"Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... qualities for which we may legitimately prize them, though we may not spend money for them until actual nutritive requirements are met. Dr. Simon Patten, in his New Basis for Civilisation, ably expresses the value of appetizers: "Tomatoes, the hothouse delicacy of the Civil War time, are doing now what many a bloody revolution failed to accomplish; they have relieved the monotony of the salt pork and boiled potatoes upon the poor man's table. The clear acid flavor of the canned vegetable ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... and a gentleman, Mr. Effingham had looked forward to this passage with a good deal of concern, on account of his daughter, while he shrank with the sensitiveness of his habits from the necessity of exposing one of her delicacy and plastic simplicity to the intercourse of a ship. Accompanied by Mademoiselle Viefville, watched over by Nanny, and guarded by himself and his kinsman, he had lost some of his apprehensions on the subject during the three ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... I could not be so crude as to speak outright, but I might finesse, as you whist-players say. Accomplish the same end, only with greater delicacy. After all, a ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... a right to say "Balzac ought to have put more delicacy, more subtlety into his style," or to say, "Balzac ought to have eliminated those long descriptions." Balzac is Balzac; and that ends it. If you prefer the manner of Henry James, by all means read him ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... thought of Ida May always brought Peter to Cissie; it always stirred up in him a desire to make this young girl's path gentle and smooth. There was a fineness, a delicacy about Cissie, that, it seemed to Peter, Ida May had never possessed. Then, too, Cissie was moved by a passion for self-betterment. She deserved a cleaner field than the Niggertown of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... whose childhood was bright with promise endures an after-life of misery because, through a false delicacy, she remained ignorant of her physical nature and requirements, although on all other subjects she may be well-informed; and so at length she goes to her grave mourning the hard fate that has made existence a burden, and perhaps wondering to what end she was born, ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... displaced nasal septum, and burning the thickened mucous lining obstructing the air passages in the nose. None of the operations are dangerous if skillfully performed, and should be generally done, even in the case of delicate children, as the very means of overcoming this delicacy. The after treatment is not unimportant, consisting in the use of simple generous diet, as plenty of milk, bread and butter, green vegetables and fresh meat, and the avoidance of pastries, sweets, fried food, pork, salt fish and ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... wall about it and containing a thickish liquid (protoplasm). The cambium cells are brick-shaped, and are placed end to end, with layer overlapping layer, like bricks in the wall of a building. The microscopic structure of cambium tissue gives us a clearer conception of its extreme delicacy. It is one of the most sensitive and delicate substances in all nature. Exposure to the air will kill it and completely destroy its functions in a few seconds. It is easily crushed by slight pressure ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... of Matthew's sore sickness at the House Beautiful. The cause of the sore sickness, its symptoms, its serious nature, and its complete cures are all told with the utmost plainness; but, at the same time, with the most exquisite delicacy. Bunyan calls the ancient physician who is summoned in and who effects the cure, Mr. Skill, but you must believe that Bunyan himself is Mr. Skill; and I question if this skilful writer ever wrote a more skilful page than just this page that now lies open before ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite savor ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... the invisible cords of a feeling of justice in matters scientific. In its weaker portions Schleiermacher's philosophy is marked by lack of grasp, pettiness, and sportiveness. It lacks courage and force, and the rare delicacy of the thought is not entirely able to compensate for this defect. In its fear of one-sidedness it takes refuge in the arms of an often faint-hearted policy ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... turning to the company, "ye make up your mind to do about me, I reckon ye'd better do it AFTER the funeral. I'M always ready. But HE, what with being in a box and changing climate, had better go FIRST." He paused, and with a suggestion of delicacy in the momentary dropping of ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... not permit us to spread the veil which we should otherwise be desirous to cast over such enormities among an order so sacred.... The example of the bishops was ambitiously imitated by the presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station, abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus their functions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges; and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order" (p. ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... what man of sense would ever venture to be of your mad parties? Such as do follow you are robbed of their strength when they are young, void of wisdom when they grow old. In their youth they are bred up in indolence and all manner of delicacy, and pass their old age with difficulties and distress, full of shame for what they have done, and oppressed with the burden of what they are to do, squanderers of pleasures in their youth, and hoarders up of afflictions for ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... the condition of the free negroes, North and South! Look at Africa—behold the African race the world over, and then tell me from whence come their universal poverty, ignorance and degradation. The African possesses none of that sensitiveness—that acuteness of sensibility—that delicacy and refinement of taste, which characterize the white race. There is with the African a predominance of the animal propensities, and with him, their gratification, constitutes the sum total of life and all its enjoyments. He knows no other enjoyment, he has no higher ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... which people of my profession or temperament are wont to dismiss as "emotional." I have had strange occasion to learn that this is a deep and delicate word, which can never be scientifically used, which cannot be so much as elementally understood, except by delicacy and by depth. These are precisely the qualities of which this is to be said,—he who most lacks them will be ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... his right, and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings—which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day; when he said, 'Pell,' he said, 'no false delicacy, Pell. You're a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.' Those were his very words. 'My lord,' I said, 'you flatter me.' 'Pell,' he said, 'if I do ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... an anxiety which delicacy of feeling had hitherto prevented her expressing. Sidney at once spoke reassuringly, though he had in fact no little suspicion of ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... fellow in the neighbourhood of thirty-five; browned by an out-of-door life, but marked by a delicacy of feature and expression. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject done with, even though I should be under his father's roof for years and years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Darwin says he does not know), "and appear not in individuals subjected to new conditions" (What organism can pass through life without being subjected to more or less new conditions? What life is ever the exact fac-simile of another? And in a matter of such extreme delicacy as the adjustment of psychical and physical relations, who can say how small a disturbance of established equilibrium may not involve how great a rearrangement?), "but in the offspring of all, though more freely in the offspring ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Trees"—that group of some half-dozen forest giants that arch overhead with such superb loftiness. But in all the world there is no cathedral whose marble or onyx columns can vie with those straight, clean, brown tree-boles that teem with the sap and blood of life. There is no fresco that can rival the delicacy of lace-work they have festooned between you and the far skies. No tiles, no mosaic or inlaid marbles, are as fascinating as the bare, russet, fragrant floor outspreading about their feet. They are the acme of Nature's architecture, and ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... himself with an air of indifference on to a purple divan, and desired that a magnificent lyre made of ivory, and presented to him by his sister, should be brought to him; on it was carved with wonderful skill and delicacy a representation of the first marriage, that of Cadmus with Harmonia, at which all the gods ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... so little beauty, it is rather a mood of the soul that Donatello has set himself to express than any delight. He has turned away from physical beauty, in which man can no longer believe, using the body refined almost to the delicacy and transparency of a shell, in which the soul may shine, or at least be seen, in all its moods of happiness or terror. That weary figure who, unconscious of his cross, unconscious of the world, absorbed in his own destiny, in the scroll ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... conversation on the small-pox, I should have imagined we had been honored with her identical presence. This opinion might have been heightened by the good sense she uttered whenever she spoke, by the delicacy of her sentiments, and the complacence of her behavior, together with a certain dignity which attended every look, word, and gesture; qualities which could not fail making an impression on a heart [6] so capable of receiving ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... reports as to the condition of the Princess Maria Anna's health appear not to have been without foundation. Hurter mentions her delicacy, and Koch says that she was unhealthy. She died on the 8th ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... nanus, the Lace fern. No foliage is more beautiful than the feathery light green sprays of this asparagus. Notwithstanding its delicacy, it keeps wonderfully well when cut. The plants can be grown as pot plants, or as vines. If wanted for the former purpose, keep the sprays pinched back at twelve inches, and the roots rather restricted. For vines, keep in large ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... Austrian court, but that minister was too deeply immersed in state-intrigues, to know much about those of a more tender nature. The tumultuous hurry of business and ambition, left no room in his mind for the delicious delicacy of sentiment and passion, so very essential to a man ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... and multiplied every day. He read to her the secret book in his own handwriting, composed for Richard's Marriage Guide: containing Advice and Directions to a Young Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive character of the divers ages of love, giving the palm to the flower she put forth, over that of Spring, or the Summer rose. And while they sat and talked; "My wound has ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Himebaugh's east forty. Alonzo had took Doc Maybury out and passes me coming back. 'How bad was she hurt?' I asks. The poor thing looks down greatly embarrassed and mumbles: 'She has broken a limb.' 'Leg or arm?' I blurts out, forgetting all delicacy. You'd think I had him pinned down, wouldn't you? Not Lon, though. 'A lower limb,' says he, coughing ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... away from the Palace, and was sure to send pressing messages for his return. A letter has been preserved,[3] which indicates that services were rendered by him that were not strictly professional. Indeed, he was often employed as an adviser in affairs of peculiar delicacy and importance, and his judgment and tact in their arrangement were ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... be. Our characters will never reach the refinement, the delicacy, the unworldliness, the dependence upon God, which they require for their completion, unless we have been passed through many a sorrow. There are plants which require a touch of frost to perfect them, and we all need the discipline ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... have given me in seating me at the head of your table involves a duty of weight and delicacy. At such a board as this, where Genius sits smiling at Geniality, the President becomes a formality, and the burden of his duty is to make himself a pleasant nobody, yet natural to the position. Like the apprentice of the armorer, it is my task only to hold ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... feeling in the fall of the hand towards the spectator, for it is thrown off the middle of the body in order to show its fine cutting. Now the Mocenigo hand, severe and even stiff in its articulations, has its veins finely drawn, its sculptor having justly felt that the delicacy of the veining expresses alike dignity and age and birth. The Vendramin hand is far more laboriously cut, but its blunt and clumsy contour at once makes us feel that all the care has been thrown away, and well it may be, for it has been entirely ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... said something about the Queen, expressing gracious wishes for the comfort of her Majesty in all these matters, something of the inconvenience of these political journeys to and fro, something also of the delicacy and difficulty of the operations on hand which were enhanced by the necessity of bringing men together as cordial allies who had hitherto acted with bitter animosity one to another, before the younger ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... was about to do something, shall we say, unworthy of you all?" Thrush made the suggestion with much delicacy. ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... study the desultory habits which characterized all her efforts to obtain an education. When she sat down to her piano, however, nature was her strong ally. Her ear was fine and correct, and her sensitive, fanciful spirit gave delicacy and originality to her touch. It scarcely seems possible for one to become a sympathetic musician without a large degree of imagination and a nature easily moved by thought and feeling. The young girl's thoughts and feelings were as yet very vague, not concentrated on definite ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... tame beside the puissant liquor that, after half a century's subjection to southern suns, enters slowly on its prime, with abated fire, but undiminished strength. Drink it then, and you will own, that from the juice of no other grape can be drawn such subtlety of flavor, such delicacy of fragrance, passing the perfume of flowers. Climate of course is the first consideration. I believe Baltimore and Savannah limit, northward and southward, the region wherein the maturing process can ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... illiterate. Coke, in a previous generation, had declared that it was felony even to counsel the King to tolerate Catholics; and Usher, that it was a deadly sin. The King had neither the good sense nor the delicacy of feeling to guide him through these perils. His difficulties, and the complications which ensued, belong to the province of the English historian, but they were not the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... ribs were entirely displaced, the lungs were carefully laid aside. Extraordinary delicacy seemed called for here. Billie shortly began to wonder if it were not high time to quit when her agent, assisted as before, calmly exposed the patient's heart to ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... for doubt is this: all creatures affected by song have acute hearing, and this sense of hearing, a vigilant sentinel, should give warning of danger at the slightest sound. The birds have an exquisite delicacy of hearing. If a leaf stirs among the branches, if two passers-by exchange a word, they are suddenly silent, anxious, and on their guard. But the Cigale is far from sharing in such emotions. It has ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... by this exhibition of delicacy on the part of Maitre Quennebert, blushed, cast down her eyes, and did ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... innate delicacy forbidding him to enter without permission, and waited until Mrs. Mencke ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... her mother, but far more subtly beautiful. Her skin was pale, but of such a texture that Thyrza's roses-and-milk looked rough and common beside it. Every inch of the proud little head was covered with close short curls leaving the white neck free, and the hand lifted to her mouth was of a waxen delicacy. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... even for making herself conspicuous as long as she herself knew that she was doing nothing wrong. Hence arose a mixture of inconsistencies, the questionable sense of which she was incapable of grasping. It was clearly impossible for her not to lose all real sense of delicacy; she showed, however, a sense of the fitness of things, which made her have regard to what was considered proper, though she could not understand that mere appearances were a mockery when they only ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... passed off without any such hubbub, except where the pieces were of such a character as to offend the delicacy and modesty of some of those crouching, fawning, bootlicking ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... considered he was "taking a liberty" if he had confronted the sinner with his sin. Doubtless he carried this too far. But don't suppose for a moment that the "weak brethren" thought he was conniving at their weakness. Not they—they saw the delicacy of his conduct. You don't think, do you, that these poor souls are incapable of appreciating delicacy? God only knows how far down into their depths of misery and degradation the sweetness of that delicacy descends. It haunts the drunkard's dreams, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... spirit caught its airiness and seemed borne upwards as on wings of down. I was about to clasp on my precious necklace and bracelets of hair, when observing Edith's beautiful pearl ornaments, corresponding so well with the delicacy and whiteness of her apparel, I laid them aside, resolving to wear no added decoration but the flowers, consecrated as the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the pistols and locked up the powder and balls some time before. He grew morbidly irritable, and resented Paul's remonstrances, which, we may be sure, were made with all the tact and consideration of natural delicacy and unselfish affection, generally by laughing at the poor poet, which was the most effectual way of restoring his courage and good-humor. One morning he emerged from his seclusion, and with vindictive ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... tails, are forking over the damned into frying-pans, while Satan devours them as fast as cooked, is common-place and vulgar. At the same time, it is certain that the whole composition shows much poetry of invention and delicacy of finish. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... from this collection, which, he trusts, will some day find another medium of publication. He has been able to ascertain the authorship, in many cases, of these writings; but must regret still that so many others, under a too fastidious delicacy, deny that their names should be made known. It is to be hoped that they will hereafter be supplied. To the numerous ladies who have so frankly and generously contributed to this collection, by sending originals and making copies, he begs to offer ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... months. About mid-day, when the sun in all its power shoots his golden rays perpendicularly on the waters, illuminating every large hole even in the profoundest depths, the large fish leave them, and, ascending to the surface, remain under the cool shade of the trees, watching for whatever tit-bit or delicacy the stream may bring with it, while others prefer a quiet saunter, or, with the dorsal fin above the water, lie so still and stationary near some lily or other aquatic plant, that they ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... feeling and sentiment, the judgment of woman is said to surpass that of our sex,—her more sensitive instincts carrying her to heights which our blind strength fails to reach. If this be true, Jefferson in some respects resembled woman. We have already alluded to the delicacy of his organization; it was strangely delicate, indeed, for one who had so many solid qualities. Like woman, he was constant rather than passionate; he had her refinement, disliking rude company and coarse pleasures,—her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... both being beautiful, you can eat the one and not the other. At any rate, Beddoes is among the roses: it is in his expression that his greatness lies. His verse is an instrument of many modulations, of exquisite delicacy, of strange suggestiveness, of amazing power. Playing on it, he can give utterance to the subtlest ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... affection was free from anything so degrading as passion, and she felt no bashfulness in reading Jamie's love-letters to his parents; she was too frank to suspect that there might be in them anything for her eyes alone, and too candid to feel any delicacy. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... morsel of love's feast has been eaten, that the freshest, fairest blush of the flower has been snatched and has passed away, when the ceremony at the altar has been performed, and legal possession has been given? There is an aroma of love, an undefinable delicacy of flavour, which escapes and is gone before the church portal is left, vanishing with the maiden name, and incompatible with the solid comfort appertaining to the rank of wife. To love one's own spouse, and to be loved by her, is the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... of the same form as those of Zuni, but the curves and outlines are much more graceful, and there is a delicacy in the finish which places them above the Zuni pottery and indicates a greater freedom and confidence in the ceramic artist. The rim is often slightly flared, the neck more ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... being influenced by no considerations of delicacy or anything else, kept up a lively conversation in rear. For Eaglenose, like his chief, had freed himself from some of the trammels ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... a fiery courser with loose reins was left to pursue that path into which it deviated by accident, or was enticed by temptation. In short, Pastoral Poetry takes in only a few objects, and is characterized by that simplicity, tenderness, and delicacy which were happily and easily united in the work of an ancient Shepherd. He had little use for the rules of criticism, because he was not much exposed to the danger of infringing them. The Lyric Poet on the other ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... that the best is most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... order to reach a distant goal, no longer existed; and, although a woman of many amiable and generous impulses, she had not a shred of principle to take the place of the motive of self-interest, which hitherto had been so peremptory in its exactions. What she was in delicacy in 1791, that she remained in 1796,—five years after the disappearance of her social disabilities; a pretty fair proof that what she possessed of it was but skin deep, the result of a diligent observance of Greville's proprieties, for her personal ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... all this for your express benefit, young gentlemen. This skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify at a juncture like this"—casting an almost benignant glance toward the patient, now beginning to open his eyes; "but let me point out to you upon this thigh-bone"—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... necessity of attending to the idioms of the language, and did not fancy that he was speaking French when he literally translated English into French, as did most of his companions. He moreover (and the Frenchman fully appreciated his delicacy) never allowed a smile to appear on his countenance, however absurd the mistake his master might make when ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... out of account, until one thread of ideas is firmly set in the mind. Not unfrequently, however, and not improperly, the teacher has a text-book in aid of his oral instructions. To make this a help, and not a hindrance, demands the greatest delicacy; the sole consideration being that the pupil must be kept in one single line of thought, and never be required to comprehend, on the same point, conflicting or ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... have to free institutions. I obtained a copy of this introduction. It will serve, at least, to show you, dear Aunty, what a variety of topics we have to excite our minds here in College. You can exercise your discretion about letting uncle read it, as it is on a subject of some delicacy. ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... fine delicacy of feeling, Washington directed the sword to be delivered to General Lincoln, who, eighteen months ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... kinds of sea-weeds on to the paper it will be found necessary to cut away, with a sharp, fine-pointed scissors, many superfluous stems and branches, as otherwise the sea-weed when pressed will present a matted appearance, and much of the delicacy ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... individual initiative, for every man has the right to do good in the way he thinks best; but all the discussion concerning the government, the Red Cross, and so on, seemed to me inopportune and impractical. I imagined that with coolness and good humour, one might get round all the terrors and delicacy of the position, and that there was no need to go to the Minister about it. I went to Sahalin without a single letter of recommendation, and yet I did everything I wanted to. Why cannot I go to the famine-stricken ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Danby, had no one with whom he could so much as discourse with freedom of public affairs, was resolved, upon Coventry's dismission, to make him one of his secretaries of state. But that philosophical patriot, too little interested for the intrigues of a court, too full of spleen and delicacy for the noisy turbulence of popular assemblies, was alarmed at the universal discontents and jealousies which prevailed, and was determined to make his retreat, as soon as possible, from a scene which threatened such confusion. Meanwhile, he could not refuse the confidence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... sixteenth century the Irish were notoriously regardless of what is technically morality. For the last hundred years at least impurity has been almost unknown in Ireland. And this absence of vulgar crime, and this exceptional delicacy and modesty of character, are due alike, to their ever- lasting honour, to the influence of the Catholic clergy." That is the testimony of an opponent, and it is emphatic testimony indeed. To O'Connell Froude ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... is chilly, sir, and I must throw this afghan over you;" and she did so with a little touch of delicacy which is so grateful when ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... rendering of the final "Allegro" Alwyn had never heard,—and indeed it is probable none WILL ever hear a more poetical, more exquisite SINGING OF THOUGHT than this matchless example of Sarasate's genius and power. Who would not warm to the brightness and delicacy of those delicious rippling tones, that seemed to leap from the strings alive like sparks of fire—the dainty, tripping ease of the arpeggi, that float from the bow with the grace of rainbow bubbles blown forth ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... remark. He was a tall, broadly built young man, with a dark healthy skin and that generally robust air which sometimes accompanies extreme delicacy in men. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and decided that the effort ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... mean while, Alberich had busied himself in preparing a great feast for his master and his master's chieftains. In the long low hall that the dwarfs had hollowed out within the mountain's heart, the table was spread, and on it was placed every delicacy that could be wished. There were fruits and wines from the sunny South-land, and snow-white loaves made from the wheat of Gothland, and fish from Old AEgir's kingdom, and venison from the king's wild-wood, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... 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 ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... poignantly attractive, manhood so potently virile, old age so dignified and possessed of the world's secrets! Who like Leonardo has depicted the mother's happiness in her child and the child's joy in being alive; who like Leonardo has portrayed the timidity, the newness to experience, the delicacy and refinement of maidenhood; or the enchantress intuitions, the inexhaustible fascination of the woman in her years of mastery? Look at his many sketches for Madonnas, look at his profile drawing of Isabella d'Este, or at the Belle Joconde, and see whether elsewhere you find their equals. ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... character of a man in the position so long held by the Prince of Wales is the fact of moderation, or otherwise, in eating and drinking. It is a vital factor in the lives of all men but how much more so when great banquets are for months a daily function; when every luxury, or delicacy, or combination of cookery known to the civilized world and the barbaric East is at one time or another offered for his delectation; when the power of rulers and the wealth of millionaires are devoted to the furnishing of choice wines and liqueurs and drinks for his use. The good health always ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... description "from motives of personal delicacy." The case was that of young Johnson, a wealthy devotee of Paine in London, who had followed him to Paris and lived in the same house with him. Hearing that Marat had resolved on Paine's death, Johnson wrote a will bequeathing his property to Paine, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Caroline. 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 ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... course be tolerated by men, who themselves require toleration for greater inconveniences. But this must not be carried too far. There are certain limits to empire which, if they themselves forget, should be pointed out to them with delicacy and politeness. You should be the slave of women, but not of all ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... must have so developed his voice that it is under complete control; then he can do with it whatsoever he wishes. He must be able to produce all he desires of power, pianissimo, accent, shading, delicacy and variety of color. Who is equal ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... which, in its unfailing, minute activity, may put most enthusiasts to shame; a very sweet temper, and great native refinement. His love for me has been unswerving and most tender. I have never suffered a pain that he could relieve. His devotion, when I am ill, is to be compared only with yours. His delicacy in trifles, his sweet domestic graces, remind me of E——. In him I have found a home, and one that interferes with no tie. Amid many ills and cares, we have had much joy together, in the sympathy with natural beauty,—with our child,—with all that ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... style. It generally rejects the proverbs, epigrams and moral reflections which form the pith and marrow of the book; and, worse still, it disdains those finer touches of character which are often Shakespearean in their depth and delicacy, and which, applied to a race of familiar ways and thoughts, manners and customs, would have been the wonder and delight of Europe. It shows only a single side of the gem that has so many facets. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... have been most kindly forwarded by the celebrated Ude. They are the produce of many years' intense study, and, we must say, the very best things of the sort we have ever met with. There is much delicacy in M. Ude leaving it to us, as to whether the communication should be anonymous. We think not, as the peculiarity of the style would at once establish the talented authorship, and, therefore, attempted concealment would be considered ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... in the present state of science to explain very clearly how these telephonic transmissions are effected without a receiver. All that we can conclude from it so far is that the ear is an instrument of incomparable delicacy and of exquisite sensitiveness, since it perceives vibrations in which the energy developer, particularly in the telephonic chain, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... direct allegations. In January, 1819, Adams notes that Clay has "redoubled his rancor against me," and gives himself "free swing to assault me ... both in his public speeches and by secret machinations, without scruple or delicacy." The diarist gloomily adds, that "all public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole Government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals." He ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... satisfied with pinching or scratching the objects of their displeasure; their peculiar sense of cleanliness rewarded the housewives with the silver token in the shoe; their nicety was extreme concerning any coarseness or negligence which could offend their delicacy; and I cannot discern, except, perhaps, from the insinuations of some scrupulous divines, that they were vassals to or in close alliance with the infernals, as there is too much reason to believe was the case with their North British sisterhood.[45] The ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... assisted me wonderfully. I am again getting well. Indeed, the rapidity with which I gain strength surprises the whole family. The secret is, that my constitution is good. I exert myself to the utmost, feeling none of that pride, so common to my sex, of being weak and ill. Delicacy and debility are sometimes fascinating when affected by a coquette, adorned with the freshness of health; but a pale, thin face; sunken, instead of languishing eyes; and a form, evidently tottering, not gracefully ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... destroy all domestic animals. They are lashed to a sledge, and are often brutally driven to travel thirty or forty miles a day, dragging after them a load of three and four hundred pounds weight. When fat, they are eaten by the Canadians as a great delicacy; and are generally presented by the ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... I attacked her suddenly, "if you don't intend telling me anything, you must say so distinctly, and then, of course, it shall be final. But I won't play at delicacy. I ask you point-blank for all ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... war-worn officer, who had been neglected from reasons which merited the highest advancement; whose honour could not stoop to solicit the preferment he deserved; perhaps, with a family taught the principles of delicacy without the means of supporting it; a wife and children—gracious heaven!—whom my wishes would ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... procured the philosopher an addition of glory as a man of letters: the 'Defense of the Spirit of Laws' appeared. This work, for its moderation, truth, delicacy of ridicule, is a model. M. de Montesquieu might easily have made his adversary odious; he did better—he made him ridiculous. We owe the aggressor eternal thanks for having procured us this masterpiece. For here, without intending ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... execute a new step on the tight-rope, and when she appeared, led forward by Fanfar, and made the three deep "reverences," there was a hum of admiration. She was charming—her delicacy was fairy-like. She lightly placed her foot on Fanfar's hand and sprang upon the rope. Standing there, she looked at Irene, who was leaning back ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... Russia,"—which hinted at Russia's possible interest in the military preparations; and one day at Erfurt, as Napoleon's grenadiers were marching by, the Czar had to listen while their Emperor vaunted the courage they had displayed at Pultusk and Friedland. Apropos of Napoleon's lack of delicacy, it is said that once in the Tuileries he significantly addressed one of his court ladies, not renowned for purity, with the words, "You are fond of men, I understand." "Yes; when they are polite," was the rejoinder. At Erfurt Talleyrand gave the same ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... vain to defend herself, uttering at the same time piercing screams which could be heard throughout the house. She screamed shrilly, strangely, like a wild dying animal. On the instant all her fine, civilized poise had deserted her. From the sweetness and delicacy of the reception atmosphere—the polite cooings, posturings, and mouthings so charming to contemplate, so alluring in her—she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... debauchee, Bill proceeded coldly with his task of "crowding" Jan out and away from the safety of that place and into the wilderness. In a few minutes he ventured to hasten matters by actually nipping one of Jan's hind legs with his teeth. But with what precise delicacy! It had been sweet to drive the fangs home and feel the bone and sinew crack. But that would not mean death and might bring rescue. So Bill's jaws pressed no more hardly than those of a nursing-mother of his kind what time ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... canonry as long as he enjoyed it, and to diminish a sense of obligation, he required the Doctor to return him another bond, subjecting himself to a similar division, in case a change of times should cause another revolution of incumbents. The delicacy of this proceeding, at a time so peculiarly unfavourable to the hopes of Loyalists, tended much to assist the Doctor's endeavours of making his family charitably disposed, and even Mrs. Mellicent went so far as to lament that ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had given her. "I don't expect you to understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but simple delicacy ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... "had a much larger tail!" When the astronomers put their fingers on the beard of this "beautiful" little creature (on the reflector, mind you!) it would skip away in high dudgeon, which, considering that 240,000 miles intervened, was something to show its delicacy ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... She was utterly without imagination and had no special delicacy of taste to supply its place—that was all. People and words—she was at pains to interpret neither the one nor the other and she used both at random. She no more contemplated anything happening to her husband, to quote her phrase, than she understood the effect her barbarous little speech ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... could scarcely be distinguished from the works of Pheidias himself, none of which have come down to us. But from the time of the Peloponnesian war, the seeds of decay were in the art of Hellas, and they ripened fast. In one direction Callimachus carried refined delicacy and formal perfection to excess; and in the other Demetrios, the portrait sculptor, put by ideal beauty for the striking characteristics of realism. Thus the strict reserve, the earnest simplicity of Pheidias and his contemporaries, were sacrificed sacrificed partly, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... of a Great Spirit and an Evil One, he looks to a place of reward or punishment after death, and he accedes to Kipling's line without ever having heard it,—"They that are good shall be happy." He is not "rude," but exceedingly courteous, with a delicacy of feeling that is rare in any latitude. "Unthinking" he certainly is not. Six months' darkness within the igloo gives him the same enviable opportunity of thinking that the shoemaker has in his stall, and the whole world knows that the sequestrated ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... at finding that the gradual cessation of the chopping of the mill was on her account, and still more when she saw all the cider-makers' eyes fixed upon her except Mr. Springrove's, whose natural delicacy restrained him. She neared the plot of grass, but instead of advancing ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr. Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to watch the completion of the cure. I was struck with the delicacy with which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness about my host's eyes which argued a bilious habit of body. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... countenance bloomed with health, and he grew so manly and tall that we treated him with great respect as the King of the Island, while the small little delicate features of Felix were getting embrowned, fast losing their delicacy; his beautiful starlike eyes were radiant with health, and through the long dark eyelashes, so peculiar to that species of deep grey eye, the pretty pink colour seemed to be fixing its residence there ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... street, and the busy, hearing it, came out of their houses. A few looked askance at our protector, but the larger part, setting their Protestantism above their scruples, greeted her gladly, and made a procession for her, cheering and encouraging her with cries which had more friendliness than delicacy in them. Now indeed I dropped behind and rode beside the mounted servant. The fellow was all agrin, triumphing in his mistress's popularity. Even so she herself exulted in it, and threw all around nods and smiles, ay, and, alas, repartees conceived ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of this injurious particle," he continued, "would be an operation which I myself could undertake to perform successfully upon another. It is a matter of some delicacy as you, Sir Baldwin, and"— slowly, horribly, turning the half-dead and half-living head towards me—"you, Dr. Petrie, will appreciate. In the event of clumsy surgery, death may supervene; failing this, permanent hemiplegia—or"—the film lifted from the green eyes, and for a ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... he must have too much delicacy to begin about it so soon. I had rather he had it than ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... suffrage of all men of taste, holds the first rank in poetry, for the delicacy of his numbers, the wittiness of his turns, the acuteness of his remarks, and, in one performance, for the amazing force of his sentiments. The stile of our author is likewise so pure, that our language knows no higher authority, and there is an air of original in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... has struck me already,' said Mr. Calton: 'but, you see, Matilda, for what reason I know not, is very anxious that Mrs. Tibbs should know nothing about it, till it's all over. It's a natural delicacy, after ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... good fortune to find my mistress not quite so deformed nor disagreeable as she had been represented to me. Her head, indeed, bore some resemblance to a hatchet, the edge being represented by her face; but she had a certain delicacy in her complexion, and a great deal of vivacity in her eyes, which were very large and black; and, though the protuberance of her breast, when considered alone, seemed to drag her forwards, it was easy to perceive an equivalent ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... surprise"—in the shape of the colonel's daughter—was indeed found, alone, awaiting the arrival of the newly released convict in the music-room. But we will imitate the delicacy of those on board the Flying Fish, and leave father and daughter to exchange greetings ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... all men that the proprietor was bound in heavy sureties to the government against the publication of "libel, blasphemy, or sedition"!—couched, moreover, in a style of language possessing such grace and force, such delicacy of finish, and yet such marvellous strength, rich with so much of quiet humour, and bristling with such rasping sarcasm and penetrating invective, that they were read as an intellectual luxury even by men who regarded as utterly wild and wicked the sentiments they conveyed. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... her bed and house, and, to shun outrage and violence, she had fled, with her helpless infant, to the barn. To appease his fury, to console her, to suggest a remedy for this distress, was not in my power. To have sought an interview would be merely to excite her terrors and alarm her delicacy, without contributing to alleviate her calamity. Here, then, was no asylum for me. A place of rest must be sought at some neighbouring habitation. It was probable that one would be found at no great distance: the path that led from the spot where I stood, through a gate, into a meadow, might ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... arrangement, the texture, the delicacy of the organs, as well exterior as interior, which compose men and animals, render their parts extremely mobile, or make their machine susceptible of being moved with great facility. In a body, which is only a heap of fibres, a mass of nerves, contiguous one to ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning," was another's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, I know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic delicacy. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the hands of a remarkable cutter, could produce miracles of delicacy. It could, in fact, have black lines so fine and so closely spaced as to take on the character of line engraving. It did not, of course, have the range of tones or the delicacy of modeling possible ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... again he made a suggestion to the young woman following him, but for the most part he trusted her to choose her own foot and hand holds. Her delicacy was silken strong. If she was slender, she was yet deep-bosomed. The movements of the girl were as certain as those of an ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... with the words, set too simply for any but a consummate artist to sing with complete effect,—"Turn ye, turn ye—why will ye die?" The marvel truly is that we are already so dead, so immured and petrified in our hard self-satisfaction, when we might so easily develop the freedom, fluidity, and delicacy of fine response to these tenuous intimations of our own spirituality and high destiny. Here we live, as some writer has aptly said, on top of a gold mine, and the tragedy is that we are ignorant of the gold. We live, and move, and have our being in an ocean of spiritual ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... intense annoyance of the whole thing, he thought he would, before Venice, go in a little for the gaieties of Paris. Rupert was still young enough to believe that the things presented to him as gaiety must necessarily be gay. A certain delicacy prevented his telling Madeline this now; though formerly when he had been to Paris, especially when he had had no intention of accepting any Parisian opportunities of amusement, he had often rubbed it in to her about the dazzling and dangerous charms of the gay city's dissipations, at which she was ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... him 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 had been illicit, was it more illicit ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... think it possible," exclaimed young Pownal—whom his father, out of a sentiment of delicacy towards his friends, had insisted should be called by the name of his preserver, he had so long borne, for which reason we shall continue to use it—"do you think it possible I can ever forget how deeply I am indebted, that ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... English, to conceal the indulgence of theirs, daily practise hypocrisy, falsehood, and uncharitableness; so that to one error is added many crimes." Byron had now got on a favourite subject, and went on decrying hypocrisy and cant, mingling sarcasms and bitter observations on the false delicacy of the English. It is strange, but true as strange, that he could not, or at least did not, distinguish the distinction between cause and effect, in this case. The respect for virtue will always cause ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... England, even at best the charm of woman, to him, had never been robust. Yet now, resolutely, as only a man can do who is capable of martyring himself for the cause of science, he proceeded to violate all the fineness and delicacy of his nature by making love to ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... own glory. He speaks of that profession in language so excellent as to make us who read his words believe that there was more in it than it did in truth hold. But there was much in it, and the more so as the performers reacted upon their audience. The delicacy of the powers of expression had become so great, that the powers of listening and distinguishing had become great also. As the instruments became fine, so did the ears which were to receive their music. Cicero, and Quintilian after him, tell us ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... commissioned to smite you in print. Torpenhow refuses from false delicacy. I've been overhauling the pot-boilers in your studio. They ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... my power here, any objections that may be made. The mode in which the monies were received for the commissioners' use at Paris, the source from whence they came, with other circumstances relative, are such that I have not thought it consistent with the interest, the policy, or even the delicacy of Congress, or others, to lay the case at large before my countrymen, though I found myself injured in their opinion, by the abuse constantly thrown out against me in the papers, and from my silence on the subject. I have ever been, and still remain ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... earnestness, but they all felt the same way, for the girls were learning to approve of delicacy in cooking ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... ever saw. In Bengal, the saree, though rather too scanty, is a graceful costume, and at a little distance appears to be a modest covering. Here it is worn very differently, and without the slightest attempt at delicacy or grace, the drapery being in itself insufficient, and rendered more offensive by the method of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... angel: 'tis happy for me she is engag'd; nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all that can charm in woman, hid in a ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke |
