were everlastingly picking at things and ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... fussy pomposity of the Queen's jubilee, the voice of the thinkers has not been entirely silent. The utter failure of her reign to present a single noble thought or impulse, a single evidence of sympathy with the immense mass of suffering, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... music?" asked his mistress, knitting as she spoke. "He came from Germany; there's where you get the best singers. Some canaries won't sing before company and some won't sing alone; they are fussy,—I call it pernickitty. Why, I had one with a voice like a flute; but I happened to buy some new wall-paper, and she didn't like the looks of it, and after that she never would sing ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... Mr. Follingsbee was forward, fussy, and advisory, in his own peculiar free-and-easy fashion; and Mrs. Follingsbee was instructive and patronizing to the very last degree. Lillie had bewailed in her sympathizing bosom John's unaccountable and most singular moral Quixotism in regard to the wine question, and been ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... simpler and more satisfactory than threshing and splashing about as I do. It seems so fussy and foolish and futile. I wish—that is, sometimes I wish—that I had learned to amuse myself in some less violent and ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... very fussy as usual, and told many amusing anecdotes regarding her journey, and also gave an immense amount of good advice to both Everard and Isabel, for which of ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... way within the garden-gate there is a circular temple of Grecian architecture, beneath the dome of which stands a marble statue of the good Doctor, very well executed, and representing him with a face of fussy activity and benevolence: just the kind of man, if luck favored him, to build up the fortunes of those about him, or, quite as probably, to blight his whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... on missionary health. It does not purpose to instruct you in the rules of hygiene. Rather it inquires into attitudes. Is the missionary to be as particular as he can about everything (fussy, some may call it), or should his faith be great enough so that he overlooks the rules of the doctors? Or perhaps, are there times when the one attitude is desirable, ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner who would have got over the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... cause. They considered that the methods he pursued in the management of the house were the outcome of a naturally malignant disposition. This was, however, not the case. There is no reason to suppose that Mr Kay did not mean well. But there is no doubt that he was extremely fussy. And fussiness—with the possible exceptions of homicidal mania and a taste for arson—is quite the worst characteristic it is possible for a house-master ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... never believed there was any foundation for these silly reports, but, if any special formalities were prescribed, Mr. Chamberlain brushed them aside, and simply conducted himself with quiet, easy grace, always calm and self-possessed, and never fussy or ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... where Angel and Devil alike fear to tread. At least, that is the old and orthodox conception of the clerical profession, and although it might be sometimes foolishly and conceitedly pushed to extremes by other men, there was nothing in Ringfield of the mere fussy moralist and pulpit egoist. After all, as he entered the house and, guided by the voice of its owner, found his way to the room looking on the dusty country road, he saw nothing very terrible, only a thinnish, fair, middle-aged man, wearing a black skull-cap and clad in a faded and greasy but rather ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... remove those grievances. The suspicion, however, did exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand of Great Britain was weakened, as her adversary had doubtless calculated that it would be, by an earnest but fussy and faddy minority. ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... some acquaintances in Switzerland. Luckily her trustee and would-be lover, Bill Chester, proposed to come out and join the party there. That was something to look forward to, for Sylvia was very fond of him, though he sometimes made her angry by his fussy ways. Chester had not approved of her going to Paris by herself, and he would certainly have shaken his head had he known of yesterday's visit ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the natives, qui paye de sa personne, and is not afraid of hanging when necessary. We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interest had sparkled in her eyes when Gordon's fussy little attorney had mentioned the name of his client, but it had been Dick's genial manner of boyish comradeship that had really warmed Miss Underwood to him. She did not like many people, but when she gave her heart to a friend it was ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... by the fussy and incompetent Earl of Loudon, 1756-57, whom Franklin likened to Saint George on the sign-posts, "always galloping but never advancing." He gathered twelve thousand men for the recapture of Louisburg, but exaggerated reports of the French strength frightened him from the attempt. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... taking up my quarters in the chapar-khana, a party of Persian travellers appear upon the scene, and with them a fussy little man in big round spectacles and semi-European clothes. Scarcely have they had time to alight and seek out quarters than the little man makes his appearance at my menzil door in all the glory of a crimson velvet dressing-cap and blue slippers, and beaming gladsomely through his moon-like ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... without charm, though approval may have been lacking here and there, and at the first crossing Alice suffered what she might have accounted an actual injury, had she allowed herself to be so sensitive. An elderly woman in fussy black silk stood there, waiting for a streetcar; she was all of a globular modelling, with a face patterned like a frost-bitten peach; and that the approaching gracefulness was uncongenial she naively made too evident. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... makeshift washstand. It should be made of a sizeable drygoods box, with shelves, and the top padded and covered to match the drapery. The mirror which hangs over it may be draped, or simply framed in white enamel, gold, or whatever blends with the room. Overdraping not only looks fussy, but means additional bother and care. The drapery is thrown over a frame ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... a small sallow man, with rather an agitated fussy manner, and eyes that never seemed to be looking at you. He was neat, almost dapper, in his dress, and was rather like the ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rendering aid to America, which Franklin would not believe, or could not see. Nor were the relations of Adams very pleasant with the veteran Franklin himself, whose merits he conceived to be exaggerated, and of whom it is generally believed he was envious. He was as fussy in business details as Franklin was easy and careless. He thought that Franklin lived too luxuriously and was too fond of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... must be heated by pipes from the kitchen or other fires; and, with the provision for fresh air never forgotten, this simple device will invariably secure pure and well-oxygenated air for breathing. "Fussy and expensive," may be the comment; but the expense is less than the average yearly doctor's bill, and the fussiness nothing that your own hands must engage in. Only let heads take it in, and see to it that no neglect is allowed. In a southern ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... hard, bright eyes, and seemed to have a quite impersonal interest in our struggle to keep afloat amid the battering seas. In addition to the Cape pigeons an occasional stormy petrel flashed overhead. Then there was a small bird, unknown to me, that appeared always to be in a fussy, bustling state, quite out of keeping with the surroundings. It irritated me. It had practically no tail, and it flitted about vaguely as though in search of the lost member. I used to find myself wishing it would find its tail and have done with ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... stupid—so very dull, Mr. Gusher. We only endure it, you know. And there are so few nice people in it—so very few we care about associating with," resumed this fat, fussy woman, giving her head a toss and extending her hands. "A few, a very few nice people have come up from the city—we find them very agreeable society, quite a relief. We intend to set up a residence in the city. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... I had to—when folks are so wrapped up in their business. There, with Susan's compliments! Susan's the heifer you rounded up for me in the ditch. I know she made you a lot of work, tracking holes in your banks you're so fussy about. Do you really think ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Wynell (the authority for Godfrey's being 'master of a dangerous secret') did expect to meet Godfrey at dinner, and, knowing the fears to which Godfrey often confessed, might himself have originated, by his fussy inquiries, the rumour that Sir Edmund was missing. The wild excitement of the town might add 'murdered by Papists,' and the rumour might really get into a letter from London of Saturday night, reaching Tixall by Monday morning. North says: 'It was in every one's ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... exactly the same thing. And here, again, "The Logicians" seem to me to take much too humble a position. When they are putting the final touches to the grouping of their Proposition, just before the curtain goes up, and when the Copula——always a rather fussy 'heavy father', asks them "Am I to have the 'not', or will you tack it on to the Predicate?" they are much too ready to answer, like the subtle cab-driver, "Leave it to you, Sir!" The result seems to be, that ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... Lady Torrington, a fussy little woman, her hostess of the night before, on her way down the room stopped and shook hands ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... worry you," said Trimmer. "They listen more out of habit than anything else. If you're fussy we'll go ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... thus informed by the officer whose wards we were. He was a fussy, quick-tempered, withal kind-hearted little fellow, and kept dashing in and out of the room, really perplexed over housing accommodations for the night. The spy-hunters had been successful in their work of rounding up their victims from all over the country and corralling ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... A meeting of the creditors was called, at which H. H. Rogers was present, representing Clemens. For the most part the creditors were liberal and willing to agree to any equitable arrangement. But there were a few who were grumpy and fussy. They declared that Mark Twain should turn over his copyrights, his Hartford home, and whatever other odds and ends could be discovered. Mr. Rogers, discussing the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... once were inclined to be fussy; You turned at inferior rye; You moped at a dubious vintage And shrieked if the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... imperfections whereby time has set the glory of his seal upon the gospels as well as upon all other aged things, not for twenty generations will they resume that ineffable and inviolable aspect which our fussy meddlesomeness will have disturbed. Let them alone. It is as they stand that ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... has no personal vices of the baser sort. He is moderate in the satisfaction of his appetites, whether for food or wine. He is no debauchee, no voluptuary, no gambler. He is faithful to old friends and comrades. He has high ideals, and is not ashamed of them. He is neither indolent nor fussy; neither a cynic, nor an intriguer, nor a fool; he is neither wrong-headed nor stubborn; he is honest and sincere to a degree that does him honour as a man, if it has sometimes proved perilous and blameworthy ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Mrs. Carleton's dressing-room, as her son had called it, looked very pleasant when they got there. It was well lighted and warmed and something answering to curtains had been summoned from its obscurity in store-room or garret and hung up at the windows,—"them air fussy English folks had made such a pint of it," the landlord said. Truth was, that Mr. Carleton as well as his mother wanted this room as a retreat for the quiet and privacy which travelling in company as they did they could have nowhere else. Everything ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Swinburne and Mark Twain. He reads manuscripts, including his own—and including mine. He refuses manuscripts, though he did accept one of mine. He tells authors what they ought to do and ought not to do. He is marvellously and terribly particular and fussy about the format of the books issued by his firm. Questions as to fonts of type, width of margins, disposition of title-pages, tint and texture of bindings really do interest him. And misprints—especially ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... on very smoothly with them all the year. Rose was lazy but not dirty and Sam was careful but not fussy, and then there was Melanctha to come in every day and help ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... o'clock we were quit of Genoa; the last lean, blue-chinned official had left our decks; the last fruitseller had been beaten off with bucketsful of water and left cursing us from his boat; the last passenger had come aboard at the last moment—a fussy graybeard who kept the big ship waiting while he haggled with his boatman over half a lira. But at length we were off, the tug was shed, the lighthouse passed, and Raffles and I leaned together over the rail, watching our shadows on the ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... really happy—for happy I believe they are—that slavery is not an evil; and the great evil is, as I always supposed, in the effect upon the whites. The few Southern gentlemen that I know interest me from their courtesy, agreeable manners, and ready speech. They also strike me as childlike and fussy. I catch myself feeling that I am the man and they are women; and I see this even in the captain of a steamer. Then they all like to talk sentiment—their ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... but the cure was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear. Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two fussy, jealous bourgeoises, were others as importunate and aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact—that of having missed the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... grown up round the feud; but if anyone had had patience to examine it to the bottom he would probably have found the long and short to be that Mr Bickers, being unhappily endowed with a fussy disposition and a sour and vindictive temper, had incurred the displeasure of the boys of his rival's house, and not being the man to smooth away a bad impression, had aggravated it by resenting keenly what he considered to be ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... just because the women got wrought up over tenement-house an' fire laws an' truck like that. Yes sir, they're out seein' Whitewater this minut, or will be if you can't divert their minds. Call 'em off, George, if you can. Get 'em fussy ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... clear evening in late summer as the Elizabeth Ann, of Pembray, scorning the expensive aid of a tug, threaded her way down the London river under canvas. The crew were busy forward, and the master and part-owner—a fussy little man, deeply imbued with a sense of his own importance and cleverness—was at the wheel chatting with the mate. While waiting for a portion of his cargo, he had passed the previous week pleasantly enough with some relatives in Exeter, ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... disparagement to her sex by this—far from it; she referred to a manly man as compared with an unmanly one, and she thought, for one moment, rather disparagingly about the salute which her Samuel's bald pate had given to the door that morning. Probably she failed to think of the fussy manner in which she herself had assaulted the superintendent of police, for it is said that ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... and shops were flowering into light and the sense of night and lateness was very strong. After they were seated in the tram a certain interval of silence came between them and then Lady Harman laughed and Mr. Brumley laughed—there was no longer any need for him to be energetic and fussy—and they began to have that feeling of adventurous amusement which comes on the further side of desperation. But beneath the temporary elation Lady Harman was a prey to grave anxieties and Mr. Brumley could not help thinking he had made ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... been deprived of their offices or sent into exile in consequence of their duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight the Marquis of Beuvron on the Place Royale. The Marquis's second, M. de fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. M. de Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le- Brule and brought ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fellow, you are rather too dainty and fussy for a very successful wooer," he said. "It's beautiful on paper, and absurd in life. We have a bit of private business to discuss. We will go inside, sir, I think. I will soon release you." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stream, by his generation, had grown much vitiated: it was pure warriorism in Claudius Gothicus, and even in Constantius Chlorus; it was warriorism refined with subtlety and cruelty in Constantine I; it was mere fussy treacherous cruelty in the Spider-Octopus,—and sensual brutality in Julian's brother Gallus. The vices of the latter may indicate how great a self-conqueror the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... worse. Master Vallance chewed the cud of country-side gossip. He reminded himself that not so very far away the King had set up his standard at Nottingham and summoned all loyal souls to his banner; that not so very far away in Cambridge, a fussy gentleman, a Mr. Cromwell, member for that place, had officiously pushed the interests of the Parliament by raising troops of volunteers and laying violent hands upon the University plate. Master Vallance tickled his chin and tried ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... me!" said the fussy old gentleman, "why can't you stop—I don't want to hear you cry. Here," continued he, fumbling ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... felt the warmth of the welcoming. The girls, one and all, had ever so many things to say to him. They all hunted, and they all wanted him to look at horses for them. Lady Eardham was more matronly than ever, and at the same time was a little fussy. She would not leave him among the girls, and at last succeeded in getting him off into a corner of the back drawing-room. "Now, Mr. Newton," she said, "I am going to show you that I put ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... I want a room fixed up for me as good as yours,—but not so dinky-fussy. I'll pick out the things myself. You needn't think you own the whole shooting-match, Miss Dotty-Doodles! I just guess Brother Bob home on his vacation will come in for his share of attention! You won't be neglected, I'll look ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... into the corridor, walked along the carpeted flagstones, and cast a practiced eye around him as he walked. These old castles were difficult to keep clean, and my lord the Count was fussy about nitre collecting in the seams between the stones of the walls. All appeared quite in order, which was a good thing. My lord the Count had been making a night of it last evening, and that always made him the more peevish in the morning. Though he always woke at the Angelus, he did ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... like shaving-mugs and equally thick. Golden-oak chairs of mid-Chautauquan patterns, with backs of saw-mill Heppelwhite; chairs of cane and rattan with fussy scrolls and curlicues of wicker, the backs set askew. Reed tables with gollops of wicker; plain black wooden tables that were like kitchen tables once removed; folding-tables that may have been suitable to card-playing, ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... such as intelligent men enjoy, being composed of two Egyptian boys and three fussy old ladies. One of them was immensely stout, wore a bright green cap, with half-a-pint of scarlet cherries bobbing on her brow. She talked on all subjects, and handed round an album full of her own poems on all occasions. The second must have been a sister of 'Mr. T.'s Aunt,' so grim and incoherent ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... family completed the party, which was confined to the Molyneux's set. The chaplain was strangely nervous, fussy, and important: it seemed as if the possession of some weighty secret that he was eager, yet afraid to divulge, had disturbed his phlegmatic complacency. He took the first opportunity of beseeching Miss Tresilyan to be allowed to act as her escort: ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... man of considerable character and attainments. Who would guess it who read all these trivial comments, these catalogues of what he had for dinner, these inane domestic confidences—all the more interesting for their inanity! The effect left upon the mind is of some grotesque character in a play, fussy, self-conscious, blustering with women, timid with men, dress-proud, purse-proud, trimming in politics and in religion, a garrulous gossip immersed always in trifles. And yet, though this was the day-by-day man, the year-by-year man was a very different person, a devoted civil ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the trainer. "Albert. He's a honest hoss is Fo'-Pound-the-Second, only that fussy as to who he has about him. That's the way with bottle-fed uns. They gets spoiled and gives 'emselves airs. Albert's his lad, and Monkey's been about him since he was a foal. Sometimes he'll work for one, and sometimes ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... introduction of steam-launches into use for our large English yachts adds quite a new feature to every grand regatta. Here again, however, the French navy led the way, and England follows somewhat tardily. The French fleet at the Cherbourg review, some years ago had a swarm of these fussy little creatures buzzing about the great anchored iron-clads. English steam-launches were built to carry each a gun, and so they are bluff and slow. Our Admiralty declined to allow a race between these and the French ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... was good enough," said Mr. St. Clair, "you're too fussy about trifles, Isabel. Come, children, scurry off to bed, you'll get no beauty sleep to-night, ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... short side whiskers, a chunky, fussy, and hot-tempered man, but whether Madge Pemberton had managed him, or whether he'd worn her out, I couldn't make up my mind about the likelihood. I sat a while talking with him, and watching Madge McCulloch, his daughter, lay ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... be a picnic. This word tickled one of the drunken officers so much, that suddenly he let his loose legs relapse and clapped his spurs into his animal, which reared horribly, and in the end sent him on the ground. I thought I should die of laughter. Then everybody became more and more fussy, because they were afraid of L——, but, fortunately, the general started off ahead, muttering to himself, and we rode after him like some procession. It seemed to me very absurd, and at that point I lost all confidence in the success of the expedition. Everyone had become too ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... things, quietly, without parade or press-agenting, all the energy in her, and she had no reserve left for play. War work seemed to mean something to Sophie besides write-ups in the society column and pictures of her in sundry poses. These things besides, surrounded her with all sorts of fussy people, both male and female, and through this cordon Thompson seldom broke for confidential talk with her. When he did Sophie baffled him with her calm detachment, a profound and ever-increasing reserve—as ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... member of the party to land was a tall young man in white ducks, while directly behind came another elderly man with a very high forehead and a fussy, ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hands of his friends" then, and couldn't get away; and it must be said he didn't seem to feel very bad over the situation. The storm of cheers and the sight of tall Abraham (six feet and four inches) at the head of the marching column, before the fussy little chap in brass buttons who was quite ready, caused a quick stampede even among the boys who intended to vote for the little fellow. One after another they rushed for a place in "Captain Abe's" line as though to be first to fall in was to win ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... was none the worse; and those who were well enough enjoyed his discomfiture immensely. Going into Salle III where there were shouts of laughter (the convalescents were sent to that room) I saw a funny sight. One little man, who was particularly fussy and grumpy (and very unpopular with the other men in consequence), slept near the stove, which was an old-fashioned coal one with a pipe leading up to the ceiling. The concussion had shaken this to such an extent that accumulations ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... happen if you let the children carry any of the flowers!" cried Aunt Lolly, who was a dear, fussy little old lady. "They'll drop them on their toes, or spill the dirt on ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... there is not to be a fuss," Ethel said at last, when St. Pancras' clock was striking two: "for I always thought that a fussy wedding would be horrid. You see, Lesley, I have dressed up so often in white satin and lace, as a bride, or a girl in a ballroom, or some other character not my own, that I feel now as if there would be no reality for me in a wedding if I did not wear rather every-day clothes. In a bride's ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... was fussy and self-important At the university—Balliol was his college—he was regarded as a coming man, likely to make his mark in the world. This made him more fussy and more self-important. When he became a recognised authority on Near Eastern affairs he became pompous and ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... more crafts arrived, a large triplane, and a dirigible balloon. There were many visitors to the ground, and Tom, Ned and Mr. Sharp were kept busy answering questions put by those who crowded into their tent. Toward the close of the day a fussy little Frenchman entered, and, making his way to where Tom ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... the opinion of most of my men friends that such half-concealed encouragements, such evasions and drawings back are a necessary part of the love-play—the woman's unconscious testing of the fussy male. There is one friend, a doctor, who tells me that the woman's dissimulation of her own inclination has come to be a secondary sexual characteristic, a manifestation of the operation of sexual selection, diluted, perhaps, and altered by civilisation, but an ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... communicated with his god. It was surely a great step in advance when all the Elohims were combined into one Supreme Elohim that was everywhere present and ruled the world. Instead of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful, fussy, boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or doing other things quite as useless, it was a great advance to have one Supreme Being, dispassionate, a God of Love and Justice, "with whom can be no variation, neither ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... and rising wealth. The last may, and does have the best of it, in the mere physical part of the strife; but in the more moral, if such a word can be used, the quiet ascendency of better manners and ancient recollections is very apt to overshadow the fussy pretensions of the vulgar aspirant, who places his claims altogether on the all-mighty dollar. It is vain to deny it; men ever have done it, and probably ever will defer to the past, in matters of this sort—it being much with us, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... apart, or peered out earnestly through the smoke drifts, while their commitments to Libby Prison were made out; anxious and wan women, of every sphere in life, besieged the clerk preparing "protection papers;" while a fussy official, of higher grade, gave assurance to every one that guards should be placed about their homes. For the deserted women of Richmond dreaded not only the presence of the victorious enemy, but also ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... has been described as a mental quicksand. There is something in the atmosphere which makes the most industrious man contentedly idle. Here the nervous, irritable, fussy individual, who for years has never known what rest meant, and who has fidgeted when he could not work, finds himself relaxing, against his will, into a condition of what a celebrated statesman described as "innocuous desuetude." The balminess of the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... said she supposed there were doctors in Sunderland who would do her more good than I should. She doesn't seem to be able to understand why I should want to go. She says it's fussy." ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... down the hall in a state of general excitement. A corpulent colored man, dressed in the garb of a beadle,—a large staff in his right hand, a cocked hat on his head, and broad white stripes down his flowing coat, stands midway between the parlor doors. He is fussy enough, and stupid enough, for a Paddington beadle. Now Madame Flamingo looks scornfully at him, scolds him, pushes him aside; he is only a slave she purchased for the purpose; she commands that he gracefully touch his ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... way. You've lived too soft. You need something to wake you up to the real hardships that men have to go through. Then you won't be so fussy over little things. Perhaps I've talked plainer to you than I should; but I believe in going after a fellow with a club before his face rather than a knife behind his back. Now let's open those windows so the fresh air can blow through, build a ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... merchants probably think I'm too fussy about shopping. I'm afraid I bore Mr. Dashaway and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... so glad," she said in a relieved tone. "I suppose I seem fussy, but now and then the problem of help gets to be a regular nightmare. Once or twice lately I've been afraid I was making a terrible mess of things, and might, after all, have to accept one of the offers I've had for the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... to expect that private Members, howsoever fussy by nature, would restrain themselves and permit public business to go forward. Member for North-West Lanarkshire does not take that view of his duty. Here is a day on which eyes of nation are with exceptional intensity and anxiety fixed on House of Commons. What ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... elicited. For what really the House wanted to learn was the great enigma which had been kept for seven long years—in spite of protests, hypocritical appeals, and, ofttimes, tedious remonstrance from over-zealous and over-fussy friends. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... something fussy about such a traveller, though robbers undoubtedly were to be feared, even in the eighteenth century,[405] and though inns were undoubtedly dirty. A repugnance to dirt and discomfort is justifiable ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... three of these steamships are together down the harbor, their white volleys of smoke often present quite a lively picture of a naval engagement. The little puffing pilot-boats have a trick of getting in the way of us ferry-voyagers, like fussy custom-house officers among the newly-landed passengers from the ocean-ferries. There is generally a tug, perhaps with a slow convoy, to be waited for or circumnavigated ere the "slip" can be entered. And they run so close in-shore that the pilot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... it was with him a general rule to find fault with her about everything. He did not spare her his reproaches on a multitude of subjects; all day long he was worrying her about small trifles with which he should have had nothing to do. It is a mistake to suppose that a man can not be brutal and fussy at the same time. M. de Talbrun was proof ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) |
