"Overdone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellect of many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey and melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and incompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are like Boucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so that all should see ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... almost makes me feel not legally married. But don't—don't, please, if you love me, use that awful word 'parson' again. I can't stand it. Don't you think it sounds just like the crackle of cold, overdone toast?" ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Better ask her. Maybe you overdid your politeness. Overdone courtesy is often worse than boorishness. You may have been so polite on some occasion that you made Miss Hollister think you considered her an inferior person. You know what the poet insinuated. Sorosis holds no fury like a woman condescended ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... repeated use of the lumber. A certain amount of additional sturdiness is required in the shape of heavier form lumber and stronger framing to provide for the wear and tear of repeated use, and it is always economy to provide it when repeated use is possible. The thing can be overdone, however; there is an economical limit to repeated use, as we demonstrate further on. In the matter of economy in carpenter work, a certain amount of extra work put into framing the forms to withstand the stress of repeated use is economically justifiable. Also carpenter work put into framing ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... to understand you at last," retorted Stanton. "You have been smitten yourself, and this is your strategy to conceal the fact. The trouble is that you have overdone the matter, and revealed your transfixed heart long before I should have suspected the wound. Had you not better commence on the picture soon, for this matter may disable ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... that moment the Governor growled softly to himself. "I've overdone it," he said. "She's sure to be offended. No one likes to be taken in. I ought not to have showed her Mrs. Rudd's conservatory; that was a mistake. She won't let them ask me down; I shan't see her. Hanged if I won't telephone Mrs. McNaughton ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... spoken truly when she said that this man lived in the hearts of his people. Sally delayed her departure for London for a few weeks when she found that she could be of great service in the village by going and lending a helping hand when the mothers got overdone with nursing, for it was chiefly among the children of the place that the fever found its victims. Twenty succumbed, and then there was a day or two when no fresh ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... has already been said in preceding pages about Puget Sound that it would seem the subject might be somewhat overdone. But it still remains to be said that justice can never be done to the scenic glories of this beautiful inland sea. The views from different points, and from almost every point on the Sound, are of ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... foot of Boston Common is hallowed by some historical incident. It is filled with reminiscences of a time when liberty was not overdone in this new world, and the tyrant's heel was resting calmly on the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... was nothing to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course, and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting of the Red Cross Committee was held at the hospital, and I was sent for and formally installed as Matron of the hospital with full ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... printed as The Distracted Emperor) it is very well worth reading, and contrasting with the really great plays of the same class, such as The Jew of Malta and Titus Andronicus, where, though the horrors are still overdone, yet genius has given them a kind of passport. But ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... have been overdone in Art and Literature. Leave them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... (I suppose I must have overdone it) it was my moral beauty that dished me with the Canon. I had reckoned, you see, without ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... James's Street, and his bootmaker at the corner of that street and Piccadilly. He was particular in the article of gloves, and the getting up of his shirts was a matter not lightly thought of in the Ullathorne laundry. On the occasion of the present visit he had rather overdone his usual efforts, and caused some little uneasiness to his sister, who had not hitherto received very cordially the proposition for a lengthened visit from the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... turned to look at her again. "Have I concealed my admiration so successfully as that? Perhaps I have overdone the concealment." ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... policy of avoidance and what Stephen called "freezing out" had begun, and the young people kept to themselves as much as possible. At breakfast Caroline was coldly polite, and her brother cold, although his politeness was not overdone. However, Captain Elisha did not seem to notice. He was preoccupied, said but little, and spent the forenoon in writing a second letter to Miss Abigail. In it he told of his experience on board the Empress of the Ocean and of the luncheon at the Central Club. But he said nothing concerning ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... quite welcome, dear. What a time those little squares of lace must take. I am like yourself in respect of religion; in the first place, I think that nothing should be overdone. Have you ever-I have never spoken to any one on the subject, but I see your ideas are so in accordance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on my account. I can do nothing that might injure Walters now and can't treat him with suspicion; but he's going soon and, if it's any comfort, I won't leave the hotel grounds for the next day or two. Anyhow I've rather overdone things lately." ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... of propriety had been deeply offended by her changed appearance. She wept so bitterly that the girls, seeking to console her, had overdone the matter. ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... evening—remarkably peaceful, now that the guns were at rest. A light breeze played eastward. I sat with my face towards the sunset, wondering a little if this was the last time that I should see it. One often reads of this sensation in second-rate novels. I must say that I had always thought it greatly "overdone"; but a great zest in the splendour of life swept over me as I sat there in the glow of that setting sun, and also a great calmness that gave me heart to do my uttermost on the morrow. My father had enclosed a little card in his last letter to me with the words ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... overdone it. Five hundred pairs of eyes tore themselves from their leader's face and shifted fearfully to the lurking, crawling shadows that closed ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... was sitting on the mint beside the well-house, weaving herself a wreath of buttercups. Felicity was sipping from the cup of clouded blue with an overdone air of unconcern. Each was acutely and miserably conscious of the other's presence, and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other was less than nothing to her. Felicity could not succeed. The Story Girl managed it better. If it had not been ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his lively name for the kitchen knave, gets the holly-wand across his quarters when he deserves it; but Tusser seems to feel that discipline may be overdone. It may be waste of good stick and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... morning appeared that this lady had made her own plan for an earlier one. She had breakfasted when Strether came into the coffee-room; but, Waymarsh not having yet emerged, he was in time to recall her to the terms of their understanding and to pronounce her discretion overdone. She was surely not to break away at the very moment she had created a want. He had met her as she rose from her little table in a window, where, with the morning papers beside her, she reminded him, as he let her know, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... have apparently overdone and overworked their premature peace efforts and have made things worse for them. They've ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... still no guest arrived. The baron descended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed. The meats were already overdone, the cook in an agony, and the whole household had the look of a garrison, that had been reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to give orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. All were seated at table, and just on the point of commencing, when the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... who saw such things as I have said, Was overdone with utter weariness; And walked in care, as one whom fears oppress Because above his head Death hangs, or damage, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... you care for such things. He goes after blue—the misuse of it. He says it's the color most pleasureable to the eye in its purest intensity. But you mustn't dab it on. A blue house is a crime. Blue's overdone here too, blue sky, blue mists, blue shadows, blue lakes, blue flowers,—anemones, harebells, columbines and the rest. It's a relief to get into the reds of the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... or else they should be seen at some distance. Other varieties of the common white poplar or abele are occasionally useful, although most of them sprout badly and may become a nuisance. But the planting of these immodest trees is so likely to be overdone that one scarcely dare recommend them, although, when skillfully used, they may be made to produce most excellent effects. If any reader has a particular fondness for trees of this class (or any others with woolly-white foliage) and if he has only an ordinary ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... which she "muddles through" successive perils, yet she may feel that the stereotyping of her people in a rigid administrative frame might be too high a price to pay for constant preparedness. As for us Americans, we have made a virtue, perhaps overdone it, of avoiding a mechanical Kultur. We prefer the greatest freedom for the individual to the perfectly regimented state. We will move toward culture and cheerfully assume the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Dick. A better man than you once denied with cursing and swearing. You've overdone it, just as he did. It's no business of mine, of course, but it's comforting to think that somewhere under the stars there's saving up for you a tremendous thrashing. Whether it'll come from heaven or earth, I don't know, but it's bound to come and break ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... dorg at the swimming business, by throwing him into a shallow pond. I had to go in after the beast pretty smart, boots, trowsers, socks, and all. He and I had a roast by the fire that evening. My trowsers, however, getting overdone in the operation, I ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... wrest-plank and John Geib's "grasshopper." After the beginning of this century, the square piano became much enlarged and improved by Collard and Broadwood, in London, and by Petzold, in Paris. It was overdone in the attempt to gain undue power for it, and, about twenty years ago, sank in the competition, with the later cottage pianoforte, which was always ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... can doubtless be overdone: at moments one feels the little game is worked a bit too openly. The other evening, for instance, when we entered the dining-room of our hotel and found it decorated with flags and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... having about a thousand people to look at 'em, both the girls were flushed up a good deal. It set them off first-rate. I never saw either of them look so handsome before. Old Barnes had come down well for once, and they were dressed in real good style—hadn't overdone it neither. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... have been pretty clear, then—at the moment. Afterwards (I don't mind confessing to you) I lay for some minutes where the explosion flung me. In my hurry I had overdone the dose." ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... with all their absurdities, always have a lofty, sometimes even a sublime, side. It would be wrong to fancy that there is nothing but ignorant superstition in the Starovere's scrupulous attachment to his ancestral worship. The vulgar heresy is, in fact, only an overdone ritualism, whose logic lands it in absurdity. The Old Believer's reverence for the letter comes from his belief that letter and spirit are indissolubly united, and that the forms of religion are as needful as its essence. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... rat. "It was quite simple; and not one of us had the stomach-ache. That fear of the cats is very much overdone. They can do nothing, so long as you eat ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... treated us it needs not to be told, for it was in the way of a good Somerset franklin, and that is saying much. But that night he would talk little, seeing that I and Wulfhere were overdone with want of sleep. Indeed it was but the need of caution that had kept me from falling asleep on my horse more than once on the road. So very soon they brought us skins and cloaks, and we stretched ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... crude or overdone about Psmith's methods. The ordinary man, having conceived the idea of haunting a fellow clubman, might have seized the first opportunity of engaging him in conversation. Not so Psmith. The first time he met Mr Bickersdyke in the club was on the stairs after dinner one night. The ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... establishments, and for taking the chances of Government employment at high prices. Their largest employment results from casualties rather than from the pursuit of legitimate trade. But the business is overdone, even for the English market, when foreign war is rather the rule, and peace the exception. But few propellers are now building; these few being small and intended for the coasting, or the short-line Continental trade, where they will readily pay. (See page 42 for propeller ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... you've overdone it to-day. However, I'll try to forgive you. Only I'd like you to see ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... His constrained, overdone manner was not calculated to abate Mrs. Kilgore's astonishment, and she continued to stare at him with an expression in which a vague terror began to appear. There are few shorter transitions than that from ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... buildings and for the sustenance of men appointed to the idolatrous service of Rome. I saw bishops and priests grow rich until they possessed the choicest real estate. I thought then that Paul's admonitions were overdone. I thought he should have requested the people to curtail their contributions. I saw how the generosity of the people of the Church was encouraging covetousness on the part of the clergy. ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... Louisa is modern and the scene is in Italy. Italy, we fear, has been a good deal overdone in fiction. A little more Piccadilly and a little less Perugia would be a relief. However, the story is interesting. A young English girl marries an Italian nobleman and, after some time, being bored with picturesqueness, falls in love with an Englishman. The story is told with ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... personally. Not having been on the ocean since I was a child, I, who am naturally no good sailor, was extremely ill as day by day we ploughed through seas that grew ever more rough. Also, strong as I was, that fearful ride had overdone me. Added to these physical discomforts was my agonising anxiety of mind, which I leave anyone with imagination to picture for himself. Really there were times when I wished that the Seven Stars would plunge headlong to the bottom ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... work and care of all this terrible time of preparation, ending in the great demands made upon you to-day, the strain has been greater than your young nature can bear. Bend the finest sword too far, Roy, and it will break. You are overdone—worn-out. It is ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... feel that he had overdone it, too, and roused more suspicion than he had laid; so he thought to make it up by losing interest in Old Dibs, and what was Fitzsimmons doing now, and was it true that John L. had retired from the ring? But he didn't seem ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... omelette overdone, the sausages too greasy, and the bread so hard that he had to cut it into fingers for Christine lest she should hurt her wrist. They emptied two bottles of wine, and began a third, becoming so gay and noisy that they ended by feeling bewildered in the long ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... still deep in the girl's eyes as she kissed her father, and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exercise may be recommended as an admirable corrective to foolish flights of imagination. There is something concrete about butter-making which counteracts an overplus of sentiment— especially when the butter will not come. And hot water may be overdone. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... "A little overdone," said Miss Pinshon. "She wants regular exercise; but irregular exercise is very trying to any but a strong person. I think Daisy will be stronger ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 'The pilau is overdone,' thundered Kisloch. 'You have brought a lamb stuffed with pistachio-nuts, instead of a gazelle with almonds,' ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... in rather overdone astonishment. "What an extraordinary coincidence! And what are you going to ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... concentrated on the point of how long it will be before their time comes to get out of it. Mr. Fothergill evidently had much knowledge and experience of the Fernan Vaz district and its natives. He had, I should say, overdone his experiences with the natives, as far as personal comfort and pleasure at the time went, having been nearly killed and considerably chivied by them. Now I do not wish a man, however much I may ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... wastcotes, &c., and so goe see the faire. Sir Barnard Gascoign, on a cart jade, rode before the queen; another stranger before the Dutchess of Buckingham; and Mr. Roper before Richmond. They had all so overdone it in their disguise, and looked so much more like antiques than country volk, that, as soon as they came to the faire, the people began to goe after them; but the queen going to a booth, to buy a pair of yellow stockings ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... said Julius; "though I never even said it justified the suspicion, any more than I said that balls might not easily be overdone, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... done that is worth doing? It seems to me that everything is overdone. I go into a town, big or little: ten stores where one is needed. How do all these poor creatures live? Do you see anything noble in this petty struggle for existence? I can't. I serve my kind best by getting out of their way: that makes one less in ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... you are at all the sort of reader I like—with the sort of scientific paper I mean. It is a paper you cannot make head nor tail of, and at the end come five or six long folded diagrams that open out and show peculiar zigzag tracings, flashes of lightning overdone, or sinuous inexplicable things called "smoothed curves" set up on ordinates and rooting in abscissae—and things like that. You puzzle over the thing for a long time and end with the suspicion that not only do you not understand ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... appearance of indolent indifference that was rather overdone, the turnback stooped low enough to extract the pin. But his fingers trembled in the act, and half a dozen cadets noted ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... too soon. She was overdone with the multitudes, and in fact it was more the renewal of the old sorrow than the new one. Anna tells me that when they returned there was the same objectless depression. She would not take up her painting again, she said it was of no use, there was no one to care. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I mean is—it isn't simple. Farm life has a reputation for simplicity that I begin to think is overdone. It doesn't seem to me that my evening has been any more simple than if we had dressed for dinner and gone to the opera or played bridge. In fact, at this distance, that, compared with this, has the simplicity of a—I don't ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... Marcia can easily be overdone," he remarked. His eyes moved restlessly left and right. He lowered his voice. "Nobody knows how long her hold over Caesar will last. She owns him at present owns him absolutely—owns Rome. He delights in letting her revoke his orders; it's a form of self-debauchery; ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... you're afraid to let anybody pass your logs in the dark? Well, caution's useful, but it can be overdone." ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... him in early childhood, they talked freely of the Applegarth business, and Mr. Turnbull promised to make inquiries at once. Of course, he took a despondent view of jam. Jam, he inclined to think, was being overdone; after all, the country could consume only a certain quantity of even the most wholesome preserves, and a glut of jam already threatened the market. Applegarth? By the bye, did he not remember proceedings in bankruptcy connected with that unusual ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... a look of embarrassment spread over Jack Curtiss' heavy features, and that even Bill Bender's brazen face took on a shade of pallor. If this were so, however, it could have been only momentary, for the next minute Jack, with what seemed very much overdone cordiality, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... the highly respectable opinion that character-mongering is much overdone nowadays. After all, what does it matter—that Fanny Elmer was all sentiment and sensation, and Mrs. Durrant hard as iron? that Clara, owing (so the character-mongers said) largely to her mother's ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... purchasers, who fondly fancy they have thus become possessed of the real article at the trifling cost of a few pounds. They produce various kinds of modern antiques in Violins, some of which display an amount of ingenuity worthy of being exercised in a better cause; but usually the whole thing is overdone, and the results, in point of tone, are far more disastrous than in the common French copies. The following list of French, Belgian, and Dutch makers contains many names not included in the first edition of this book. The works wherein several of these names occur are M. J. Gallay's, "Les ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... sir, I rather overdone the thing yesterday, a-stavin' in the gig, and then capsizin' the paint. If I did, I hope you'll forgive me, sir, and remember as I ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Antoinette to Madame Vigee-Lebrun: "They would call me arrogant if I were not a queen." The assumption of privilege and prerogative might be only the inborn consciousness of distinction, but he fancied it might be more effective for being tempered. Not that it was overdone. It was not done at all. If the inner impulse working outward poised a neat, classic head too loftily, or shot from gray eyes, limpid and lovely in themselves, a regard that was occasionally too imperious, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... rule your features as you listen. Occasionally her speech is indistinct; you must manage never to miss a word she says. She is slightly—very slightly—deaf; you must speak in your natural voice, yet never oblige her to be in doubt as to what you say. She likes a respectful manner, but if it is overdone the indiscretion soon receives a startling reproof. Be as easy as you like in her presence provided that your ease is natural; if it strikes Lady Ogram as self-assertion—beware the lash! From time to time she will permit herself a phrase or an exclamation which reminds one that her birth was ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... They proved to be the so-called "seafoam" biscuit from New York. The potatoes never came on the table looking like new fallen snow, as we have them at home. We were surprised to find both mutton and beef overdone, according to our American taste. The French talk about the Briton's "bifteck saignant," but we never saw anything cooked so as to be, as we should say, "rare." The tart is national with the English, as the pie is national ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... with the winter landscape, in which the foreground has been thus disposed of. The force of a horizontal is more cleverly weakened by such a line because besides adding variety it accomplishes its intention with less effort. As a warning of what may happen when these principles are neglected or overdone one glance at the equestrian picture by Cuyp is sufficient. His subject, a man on horseback, is an excellent cross of a horizontal and vertical in itself and simply required to be let alone and led away from. The background destroys this and, instead ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... application for the appointment of County Engineer, I have learned that the place is not likely to be filled before February next. What I shall do will depend entirely upon what I can get to do. Our present business is entirely overdone in this city, at least a dozen new houses having started about the same time I commenced. I do not want to fly from one thing to another, nor would I, but I am compelled to make a living from the start for which I am willing to give all my time and ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... steps to a less presentable region. There was no aggressive brutality, only a peremptory curtness, entirely proper in the circumstances. Our only defense against physical severity was a bearing of cheerful but not overdone courtesy, and we gave that what play we might. I could not foretell how I might behave under a clubbing, and would not bring the thing to a test, if I could decently avoid it. In a long, low, shabby, ill-lighted room we were lined ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... prevented his much-besought response. There is no need now to enlarge upon the sufferings, the adventures, the dangers of these peripatetic juvenile trades folk, sparse of clothes and food, and full of the material which may make or mar a nation; for all this was done, and even overdone, by the graphic sensationalists of the London penny dailies when Chancellor Lowe proposed a tax on matches. We may, upon occasion, feel for the manufacturers and venders of 'lights,' but more generally we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the purchasers ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Mary declined an invitation to take a run to the village. She seemed overdone with ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—quel coup d'oeil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was unmanageable, out of all control. The goading and the enraging that goes on in the dens behind the arena had been overdone apparently, for the bull, wild with rage and pain, galloped madly round, taking no notice of the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... graceful even when a disembodied spirit. I should think she would be getting a little tried with all this questioning; but perhaps we're only reading the fatigue into her. The ghost may be merely overdone." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his mind and remained silent. So the topic dropped, but that it stood very straight upon its feet in Mr. Knight's mind was clear from the compression of his thin lips and the ill-humour of his remarks about the coldness and overdone character of the beef and sundry other household matters. As soon as the meal was concluded and he had washed it down with a last glass of water and with a very wry face thanked Providence for all that he had received, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... inventions, perhaps, which you were so anxious to taste. I see people are not scrupulously punctual in Paris,—it is ten minutes after the time. Possibly we are waiting for some guest who has not sufficient good taste to remember that viands may be overdone through ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... alarmed, Gillie," he added, looking down with a twinkle in his eyes, "I'll go into the bath along with you. We'll sink or swim together, my boy, and I'll see that you're not overdone. I'm rather fond of them myself, d'ee see, so I ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... without really hurting me. And I've got my mind set on staying. Not only that, but I believe they killed my brother, and I'm going to hunt them down and break up their gang or die in the attempt. There's your plot. It needn't be overdone in the least, to have thrills enough. And there would be all kinds of chance for real range-stuff, like the handling of ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... of Lammermoor is indeed deplorable. He thought it like Scott's previous work, but "laboured in an inferior way, and more careless, with many repetitions of himself. Caleb is overdone.... The catastrophe is ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... essayed to use some spice or savory unfamiliar to her and has turned out a dish which her family has declared "tasted like medicine" is, naturally enough, discouraged from wandering after that particular strange god again. The truth is that she has overdone the seasoning. She doesn't want to be parsimonious, which is just what the French cook is with his flavors, only he, more scientifically, calls it using good judgment. If he uses garlic in a salad, it doesn't necessarily follow that ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... dumbfounded. Now, that he was up, and looking about him, he had an opportunity of perceiving that his mistress was offended, and that he had somewhat overdone the sublime, poetical and affecting. With a sudden revulsion of feeling and tactics, he determined to throw himself, at once, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... twenty a second. Madame found out the father, and kicked Sarah out. Mr. W...t.n then kicked Madame out, and went to live with Sarah, rows ensued, other companies of "Poses plastiques" came into competition, the thing got overdone, he could not get his living; he knew a trade, but was I expect too lazy to work at it; so Sarah took to letting herself out as model, and that being poor pay, to letting out her cunt to get their ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... indicate, as before suggested, that disparagement has some sort of compensation in it. Possibly it is the governor that keeps things from going too fast—the opposition of forces that holds the balance true. But almost everything can be overdone; and the fact remains that without encouragement and faith from without, the stoutest heart will in time grow faint and doubt itself. It hears the yelping of the pack, and there creeps in the question, "What if they are right?" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... waiting a reasonable length of time for associations to run their course. If one act too soon, before his organized experience has had time to pass in review, he may act improperly. Therefore one must be trained to a proper degree of caution. Of course, caution may be overdone. One must act sometime, one cannot ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... one, and left only just time for a peep into the two churches and a study of the hours of their services. St. Kenelm's was decided to be a "perfect gem," ornaments, beauty, and all, a little overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen's opinion, but perfectly "the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... great favor," said Ludlow, intending to be profoundly respectful. But he must have overdone it. The girl majestically gave her drawings to her mother, and ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... wholesome and natural. Early to bed, he slept like an infant and was up with the dawn. Always with something to do, and with a thousand little things that enticed but did not clamor, he was himself never overdone. Nevertheless, there were times when both he and Dede were not above confessing tiredness at bedtime after seventy or eighty miles ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... untrained and inexperienced cook will observe her oven closely and determine the results of certain temperatures, she will soon find herself becoming more successful in this matter. To assist the housewife in this matter, as well as to help in the saving of much loss in fuel and in underdone or overdone food, many stoves are equipped with an oven thermometer, an indicator, or a thermostat. The thermometer is more likely to be reliable than the indicator, as it has a column of mercury like that of any other thermometer ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... every quarter of an hour, and between whiles go out into the open air, and let the fresh breezes fan your bosom—your cheeks look pale. At mid-day go to your own little room, and try to sleep. Nothing ought to be overdone, so you are to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to appreciate the opera at its full value except Spohr, who in connection with it wrote: 'Der Fliegende Hollaender interests me in the highest degree. The opera is imaginative, of noble invention, well written for the voices, immensely difficult, rather overdone as regards instrumentation, but full of novel effects; at the theatre it is sure to prove clear and intelligible.... I have come to the conclusion that among composers for the stage, pro tem., Wagner is ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... subjects I suggest for his consideration rouse his curiosity, because they are fine in themselves, because they are quite new to him, and because he is able to understand them. Your young people, on the other hand, are weary and overdone with your stupid lessons, your long sermons, and your tedious catechisms; why should they not refuse to devote their minds to what has made them sad, to the burdensome precepts which have been continually piled upon ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... be of importance to add that this kind of instruction can be easily overdone, and it is better to proceed too slowly than too rapidly. It is a healthy and permanent development that is wanted, and the teacher should rest satisfied if it is slow. It is by no means feasible to attempt to subordinate all study to specific aims; we cannot see ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... please the most particular of husbands. How? By using an automatic, electric egg boiler that can be set for any time, and when the desired number of minutes is reached, presto! up comes the egg out of the boiling water! Not a second overdone, or underdone. In China some of us were given, as a great delicacy, a "twenty-year-old egg" and toward the end of the trip many of us had lost interest in all eggs, no ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... make up for the lost time. My work upon the Hall estate, and my exercise with Roger, had kept my body in good condition: yet to run for four miles or more at a stretch with the mind in a ferment would tax any man, and by the time I came in sight of the turnpike I was fairly overdone, dripping with sweat—'twas a sunny day in ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... rather trust to take the week-day services than you, for you are fully capable, and I have trained you into my own style of playing: I never could get Jupp entirely into it; he is too fond of noise and flourishes. It has struck me that perhaps Mr. Galloway might spare you: his office is not overdone with work, and I would make it worth ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... I had only been teaching the monk manly tricks, and pa said: "Well, you have overdone it." And then the Humane society had pa arrested for cruelty to animals. But the monk got over it, and now he tries to be a masher, and winks at women, and flirts with them just as the men do ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... forenoon that the preparations for the picnic were complete and the four set off together in one carriage. In the strong need that was on each of them to make the best of the affair, the colonel's unconsciousness might have been a little overdone, but Mrs. Ellison's demeanor was sublimely successful. The situation gave full play to her peculiar genius, and you could not have said that any act of hers failed to contribute to the perfection of her design, that any tone or speech ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... White Eidley was much struck by the genius of young Lough, and became one of his greatest patrons. The sculptor determined to strike out a new path for himself. He thought the Greeks had exhausted the Pantheistic, and that heathen gods had been overdone. Lough began and pursued the study of lyric sculpture: he would illustrate the great English poets. But there was the obvious difficulty of telling the story of a figure by a single attitude. It was like a flash of thought. "The true artist," he ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... friend here has done, and after roping your pugnacious hands, as I myself was obliged to do, we never can launch you upon the moor, in such weather as this, without some food. You are not very strong, and you have overdone yourself. Let us go to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... show how his labours had been rewarded.[602] The event—which always justifies true manliness—proved the sagacity of this proud demeanour. Fonseca was baulked of his gratification. The clumsy Bobadilla had overdone the business. The sight of the Admiral's stately and venerable figure in chains, as he passed through the streets of Cadiz, on a December day of that year 1500, awakened a popular outburst of sympathy ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... return to the invalid, restore her serenity with a smile, give her reason to hope for convalescence in every line of our faces. Then we feel an unconquerable longing to rush from the room and from the poor creature. We leave the house, we wander at random through the streets; at last, overdone with fatigue, we sit down at a table in a cafe. We mechanically take up a copy of L'Illustration and our eyes fall at once upon the solution of its last riddle: Against ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... times when the children are in a better state to receive religious instruction than others. A teacher of observation will soon perceive this, and act accordingly; if, however, the thing is overdone, which it may be, and which I have seen, then the effect is fatal. Hypocrisy will take the place of sincerity, and the heart ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... full time, while many new mills were brought into operation. But by May, 1860, the mills had caught up with the heavy demands and the rest of the year saw uncertainty of operations and brought expressions of fear that the "plunge" to produce had been overdone. Manufactured stocks began to accumulate, and money was not easy since 1860 brought also a combination of events—deficient grain harvest at home, withdrawal of gold from England to France for investment in French public works, demand of America for gold in place ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... tractable and intelligent. With his assistance and my bull whip I succeeded in separating them before either was killed. Your greatest error was in striving at first for such physical perfection. You have overdone it, with the result that the court of mystery is peopled by a dozen brutes of awful muscularity, and scarcely enough brain among the dozen to ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... in a few minutes the mother was covering her only son's head with tender kisses, so violently and so long that her strength failed her and she fell back on the pillows, overdone. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for the man; but really the thing was overdone when, not content with overcrowding our village, these London people took to living in dug-outs on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... of showing that she was quite Parisienne; and there again she was mistaken; for having lived half her life out of Paris, she had forgotten, if she ever had it, the tone of good society, and upon her return had overdone the matter, exaggerated French manners, to prove to her niece that she knew les usages, les convenances, les nuances—enfin, la mode de Paris! A more dangerous guide in Paris for a young married woman in every respect ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... unhappy sometimes. But to all his anxious, tender questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented and wished nothing different; and the next time he saw her she was more lively than usual. It might be that she was a little overdone with work and anxiety now, for soon after Christmas Mrs. Poyser had taken another cold, which had brought on inflammation, and this illness had confined her to her room all through January. Hetty had to manage everything downstairs, and half-supply Molly's place too, while that good damsel ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... longer balance the columns in A and B, which therefore begin to descend, and so a current of air is driven from the cave into the pit C. Owing to the elasticity of the atmosphere, even at a low temperature, this descent, and the consequent rush of air into C, will be overdone, and a recoil must take place, which accounts for the return current into the cave from the pit C. The sun can reach A more easily than B, and thus the air is lighter and more moveable in the former pit, so that the recoil will make itself more felt in A than in B: accordingly, we found that the ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... with an almost overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... pages maintain they are writing. If, then, one can brighten up his sporting stories—make them sparkling, electric, galvanic—by using slang, he will find them acceptable to any editor. The only caution to the beginner is that he must be sure every detail is clear to the "fans." Slang can easily be overdone,—much more easily than one would suppose,—with the result that an otherwise good story is choked with near humorous, foggy jargon. Better no slang than ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... said, 'and yet not give sweet music afterwards.'" The Duke of St. Bungay said nothing in answer to this, as he did not understand the chopping of the reed. "I'm afraid I've been wrong about this collection of people down at Gatherum," continued the younger Duke. "Glencora is impulsive, and has overdone the thing. Just look at that." And he handed a letter to his friend. The old Duke put on his spectacles and read the letter ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... hours flew by and the boulevard became empty, Germinie, exhausted, overdone with weariness, would approach the houses. She would loiter from shop to shop, she would go mechanically where gas was still burning, and stand stupidly in the bright glare from the shop windows. She welcomed the dazzling light in her eyes, she ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... down here. Overdone, weary, rest for her nerves. Nonsense. I assure you she has no more nerves ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... that I was right so far as Poodles was concerned, I could not accuse myself of obstinacy in refusing to apologize. On the whole, I was satisfied with myself, though willing to acknowledge that in some things I had rather overdone the matter. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... delightful afternoon," and "the extraordinary entertainment which they had so much enjoyed," and many regrets that "the poor Adept, who really was so very clever and had mystified them all so delightfully," had overdone himself and got ill, and so on, and so on, through the endless repetitions and ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... been without food. The men below were sleeping after their carouse, stretched out on the decks of the proas. A sentinel on the rocky point poked the smouldering embers of the fire and raking out some overdone fragments of fish made a breakfast from them and pitched the bones into the sea. Only those who have lived three days without food can understand how delicious even those cast-off fish bones looked to me. I walked away from the mouth of the cave to be where ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... suspicious and cold at our first meeting he was now atoning for his inhospitality by an overdone cordiality even harder for me to explain. With many lamentations over my mud-stained and sodden condition, he drew a box close to the blaze and cut me off a corner of the bread and ham. I could not help ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... adequate return of roots and greens, there remains the constant difficulty of a market. Around the mining settlements and during the uncertain life of the mining settlements, truck-farming pays very well, but it could easily be overdone so that prices would fall below the point of any profit at all. Transportation is expensive, and rates for a short haul on the rivers are high, out of all proportion to rates for the long haul from the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... with the oars, and boating, when not overdone, is a healthful and pleasant amusement. When gentlemen are with a party of ladies, one of them should step in the boat to steady it, while another "assists" the ladies in. See that their dress is so arranged that they will not get wet. Inexperienced rowers ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... cried Mr. Worden, hurrying into the passage, in quest of his hat and cloak. "It is no more than just that you should have your own, and the supper will be either eaten, or overdone, should we go ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... live in the same town, and know a large number of people, they are overdone with festivities from the moment of betrothal to the day of marriage. The round of entertainments begins with a gala dinner given by the bride's father, and this is followed by invitations from all the relatives and friends on either side. When you receive a German Brautpaar ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... trouble in store for Charlotte. Rosa I was not so sure about; she sat demurely and upright, and looked far away into the tree-tops in a visionary, world-forgetting sort of way; yet the prim purse of her mouth was somewhat overdone, and her eyes ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... "sane mind" has been a little overdone, I think. The men who are prone to say of everyone that they "exaggerate a little," or "are morbid," are like weights in a ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... placed on Byron's lameness has been altogether overdone. In fact, as he grew to manhood, it was nothing more than a stiffness that would never have been noticed in a drawing-room. We have this on the testimony of the Countess Guiccioli, Lady Blessington and others. Byron himself made the mistake of referring to it several times in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... happened for a little bit. Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for to those who have enacted them, the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone. So romancers had better let imagination paint for them that which is above all art, and leave their lovers to themselves during the happiest minutes ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... the moment he feels the effects of the weather— A mild go of fever—a touch of the sun— He arrives with a jerk at the end of his tether, And finds your attractions a bit overdone; Impatiently conscious of boredom and worry, He sits in his misery, scowling at grief, With a face like a pallid rechauffee of curry, And a head like ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... at the other. The hog was placed before us, and the fat and blood before them, on which they chiefly dined, and said it was Mamity, very good victuals; and we not only said, but thought, the same of the pork. The hog weighed about fifty pounds. Some parts about the ribs I thought rather overdone, but the more fleshy parts were excellent; and the skin, which by the way of our dressing can hardly be eaten, had, by this method, a taste and flavour superior to any thing I ever met with of the kind. I have now only to add, that during the whole of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... London News, had a number of faithful sketches showing Gipsy life round London; these, it seems, with the truthful description I have given of the Gipsies, in my letters, papers, &c., encouraged by the untruthful, silly, and unwise remarks of a clergyman, not overdone with too much wisdom and common sense, residing in the neighbourhood of N—- Hill, seemed to have raised the ire of the Gipsies in the neighbour hood of L—- Road (I will not go so far as to say that the minister ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... stand out in every line of this story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield |
