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Delicacy   Listen
noun
Delicacy  n.  (pl. delicacies)  
1.
The state or condition of being delicate; agreeableness to the senses; delightfulness; as, delicacy of flavor, of odor, and the like. "What choice to choose for delicacy best."
2.
Nicety or fineness of form, texture, or constitution; softness; elegance; smoothness; tenderness; and hence, frailty or weakness; as, the delicacy of a fiber or a thread; delicacy of a hand or of the human form; delicacy of the skin; delicacy of frame.
3.
Nice propriety of manners or conduct; susceptibility or tenderness of feeling; refinement; fastidiousness; and hence, in an exaggerated sense, effeminacy; as, great delicacy of behavior; delicacy in doing a kindness; delicacy of character that unfits for earnest action. "You know your mother's delicacy in this point."
4.
Addiction to pleasure; luxury; daintiness; indulgence; luxurious or voluptuous treatment. "And to those dainty limbs which Nature lent For gentle usage and soft delicacy?"
5.
Nice and refined perception and discrimination; critical niceness; fastidious accuracy. "That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England."
6.
The state of being affected by slight causes; sensitiveness; as, the delicacy of a chemist's balance.
7.
That which is alluring, delicate, or refined; a luxury or pleasure; something pleasant to the senses, especially to the sense of taste; a dainty; as, delicacies of the table. "The merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies."
8.
Pleasure; gratification; delight. (Obs.) "He Rome brent for his delicacie."
Synonyms: See Dainty.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... lifetime. One thing greatly delighted me—it was the gorgeous shield, executed by Benvenuto Cellini, and presented by Francis I. to Henry VIII. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The workmanship is entirely beyond anything I had imagined possible for delicacy of finish. I hardly wonder that kings used to quarrel for ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... beautiful Child on to her shoulder from the arms of Joseph. Never in any painting have the drawing and modelling of the human figure been so perfectly executed as in the figure of this Child and the arms of the Madonna; the hands and feet are modelled with the delicacy of a Flemish miniature, and at the same time have a beauty and suavity of modelling and a magnificent choice of line altogether Italian. On either side of the central triangle the spaces between it and the circumference of the tondo are filled by the introduction of the infant ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... furnished up lavishly for themselves in the palatial quarters of old Moscow. Here they could find literature and lectures and lounging room and for a few roubles often gained a hot plate of good soup or a delicacy in the shape of a horse steak. Of course the latter was always a little dubious to the American doughboy, for in walking the street he too often saw the poor horse that dropped dead from starvation or overdriving, approached by the butcher with the long ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... e. Andrew, the tailors son), a Florentine artist; painted in oil and fresco numerous works; died of the plague at Florence, his work displays accuracy of drawing and delicacy of feeling (1486-1531). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... even redder than he used to. It was not the acquisition of a little money by Mr. Minford that had exalted his daughter in the-eyes of Bog, but the French and the music. These two accomplishments seemed to lift her into an upper air of delicacy and refinement, for which Bog felt that his miserable education and clumsy manners quite unfitted him. After Bog had performed some little invented errand for her, she would reward him with a short exercise, and Bog would sit, with open mouth and crossed ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... were as often needed as other kinds of help. He had offered to assist her charities in a substantial way, and she had permitted it now and then, but had felt obliged at last to cease mentioning them altogether. He was able to circumvent this delicacy now and then through the agency of Graciella, whose theory was that money ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy, have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon me, like water in shadow. I shall not attempt to describe it more than I ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... 'The Virginian' could deal deliciously with such a rich field ... might be assumed. But with what charm and delicacy, fine humor and insight, the work has been done, only a direct acquaintance with the finished volume can justly show. The Southerner will certainly find enchanting home touches in it, and every reader ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... Chu and Consuelo were not only firm friends but daily companions. In my devotion I would have presented the horse to the young girl, but with flattering delicacy she preferred to call it mine. "I shall erride it for you, Pancho," she said; "I shall feel," she continued with exalted although somewhat vague poetry, "That it is of you! You lofe the beast—it is therefore of a necessity you, my ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... of the violation of the marriage bond and those which relate to chastity generally, recognize a degree of laxity respecting female honor, and, yet more remarkably, an absence of feminine delicacy, such as could scarcely be paralleled amongst the most uncivilized people now. They are of such a nature, that though most characteristic, they must be passed by with this general mention. The distinction between the Celtic and Teutonic races ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... yourself in this manner —for God's sake, behave with a little more decorum, if not for the sake of your own family, at least for the credit of your sex in general."— "Hark ye, Felton," said she, "decorum is founded upon a delicacy of sentiment and deportment, which cannot consist with the disgraces of a jail, and the miseries of indigence.—But I see the dispute is now terminated, and the money is to be drank; if you'll dine with us you shall be welcome; if ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... and many of them, doubtless, readers of this paper, who understand all about fairies. I want to ask them, as one poor old hard-worked man to another, whether this is the proper way for a fairy to behave. There seems to be a lack of delicacy—and shall I say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various

... for the pain, for the Patience; but pity of the rest of them! Heart, go and bleed at a bitterer vein for the Comfortless unconfessed of them— No not uncomforted: lovely-felicitous Providence Finger of a tender of, O of a feathery delicacy, the breast of the Maiden could obey so, be a bell to, ring of it, and Startle the poor sheep back! is the shipwrack then a harvest; does tempest carry the grain ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... different and he would have been sincerely grateful if anybody had come along and paid his debts, but so far nobody had offered to do that. Well, he would say, that could not be helped; he would have to carry his own burdens. Fortunately, most of his creditors were people with sufficient culture and delicacy to appreciate his position; they did not like to dun him; they respected his talent. But occasionally it would happen that a tailor or a wine-dealer would send him a bill and as like as not spoil an exquisite mood. He simply must ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun

... of this extreme delicacy is, that the signal waves of the current may follow each other so closely as almost entirely to coalesce, leaving only a very slight rise and fall of their crests, like ripples on the surface of a flowing stream, and yet the light spot will respond to each. The main flow of the current will ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... the same age. They are born with a reduced vitality, or through mismanagement in early infancy they have acquired a subnormal standard of development. Children born of parents who are not of standard vitality are predisposed to be delicate. If the parents are of average development, and the delicacy of the child is acquired by mismanagement, the proper dietetic and hygienic management will, as a rule, promptly result in a satisfactory restoration ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... respect for the feelings of others usually originates in selfishness, and issues in hardness and repulsiveness of manner. It may not proceed from malignity so much as from want of sympathy and want of delicacy—a want of that perception of, and attention to, those little and apparently trifling things by which pleasure is given or pain occasioned to others. Indeed, it may be said that in self-sacrificingness, so to speak, in the ordinary intercourse of life, mainly consists the difference between ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room beside the younger lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful," I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me beside ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... branches of which we saw the first sunset we ever looked upon, from this planet, at least,) is here in all its magnificent drapery of hanging foliage. Mr. Soule has given another beautiful view of it, when stripped of its leaves, equally remarkable for the delicacy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her arts into rude Latium. Thus flowed off the rough Saturnian numbers, and delicacy expelled the rank venom: but for a long time there remained, and at this day remain traces of rusticity. For late [the Roman writer] applied his genius to the Grecian pages; and enjoying rest after the Punic wars, began to search what useful ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... fluttering little body, the dip of a hasty short flight, represented the visible tokens. Across the pale silver sun of April their shadows flickered, and with them flickered the tracery of new leaves and the delicacy of the lace-like ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... immediately made himself at home. On one occasion he made himself so completely at home that the gentleman whom he was visiting considerately pointed out the mistake, and then SPIFFKINS suddenly remembered the distinction. Mr. SPIFFKINS was a man of great delicacy of feeling and keen sense of honor. One day a man cut his throat from ear to ear because his boarding-house-keeper would put ham into the hash. The brother of the man called upon SPIFFKINS and requested him as a favor to keep the thing out of his ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... nevertheless he was greatly surprised at the sight of Antonio's fine pictures. Everywhere he found boldness in conception, and correctness in drawing; and the freshness of the colouring, the good taste in the arrangement of the drapery, the uncommon delicacy of the extremities, the exquisite grace of the heads, were all so many evidences that he was no unworthy pupil of the great Reni. But Antonio had avoided this master's besetting sin of an endeavour, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... surprise me. But women never understood delicacy in regard to money. They have so little to do with it, and think so little about it, that they have no ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... his design originally to have concealed the receipt of all the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors, but that, when fortune threw a sum in his way of a magnitude which could not be concealed, and the peculiar delicacy of his situation at the time in which he received it made him more circumspect of appearances, he chose to apprise his employers of it." That the said Warren Hastings informs the Directors, that he had indorsed the bonds taken by him ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... his lips to say that certainly no heir should be caught on his side of the family after the fashion that had been practised by his lordship in catching the present pseudo-Popenjoy; but he was restrained by a feeling of delicacy in regard to his own daughter. "My lord," he said, "I am not here to discuss any ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... the Republic, their wives and mothers, although dignified by the name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors; and a female reign would have appeared an inexplicable prodigy in the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... burgesses of Athens to speak of such matters, that if they had been set on the rack, they would never have confessed them. Besides, his poetical describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' ring, and others, which who knows not to be the flowers of poetry, did never walk into ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... scholar, the delicacy of whose taste is questioned by no one, and whose knowledge of Dante's diction is probably not inferior to Mr. Longfellow's, has told me that he regards the expression as a noble and effective one, full of dignity ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... circle of the drawing-room, to make his personality a thoroughly fascinating one. Moreover, he was, besides an artist, a gentleman, with the reserve yet charm of manner that characterizes the man of breeding. In men women admire two extremes,—splendid physical strength, or the delicacy that suggests a poetic soul. Chopin was a creator of poetic music and a gentle virtuoso. His appearance harmonized with his genius. He was one of his own nocturnes in which you can feel a vague presentiment of ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... great task of good-breeding is, accordingly, to induce in this element a delicacy, a translucency, which, without robbing any action or sentiment of the hue it imparts, shall still allow the pure human quality perfectly and perpetually to shine through. The world has always been charmed with fine manners; and why should it not? For what are fine manners ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Courier," she told him and then, laughing softly at his astonished expression, explained her meaning. "And though I did find out the news, I can't write it up," she sighed. "I know how real journalists feel when they have to sacrifice a scoop for reasons of delicacy." ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... the tale was of extreme delicacy in both sentiment and design. It was a little fanciful, a little elaborate, but of an ephemeral poetry. It was all "atmosphere," and its success depended upon the minutest precision of phrasing and the nicest harmony between idea and word. There was much in mere effect ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... not to be visited after marriage with the same frequency as in their masters' bachelor days: because, though true and genuine friendship cannot and should not be in any way suspicious, still a married man's honour is a thing of such delicacy that it is held liable to injury from brothers, much more from friends. Anselmo remarked the cessation of Lothario's visits, and complained of it to him, saying that if he had known that marriage was to keep him from enjoying his society as he used, he would ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... old theory that woman and man are not two classes standing upon the same level, but that the two are one—that one on the time-worn theory of common law, the husband; and talks of the "dignity and delicacy of woman" being due to the fact of her not having been in public life, and that this "dignity and delicacy" would all evaporate if once she were allowed to vote, which reminds one of the story of Baron Munchausen's horn, into which a certain coach-driver ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... enjoyed—a vice you will not have noticed in the British. The Greeks were an outdoor people, who lived in the sun and the fresh air, and had none of the niceness bred by the life of our towns. We have long been renowned for our delicacy about the body; nor has the tendency been decreased by constituting Watch Committees of young persons in every borough. These are now the arbiters of art, and nothing unsuitable to the child of seven ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... a great number of children, sent one day, with all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if I would be so kind as to—guess what, Louise! But only guess! But you never could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings for her. It was God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my praying so ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... anybody's duty—yours or mine—to go to the man and find him out; what he really thinks, what he really feels? I don't mean, make an appeal to him. That would be unworthy of her. But perhaps he's holding back from a mistaken feeling of delicacy, of remorse; when if he could be made to see that it was his right, his privilege, to be everything to her now that a man could be to a woman, and infinitely more than any man could hope to be to a happy or fortunate woman—What ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... the drawing-room, ghastly pale, and almost immediately gave her the letter; then turned his back, feigning delicacy. In reality he was quaking with fear lest she should suspect the handwriting. But the envelope was addressed by Staines, and paved the way for the letter; she was unsuspicious and good, and her heart cried out for her ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... supplied from the corn planted and harvested by Robertson on his previous visit, and from the deer, buffalo, or wild turkey brought down by the unerring riflemen among them. On deer and wild turkey they had regaled before, but buffalo-meat was a delicacy with which they were not acquainted, and, its rich, juicy, tender steak once tasted, all other meat lost its flavor. None of them had ever even seen the animal, and we may imagine the wonder with which they first beheld the vast herds that almost darkened the valley. Lolling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... curiosity. Two estimable ladies of Vienna, Mme. Stief and Mme. Picler, worked at it with great zeal. All the details furnished by the defunct Angelo's friends were carefully collected. From this material has been written the interesting account which follows. In the French translation it loses in delicacy of style, for Mme. Picler, who wrote it down in German, possesses the rare talent of writing equally well in prose and in poetry. I take great pleasure in expressing to these kind ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... any production in verse upon the defeat of the Armada, Lord Burghley (who had probably made inquiries of the Bishop) seems to have been actuated by some extraordinary and uncalled-for delicacy towards the King of Spain. Waiting ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... is more vulgar than haste. Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command. Here comes to me Roland, with a delicacy of sentiment leading and inwrapping him like a divine cloud or holy ghost. Tis a great destitution to both that this should not be entertained with large leisures, but, contrariwise, should be balked ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... drawn sighs succeeded to a suffocation of tears. The irritation of her feelings had caused a more than usual glow upon her cheek, which faded away as she became composed, until a livid paleness spread itself over her features. Alonzo feared that the delicacy of her constitution would fall a sacrifice to the sorrow which preyed upon her heart, if not speedily alleviated;—but alas! where were the means ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... more reliable, than the intellectual perceptions of the ablest men in the community. Upon all those subjects that are of moral apprehension, society seems to possess an intelligence of its own, infinitely sensitive in its delicacy, and almost conclusive in the certainty of its determinations; indirect, and unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable in sagacity, and as strong and confident as nature itself. The highest and finest qualities of ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... more stately society than could be found in Shepperton, and that his slipshod chat and homely manners were but like weather-stains on a fine old block of marble, allowing you still to see here and there the fineness of the grain, and the delicacy of the original tint. But in his later years these visits became a little too troublesome to the old gentleman, and he was rarely to be found anywhere of an evening beyond the bounds of his own parish—most frequently, indeed, by the side of his own sitting-room fire, smoking his pipe, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... admire or blame according to this standard and not according to any genuine sense of beauty or the reverse. Few persons, however pure may be their natural taste, can live long amid vulgar and vulgarising surroundings without losing something of the delicacy of their taste and learning to accept—if not with pleasure, at least with acquiescence—things from which under other circumstances they would have recoiled. In the same way, both individuals and societies accommodate themselves but too readily to lower ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... had puzzled him to seek its cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman's spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... some means of communicating with the rest of the world, and at least find food, of which every one was much in need. Beche-de-mer fisheries are a feature of the coast, the beche-de-mer being a huge sea-slug, thought to be a great delicacy. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... living. Michael Amory had fits of exactness and fits of what he considered conventionality; he had also his fits of slackness, days in which Freddy Lampton would let his blue eyes rest on his carelessly-tied necktie, or on his shoelaces, which were an offence to his eyes. Freddy's exquisite delicacy of touch and his eyes, which were trained to a fine pitch of exactitude for minute detail, two characteristics essential for his work as an excavator, made it painful for him to be in the company of anyone who offended his ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... and thoughtful observers are conscious of feeling lively indignation at the spectacle of justice defeated by a technical objection; and public attention has been attracted to certain topics of the very highest importance and delicacy, arising out of this grievous miscarriage. They are all involved in the discussion of the question placed at the head of this article; and to that discussion we propose to address ourselves in spirit of calmness, freedom, and candour. We have paid close attention to this remarkable and harassing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... sensitive had she grown to the dread of seeing any one not in the immediate circle of her household, that it became impossible to her to leave her home. The clear colorlessness of her face had taken on a transparency and delicacy which did not lessen its beauty, but added to it an unearthly grace. She no longer spent hours alone in her desecrated room; it had grown intolerable to her; but she sat speechless, and almost motionless, in the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... out a handsome basin and ewer and a silken napkin, whose ends were purfled with red gold and a sprinkling-bottle full of rose-water mingled with musk. I marvelled at his dainty delicate ways and said in my mind, "Never wot I of delicacy in the desert." Then we washed our hands and talked a while, after which he went into the tent and making a partition between himself and me with a piece of red brocade, said to me, "Enter, O Chief of the Arabs, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... are exceedingly rich, and in point of execution and delicacy of detail perhaps the finest portions of the front. The central door-way is divided by a pillar, rising from a carved cylindrical base into two smaller arches; but the whole design and finish cannot be made out, in consequence of the introduction of the porch, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... have placed the prisoner at the bar before you are these, and in detailing them I feel myself placed in circumstances of great difficulty, and also of peculiar delicacy. The discharge, however, of a public duty, which devolves upon me as leading law officer of the Crown, forces me into a course which I cannot avoid, unless I should shrink from promoting and accomplishing ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... almost as though fate had guided me to your side to-night. At this time, when our diplomacy abroad is none too fortunate, and when our diplomacy at home is far more delicate and dangerous, you yourself, known the country over as a man of tact and delicacy, are the one man in the world to handle this very mission. It is the Old Fox of the North, after all, Free Soiler or not, who alone can smooth down matters for us. Our country had supreme confidence in you. This administration has such confidence still. It will give all that is seemly ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... but alike untouched by its blessedness! His impurities were a taste inherited from his favourite old writers, whose naivete seemed to sport with the grossness which it touched, and neither in France nor at home had the age then attained to our moral delicacy: Bayle himself was a man without passions! His trivial matters were an author's compliance with his bookseller's taste, which is always that of the public. His scepticism is said to have thrown everything into disorder. Is it a more positive evil to doubt than to dogmatise? ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... magnificent chasms between them on both sides—mountain-gates revealing league-long wondrous vistas of peaks and cliffs and capes of a hundred blues, ranging away from velvety indigo into far tones of exquisite and spectral delicacy. A tinted haze made dreamy all remotenesses, an veiled with illusions of colour the rugged nudities ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... Hebbel died in Vienna December 13, 1863. His lyric poetry, for the most part the product of his earlier years, is marked above all by a tendency towards symbolism, these symbols usually of a rich sensuous beauty and often of a rare delicacy. A homely realism is, however, by no means lacking. The musical quality of his verse attracted the genius of Robert Schumann, who set the ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... Brother W. and his wife, every preparation was made to give him a cordial reception. The honest couple thought that religion in that part consisted in making parade, and therefore the parlor was put in order, a nice fire was made, and the kitchen replenished with cake, chickens, and every delicacy, preparatory to cooking. While Mr. W. was out at the wood-pile, a plain-looking, coarsely dressed, but quiet-like pedestrian, came along and asked the distance to the next town. He was told it was three miles. Being very cold, he asked permission to enter ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... incessant fear of discovery, and from this period her whole attention was employed to dislodge from the castle the person to whom her character was committed. In this it was not difficult to succeed; for the delicacy of madame's feelings made her quick to perceive, and to withdraw from a treatment unsuitable to the natural dignity of her character. She therefore resolved to depart from the castle; but disdaining to take an advantage even over a successful enemy, she determined to be silent on that ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... forgot about the drab animals. He found a fawn, but the doe was close by and made an ugly fight for her young. Andoo had to leave the fawn, but as her blood was up she stuck to the attack, and at last he got in a blow of his paw on her nose, and so got hold of her. More meat but less delicacy, and the she-bear, following, had her share. The next afternoon, curiously enough, the very fellow of the first white rock fell, and ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... stoves, the necessity of frequent drinking, and often of bad beer, to moisten a parched throat; in short, every thing around him conspires quickly to vitiate the organs of taste; the palate becomes blunted; its quickness of feeling and delicacy, on which the sensibility of the organs of taste depends, grows daily more obtuse; and in a short time the gustatory ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... thanking her sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put the matter on a more concrete basis, but when he told her presently that he was going to do a portrait of her, she scourged herself for her New England perspective on an affair that he handled with so much delicacy. ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in that gulf of darkness. Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and George, in whose patience was a touch of strange brotherliness, took his stand behind. He was not lacking in a certain delicacy—a sense of form—that did not permit him to intrude upon this tragedy, and he waited, quiet as the lion above, his fur collar hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy redness of his cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their sardonic, compassionate stare. And men ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... fact that of late he had been feeling that it was time he got married, Jarvis had been attracted to Mabel from the first. She was such a contrast to the other women he had known; he admired enormously her slim delicacy, her faintly coloured face, her grey eyes. He liked her way of talking, too, and the long silences which held her; her quiet dignity, the way she moved. He placed her on a pedestal in his thoughts, which was a thing he had never dreamt of doing for any ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... how much I owe to one Gentleman in particular, whose exertions in my behalf, though I was a stranger to him, have been so marked, so generous, and indeed so unexampled, that it is a very painful task which his delicacy has imposed upon me, in not permitting me to mention his name. But such goodness cannot be concealed. The gratitude of my own heart has proclaimed it to my private friends; and the noble and honourable subscribers his zeal has procured, cannot avoid being ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... have accepted it, I know not. To the compliment, he had some pretensions; for, at that time, his exertions, sacrifices, and general merits in the cause of his country, had been incomparably greater than those of Colonel Washington. But the delicacy of his health, and his entire want of experience in actual service, though an excellent militia officer, were decisive objections to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... a plenipotentiary, Popanilla preferred being a prisoner. His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season; a marble bath was ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and his old friends, the most eminent physician, and the most celebrated practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and look at his tongue. These ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various

... his reception-discourse in February, 1784. The merits of M. de Tressan were therein celebrated with grace and delicacy. The panegyrist identified himself with his subject. A select public loaded with praises various passages wherein just and profound ideas were clothed in all the richness of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... Castlewood has required more delicacy in its manipulation than perhaps any other which Thackeray has drawn. There is a mixture in it of self-negation and of jealousy, of gratefulness of heart and of the weary thoughtfulness of age, of ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... south the male loses his pretty coat and, clad like his mate in yellowish-brown, is known as the rice-bird because he feeds on the rice crops. Here he is killed because he is considered a robber, and eaten because he is considered a delicacy. ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... The Indians had killed two of the carpenters; hence long delay in the finishing of the new ship. They would not wait, but resolved to put to sea in the "Breton" and the brigantine. The problem was to find food for the voyage; for now, in their extremity, they roasted and ate snakes, a delicacy in which ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... not an easy question to answer—without entering into particulars which Emily's delicacy of feeling warned her to avoid. "I must know a little more of Miss de Sor," she said, "before I ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... she had never been married, and a sense of delicacy had indicated to him that this was a subject upon which he must not appear to be curious. To question her for the details would have been repugnant to his nicely balanced sense of the fitness of things. Nevertheless, he reflected, if her love ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... of resort in this rollicking locality could furnish, long before The Boar made the acquaintance of Falstaff, every species of delicacy and bonne bouche to their constituents, and the revelry was apt sometimes to extend to an unseasonable hour. In an early naval song we meet ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... our times could have made a fist at that effect of faint lamp-light and fainter moonlight on the black of the coat against the deep blue-black of the star spangled southern sky. Only the "Master" could have got the delicacy and movement of the faintly sea-green veil that sometimes lifts on the warm breeze and floats an instant across the sky and the broadcloth; he would have got the innermost delicacy of colour form ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... late as the sixteenth century patients were seen armed with glittering swords which, during the attack, they brandished with wild gestures, as if they were going to engage in a fencing match. Even women scorned all female delicacy, and, adopting this impassioned demeanour, did the same; and this phenomenon, as well as the excitement which the tarantula dancers felt at the sight of anything with metallic lustre, was quite common up to the period when, in modern ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... individual who broke in upon her was that animated piece of ragged door-mat, Toozle. This imbecile little dog was not possessed of much delicacy of feeling, having been absent on a private excursion of his own into the mountain when the schooner arrived, he only became aware of the return of his lost, loved, and deeply-regretted mistress, when he came back ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... venerable old man, or, as the learned Riolan will have it, Jacobus Silvius, first gave representations of the valves in the veins, which consist of raised or loose portions of the inner membranes of these vessels, of extreme delicacy, and a sigmoid or semilunar shape. They are situated at different distances from one another, and diversely in different individuals; they are connate at the sides of the veins; they are directed upwards towards ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... recording one of the most extraordinary instances of the power of will, under the pressure of affection, I ever witnessed or heard of. Dr. Belfrage was twice married. His second wife was a woman of great sweetness and delicacy, not only of mind, but, to his sorrow, of constitution. She died, after less than a year of singular and unbroken happiness. There was no portrait of her. He resolved there should be one; and though ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... a polite gesture—one of the "swedes" he was munching. I declined; but John, out of a deeper delicacy than I could ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... have felt under similar circumstances, took it without looking at him; instinctive delicacy told her not to. "Father didn't mean it," she whispered consolingly. "You will come down and have some supper when ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... case. She thought that at least he might have spent one day near her in case she wished to consult him. He took much for granted, she thought petulantly. Poltavo, on the contrary, had been most assiduous in his attention. He had had tea with her the previous afternoon, and with singular delicacy had avoided any reference to the forthcoming marriage or to his own views on the subject. But all that he did not speak, he looked. He conveyed the misery in which he stood with subtle suggestion. She felt sorry for him, had no doubt of ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... merit, make no parade of prices. They offer you all that in circumstances of mourning you can possibly want; they scorn to do you the disgrace of imagining that you would drive a bargain on the very brink of the grave; and you are of course obliged to them for the delicacy of their reserve on so commonplace a subject, and you pay their bill in decorous disregard of the amount. It is true, that certain envious rivals have compared them to birds of prey, scenting mortality from afar, and hovering like vultures on the trail of death, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... incidents beautifully related in the address of Mr. Montgomery. It would have been false taste and delicacy in such a man to have forborne speaking of himself. His return, after an absence equal to the term of two full generations, to his native cottage, is an incident exquisitely poetic. He finds his father's humble chapel converted into a workshop, and strangers sit beside the hearth ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... culminated in his two great works on the "Origins of Christianity" and on the "History of Israel." As to the scientific value of these books there is difference of opinion, as was to be expected in a treatment of such subjects to the exclusion of the miraculous. But the delicacy and vividness of his portraits of the great personalities of Hebrew history, and the acuteness of his analysis of national psychology, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seeds, two ounces of salt, and the water necessary." If an especially delectable dish was desired, a little millet was also added to give the paste more "cohesion and delicacy." Barley was also used whole as a food, in which case it was first parched, which is still the manner of preparing it in some parts of Palestine and many districts of India, also in the Canary Islands, where it is known as gofio. Of this custom a lady from Palestine writes: "The ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... school. It was a longish walk across the moor and along a dusty road to the nearest village. Robbie, although seven years old, was exempted from going on account of the distance and his delicacy. Elsie bore in mind that Duncan had gone before he was that age, but Robbie was such a petted baby. He was not nearly so strong as Duncan had been at ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... telling you," he went on to say, wiping his hands on his jacket, "such people can't show any delicacy toward a man, a common soldier, who hasn't much money either. That's beyond their strength. And here recently, while I haven't received anything at all from my sister, I have been conscious that they ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... leaning on the strength of its affections for support, so well as Shakespeare— no one ever so well painted natural tenderness free from affectation and disguise—no one else ever so well showed how delicacy and timidity, when driven to extremity, grow romantic and extravagant; for the romance of his heroines (in which they abound) is only an excess of the habitual prejudices of their sex, scrupulous of being false ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... art knew but the easier forms of metallurgy and the construction of carts; in manners and customs, included cannibalism, the use of poisoned weapons, and a relation between the sexes destructive alike of all delicacy and of all family affection. The Parthians were, no doubt, rude and coarse in their character as compared with the Persians; but they had been civilized to a certain extent by three centuries of subjection ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... listless, discontented, and unhappy. The glamour had faded out of her former life. She could not continue the tactics practised in coarse imitation by the Irish servant, who took her cue as far as possible from her mistress. The repugnance was due as much to the innate delicacy and natural superiority of Marian's nature as to her conscience. Her clear, practical sense perceived that her course differed from the other only in being veneered by the refinements of her social position,—that the evil results ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... green one only to get such a few," said a middle- boy, who had also built his hopes on the same delicacy. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... again the birds plunged into the churning flood at the foot of the falls, sometimes remaining under water what seemed a long while, and always coming to the surface with a delicacy for the nestlings. They were able to dip into the swift, white currents and wrestle with them without being washed away. Of course, the water would sometimes carry them down stream, but never more than a few inches, and never to a point where they could be injured. They ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... the next place, let us clear away as it were and remove all insolence, and jeering, and mocking, and ribaldry, which are the evil seasonings of freedom of speech. For as, when the surgeon performs an operation, a certain neatness and delicacy of touch ought to accompany his use of the knife, but all pantomimic and venturesome and fashionable suppleness and over-finicalness ought to be far away from his hand, so freedom of speech admits of dexterity and politeness, provided that a pleasant way of putting ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... easily have mastered. And furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top; directly underneath which I was all this time standing, and had heard nothing. So complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy of his auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... stood suddenly forth before her—a mere man—just like other men! Just exactly like other men? Like the sick drug-clerk? Like the new-born millionaire baby? Like the doddering old Dutch gaffer? The very delicacy of such a thought drove the blood panic-stricken from her face. It was the indelicacy of the thought that brought the blood surging back again to brow, to cheeks, to lips, even to the ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... great scruples and grief at these proceedings; declared her fears, that the parliament had exceeded its powers, and exhorted her son, it is said, to refuse the crown. On the ground of this delicacy of feeling, a deputation of both lords and commons was appointed to wait on the deposed monarch,—to give him notice of the election of his son; tender him back their homage, and "act as circumstances ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... wise is the pupil of Calhoun and Slidell. He is the coadjutor of the subtle Gwin. Hardin feeds the flame of Maxime Valois' ardor. The business friendship of the men continues unabated. They need each other. With rare delicacy, Valois never refers to the blood-bought "beauty of the El Dorado." Her graceful form never throws its shadow over the threshold of the luxurious home of the lawyer. On rare visits to the residence of his friend, Valois' ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... With Mr. Lovelace's written proposals. Her observations on the cold conclusion of them. He knows not what every wise man knows, of the prudence and delicacy required in a wife. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... begins with sheer eulogy. Eulogy is nice, but one does not learn anything from it. Had dear Charles Reade stopped after writing "womanly grace, subtlety, delicacy, the variety yet invariable truthfulness of the facial expression, compared with which the faces beside yours are wooden, uniform dolls," he would have done nothing to advance me in my art; but this was only the jam in which I was to take ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... attitude, though what it meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against Miss Marvell's, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... himself waiting to catch a view of the man's face in full. The head was shapely, and balanced upon a neck broad at the base, but of exceeding pliancy and grace. The features in profile were of Oriental outline, and of that delicacy of expression which has always been thought a sign of blood and sensitive spirit. With these observations, the tribune's ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... with little shops or agencies in their basements, and some, like this one, second-class boarding-houses. On Second and Third avenues, under the elevated trains, were miles of shops; all small shops, crowded upon each other. Every block had its two or three saloons, its meat market, its delicacy store, its tiny establishments where drygoods and milk and shoes and tobacco and fruit and paints and drugs and candies and hats were sold, and the women who drifted up and down all morning shopping usually patronized the nearest store. In the basements were smaller ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... With his deep delicacy he had put the whole matter as a hardship to her mother alone. He had saved her any pain of confession or denial. "Yes, it is my doing," he now said. "Shall we ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... another; "and of a delicacy many degrees above thy bumpkin palate. Leave profaning it, therefore, and to thy ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... in its native country. Its flesh is considered by those who have partaken of it to be very good eating; and it is quite within the range of possibility that kangaroo venison may become as popular as Australian mutton. Kangaroo-tail soup is said to be a renowned delicacy, decidedly superior to ox-tail. Some species of the tribe are hardier than others, and stand the English climate well; indeed, we have the authority of Dr. Sclater for the opinion that Bennett's kangaroo, "with very little attention, would rapidly increase in any of the midland ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... own, not very high motive for making the attempt. She was a thoroughly accomplished girl, graceful in her appearance and manner; in short, just the sort of girl who would be supposed to do credit to a school. She played with finish, and even delicacy of touch. There was certainly no soul in her music, but neither were there any wrong notes. Her drawings were equally correct, her perspective good, her trees were real trees, and the coloring of her water-color sketches was pure. ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... see Helena Landless, the restraint which she puts on her "tigerish blood" is admirable: she is very fresh and original. The villain is all that melodrama can desire, but what we do miss, I think, is the "atmosphere" of a small cathedral town. Here there is a lack of softness and delicacy of treatment: on the other hand, the opium den is studied from ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang

... threw the mistress of Las Palomas into a flutter. Her brother was absent, and she felt a delicacy in consulting Deweese, and very naturally turned to me for advice. Funerals in the Nueces valley were so very rare that I advised going, even if the unfortunate man had stood none too high in our estimation. Annear lived on the divide between Shepherd's and the Frio ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... of delicacy as attractive as it is rare, Bajazet II. refrained from complaining of the boorishness of the Russian envoy, but wrote to the grand prince, Ivan III., in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... parasol shines like a silver dome. The long lines of the far shores are soft and pure, though they are places that one hasn't the least desire to visit. Altogether the effect is very delicate, and anything that is delicate counts immensely over here; for delicacy, I think, is as rare as coarseness. I am talking to you of the sea, however, without having told you a word of my voyage. It was very comfortable and amusing; I should like to take another next month. You know I am almost offensively well at sea—that I breast the weather ...
— The Point of View • Henry James

... of very extreme delicacy. I believe your niece, Miss Margaret Mackenzie, is staying here?" In answer to this, Lady Ball acknowledged that Miss Mackenzie was now at ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... intruders, and in consequence often to pair with their own daughters, I will not pretend to decide. The case of Bakewell's Long-horns, which were closely interbred for a long period, has often been {118} quoted; yet Youatt says[247] the breed "had acquired a delicacy of constitution inconsistent with common management," and "the propagation of the species was not always certain." But the Shorthorns offer the most striking case of close interbreeding; for instance, the famous bull Favourite (who was himself ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... raises his historical novel to the level of the finest productions; that the same constitution of mind teaches him the sarcastic and violent, as well as the modulated and simple style, the bitterness and harshness of hate with the effusion and delicacy of love. The evil and the good, the beautiful and the ugly, the repulsive and the agreeable, are in him then but remoter effects, of slight importance, born of changing circumstances, acquired and fortuitous qualities, not essential and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... not think it would compromise you, or that I am indifferent to delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very unlikely that you will succeed as teacher of the class you mention, so let me do something of a different kind for you. Say what you would like, and ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... balance of parties, however, could not have been long maintained; and its relapse, after a short interval, into Toryism, would but have added to the triumph of Mr. Pitt, and increased his power. Accordingly Lord Moira, who saw from the beginning the delicacy and difficulty of the task, wisely abandoned it. The share that Mr. Sheridan had in this transaction is too honorable to him not to be recorded, and the particulars cannot be better given than in Lord Moira's ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... held up a moulded ball and dexterously clipped off the surplus lead, the gesture was so culinary in its delicacy that one of the dogs in front of the fire extended his head, making a long neck, with a tentative sniff and a glistening ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... us that a King of Tollan, Tecpancaltzin, fell in love with the daughter of one of his subjects, a maiden by name Xochitl, the Rose. Her father was the first to collect honey from the maguey plant, and on pretence of buying this delicacy the king often sent for Xochitl. He accomplished her seduction, and hid her in a rose garden on a mountain, where she gave birth to an infant son, to the great anger of the father. Casting the horoscope of the infant, the court astrologer ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... hold the cocks with skilful delicacy, taking care not to wound themselves. A solemn silence reigns; the spectators seem to be changed into hideous wax figures. They present one cock to the other, holding his head down so that the other may peck at it and thus irritate him. Then the other is given a like opportunity, for in ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... name was Quong Wo, but my brother Ajax always called him Mary, because the boy's round, childish face had a singular smoothness and delicacy. A good and faithful servant he proved during three years. Then he ran away at the time of the anti-Chinese riots, despite our assurance that we wished to keep him and ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... MEMLING (c. 1435-1494), whom Vasari states to have been the pupil of Roger, that the early Netherlandish School attains the highest delicacy of artistic development. His poetical and profoundly human qualities had a special attraction for the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" inaugurated by Rossetti and Holman Hunt in the middle of the nineteenth century. This unusual tenderness of feeling is probably also the origin ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... window-panes of Bursley, and hence half the town had slept ill. But at breakfast-time the clouds had been mysteriously drawn away, the winds had expired, and those drenched streets began to dry under the caressing peace of bright soft sunshine; the sky was pale blue of a delicacy unknown to the intemperate climes of the south. Janet Orgreave, entering the Clayhanger shop, brought into it with her the new morning weather. She also brought into it Edwin's fate, or part of it, but not precisely in the sense commonly understood when the word 'fate' is mentioned ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... story of the runaway horse could read well with the little details of names and places and things left out. They are the true life of all narrative. It wouldn't quite do to print them at this time. We'll talk about it when you come. Delicacy—a sad, sad false delicacy—robs literature of the best two things among its belongings. Family-circle narrative and obscene stories. But no matter; in that better world which I trust we are all going to I have the hope and belief that they will not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to have a look at my catch," said old Chang to Sing. "Here is the finest fish of the season. I have brought him here so that you and my honoured master, Mr. Li, may have a treat. Carp is his favourite delicacy." ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... sea, heavy like a helmet, descended low without a trace of gloss, without a gleam in its coils, as though it had never been touched by a ray of light; and a throat white, smooth, palpitating with life, a round neck modelled with strength and delicacy, supported gloriously that radiant face and that pale mass of hair ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... particularly Massenbach, either from fear of the Polish division to which they were united, or from respect for Macdonald, showed some delicacy in their defection. They wrote to the marshal. Yorck announced to him the convention he had just concluded, which he coloured with specious pretexts. "He had been reduced to it by fatigue and necessity; but," he added, "that ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... and esteemed his brown-eyed fair-haired fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was devoted to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... pursue his speculations on Joan, whether through delicacy or indifference Mackenzie could not tell. He branched off into talk of other things, through which the craving for the life he had left came out in strong expressions of dissatisfaction with the range. He complained against the penance his father had ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... 1:11) that led him to write in the way in which he did. To settle the strifes of this church and to define the relations which Christians should assume towards the political, religious, and domestic institutions of the heathen was a matter of no little delicacy and difficulty. The mastery of Paul is shown in the laying down of principles, in accordance with the gospel of Christ, that were effective not only for the Corinthian church but which are applicable to-day to all such church difficulties ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell

... a while with my surprise and disappointment, then informed me, that the rose had ever been regarded in Morosofia, as the symbol of female purity, delicacy, and sweetness; which notion had grown into a popular superstition, that whenever a marriage is consummated on the earth, one of these flowers springs up in the moon; and that in colour, shape, size, or other property, it is a fit type of the individual whose ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... The cotton for which Whitney's machine accomplished so much, was the short staple, which is the principal product of the South. The Sea Island cotton could not be cleaned by it, on account of the length and delicacy of its fiber; and this species, for the want of some cheap and expeditious method of preparing it, has seldom been grown to a greater quantity than fifty thousand bags of three hundred pounds each. Consequently, it has always commanded ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... may be judged by his first work, Mr. Julian Hawthorne is endowed with a large share of his father's peculiar genius. We trace in 'Bressant' the same intense yearning after a high and spiritual life, the same passionate love of nature, the same subtlety and delicacy of remark, and also a little of the same tendency to indulge in the use ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... the shafts are round, with round moulded bases and round Manoelino caps. The central shaft has a ring moulding half-way up, and all, including the flat arches and the vesicae, are either covered with leaves, or are twisted into ropes, but without any of that wonderful delicacy which is so striking at Batalha. Across one corner a vault has been thrown covering a fountain, and though elsewhere the ribs are plainly moulded, here they are covered with leaf carving, and altogether make this north-east corner the most picturesque ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... also a sentimental air has been given, offend much less in that way than is common in this book. What would we not give for a completely faithful version of some among them! Yet, with all these drawbacks, we cannot doubt from internal evidence that they truly ascribe to the Indian a delicacy of sentiment and of fancy that justifies Cooper in such inventions as his Uncas. It is a white man's view of a savage hero, who would be far finer in his natural proportions; still, through a masquerade figure, it ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... General" without some disappointment at the little progress of the poetic art, since the reign of John the Second, at the beginning of the century. The best pieces in the collection are of that date, and no rival subsequently arose to compete with the masculine strength of Mena, or the delicacy and fascinating graces of Santillana. One cause of this tardy progress may have been the direction to utility manifested in this active reign, which led such as had leisure for intellectual pursuits to cultivate science, rather ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... significant because it involves, in the main, problems of poisoning. The explanation of such cases is rarely easy and certain—first of all, because we can not, without difficulty, get into a position of testing the delicacy and acuteness of any individual sense of taste, where such testing is quite simple with regard to seeing and hearing. At the same time, it is necessary when tests are made, to depend upon general, and rarely constant impressions, since very few people mean the same ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... the delicacy observed by those three seamen towards the widow and her daughter, to mark their assiduity towards them as to their necessities and their wants; while they, on their part, were patient, uncomplaining and grateful. The second and third day passed on, when the mate calculated they were ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... in the arguments of her elders, these surroundings were likely to foster a passionate interest in public affairs; while other influences round her were tending to increase in her a natural sense of the delicacy and preciousness of personal relations. In the course of telling her story occasions may come for remarking again on what was one of the chief graces of her character; but in a book of this kind the sooner the reader becomes acquainted with the subject of it, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... the child, and induces him to seek similar experiences in his surroundings. A little one, attracted by the pretty stuff of a visitor's dress, will be seen to go and wash his hands, then to come and touch the stuff of the garment again and again with infinite delicacy, his face meanwhile expressing his ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori

... little else, in the days that followed. Mr. Vernon's heart, hungry for the first time, had to starve. He went often to Lady St. Craye's. She was so gentle, sweet, yet not too sympathetic—bright, amusing even, but not too vivacious. He approved deeply the delicacy with which she ignored that last wild interview. She was sister, she was friend—and she had the rare merit of seeming to forget that she had ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... useless to expect to gain real strength, unless we are working in obedience to the laws that govern its development. We have a faculty for distinguishing order from disorder and harmony from discord, which grows in delicacy and strength as we use it, and we can only use it through refusing disorder and choosing order. As our perception grows, we choose more wisely, and as we choose more wisely, our perception grows. But our perceptions must work in ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... greatest delicacy that I warned our colleague Delorme—he was good enough to consult me and show me day by day the information which he had elicited—I warned him that he was on a false scent. He would listen to nothing; he persisted in searching for his tramp. ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... table was constructed with planks and trestles in a shady spot, and at noon—and perhaps again in the evening—the women folk served a meal which at least made up in "staying qualities" what it lacked in variety or delicacy. The principal dish was almost certain to be "pot-pie," consisting of boiled turkeys, geese, chickens, grouse, veal, or venison, with an abundance of dumplings. This, with cornbread and milk, met the demands of the occasion; but if the host was able to furnish a cask of rum, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... 1667 he was able to announce as follows: "They send us eighty-four girls from Dieppe and twenty-five from Rochelle; among them are fifteen or twenty of pretty good birth; several of them are really demoiselles, and tolerably well brought up." Amusing evidence, however, of the exceeding delicacy of such a market is found in a letter, in which the match-making Intendant alludes to the supply of the year 1670. "It is not expedient," he ungallantly writes to Colbert, "to send more demoiselles. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... fellow, he repented of his folly, and then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold. Accidents would happen; but they never happened from his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me, that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... now removed, his studies were regulated with this view; and he underwent, in four successive years, the annual examination before the Stuttgard Commission, to which young men destined for the Church are subjected in that country. Schiller's temper was naturally devout; with a delicacy of feeling which tended towards bashfulness and timidity, there was mingled in him a fervid impetuosity, which was ever struggling through its concealment, and indicating that he felt deeply and strongly, as well as delicately. Such a turn of mind easily took the ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... long dark hair, which, partly concealed by her religious dress of a pensioner, escaped in flowing ringlets over her snowy shoulders, embellishing a countenance whence beamed such harmony of features and enchanting delicacy of expression, as indicated the purity and peace that reigned within. The Esperanza soon became my favourite spot, and I felt convinced nature never formed this angel to be immured within the walls of a convent; nor would she have been destined to pass the remainder of her life ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... all the saints in the calendar on the outside to "make her thin;" but the flesh and muscle were obdurate through she would not go, until—delicacy being now blown to the winds, Captain Transom placed his shoulder to the old lady's extremity, and with the regular "Oh, heave oh!" shot her through the aperture into her husband's arms. The young ladies we ejected much more easily, although Francesca Cangrejo did ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... together with smoked ham and potatoes in their jackets. Neither the ham nor the herrings are ever cooked when they have been smoked, and the ham is very tough in consequence. The breast of a goose, too, is eaten smoked but not cooked, and is considered a great delicacy. Poultry varies in quality a good deal. Everyone knows the little chickens that come round at hotel dinners, all legs and bones. A German family will sit down contentedly to an old hen that the most ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick



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