"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the trial, she had seen him but twice, and immediately after he had been summoned to attend some suit in New Orleans, and had hurriedly bidden her adieu in the presence of others. With punctilious regularity he wrote studiedly polished, graceful yet merely friendly letters, and like ice morsels they slowly widened the glacier creeping ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... reported that a Londonderry man walked up to a Sinn Feiner the other day and said, "Shoot me." We understand that the real reason why the fellow was not accommodated was that he omitted to say "Please." The best Sinn Feiners are very punctilious. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... Winterblossom, nothing that was either warm or elevated. He was shrewd, selfish, and sensual; the last two of which qualities he screened from observation, under a specious varnish of exterior complaisance. Therefore, in his professed and apparent anxiety to do the honours of the table, to the most punctilious point of good breeding, he never permitted the attendants upon the public taste to supply the wants of others, until all his own private comforts had been fully arranged ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... were highly superstitious, and, like all ignorant races, very punctilious in their ceremonies of worship. As true Mussulmans, they were constant in their time of prayer, and abused my interpreter for never saying his. When I made him cut the deer's throats a little lower down the throat than their canons permit, to save the specimen, they spat on the ground ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... at breakfast, and the vicar of Framley felt an unaccountable desire to get out of the house. In the first place she was not dressed with her usual punctilious attention to the proprieties of her high situation. It was evident that there was to be a further toilet before she sailed up the middle of the cathedral choir. She had on a large loose cap with no other strings than those which were wanted for tying it beneath her chin, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... ducking of all who have not passed the line before. But our attitude was strictly Erastian, and the demigod retired discomfited to the second class, where from the sounds which arose he seemed to find more punctilious votaries. On the 23rd we sighted a sail—or rather the smoke of another steamer. As the comparatively speedy 'Dunottar Castle' overtook the stranger everybody's interest was aroused. Under the scrutiny of many brand-new telescopes and field glasses—for all want to see as much of a war as ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... recognition, a habitant of her world. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon have renounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to make love to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artist inhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift, perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacy grew, he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio above the rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installed Peter Quick Banta in the effete ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... gone he took himself to his desk, and did write to Sir Thomas Underwood. His letter, which was perhaps somewhat too punctilious, ran as follows:— ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Captain Brownrigg was killed in a struggle with an Arab slaver, owing chiefly to his own punctilious respect for the French flag under which the dhow was sailing. Not wishing to begin hostilities, he came alongside the Arab without arming his men, who were powerless to make any resistance when ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... related by Dr. Shaw,) "do not you know that my subjects are a band of robbers, and that I am their captain?"—better it would be a thousand times, and a thousand thousand times more manly, than an hypocritical process, which, under a pretended reverence to punctilious ceremonies and observances of law, abandons mankind without help and resource to all the desolating consequences of arbitrary power. The conduct and event of this cause will put an end to such doubts, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and landed gentry, who, through four generations, had preferred civil death to religious apostasy. It was impossible not to revere the heroic constancy of that class, and the personal virtues of many among them. But they were, perhaps, constitutionally, too timid and too punctilious to conduct a popular movement to a successful issue. They had, after much persuasion, lent their presence to the Committee, but on some alarm, which at that time seems to have been premature, of the introduction of French revolutionary principles among their associates, they seceded ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... song; and, as the possibility must be conceded, the question becomes one of exegesis. Exegetically considered, the claims of at least Psalms xliv., lxxiv., lxxix., lxxxiii. are indubitable. They speak of a desolation of the temple in spite of a punctilious fulfilment of the law, a religious persecution, a slaughter of the saints, a blasphemy of the holy name. No situation fits these circumstances so completely as the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., and these psalms betray many remarkable ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... fierce and glittering; but her manner was unnaturally soft and specious: and she seemed bent on some mission of peculiar malignity. Sir Morgan motioned to her to take a chair: but she was always rigidly punctilious in accepting no favor or attention in Walladmor Castle; and at present she seemed not to observe his courtesy, but leaned forward with her hands against the back of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... thought it prudent to put aside a few rolls of bank notes found in the drawers of the late Government. What, is that all? How long have politicians been so scrupulous? Members of the Commune, how very punctilious you have grown. Now if the Citizen Assy were accused of having in 1843 been intimately acquainted with a lady whose son is now valet to M. Thiers' first cousin, or if he had been seen in a church, and it were clearly proved that he was there ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... ambassador occasions me infinite annoyance. He is the most punctilious blockhead under heaven. He does everything step by step, with the trifling minuteness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself. I like to do business regularly and cheerfully, and, when it is ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... impartial evidence of the facts, and without taking into consideration the Conde of Onis' brilliant career in the Service, the king deprived him of his commission, and all the crosses and decorations in his possession. The punctilious old soldier was completely crushed by this unexpected blow. His comrades snatched the pistol from him just when he attempted his life. Accompanied by a faithful attendant, he left Madrid and came to Lancia, where his wife and son of tender age were awaiting him. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... young men of rank and leisure, except a spirit of religious scepticism and impiety, and a wanton and inexcusable recklessness in regard to women, which made him a slave to his passions. The first alienated him, so far as he was known, from the higher respectable classes, who generally were punctilious in the outward observances of religion; and the second made him abhorred by the virtuous middle class, who never condoned his transgressions in this respect. But at this time his character was not generally known. It was not until he was seated on the pinnacle of fame that public curiosity ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... De Stancy's arm. 'Captain, we are both warm, and punctilious on points of honour; this will come to a split between us if we don't mind. So, not to bring matters to a crisis, lend me ten pounds here to enable me to get ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... punctilious objector omit to point out that I merely mention the anti-Pauline interpretation incidentally in a single sentence, [23:2] and after a few words as to the source of the quotation in Cor. ii. 9, I proceed: "This, however, does not concern us here, ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... looked a little puzzled. He was no moralist, but he had his code and he did not understand Colonel Cresswell. As a matter of fact, Colonel Cresswell was an honest man. In most matters of commerce between men he was punctilious to a degree almost annoying to Taylor. But there was one part of the world which his code of honor did not cover, and he saw no incongruity in the omission. The uninitiated cannot easily picture to himself the mental ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... payment of a small pension, the greater part of which she expended in adorning herself with an antique magnificence of attire. The claims of Esther Dudley's gentle blood were acknowledged by all the successive governors, and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy which it was her foible to demand, not always with success, from a neglectful world. The only actual share which she assumed in the business of the mansion was to glide through its passages and public chambers late at night to see that the servants had dropped no ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's joints, he came to see us—a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... is a strict principle that "hearsay evidence" of an utterance will not be accepted in lieu of that of the person to whom the remark was made. Neither can we think it out of probability that such an objection may have been made by some over punctilious judge wishing to restrain Sam's exuberance. A Scotch judge once quoted in court a passage from The Antiquary in which he said the true view of an intricate point was given; but ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... the master's business is before all things else. My imperial master awaits me at Regensburg, and I shall then have the honor of being permitted to accompany him to Vienna. His Imperial Majesty is a strict and punctilious lord, and has calculated to the very day and hour when I may again reach the imperial palace. For our interview here he allowed me one hour; and, lo! the cock of your great wall clock had just stepped out and crowed eleven ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... company of the Creole. Despite his very evident admiration, he did not join the ranks of her more or less avowed lovers; a fact that in turn piqued and oddly comforted Kate. For at times this new life of hers seemed a strange dream, in which Benoix, with his gentleness, his punctilious courtesy, his rather formal friendliness of aspect, was the only fixed reality. She felt, vaguely, that she was safe with him; safer than with her husband. She thought of him more as a friend ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... great deal in the Talmud about washing the hands, in addition to what is said in the treatise Yadaim, which is entirely devoted to the subject. But this topic is subordinate to another, namely, the alleged inferiority of the precepts of the Bible to the prescriptions of the Rabbis, of which the punctilious rules regulative of hand washing form only a small fraction. This is illustrated by an anecdote from the Talmudic leaflet entitled Callah, respecting Rabbi Akiva, whose fame extends from one end of the world to the other. (See Yevamoth, fol. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... like budding wings behind his ears. It was impossible for the most fastidious critic to find fault with the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy's hands. He had beautiful hands, white, soft, plump and well-shaped,—his delicate filbert nails were trimmed with punctilious care, and shone with a pink lustre that was positively charming. He was evidently an amiable man, for he smiled to himself over his tea,—he had a trick of smiling,—ill-natured people said he did it on purpose, in order to widen his mouth and make it more ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... was of society, and punctilious as he was in matters of etiquette and propriety, M. de Bacourt to the contrary notwithstanding, he had far more important duties to perform than those of playing host and receiving foreign ministers. Our relations with England when he entered the cabinet were such as ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... that her first suspicions were utterly unfounded, she began to think it possible that her marriage, though odious in itself, had been planned with a good intent. To think Lord Chetwynde mercenary was impossible. His character was so high-toned, and even so punctilious in its regard to nice points of honor, that he was not even worldly wise. With the mode in which her marriage had been finally carried out he had clearly nothing whatever to do. Of all her suspicions, her anger against an innocent and noble-minded man, and her treatment ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... these people are abroad much at night. All you see are stars overhead and the glowing eyes of cat ladies, of lithe silken ladies who pass you, or of stiff-whiskered men. Beware of those men and the gleam of their split-pupiled stare. They are haughty, punctilious, inflammable: self-absorbed too, however. They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you are lost. They take offense in a flash, abhor strangers, despise hospitality, and would think nothing of killing you or me on their way ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... been confounded with a knowledge of the human heart. But can the crude fruit of casual observation, never brought to the test of judgment, formed by comparing speculation and experience, deserve such a distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practice the minor virtues with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when the education has been the same; all the difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty which enables the former to see ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... read good books; he was hospitably inclined; he kept in touch with his old associates; he liked to meet them at luncheon at the University Club or at the monthly dinner of the Chit-Chat Club, which he had seldom missed in thirty-nine years of membership. He was punctilious in the preparation of his biennial papers, always giving something of interest and value. His intellectual interest was wide. He was a close student of Shakespeare, and years ago printed a modest volume on the Sonnets. He also published a fine study of the Ministry of Jesus, and a discriminating ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... father, who had begged that he consider carefully and with due regard to his own future the proposals to be set before him, Hal was ready to receive the deputation in form. Pierce's presence surprised him. He greeted all four men with equally punctilious politeness, however, and gave courteous attention while Hollenbeck spoke for his colleagues. The merchant explained the purpose of the visit; set forth the importance to the city of the centennial Old Home Week, and urged the inadvisability of ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His voice ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... gentleman had drunk freely in the afternoon, and been so whimsical as to go thither with a man in woman's apparel; and he that same day waited on the French minister, in full confidence of obtaining his discharge; but met with more difficulty than he expected, the court of France being extremely punctilious in everything that concerns a prince of the blood: the ambassador was therefore obliged to talk in very high terms; and, though the present circumstances of the French politics would not allow them to fall out with the British administration for trifles, all the favour he could ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... seven thirty he was making his usual circuit when he came to the second level. What he discovered justified all the years of punctilious discharge of his duties. He was startled to see a man kneeling on the floor, just above where the main power lines ran. He had torn a hole in the composition floor, and as Yudovich watched, he reached in and pulled out the great cable. Immediately the intruder glowed in the semidarkness with ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... chattering with her as the child loved to chatter. As for me, I felt a little anxious and uneasy. Once more I was about to enter upon an entirely new life; upon the untried ways of a wealthy, conventional, punctilious English household. Hitherto my mode of life had been almost as wandering and free as that of a gypsy. Even at home, during my pleasant childhood, our customs had been those of an Australian sheep-farm, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... your room now, my dear, and occupy yourself as you choose until dinner-time. Dinner is at seven. There will be no guests, but you will wear a light, pretty gown, if you please. I am punctilious in such matters." ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... and, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of tricks of speech,—a yesty, frothy mass, with nothing in it, which carries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice, choice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' Yesty I take to be right, and prophane (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to fond (foolish); of trennowed I can make nothing beyond ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to expense and pleasure, "so that now I can hardly reclaim myself." He interests himself in Dr. Williams's remarkable dog, which not only killed cats, but buried them with punctilious obsequies, never leaving the tip of puss's tail out of the ground. Then he goes to the play, "after swearing to my wife that I would never go to the play without her." He remembers one night that he passed "with ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... to control herself, and turning her tear-stained face to him, she once more held out her hand, which he kissed with the same punctilious gallantry; but Marguerite's fingers, this time, lingered in his hand for a second or two longer than was absolutely necessary, and this was because she had felt that his hand trembled perceptibly and was burning hot, whilst his lips felt as cold ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Louisa Stark was settling herself in the southwest chamber. She unpacked her trunk and hung her dresses carefully in the closet. She filled the bureau drawers with nicely folded linen and small articles of dress. She was a very punctilious woman. She put on a black India silk dress with purple flowers. She combed her grayish-blond hair in smooth ridges back from her broad forehead. She pinned her lace at her throat with a brooch, very handsome, although somewhat obsolete—a bunch of pearl grapes on black onyx, ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... more animating scenes than those which were presented to the beholder at the seasons of the year when Judea poured forth her inhabitants in crowds to attend the solemn festivals appointed by Jehovah, and observed with punctilious exactness by the people. Our present study leads us to ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... might have been more gallant, and found more difficulty in the selection," she said, pertly. "But since when have you gentlemen become so observant and so punctilious? Would you expect him to be ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... very musical and was one of the founders of the Friday Morning Music Club and other musical clubs. She was the organist and choir leader in Christ Church, Georgetown. She was always very punctilious in her attendance and I remember her talking ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the door, laid a fine, well-kept hand upon the knob, and looked at her with a faint smile that had behind it a good deal that puzzled the Little Doctor. "Don't worry one minute," he said, dropping his punctilious politeness of the minute before, and becoming again the intensely human Luck Lindsay. "I 'heap sabe.' I've certainly corrupted the morals and ambitions of some of the boys—looking at it the way you do—but I promise to check the devastation right where it's at, and ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... armistice he himself had asked me for! A save-face document, no doubt: the wounded are all Turks as our men did not leave their trenches on the 19th; the dead, also, I am glad to say, almost entirely Turks; but anyway, one need not be too punctilious where it is a matter of giving decent ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... conscientiousness, which was in the composition of his Puritan blood, from every act, whether in public or in private life, which seemed to him in the least degree tinged with immorality, he found a sort of compensation for the restraints and discomforts of his own austerity in judging severely the less punctilious world around him. Whatever other faults he had, it is unquestionable that his uprightness was as consistent and unvarying as can be reached by human nature. Yet his temptations were made the greater ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... the pink of politeness, though a bit of a martinet after an ancient and punctilious model. If you go to select a Fiddle from his stock, you may escape a lecture of a quarter of an hour by calling it a Fiddle, and not a Violin, which is a word he detests, and is apt to excite his wrath. He ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of a visit paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly visitor's ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... a very portly man who had passed the maturity of manhood, but active as Harlequin. He had a well-favoured countenance; fair, good-humoured, but very sly. He was dressed like the head butler of the London Tavern, and was particular as to his white waistcoats and black silk stockings, punctilious as to his knee-buckles, proud of his diamond pin; that is to say when he ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero of more than mortal birth must needs be had, even for this we have a remedy. We can easily derive our hero's pedigree from a goddess of no small power and authority amongst men, and legitimate and install him after the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... successively to the ecclesiastical cabildo, the secular cabildo, the tribunal of the royal official judges, the superiors of the orders, the colleges, and the bureau of the Santa Misericordia—each one taking its proper place as regards precedence. All of them observed the courtesies and punctilious forms due to the decorum and seriousness of that function. After these had signified by the gravity of their words, and by the seriousness and sadness of their countenances, the heavy weight of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... oratorical gems of American eloquence, and the editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper under his arm when he climbed the hill to Lincoln Avenue the following Sunday night, and presented them to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was punctilious to call "the ladies," and he assured Miss Molly and Mistress Culpepper—he was nice about those titles also—that their father and husband had a great future before him in ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Northerners fancy is a proof of equality and independence, we never met with, and duels and street quarrels are almost unknown. We detected none of the touchy sensitiveness of the punctilious Spanish hidalgos. Their compliments and promises are without end; and, made in the magnificent and ceremonious language of Spain,[24] are overwhelming to a stranger. Thus a fair Quitonian sends by her servant the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... court was famous in those days—in fact, it has always been famous—for its punctilious attention to etiquette and parade; and as soon as the prince's arrival was known to the king, he immediately began to make preparations to welcome him with all possible pomp and ceremony. A great ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Armine,' said Mr. Sharpe with a slight smile, 'if we were talking of a sum of any importance, why, one might be a little more punctilious, but for such a bagatelle we have already wasted too much time in its discussion. I am happy ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an intelligent thinker for a woman, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... acquitted to her own mind. "Let things be as they are," she said; "and let us endure all the weariness of a life which might be so easily rendered more cheerful, rather than that this zealous but punctilious friend should, in the strictness and nicety of her feelings on my account, conceive me capable of encouraging an intercourse which could lead to a less worthy thought of me in the mind of the most scrupulous of man—or of womankind." ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... old lady, and Arthur was pleased with this opportunity of gratifying his godmother's taste for stateliness. Old Mr. Donnithorne, the delicately clean, finely scented, withered old man, led out Miss Irwine, with his air of punctilious, acid politeness; Mr. Gawaine brought Miss Lydia, looking neutral and stiff in an elegant peach-blossom silk; and Mr. Irwine came last with his pale sister Anne. No other friend of the family, besides Mr. Gawaine, was invited to-day; ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... they were known at all—which was seldom. For the boy was unpleasantly conceited as a precocious worldling, and the girl as unpleasantly complacent in her role of ingenue. The household was completely dominated by Mrs. Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, she attended all the functions of the adjacent mission, and the shadow of a black soutane at twilight gliding through the wild oat-fields behind the ranch had often been mistaken for a coyote. The peace-loving major did not object to a piety which, while it left his ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... not speak to you before because I had not been introduced—but the pianist is Mr. Mills," remarked this punctilious person. "I, however, could speak to you, although we had not been formally presented. The roof was a sufficient guarantee of your respectability, and I thought from your not answering that you were deaf and dumb," said ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... communication between the chief and the head of the stranger party is not customary. In approaching they often ask who is the spokesman, and the spokesman of the chief addresses the person indicated exclusively. There is no lack of punctilious good manners. The accustomed presents are exchanged with civil ceremoniousness; until our men, wearied and hungry, call out, "English do not buy slaves, they buy food," and then the people bring meal, maize, fowls, batatas, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solicitude for every public account, and to have examined into them ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... certainly strong himself; he had a powerful strength of hands and arms. He used great politeness, and was very punctilious on entering the dining-room, &c. He interested himself in the apparently tidal phenomena of strong currents setting through the harbor and straits, which were in fine view from the piazza of my house, and made some notes upon them. He asked ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... up, and clapped their hands, and praised Intemese for it. The Makololo, who are accustomed to the most free and easy manners, held out handfuls of what they had cooked to any of the Balonda near, but they refused to taste. They are very punctilious in their manners to each other. Each hut has its own fire, and when it goes out they make it afresh for themselves rather than take it from a neighbor. I believe much of this arises from superstitious fears. In the deep, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... them by the bishops, at least in cases where he was himself responsible for the first committal. It is to be feared that he forgot that he was a judge in his eagerness to be a partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal scruples to interfere with the more important object ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Kant were Lutherans—punctilious and pious. They were descended from Scotch soldiers who had come over there two hundred years before and settled down after the war, just as the Hessians settled down and went to farming in Pennsylvania, their descendants occasionally becoming Daughters of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... and knowing that they would be read by those capable of pronouncing sentence, they justified their temerity by a proper castigation, of their style. And there is another reason why American literature should be honourably formal and punctilious, If the written language diverges widely from the vernacular, it must perforce be studied more sedulously than where no such divergence is observed. For the American, accustomed to the language spoken by his countrymen and to the lingo of the daily press, literary ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Carkeek. There's a spring above his head, And his mattress is a special kind of clay. He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed, And he makes it ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... sudden shadow fell on the firelit floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness, was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... meantime, was busy with sterner thoughts, and his task was harmonious to his musings, for he was cleaning and oiling his rifle with punctilious care. He did not hasten over-much at either the thinking or the work. The shades of night were drawing down when, finally, he hung the immaculate weapon on its hooks. He ate in solitary silence, served by Alvira, who ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of homicide, and which had helped to win his bad ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... governing the style of furnishing in a room, is very well understood. Thus, while both drawing-room and dining-room must express hospitality, it is of a different kind or degree. That of the drawing-room is ceremonious and punctilious, and represents the family in its relation to society, while the dining-room is far more intimate, and belongs to the family in its relation to friends. In fact, as the dining-room is the heart of the house, its furnishing would naturally be quite different in feeling and character ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... out torpedoes to warn any train which might be coming up from behind—a freight crew is not notified of trains following, and the brakeman is supposed to protect his train. Ray was so fussy about the punctilious observance of orders that almost any brakeman would take a chance once in a while, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... business man should be worth all that it expresses and promises, and all engagements should be met with punctilious concern. An indifferent or false policy in business is a serious mistake. It is fatal to grasp an advantage at ten times its cost; and there is nothing to compensate for the loss of a neighbor's ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Buckingham's mimicry of him, that she burst out laughing in the earl's face. This being utterly uncalled for by the circumstances of his tale, and still less by the manner of its narration, Lord Arlington, who was serious, punctilious, and proud, became enraged, abruptly left her presence, and abandoned his schemes of governing the king ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... brother whose own conduct is irreproachable," said Henri, in an indefinable tone between jest and earnest, "a brother a king, and very punctilious—" ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... point of telling Athos all; but one consideration restrained him. Athos was a gentleman, punctilious in points of honor; and there were in the plan which our lover had devised for Milady, he was sure, certain things that would not obtain the assent of this Puritan. He was therefore silent; and as Athos was the least inquisitive of ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a long time; for in this he was as difficult to please as he had been in the matter of his beard and hair. No punctilious old bachelor, the best and brightest hours of whose life had been devoted to the cares of the toilet, could have shown himself more fastidious than this vagabond, who had been out-at-elbows for ten years past, and who had worn ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... necessary purposes; that there were some who, repugnant to these imposts for turnpikes and pontages, were nevertheless free in conscience to make payment of the usual freight at public ferries, and that a person of exceeding and punctilious zeal, James Russel, one of the slayers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had given his testimony with great warmth even against this last faint shade of subjection to constituted authority. This ardent and enlightened person and his followers had also great scruples about the lawfulness of bestowing ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he might be reclaimed by a woman of virtue and prudence: and [pray forgive me for mentioning it] I ventured to add, that although your family might be good sort of folks, as the world went, yet no body but you imputed to any of them a very punctilious concern for religion or piety—therefore were they the less entitled to object to defect of that kind in others. Then, what an odious man, said I, have they picked out, to supplant in a lady's affections one of the finest figures of a man, and one noted for his brilliant ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to send me a ceremonious letter of thanks; you see I am less punctilious, for having nothing to tell you, I did not answer your letter. I have been in the empty town for a day: Mrs. Muscovy and I cannot devise where you have planted Jasmine; I am all plantation, and sprout away like any chaste ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... cold punctilious leave of Catherine, and a still colder and slighter leave of Langham. Elsmere accompanied him to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sensitive and punctilious nature the situation was almost intolerable. The pity of this tender, innocent life, his care, which seemed like some little inland bird, torn by the tempest from its native fields and tossed out to be the plaything ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... mention again that Mr. Razumov's youth had no one in the world, as literally no one as it can be honestly affirmed of any human being, is but a statement of fact from a man who believes in the psychological value of facts. There is also, perhaps, a desire of punctilious fairness. Unidentified with anyone in this narrative where the aspects of honour and shame are remote from the ideas of the Western world, and taking my stand on the ground of common humanity, it is for that very reason that I feel a strange ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... aside any punctilious feelings she had, partook of the homely meal with what grace and relish she could command, and thanking them all for their kindness, ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,—in a word, they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and privations, they gradually grew used to one another. Duke, who had a kind heart, made the ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... directly. My curiosity had got, by this time, beyond all restraint. I was actually indelicate enough to ask if I might go with him! He stared at me, as well he might. I persisted; I said I particularly wished to see Lady Claudia. My uncle's punctilious good breeding still resisted me. "Your aunt may wish to speak to me in private," he said. "Wait a moment, and I will send ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... matter of payment the duke was punctilious about protecting his friend the Prince Sansevero from the consequences of his transgression of the law. Shayne agreed to make his payments in cash, so that Sansevero's name should not appear ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the parlor, which she must cross to reach her room beyond. Mrs. Muir began to laugh immoderately, and Mr. Muir followed his brother's eyes with vexation. Graydon was on the qui vive instantly, and Madge drew a step nearer and began to smile. For once the punctilious and elegant Graydon forgot his courtesy, and looked at Madge in utter astonishment—an expression, however, which passed swiftly into ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... a polished gentleman of the old school, and was excessively proper and punctilious in manner and conversation. I soon perceived that he thought I needed considerable toning down before reaching England. I was quick to see and understand that his criticisms of others in a general way and the drift of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... intimately allied with society and sensitive to its opinion; and men of all interests—public, fashionable, literary—gathered in groups at the different chocolate or coffee houses, and formed a kind of organized community. It was distinctly an aristocratic society: elegant in dress, punctilious in manner, exacting in taste, ready to be amused, and not indifferent to criticism when it took the form of sprightly badinage or of keen and trenchant satire. The informal organization of society, which made it possible to reach and affect the Town as a whole, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the mind when one has done reading him, and this very faculty—of communicating to us, who never saw him or heard him speak, the vivid impact of his overbearing presence—is itself evidence of a rare kind of genius. It is even a little ironical that he, above all men the punctilious and precious literary craftsman, should ultimately dominate us not so much by the magic of his art as by the spell of his wilful and wanton individuality, and the situation is heightened still further by the extraordinary variety of his works ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... that the answers to these objections are unknown to him. Here is a very precise passage, taken from the excursus on the Manichaeans, which is found at the end of the second edition of his Dictionary: 'For the greater satisfaction of the most punctilious readers, I desire to declare here' (he says, p. 3148) 'that wherever the statement is to be met with in my Dictionary that such and such arguments are irrefutable I do not wish it to be taken that they are so in actuality. I mean naught ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... too punctilious," remarked Mrs. Hsueeh, "as to entertain such notions! No such ideas as these ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... if not all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance of shrewd sense which fully appreciates Falstaff's theory ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... everything, and summoning him once more to her side. He found a true and keenly sympathizing friend in Sir Philip, to whom he became profoundly attached,—to satisfy his wishes, to forward his interests, to attend to his affairs with punctilious exactitude—all this gave Neville the supremest happiness. He felt some slight doubt and anxiety, when he first received the sudden announcement of his patron's marriage,—but all forebodings as to the character and disposition ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... amused, when I first went to Devonport dockyard, to notice the punctilious observance of forms and ceremonies with respect to the various positions of officials—from the admiral-superintendent down the official grades of dignity, to the foremen of departments, and so on. I did not care for all this panjandrum of punctiliousness, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... felt a little ashamed of ourselves. Jackson picked up the kriss, and, after an inquiring glance at me, gave it to him. He received it with a stately inclination of the head and stuck it in the twist of his sarong, with punctilious care to give his weapon a pacific position. Then he looked up at us with an austere smile. We were abashed and reproved. Hollis sat sideways on the table and, holding his chin in his hand, scrutinized him ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... your time is all the shorter." She was nettled that he should be oblivious of his lapse. Their relation had never been sentimental, but he had always been punctilious. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... at Miaudasht, everything there being within the caravanserai walls; but whenever the telegraph-jee emerges from the seclusion of his little office, it is to blossom forth upon the theatre of the crowd's admiring glances in the fanciful habiliments of a la-de-da Persian swell. Very punctilious as regards etiquette, instead of coming forth in a spontaneous manner to see who I am and look at the bicycle, he pays me a ceremonious visit at the chapar-khana half an hour later. In this visit he is preceded by his farrash, and he walks with a magnificent peacock ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... his desk both of his partners entered, and there were expressions of condolence offered in a punctilious manner. ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... her as he drove upon his rounds. She had started a high dogcart, taking the reins herself, with a little tiger behind. When they met he invariably raised his hat with punctilious politeness, but the grim severity of his face showed how formal was the courtesy. In fact, his dislike was rapidly deepening into absolute detestation. "The unsexed woman," was the description of ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there. The English club and the English home are primarily for seclusion, not for companionship, and this characteristic alone is wofully hard for the stranger to understand. To the gregarious German, priding himself upon Gemuethlichkeit, loving reunions, restaurants, his Stammtisch, formal and punctilious in his politeness, unused to the ways of the world, but yet convinced that he is now a great man politically and commercially, the Englishman is not only an enigma but an insult. I am criticising neither. I have received unbounded hospitality and friendliness from both. I have ridden, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... on morals, such as is the book of Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus Aurelius's work as popular as the Imitation, and Marcus Aurelius's name as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore, punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor and his precepts volitare per ora virum[204] It is essential to render him in language ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... annoyance, at least never take care not to 'jar each other's elbow-nerves,' or set on edge the teeth that never bit them. We are careful not to wound the feelings or even the weaknesses of a brother. Punctilious courtesy, frank apology for unintentional wrong, is with us a point of honour. Disputes, when by any chance they arise, are referred to the arbitration of our chiefs, who never consider their work done till the disputants are cordially reconciled. Envy, the most dangerous source ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... in dark distrust. What was this consolation? What his game? His attitude remained consistently too deferential and punctilious for one to suspect that ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of your delicacy: the knight's a punctilious old fool, but I promise you his daughter is above all nonsensical ceremony and prejudice. And now, since you have, found a new set of friends here, may I ask if you intend to leave Fairport ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... his attachment to a military life, Colonel Washington possessed in too eminent a degree the proud and punctilious feelings of a soldier, to submit to a degradation so humiliating as was produced by his loss of rank. Professing his unabated inclination to continue in the service, if permitted to do so without a sacrifice too great ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... The watchword that night was Espana, which I was compelled to repeat so often that I heartily wished them all in Spain, and felt very much inclined to send them all thither, or to some other warm climate, but that Don C. cautioned me not to trifle with these punctilious privates: as on one occasion an Englishman, annoyed as I had been, having answered the fiftieth hail disrespectfully, in his own language, was marched off to the Calaboose, where he was detained all night, and only released the next morning ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... most punctilious of men, made on this occasion an omission extraordinary for him. He did not present his partners to their hostess. But not one of the three noticed that omission. Rodney Bangs, pale but carrying himself with a palpable effort ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Chancellor of the neighbouring Empire in an ingenious and profound speech upon the foreign relations of his sovereign, made a sly allusion to the intrigues that inspired the policy of a great country. This reference, which was receive with smiles by the Imperial Parliament, was certain to irritate a punctilious republic. It aroused the national susceptibility, which directed its wrath against its amorous Minister. The Deputies seized upon a frivolous pretext to show their dissatisfaction. A ridiculous incident, the fact that the wife of a subprefect had danced ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... up,' I said (because he was always a most punctilious old fellow). 'The fact is, I just wanted to have a little ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... quiet and green around, and quiet and blue above, except for the larks singing rapturously. Certainly it was very good to be away from the Van Heigens, away from the ceaseless little reiteration of Mevrouw's talk, from the minute, punctilious conventions, from Joost's quiet gaze, from the proximity of the hateful, necessary blue daffodil. With a violent rebound Julia shook off the feeling that had been growing on her of late, and was once more possibly ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... every morning what we should like to have. We knew that to mention the cheapest would be accounted best, so sometimes we ordered a light refection of puffed rice, and at others an indigestible one of boiled gram or roasted groundnuts. It was evident that Iswar was not as painstakingly punctilious in regard to our diet as with ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... considered Ferragut on a level with all the famous Don Juans,—liberal and care-free when in far-away homes, punctilious and suspiciously correct ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... more courteous and punctilious than the Marquis of Suffolk to the two princesses, and indeed to every one of his own degree; but there was something of the parvenu about him, and, unlike the Duke of York or Archbishop Stafford, who were free, bright, and good-natured ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge |
