"Niceness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... winks sometimes," said Lotta, cutting another half- inch off from the unconsumed fragment, and picking the skin from the meat with her own fair fingers. Hitherto Souchey had been regardless of any such niceness in his eating, the skin having gone with the rest; but now he thought that the absence of the outside covering and the touch of Lotta's fingers ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... side, I dare say, if her ladyship can be excused to punctilio, and for having a greater esteem for a married man, than he can deserve, or than may be strictly defended to a person of your purity and niceness." ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... to work, and pretty hard, but I tell you we are a good bit better off than they are in the prisons of Russia. We have got plenty to eat, though I cannot say much for its niceness; anyhow we are a long way better fed than the soldiers who look after us; but ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... evidently knows that a large mushroom is not so sweet or so toothsome as a small one. A 'monstrous mushroom,' even to those who like mushrooms, is coarse and less tasty. Now the gleam of hope lies in the circumstance that Mr. Chesterton knows the fine gradations of niceness (or nastiness) that distinguish mushrooms of one size from mushrooms of another. As a rule, if you get to know a thing, you get to like it. Mr. Chesterton is coming to know mushrooms. He will soon be ordering them for breakfast. He may even come, like certain ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... of being roundly abused by everybody, and the consciousness of being different from everybody and of giving at least as good as ever you got at several things the world is silly enough to hold in worship—as the Toryism of Sir Walter, or the niceness of Popery, or the pleasures of Society: and is it not plain that Borrow was a man uncommon fortunate, and that he enjoyed life as greatly as most men not savages who have possessed the fruition of ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... of good preachers, who had been commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen of those parts, being great and hot protestants (almost before by policy discredited and disgraced), ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... point presents a double image of action baffled by wisdom. Hamlet baffles the dealing of the justice of Fate, and also the death plotted for him by his uncle. His weapon, in both cases, is his justice, his precise scrupulousness of mind, the niceness of mental balance which gives to all that he says the double-edge of wisdom. It is the faculty, translated into the finer terms of thought, which the ghost seeks to make real with bloodshed. Justice, in her grosser as in her finer form, is concerned ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... selfish, only caring about herself, a foreigner with a bad nature, caring really about nothing, having no proper feelings at the bottom of her, and no proper niceness. He raged, and piled up accusations that had some measure of truth in them all. But a certain grace in him forbade him from going too far. He knew, and he quivered with rage and hatred, that she was all these vile things, that she was everything vile ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... employee. While Jim's word was never questioned even by the veriest sceptic of the plains, McLagan was notoriously the greatest, most optimistic liar in the state of Montana. A reputation that required some niceness of proficiency ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting, telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic cares. The management ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... any plan that interfereth therewith. Are we not unawares, by little and little, tending to a separation from the Church? Oh, remove every tendency thereto with all diligence. Receive the Sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil; against calling our society a Church or the Church; against calling our preachers ministers and our houses meeting-houses: call them plain preaching-houses. Do not license yourself ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl, in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God not to be a little amended. But herein they rather disgrace than adorn their persons, as by their niceness in apparel, for which I say most nations do not unjustly deride us, as also for that we do seem to imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... and, though affectedly expressed, seizing some of the less obvious features of his character,—as, for instance, that diffidence so little to be expected from a career like his, with the discriminating niceness of a female hand. The following ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... time. The pretence that was her married life must end, she must be free. In her thought she went no farther. Rachael outwardly was no better than the other women of her world; inwardly there was in her nature an instinctive niceness, a hatred for what was coarse or base. For years the bond between her and Clarence Breckenridge had been only an empty word. But it was there, none the less, and before she could put any new plan into definite form, even in her own heart, it must ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour. But sink me now if I'd rot myself in rum on account of anything that wears a petticoat. That's not the Old Wolf's way. If there's no other expedition'll tempt you, why ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... make fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I'm sure there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun hadn't scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel carpet they've spread for you ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... Prof. BELL of an infant boy who used a combination of sounds given as "nyum-nyum," an evident onomatope of gustation, to mean "good," and not only in reference to articles of food relished but as applied to persons of whom the child was fond, rather in the abstract idea of "niceness" in general. It is a singular coincidence that a bright young girl, a friend of the writer, in a letter describing a juvenile feast, invented the same expression, with nearly the same spelling, as characteristic of her sensations regarding the delicacies provided. The Papuans met by Dr. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... admitted him to the little room which he and the great ape occupied. In former years Paulvitch had been a fastidious scoundrel; but ten years of hideous life among the cannibals of Africa had eradicated the last vestige of niceness from his habits. His apparel was wrinkled and soiled. His hands were unwashed, his few straggling locks uncombed. His room was a jumble of filthy disorder. As the boy entered he saw the great ape squatting upon the bed, the coverlets of which were a tangled wad of ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for a consent, put some aspic of pate de foie gras on her plate, and watched her satisfy her hunger with great pleasure, which was not lessened by the fact that, for all her hunger, she ate with a delicate niceness. He had feared from her neglected air that her manners had also been neglected. After the aspic, he carved the breast of the chicken for her, helped her to salad, and mixed the ice water with the sirop to exactly the strength he liked himself; after the chicken, he helped her to meringues, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... looked fairly unapproachable. His niceness, Miss Keating imagined, would keep him linked arm in arm with his sister, maintaining, unconsciously, inoffensively, his distance and distinction. He would manage better than the Colonel. He would not have to get up and go ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... a swell gentl'man," said Peaches, "and me and Mickey just loves him for his niceness to us; but we got that all settled. Mickey is going to write the po'try piece for the first page of the Herald—that's our paper—and then we are going to make all my pieces into a bu'ful book, like I ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... cathedral alone and reading 'Candide'!"—"The Old Margate Hoy" gives reminiscences of a visit to the popular resort—with some uncomplimentary asides at Hastings—in the days of the boy, "ill-exchanged for the foppery and freshwater niceness of the modern steampacket," the boy that asked "no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons." "The Convalescent" expatiates upon the allowable egoism of the occupant of a sick bed, upon his "regal solitude," and goes on to show "how convalescence shrinks a man back to his primitive ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... evening gown, but with none of her old niceness of detail. She merely put it on. Her wet hair she twisted into a knot without glancing at the mirror. As she entered the parlor she staggered slightly. Talbot averted his eyes. He may have had similar cases, and, as ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... see the niceness. He had thought to find her in the setting which belonged to her beauty. The silent night, the fragrance of the garden, the pale statues among the trees, and himself playing the game with a greater sense of its ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... All are not nice. The Damanarkist says there is a lot of rot in them, a lot of meanness and cheatingness, and nasty people who don't want other people to do well or to get in their way; but there's bound to be more niceness than nastiness, or the world couldn't go on. It couldn't without a lot of love. It takes a lot of love to stand life. I read that in a book. Maybe that's why we have Christmas—why the ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... had known that Henrietta was to suffer, she would have subdued her niceness, for if Francis had been in physical possession of her body, she would have had no difficulty in possessing his mind. Holding nothing back, she could also have held him securely. She did not want him, but Henrietta would ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... up. I was very humble, young westerner that I was in the scholastic town, and puzzled by the friendly nod. The man was no other than Longfellow, and in his politeness to me he was only following his invariable custom of greeting in a friendly way every student he met. His niceness of attire rather amused the boys of those days who, however, responded warmly to his friendliness and loved him much. This story was current. He had for some time been a famous man and was subjected to much persecution ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... absolute value, surrounded her with all the importance of her wit. That wit, as discriminated from stature and complexion, a sense for "bridge" and a credit for pearls, could have importance was meanwhile but dimly perceived at Matcham; so that his "niceness" to her—she called it only niceness, but it brought tears into her eyes—had the greatness of a general as well ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... to his mill, for he would split up considerable boulders with great exactness and skill, a feat that never came easily to me. Then there were the stone drains to be making, and the great talking about the run of the water, and the lie of the land, and the niceness with which we laid those drains! They were all joys to me. I dreamed green meadows and well-kept dykes and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... related how much the climate put him in mind of Italy. Such intelligence the Hebridians probably receive from their transmarine correspondents. But with equal temptations of interest, and perhaps with no greater niceness of veracity, the owners of the Islands spread stories of American hardships to keep their ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... he could, and ordered the suspension of their enforcement. In 1622 the lord keeper of the privy seal wrote to the judges that "it is his majesty's pleasure that they make no niceness or difficulty to extend the princely favor to all such as they shall find prisoners in the jails of their circuits for any church recusancy or refusing the oath of supremacy or dispensing of popish books, or any other point of recusancy that shall concern religion only and ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... artist. And she was a woman. A woman, at that epoch, dared not write an entirely honest novel! Nor a man either! Between Fielding and Meredith no entirely honest novel was written by anybody in England. The fear of the public, the lust of popularity, feminine prudery, sentimentalism, Victorian niceness—one or other ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... English authors, to prove the practice of immersion from the time the Britons and Saxons were baptized, till King James' days, when the people grew peevish with all ancient ceremonies, and through the love of novelty and the niceness of parents, and the pretense of modesty, they laid aside immersion." (History of Cold ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... us a morning of much niceness, like the present one, and we found that the schooner had been altogether taken, as honorable Carew remarked by one god of the sea, named David Jones. So we rowed around the volcano and came in this bay, and I knew the place from the memory I had of hearing the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... whatever was made to the Squire's somewhat uncivil conduct at their last meeting. Mr. Cox trusted that his dearest friend would come over and have another spell at the Moonbeam before he settled down for life;—and then hinted in language that was really delicate in the niceness of its expression, that if he, Cox, were but invited to spend a week or two at Newton Priory before he banished himself for life to Australia, he would be able to make his way over the briny deep ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... and requisite, said he, this may appear to my dear Pamela's niceness, it befits me to tell you, that I am every moment more and more pleased with the right you have to my name: and, my dear life, added he, I have only to wish I may be half as worthy as you are of the happy knot so lately knit. He then took a pen himself, and ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... pause, for something has been said that is not merely conversation. Very charmingly, and with a wonderful niceness of tone, the Distinguished Visitor accepts the opening that has ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... if I become the wife of the mayor of Los Angeles. I have grown to detest formality, dances and dinners and receptions and things. If there is one thing Reggie and I will quarrel about that will be it. He has always been invited everywhere and he enjoys the niceness of conventionality." ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... There was no niceness of feeling about this mountain of obesity in matters of business. He spoke as callously of the girl, for whom he entertained his unholy passion, as he would speak of a stranger. He experienced no compunction in linking her name with that of an outlaw. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness— Tell Wisdom she entangles Herself in over-wiseness; And when they do reply, Straight give ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Love.[1] ii. The Fatal Beauty of Agnes de Castro: Taken out of the History of Portugal. Translated from the French by P. B. G.[2] For R. Bentley' (12mo). Each has a separate title page. Bellon's version does not differ materially from Mrs. Behn, but she far exceeds him in spirit and niceness of style. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... hap that she saw with a sudden olden wisdom, all in one moment; and afterward did act lovingly, yet with understanding. And so did change from her intent; yet with no improperness of modesty; but only with a niceness of Sense, which she did make no talk of; but yet did have. And surely, how oft is a ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... They are thinking of themselves when they do so, and they will rarely say, "I might have married;" rarely within them will they avow that, with their permission, it might have been. They can catch an idea of a gentleman's view of the widow's cap. But a niceness that could feel sharply wounded by the simple rumour of his alliance with the young relict of an earl was mystifying. Sir Willoughby unbent. His military letter I took a careless glance at itself lounging idly and proudly at ease in the glass of his mind, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... charity, and justice, substituting interest in the room of conscience, authorizing and commending for good and wise, all ways serving to private advantage. There are implacable dissensions, fierce animosities, and bitter zeals sprung up; there is an extreme curiosity, niceness, and delicacy of judgment; there is a mighty affectation of seeming wise and witty by any means; there is a great unsettlement of mind, and corruption of manners, generally diffused over people; from which sources it is ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... steps, when one would do, lost her reputation for "faculty." Certainly such an early drill was of use in developing the health and the bodily powers, as well as in giving precision to the practical mental faculties. All household economies were arranged with equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper knew just how many sticks of hickory of a certain size were required to heat her oven, and how many of each different kind of wood. She knew by a sort of intuition just what ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dangerous missiles, through the air. The greatest effect of the great cause was her own greater importance, chiefly revealed to her in the larger freedom with which she was handled, pulled hither and thither and kissed, and the proportionately greater niceness she was obliged to show. Her features had somehow become prominent; they were so perpetually nipped by the gentlemen who came to see her father and the smoke of whose cigarettes went into her face. Some of these gentlemen made her strike matches and light their cigarettes; others, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... profusion of little statues and other ornaments"; and the cathedral at Siena, which Addison had characterized as "barbarous," and as an instance of "false beauties and affected ornaments," Gray commends as "labored with a Gothic niceness and delicacy in the old-fashioned way." It must be acknowledged that these are rather cold praises, but Gray was continually advancing in his knowledge of Gothic and his liking for it. Later in life he became something of an antiquarian and virtuoso. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... figure in the history of the time. He has obtained the immortality which he so much desired, and we are, therefore, entitled and obliged to scrutinize his conduct with a niceness which would be ungracious and unnecessary in the case of a less distinguished man. After Pharsalia he had concluded that the continuance of the war would be unjustifiable. He had put himself in communication with Antony and Caesar's friend and secretary Oppius, and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... your niceness that your husband should dress like a tramp, does it?" he said hoarsely. "And pray whose fault is it that he is reduced to doing so? Judging by your own costume, you can easily remove that cause of offence if you choose. It does not occur to you, perhaps, that while you ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... same.— Interesting conversation with Lovelace. He frightens her. He mentions settlements. Her modest encouragements of him. He evades. True generosity what. She requires his proposals of settlements in writing. Examines herself on her whole conduct to Lovelace. Maidenly niceness not her motive for the distance she has kept him at. What is. Invites her correction if she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... girl: the nicest girl that Horace had ever met with, because her charming niceness included a faculty of being really serious about serious things—and yet she could be deliciously gay. In short, she was a revelation to Horace. And her name was Ella, and she had come one year to spend some weeks with Mrs Penkethman, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... reflected, yet she had none of the professional air, the faded niceness of face and manner which he associated with the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... infant orphanage. Such promise of diversion as this imbroglio had, it was rendered still more to the taste of the audience by the license which the actors allowed themselves. Belviso was perfection as the simple country girl; one could hardly credit a lad of his age with such niceness of observation, such humorous yet whimsical representation of an honest, foolish young woman flattered by the attention of a villain. His "La la," his "Sissioria," and "'Lustrissimo, si!" which marked so well the growth of ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... decorations, including the Colonel, when the Americans began to arrive, three young officers and two who had hardened into warlike middle age. It was heart-warming to see them meet Mr. Beckett, and their chivalric niceness to Brian and me was somehow different from any other ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ascertain what was the charm that rendered her so fascinating when a girl, and endeavour to keep it up when she has become a wife. One great thing undoubtedly was, the chariness of herself and her conduct, which an unmarried female always observes. She should maintain the same niceness and reserve in her person and habits, and endeavour still to preserve a freshness and virgin delicacy in the eye of her husband. She should remember that the province of woman is to be wooed, not ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... concentration of the united attention of the family for Morgan's benefit was somewhat disconcerting. The girls vied with each other in pressing plum-cake upon him, and seemed to view his refusal as a personal rebuff. He did not understand just then that each considered a bit of her own niceness went into the cake when held towards him with her own hand, and that it was this niceness he was rejecting. As for the cake, they took it for granted that there could be no difficulty about disposing of that. Before the end, Morgan got the sensation of having the food rammed ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of Redmond, and that is a link between us. We fished and boated together; and we walked on the sands by moonlight. He didn't look so homely by moonlight and oh, he was nice. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. The old ladies—except Mrs. Grant—don't approve of Jonas, because he laughs and jokes—and because he evidently likes the society of frivolous me better ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and Plot obscene. No Woman without Vizard in the Nation Can see it twice, and keep her reputation— That's certain, Forgetting— That he himself, in every gross Lampoon, Her leuder Secrets spread about the Town; Whilst their feign'd Niceness is but cautious Fear, Their own Intrigues ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... if anybody couldn't see through that little thrick! To call her for a fightin' ould warrior that bet Cromwell an' held his own in spite of him! An' her havin' to grow up a young lady with nothin' but niceness in her! Ah, then now, madam, why didn't ye call her Mary, the same ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... were only the human element that counted, everyone would stay at the brassworks forever. I feel like a snake in the grass, walking off "on them" when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment the "dearie" kind of niceness that made you feel it was orders from above. From our floor boss down, they were people who were born to treat a body square. All the handicaps against them—the work itself, the surroundings, the low pay—had so ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... this as if she had been born to it. She was born to it, for it's just the kind of thing she'd have made for herself if she'd had the means. No show, no fuss, just niceness! And it's the sort of thing my wife shall have, somehow, even in the country, before long. We'll bring this there; she'll know how. There's no patent on it. Bless her—how George deserves this! If only Jean could ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... soon became tired of her. He liked her flattery, and at first declared that she was clever and nice, but her niceness was too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes. Mackinnon himself can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth, but when his foot is on ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... contrive en route a few obstacles which will intrigue the reader a marriage announcement in the newspapers would be more economical and quite as interesting. It is difficult to be "nice" and "funny," I know, and it was very noble of Miss WIGGIN if one quality had to be left out to cling to the niceness; but I hope that in her next book she will manage to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... without softness, and the jaws thrust forward with the effect as of balled fists. One ear was slightly larger than the other, having the appearance of a swelling upon the lobe. In this unlovely visage, filled with distrust and concentrated venom, only the nose retained an incongruous and unexpected niceness. It was a good straight nose, yet it had something of the pleasant tiptiltedness of a child's. It was the sort of nose which should have complemented a mouth formed for spontaneous laughter. It looked lonesome and out of place in ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... shook his head. He had heard more; and for all that he accounted her at present safe from Marius, yet he made no false estimate of that supple gentleman's character, was not deluded by his momentary show of niceness. As the time of Florimond's arrival grew nearer, he thought it very possible that Marius might be rendered desperate. There was grave danger in remaining. He said naught of this, yet he convinced mademoiselle that it ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... pay for!" she said eloquently. "She's so kind! I love that woman for all her niceness to me. I told you I had no right to pay so much rent. I came in just for a few weeks until I could find something else, and I haven't had the heart to move. I've been in such holes, and had such awful landladies. They seem divided into two big ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have since had reason to think that I was mistaken; for I have been informed by a lady, who was long intimate with her, and likely to be a more accurate observer of such matters, that she had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full. BOSWELL. Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, ii. 84, says:—'I dined with Dr. Johnson as seldom as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Johnson, Miss Seward, and others were present, a curious little discussion arose on the subject. Boswell thus relates the incident and the conversation:—"The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table, where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, avowed that 'he always found a good dinner,' he said, 'I could write a better book about cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... very nice about my friend. Indeed, he was always nice, with the niceness of people whose hearts are genuinely humane. But this time it cost him an effort. His attempts at general conversation broke down into dullness. It occurred to me he might have been indisposed. But before I could frame the ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... heroine. She was in what are called reduced circumstances, and was moreover encumbered by sisters who were not quite all that could have been wished in the way of niceness. One day Penelope, looking through an iron gate, saw a beautiful garden, full of flowers; and the master of the garden, himself unseen, saw Penelope, and loved her. So she accepted the invitation of his voice and went into the garden and found that the master was a young ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passage as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... a very sulky attitude at the corner where the railings were. In his heart of hearts he was extremely anxious that Flossy's mission should fail. It seemed to him that every bit of the niceness, all the interest would go out of his life if he hadn't Dickory. In some ways he considered that Dickory was more to him than she was to Flossy. He wondered how Flossy could even talk of parting with her. He hoped sincerely she would fail ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... battle was fought; upon the receipt of which he would at once have marched away home, and left the Achaeans to look to themselves. But Fortune, that loves to determine the greatest affairs by a minute, in this conjuncture showed such an exact niceness of time, that immediately after the battle in Sellasia was over, and Cleomenes had lost his army and his city, the messengers came up and called for Antigonus. And this above everything made Cleomenes's misfortune to be pitied; for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... very highly augmented: insomuch as I cannot but shrive myself thus freely and soothly unto you. That, albeit, among a number of natural imperfections, I have least of all offended in the humour of ambition, yet now so it is, that I do somewhat repent me of my too much niceness that way: not as carried with an appetite to rake more riches to myself (wherein, God is my witness, my content is complete) but only in respect of my greedy desire to make a livelier demonstration of the same that I bear to my COMMON MOTHER, than I have hitherto attained sufficient ability ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... now! Here's a young ruffian for you! My chicken, you'll leave this jolly sharp. I used to keep you about out of niceness. Yes, I did! You may stare! Did you think I was going to be your mamma till I died? I've got better things to do than to bring ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... teasing her into an intrigue required a more delicate appreciation of the passions than the stock situations in love stories afforded. Obliged to draw upon her own resources, Mrs. Haywood handled the incidents with a niceness that could hardly have been expected from the author of "Love in Excess." Her sense for vraisemblance protected her from many absurdities, though not from all. For instance, when Idalia to preserve herself ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... had denied Jessie the niceness given girls by the complexities of modern civilization. She had been brought up close to raw stark nature. The habits of animals were familiar to her and the vices of the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... points;' an heraldic term, expressive of the exact position of the various bearing on the shield—a scrupulous or superstitious niceness as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... more easily than you will forgive yourself. Yes, there is something you can do—if you ever discover that another poor fellow is in love with you—and you are the sort of girl whom men will love—remember me and spare him this experience. Don't go on being 'nice' to him. That kind of niceness is the worst ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I found here a flower garden, which was no less extraordinary in its kind. It contained a spacious plot, not watered so profusely as the former, but with greater niceness, furnishing no more water than just what each flower required. The roses, jessamines, violets, daffodils, hyacinths, anemonies, tulips, pinks, lilies, and an infinite number of flowers, which do not grow in other places but at certain times, were there flourishing ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... words, If you mean me honourably, let me go out of this hated house, in came Mrs. Sinclair, in a great ferment —And what, pray, Madam, has this house done to you? Mr. Lovelace, you have known me some time; and, if I have not the niceness of this lady, I hope I do not deserve to be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... about its being nice. I don't find much niceness in it. Had I not got myself married I should never have come back. But it's as well that you all should know that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... amiable readers will be quite glad that she doesn't have to suffer as much as such geese would if they existed in real life. You can see from this that it is one of those books that are full of real niceness and goodwill, and it has besides plenty of plot and lots of interesting characters, and yet somehow it gives you the feeling of being out of focus. You read on, expecting every moment that clever Miss WEBLING will give things a little push in the right direction and make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... to the beauties of the external world, cultivate this sense to such a degree that they can distinguish objects with great accuracy. And the rapidity with which they read books prepared for their use, is a convincing proof of the niceness and extent to which the cultivation of this sense can ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... commanded in the Koran and being only a practice of the Prophet, the rite is not indispensable for converts, especially the aged and the sick. Our ideas upon the subject are very hazy, for modern "niceness" allows a "Feast of the Circumcision," but no discussion thereon. Moses (alias Osarsiph) borrowed the rite from the Egyptian hierophants who were all thus "purified"; the object being to counteract the over-sensibility of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... after the close heat of the narrow London streets, and the bright parsonage garden, and the pleasant services of the country church,—and doubtless also the luxuries of a rich, well-ordered household. Those calculations of her mother had not been made without a true basis. The softness, the niceness, the ease, the grace of the people around her, won upon her day by day, and hour by hour. The pleasant idleness of the drawing-room, with its books and music, and unstrained chatter of family voices, grew upon her as so many new charms. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... pleasure or duty, hundreds of older ones in each literature, I think that the mysterious quality of readableness pure and simple has more generally belonged to the French novel than to the English. This, as I have endeavoured to point out, is not a question of naughtiness or niceness, of candour or convention. I have indeed admitted that the conventions of the French novel bore me quite as much as anything in ours. It may be partly a question of length, for, as everybody knows, the French took to the average single volume, of some three hundred not very ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... men who take care of themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another? The man who does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom women are keen. Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that excess of niceness to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any woman who has had a passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable man? If such a fact has occurred, we must put it to the account of those morbid ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... here it is for you. I need—what shall I say?—a kind of friendly lead in the matter of establishing myself on the right footing, among the right people—and that's what you can do for me. Mind—I'd prefer to put it all in quite another way; I'd like to say it was all niceness on your part, all gratitude on mine. But if you want to consider it on a business basis—why there you have ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... cryptic signal she flashed slipped unseen from Maria Angelina's vision. Johnny Byrd was nice, but it was a gay, cheery, everyday sort of niceness, she thought, with none of the quicksilver charm of the young man at the dinner dance. . . . And she was unimpressed by Johnny's money. She took the millionaires in America as for granted ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... friend. I submitted to obscurity and poverty, for I was blessed with a faithful wife in your angel-mother. Thanks be to Heaven, she lives not to see this day!—I have fought and bled for my King. I have endured hardships which would paralyze your pampered niceness to hear described. For eleven months I fed on carrion, reposed on filth, deafened with the sound of battering cannon, the shouts of besieging rebels, and the groans of dying comrades. I have swam across ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... have shewn in my Remarks. And these that I have here chosen, are no ways inferior to Terence's in matters of Plot and Intreague, but in some respects superior, tho' not so elaborately wrought up, or always with that Niceness; so that these may undoubtedly prove excellent Models for our Poets Imitation, provided they observe Differences of Tastes, Humours, Ages, and Persons, and keep to those principal Beauties they already possess, some of which are undoubtedly above ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... you in this miserable scrap of paper!... Our dinner-hour is three when we are actors, five when we are ladies and gentlemen. The food we get here in New York is very indifferent. It was excellent in quality in Philadelphia, but wherever we have been there is a want of niceness and refinement in the cooking and serving everything that is ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practise of all that which is praiseworthy. These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I might be (which let envy call pride), and lastly that modesty, whereof, tho not in the title-page, yet here I may be excused to make some beseeming profession; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... not for a thousand pound, unless you would encourage her beforehand as she wishes to be encouraged. One hint I am to give you mean time. It is this: To make a discreet use of your pen and ink. Methinks a young creature of niceness should be less ready to write to one man, when she is designed to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... has undeniably a certain gift for mechanics. The people are deft with their fingers and do everything neatly. This shows itself in their ingeniously constructed wooden locks and in the niceness with which they stuff animals. They are also very clever in following tracks, and even recognise the hoof-prints of particular horses among others in the same trail. They will also tell you that a tired deer keeps its toes more closely together than an animal just aroused from its lair. And ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Solmes is a coarse man. He is not delicate enough for your niceness; because I suppose he dresses not like a fop and a coxcomb, and because he lays not himself out in complimental nonsense, the poison of female minds. He is a man of sense, that I can tell you. No man talks more to the purpose ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... without further trouble, but think how draughty it makes the place unless a plug is put to close this hole at night, and by day too in cold weather. I also notice that these French houses show signs of natty niceness which one would not see in an English farmhouse. For instance, in my sleeping-room, instead of nails being driven into the walls for hanging clothes on, there is a brass hook with a china knob like any Christian household. I ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... his big Mercedes trying to realise his bliss, was jilted before Brigit had spoken a word. Like a flash, his image seemed to stand before her, beside the delightful boy-man whose youth and niceness pleaded so strongly to her. She did not consider that breaking her word was not fair play, she had no thought of pity for Pontefract. She loved nobody, and therefore thought solely of herself. This boy was right. She would be happier with him than with poor, ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten |
