"Untidiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite comfortably here," I said, in order to put an end to his embarrassment. "Untidiness is not permitted to dwell here. It will retreat through the door, even though at the present moment it hasn't quite ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... his eyes sought the white tie and his hand reached for the little man's arm, and, feeling at a loss just then for language of explanation, he hurried him up-stairs and into a room whose drawn curtains masked some of its untidiness. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... seen. It was blue, and sunlit, and it curved spaciously. But beyond that we ran into the squalider parts of a city. It became immediately obvious that we were not in New York or Boston or any of the more orderly, the rather foreign, cities of America. There was something in the untidiness of those grimy houses, the smoky disorder of the backyards, that ran a thrill of nostalgia through me. I recognised the English way of doing things—with a difference that I could not ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... "Neither his hardened untidiness nor his lonely lot seemed, however, to weigh heavily on his mind; for he withdrew whistling, and his notes were heard about the passages for some little time. When they had died away in a distant part of the house, the red-haired young ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... all seen the bonds of marriage vilely abused by people who are never classed with shrews and wife- beaters: they are indeed sometimes held up as models of domesticity because they do not drink nor gamble nor neglect their children nor tolerate dirt and untidiness, and because they are not amiable enough to have what are called amiable weaknesses. These terrors conceive marriage as a dispensation from all the common civilities and delicacies which they have to observe among strangers, or, as they put it, "before company." And here the effects ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... to say, was a model of untidiness. Cricket flannels, eatables, letters, tooth-powders, books, and keepsakes were all huddled together in admired disorder to the full extent of the capacity of the box. The books being well in the rear of the heap, and time being precious, I availed myself of the rough-and-ready method of ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... moulded, the outlines painted vermilion, with an invitation to pray for the souls of the dead in the same effective colour. The graveyard shows no end of prayer, but absolutely no work. No tidiness, order, reverence, decency, or convenience. Nothing but ruin, neglect, disorder, untidiness, irreverence, and inconvenience. Ora et labora is an excellent proverb which the Irish people have not yet mastered in its entirety. To pray and work is as yet a little too much for them. They stop at the first word, look round, and think they have done ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... more felt. His was a practical, hers a poetic nature. Under his management Nohant assumed an altogether different aspect—there was now order, neatness, and economy, where there was previously confusion, untidiness, and waste. She admitted that the change was for the better, but could not help regretting the state of matters that had been—the old dog Phanor taking possession of the fire-place and putting his muddy paws upon the carpet; the old peacock eating the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... is well known that the little creatures commonly called fairies, though there are many different kinds of fairies in Fairyland, have an exceeding dislike to untidiness. Indeed, they are quite spiteful to slovenly people. Being used to all the lovely ways of the trees and flowers, and to the neatness of the birds and all woodland creatures, it makes them feel miserable, even in their deep woods and on their grassy carpets, to think ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... the ground-room floor, nothing, except the untidiness left by half-a-dozen rough men, and I mounted the narrow stair and tried the room above. Again we had to use force, and when the door flew inward I almost landed in the lap of Marget Forbes. There she was, bound to a rough ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... the end of the season and gather up all plants that have completed their work. If we neglect to give attention to the beds now that the flowering-period is over, a general appearance of untidiness will soon dominate everything. Much of the depressing effect of late fall is due to this lack of attention. The prompt removal of all unsightly objects will keep the grounds looking clean after ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... cheap furniture, the marred wall-paper, the miserable ugliness and poverty of the house, and everything in it; but she had seen in his remark only scorn for her housekeeping, irritation at the room's untidiness. She was very angry. As Allison realized this, a sudden fierce satisfaction possessed him. Now at last she would speak out, without pretence, without reserve! He should ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and sun, the Bacchic laughter and colour of a Tuscan vintage, shot through Melrose. But his will silenced it. "She will get used to it," he said to himself again, with dry determination. Then he turned on his heel. The untidiness of his wife's room, her lack of method and charm, and the memory of her peevishness on the journey disgusted him. There was a bed in his dressing-room; and he was soon soundly ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... she had drunk came up. But the vomit brought her great relief, and had it not been for a little dizziness and weakness, she would have felt quite right when she arrived at the stage-door. In a terrible state of dirt and untidiness she was surely, but she noticed nothing, her mind being now fully occupied in thinking what she should say, first to the stage-door-keeper, and then ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... up wonderfully when I thought of all these things; though I did not at all like wearing Bill's clothes. I felt that I looked like a dirty young tramp, and that anybody who saw me would think that I was one. Besides, I had always hated dirt and untidiness, and the feeling that I carried both ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... broth-basin on the table—a saucepan on the hob—the sofa one of those that serve as a bed, which Sleep little visits, for one who may watch through the night over some helpless sufferer—a woman's shawl thrown carelessly over its hard narrow bolster;—all, in short, betraying that pathetic untidiness and discomfort which says that a despot is in the house to whose will order and form are subordinate;—the imperious Tyranny of Disease establishing itself in a life that, within those four walls, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and saw Clare sitting at a distant table, he knew that his wife would never be an Explorer. For her Fires and Walls, for her no questions, no untidiness moral or physical—the Explorer travelled ever with his life in his hands—Clare believed in ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... goose, for the sake of the pate de foies gras when I cut him up. But he's decided to go to Santa Barbara for the winter: and I think he's wise. So this afternoon I togged out in my furs, took the jumper, and went kiting over to the Titchborne Ranch. Oh, what a shack! What disorder, what untidiness, what spirit-numbing desolation! I don't blame poor Percival Benson for clearing out for California. I got what things he needed, however, and ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... requires great care, for the young girl in London is not naturally child-like. There should be a suggestion of untidiness about the hair; the dress should be simple, loose and sashed; nurse a kitten with a blue ribbon round its neck; say that you like chocolate-creams; open your eyes very wide, and suck the tip of one finger occasionally. Let your manner ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... we have a vivid picture of Professor Wilson's workroom. All was confusion there: "his room was a strange mixture of what may be called order and untidiness, for there was not a scrap of paper or a book that his hand could not light upon in a moment, while to the casual eye, in search of discovery, it would appear chaos." Wilson had no love for fine furniture, and he seems to have crowded his books together without regard to any system of classification. ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... entered the room she sprang up hastily and apologized for the untidiness of her house. She chattered gaily to hide the trouble in her face, and Mrs. Corbett wisely refrained from any apparent notice of her tears, and helped her to unpack her trunks and ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... bordered by trampled edges and incursions upon the grass at pleasure. Butchers and bakers drove as freely herein as peers and peeresses. Christening parties, wedding companies, and funeral trains passed along by the doors of the mansion without check or question. A wild untidiness in this particular has its recommendations; for guarded grounds ever convey a suspicion that their owner is young to landed possessions, as religious earnestnesss implies newness of conversion, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... itself graceful and convenient, has the disadvantage of being the greatest cloak for all untidiness, uncombed hair and raggedness, that ever was invented. Even in the better classes, it occasions much indolence in the toilet, but in the common people, its effect is overwhelming. When the reboso drops off, or is displaced by chance, we see what they would be without it! ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... repeated hope that Temple "would come back yet" and be again the man he once was, he seemed in fact to grow more shiftless day after day, communing long over his fireplace with his drink, passing from one degree to another of untidiness. He made her "feel just like screaming and running around the ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... hen-runs, flower-beds and the like. And although her own small tract of New Jersey woefully failed to come anywhere near those same ideals she had a weakness for the gentle disparagement of Latin untidiness and lack of finish. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... brightly covered feather pillows. Kapus Irma was a notable exception to the rule, and Elsa had often shed bitter tears of shame when one or other of her many admirers followed her into her home and saw the squalor which reigned in it—the dirt and untidiness. She was most ashamed when Bela was here, for he made sneering remarks about it all, and seemed to take it for granted that she was as untidy, as slovenly as her mother. He read her long lectures about ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was beautifully kept. At a little distance two gardeners were at work, and a revolving sprinkler whirled sprays of glinting water in a wide circle. The back windows of the two streets disclosed not the slightest untidiness nor deshabille; rising irregularly in tier over tier to the high roof-line, they were all open, and all neatly curtained, and many of them had gorgeous sun-blinds. The sound of one or two pianos emerged ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... I am of a gentle disposition, I am most tolerant of women's failings; it says much that I would have hanged myself rather than remain with a woman. Her untidiness is not all; her toilette at home revolts my sensibilities, but—well, one cannot have everything, and her salary is substantial; I have closed my eyes to the curl rags. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the rare cases of real beauty, when there can be but one opinion. But in the case of ordinary beauty, the woman is appraised at her own value. Then there is the art of putting on clothes, of which Pauline is absolutely ignorant. There is even a studied untidiness which passes under the name of picturesque. All of this is a closed book to Pauline, and, after all, she is a delightful creature; but the trouble to me was that, at the time she came up to shop with me, she didn't wear good boots, and to do that ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... about her face, and before she reached her goal she was ashamed of her untidiness, but it was not worth while to return for a hat, and she pressed on with a girl's impetuosity, hoping that she ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... would have made me repeat the remark, and hurt Phoebe's feelings. In spite of her untidiness, we all liked her, for she was always good company. Besides, we really respected her, for she was one of the ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... simplicity, a sort of childishness, very unlike Jessica's previous way of writing; and the same peculiarity now appeared in her conversation. By turns she was mawkish and sprightly, tearful and giggling. Her dress, formerly neglected to the point of untidiness, betrayed a new-born taste for fashionable equipment; she suddenly drew attention to it in the midst of serious talk, asking with a bashful smirk whether Nancy ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... as he had finished the last mouthful of his supper Harry Lang got up, and without a word to either of them, slouched out of the kitchen and up-stairs to bed. Mrs. Lang began at once to clear a very large old sofa of its untidiness. ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... how to use them! On my Honor, she does not. Look! Oh look! Untidiness I can endure, but ignorance never! The ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in perfect order—the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... may have helped to fashion. At last he closes the door, almost tenderly, and walks thoughtfully down the road. He has to pass the cabin of an Irish miner, whose little boy is toddling in the ditch, with a pinafore, hands, and face in a chronic state of untidiness. Mr. Gray seizes him with an hilarious impulse, and after a number of rapid journeys to Banbury Cross, in search of an old woman who mounted a mythical white horse, he kisses the cleanest place on his broad expanse of cheek, presses some silver into ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... give other examples of this mistaken sort of education. When a mere boy, I saw a young coloured man, who had spent several years in school, sitting in a common cabin in the South, studying a French grammar. I noted the poverty, the untidiness, the want of system and thrift, that existed about the cabin, notwithstanding his knowledge of ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... cleanliness. No one knows how filthy London is till he begins to notice how much longer window-curtains, household draperies, and personal linen keep clean in the country. I should not like to be called an old maid, but I confess to an old-maidish care for cleanliness. Untidiness in books or papers would not distress me, but dirt is a real distress; and if it be old-maidish to fight a continual battle with dirt, to scour and polish and dust, content with nothing less than immaculate purities of polished surface, then I suppose I am ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... had revolted for months at the litter under his window. And somewhere, in the disorder, lay his broken sword. His sword broken, and he— "Truly untidy," observed the concierge complacently. "A studied untidiness, and even then better than a room I shall show you in the cellar, filled to overflowing with boxes containing the winter's ashes. Know you," he went on, dropping his voice, "that these barrels and boxes are ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Well, you are a lucky woman. Mine had plenty, I assure you. Untidiness was no name for Jessie, and Mary—I'm SORRY to say that Mary ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... distinguished him from the picturesque untidiness of the rest, and when somebody shouted, "Un Gringo!" one or two moved across as if to stop him. Jake walked on quickly, looking straight in front without seeming to notice the others, in the hope of getting past before they got in his way, but a man dressed ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... a poet he is, we see from his disordered collar. Breathing quickly as he bends over his book, in his excitement he cannot endure the restraint of a close collar. He has unloosed it, as, quite oblivious of any untidiness in his appearance, he hurries on, ruthlessly crushing the pages of the folio back, as he grasps it in ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... taken the edge off one's perceptions. Though not the case with all the fine churches and cathedrals of Normandy, yet with an unpleasantly large proportion—unfortunately including the magnificent Church of St Ouen at Rouen—there is beyond the gaudy tinsel that crowds the altars, an untidiness that detracts from the sense of reverence that stately Norman or Gothic does not fail to inspire. In the north transept of St Ouen, some of the walls and pillars have at various times been made to bear large printed notices which have been pasted down, and when ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... secretly proud, for in this as in so many things unlike most little boys, he took great care of his clothes, and had an almost finicking dislike to what was rough or untidy. His two younger sisters' untidiness was a perpetual annoyance to him, and he still felt sore and angry at the way Rosamund had upset his toy-box when ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... she blushed at the reprimand for untidiness, a kind of reproof she seldom deserved, she was so accustomed to corrections that she scarcely listened to any, and sprang to a seat on the end of the great table with an ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... garnished at a great expense of labor. Everything had been carefully bestowed in the place which, to his mind, seemed most suited for its disposal. Yet now, as he gazed about him at the result, he knew that only a cleanly untidiness ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum |
