"Sloven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drums And sun-smit brass of trumpets; then The scarlet wall of marching men, Midmost of which great Mavors sets The colours girt with bayonets. Yes, there were you—and there was I, Unshaved, and with erratic tie, And for that once I yearn'd to shun My social system's central sun. How could a sloven slave express The frank, the manly tenderness That wraps you round from common thought, And does not ask that you should know The love that consecrates you so. No; furtive, awkward, restless, cold, I basely seemed to set at naught That sudden bliss, undreamt, unsought. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... myself in my first lecture, that Cambridge is the home of accurate scholarship? Surely no Cambridge man would willingly be a sloven in speech, oral or written? Surely here, if anywhere, should be acknowledged of all what Newman says of the classics, that 'a certain unaffected neatness and propriety and grace of diction may be required of any author, for the same reason that a certain attention to dress is expected of every ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... adopt them were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of legal practitioners—attorneys ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... to listen to this harangue on her own ill-conduct in silence. As it was the first lecture Mr. Fitch had heard on the subject, he naturally set down Caroline for a monster. Was she not idle, sulky, scornful, and a sloven? For these and many more of her daughter's vices Mrs. Gann vouched, declaring that Caroline's behaviour was hastening her own death; and she finished by a fainting fit. In the presence of all these charges, there stood Miss Caroline, dumb, stupid and careless; nay, when the fainting-fit came ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... George's wife. Now she could not believe that she was destined to live on with a man who was becoming a confirmed dyspeptic, who thought she was a poor housekeeper, an extravagant shopper, a wretched cook, and worse than all, a sloven about her personal appearance. Emeline really was all these things at times, and suspected it, but she had never been shown how to do anything else, and she denied all ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... carrying a letter! Well, his pleasure shall be done, however; and as his lordship well says, it may do me good another time. The child must creep ere he walk, and so must your infant courtier. I will have a look into this letter, however, which he hath sealed so sloven-like." Having accomplished this, he clapped his hands together in ecstasy, exclaiming, "The Countess the Countess! I have the secret that shall make or mar me.—But come forth, Bayard," he added, leading his ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... as a dangerous exercise, and being shaved in a barber's shop meant exposure of his infirmity. He could not see that his clothes were properly brushed, and since he had never taken any care of his personal appearance he became every known variety of sloven. A blind man cannot deal with cleanliness till he has been some months used to the darkness. If he demand attendance and grow angry at the want of it, he must assert himself and stand upright. Then the meanest menial can see that he is blind and, therefore, of no consequence. A wise man ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... jam, it's a sloven's refuge, and no more to be said. And prayer's the same. The best printed prayer's no better than bought mixed at four-pence the pound, and a ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Speech; as, [Sidenote: Preface, p. 21.] Lord, what a Filthy Croud is here; Bless me! what Devil has rak'd this Rabble together; Z—-nds, what squeezing is this! A Plague confound you for an overgrown Sloven? Who in the Devil's Name, I wonder, helps to make up the Crowd half so much as your self? Don't you consider with a Pox, that you take up more room with that Carcass than any Five here? Bring your own ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... young man might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in the apartments,—clean, new, well-furnished; but all things in the most horrible litter,—all speaking of the huge literary sloven. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attired himself with unusual care for the occasion. To a companion who, noting the new suit of clothes, the new wig nicely powdered, and all else in harmony, commented on his appearance, Johnson rejoined, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example." The house where that supper party was held has disappeared, but in the Cheshire Cheese nearby there yet survives ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... you got to talking of the view before you left. In this pleasant study he lived among the books, which seemed to multiply from case to case and shelf to shelf, and climb from floor to ceiling. Everything was in exquisite order, and the desk where he wrote was as scrupulously neat as if the sloven disarray of most authors' desks were impossible to him. He had a number of ingenious little contrivances for helping his work, which he liked to show you; for a time a revolving book-case at the corner ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tell me something of the President, sir? Do you admire him? And is it true he is such a sloven in dress ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... 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 affections of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float through the minds of everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most remarkable people left in the lurch because of their carelessness. ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... of the old bard of Brittany that "he who will not answer to the rudder must answer to the rocks"; and not a few writers of prose-fiction have made shipwreck because they gave no heed to this warning. Many a novelist is a sloven in the telling of his tale, beginning it anywhere and ending it somehow, distracting attention on characters of slight importance, huddling his incidents, confusing his narrative, simply because he has ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... present appearance, therefore, was the least of my care, which was wholly engrossed in laying up a stock of instruction that might secure me against the caprice of fortune for the future. I became such a sloven, and contracted such an air of austerity, that everybody pronounced me crestfallen; and Gawky returned to town without running any risk from my resentment, which was by this time pretty much cooled, and restrained by prudential reasons so effectually that I never so much as thought ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... much improved. He used to be quite a sloven in his dress; you know how very slovenly most American gentlemen are in their dress, at any rate. I think that influenced ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... judging. If it be careless, slovenly, if it do not fit properly, no matter for its mean quality: mean as it may be, it may be neatly and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a sloven in one thing is a sloven in all things. The country-people judge greatly from the state of the covering of the ancles and, if that be not clean and tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what it ought to be. Look at the shoes! ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... contrast to his wife's semi-formal dress, he was unkempt—unshaven and soiled. He wore spurred boots and a soft shirt; his nails were grimy. When in the city he contrived to garb himself immaculately; he was in fact something of a dandy; but at home he was a sloven, and openly reveled in a freedom of speech and a coarseness of manner that were sad trials to Alaire. His preparations for dinner this evening had been characteristically simple; he had drunk three dry cocktails and flung his ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!—wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal—wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation—from these sins he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... to gain a heart; but who thinks of giving the same advice to men, though women are continually stigmatized for being attached to fops; and from the nature of their education, are more susceptible of disgust? Yet why a woman should be expected to endure a sloven, with more patience than a man, and magnanimously to govern herself, I cannot conceive; unless it be supposed arrogant in her to look for respect as well as a maintenance. It is not easy to be pleased, because, after promising to love, in different circumstances, we are told that it is our duty. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... and encounters of the greatest splendor, in which he bore a chief part. Inwardly he was all thrones, principalities, and powers, the foe of tyrants, the friend of good emperors, and the intimate of magicians, and magnificently apparelled; outwardly he was an incorrigible little sloven, who suffered in all social exigencies from the direst bashfulness, and wished nothing so much as to shrink out of the sight of men if they spoke to him. He could not help revealing sometimes to the kindness of his father and mother ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells |
