"Untidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kept the bathroom door closed as he bathed and shaved. She was asleep again as he stole out, one arm flung loosely on the counterpane, her hair untidy on the pillow. He kissed a lock of it, and let himself quietly out of ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... that little minx of a sister with her curls (he always called them carrot shavings), who was so conceited (girls always are!) and always trying to attract notice, in spite of Melchior's incessant snubbings. There was that clever brother, with his untidy hair and bent shoulders, who was just as bad the other way; who always ran out of the back door when visitors called, and was for ever moping and reading: and this, in spite of Melchior's hiding his books, and continually telling ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... white tips: in their movement and my own, in the dance of the boat and the noise of the shrouds, in the curtsy of the long sprit that caught the ridges of foam and lifted them in spray, even in the free streaming of that loose untidy end of line which played in the air from the leach, as young things play from wantonness, in the rush of the water, just up to and sometimes through the lee scuppers, and in the humming tautness of the sheet, in everything about me there was exuberance and joy. The sun upon the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... said sharply, for there was a second-rate wine-shop not far off and a group of untidy half-breeds lounged about its front. Jake, however, took out another handful ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the precise moment when this thought rose to counteract the hope revived by the changed attitude of the men that Joan looked out to see Jim Cleve sauntering up, careless, untidy, a cigarette between his lips, blue blotches on his white face, upon him the stamp of abandonment. Joan suffered a contraction of heart that benumbed her breast. She stood a moment battling with herself. She was brave enough, desperate enough, to walk straight up to Cleve, remove her mask ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... pretty, but beyond words untidy and out of repair. As it is neither drained nor paved, it won't do in hot weather; and I shall migrate 'up country' to a Dutch village. Mrs. J-, who is Dutch herself, tells me that one may board in a Dutch farm-house very cheaply, and with great comfort (of course eating ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... World (CHAPMAN AND HALL) colours up life with lavish brush. We have a returned convict who fiddles in the rain for the benefit of dancing village children; we have impresarios who stand at the doors of inns and hear him thus fiddling; an untidy heroine who speaks in gasps and gurglings; and a lover who goes to literary parties in London and therefore (the inference is implied by the author) falls in love with two ladies at once. Such a novel is refreshing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... reader—there are but two—there is a little cottage on your left, and beyond, under a group of trees, mostly fir, which almost hide it from view, a home of a rather superior character, in a very dilapidated condition, with everything around it more or less untidy—that was where George Borrow lived and worked in his way for many a long day. The step-daughter and her husband reside there now—very ancient people, who are to be seen driving about Lowestoft in a little wicker car, drawn by an amiable and active donkey, an aged dog guarding ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... elegant apartment, this council-room of the palace of the kings of Sweden. Although a royal apartment, its appearance was ample proof that the art of decoration was as yet unknown in Sweden. The room was untidy and disordered; the council-table was strewn with the ungathered litter of the last day's council, and even the remains of a coarse lunch mingled with all this clutter. The uncomfortable-looking chairs all were out of place, and above the table was a sort ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... the untidy studio, where the debris of a month's fruitless efforts strewed the floor. Bits of clay and carving-tools, canvases hurled face downward in disgust and covered with paint-rags, lay scattered about. She ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... Neither moved as their visitors entered. The troubles of the previous night were plainly written on both men's faces. There was a haggard look in their eyes, and a generally dishevelled appearance about their dress. Lablache in particular looked unwashed and untidy. Horrocks looked less troubled, and there was a strong air ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... — Woods of Cuan, woods of Cuan, dear country of the east! It's seven years we've had a life was joy only, and this day we're going west, this day we're facing death, maybe, and death should be a poor, untidy thing, though it's a queen that ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... the wainscoting in the untidy kitchen. She could hear the faint scurrying of water beetles over the oilcloth-covered floor, and then silence. She fancied myriads of tiny, watchful eyes on her, and something crunched under her foot. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that my notable sister holds in especial abhorrence,—untidy housekeeping, sentimental demonstrations between married people, and crying babies; and here they all were in an avalanche, overwhelming, not only herself, but a most prepossessing young man, who, for all I knew, was viewing me with a critic's eye, as a possible ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... toward the bush. In its shadow sprawled a very untidy animal. Its tail and hindquarters were exactly like those of a panther, its chest and forelegs were like a hawk's, and it had pointed wings. Burrs matted its dusty fur. Its claws were shabby and split, and numerous black flies ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... with ivy, and a general air of fitness for a sketch; indeed, the photograph of it in its present beautified state will not stand a comparison with our drawings of it, in those days of dilapidation in the middle of the untidy churchyard, with little boys astride on the sloping, sunken lichen- grown headstones, mullein spikes and burdock leaves, more graceful than the trim borders and zinc crosses which are ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sent for a woman to be his daughter-in-law. Soon the son began to be pleased with his new wife, who took good care of his father. As time went on, however, she became tired of the old man, and planned to set his son against him. She accused her father-in-law of being not only very untidy, but also fierce and violent, and forever picking quarrels with her, and at last, by constant dinning her complaints in his ear, persuaded her husband to agree to take the old man into a cemetery, kill him, and bury him in a pit. Her small son, a wise lad of seven, overheard the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... a neighbouring county called Lewis Rand from home, and kept him an April week in the court room or in a small town's untidy tavern. It was his habit, known and deferred to, never to accept at such times the hospitality sure to be pressed upon him. The prominent men of his party urged him home with them, but accepted his refusal with a nod of understanding, and rode on strong in the conviction ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... miniature landscapes of distant alp and nearer minaret. The large, square cooking-stove smoked a little. Between the stove and the other door stood the table, which held the dishes at which worked the neat, quick mother and her rather untidy and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... in the living-room, which was a large, untidy place that also served as an office. There was a great, flat desk in one corner, and lying on it—among some dusty papers, reports and stock books—was a six-gun, with its belt and holster, a silver watch, a knife, and other odds and ends. These were the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... had been fourteen bishops. During his reign the problem of Turkish penetration was taken in hand. It was intolerable that Montenegrin families should stand well with the Sultan because one of their members had gone over to Islam. The small, untidy village of Virpazar, by the Lake of Scutari, has got a certain fame, because the chosen men who were to purge the country of this evil started out from there on Christmas Eve in 1703. Those who participated in the "Montenegrin Vespers" ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... the doorway. His appearance was unmistakably that of a German of the highest and most cultivated type. And yet, when he spoke, his English was so good that you detected only a foreign accent. Strong vexation was stamped upon his face as he looked at the snowy, untidy sidewalk. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... extravagant house-keeper, kindly and unpunctual, prolific without resentment; she regarded with mild surprise the large and strenuous family that rushed past her, as a mountain torrent might rush past an untidy flower garden, and, after nearly fourteen years of maternal experience, she had abandoned the search for a point of contact with their riotous souls, and contented herself with an indiscriminate affection for their very creditable bodies. Lady Isabel had—if the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... boy is a very stout one, each end being covered with wax-string, and is reversed every fourth stroke. This caning is a punishment, and is meted out to boys who are caught smoking, to boys who may be untidy or to those who break their leave a short time. The other punishment is that of the birch—again the boy is lashed to the horse, and this time no garment intervenes. The ship's doctor stands by with water in case of fainting, as generally the boy ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... could make her gloves. The latter articles of attire, moveover, were more elaborate than those of to-day. The long gloves of the days of the Empire had a piece inserted at the elbow which made them sit without creasing to the shape of the arm, so that they had none of the untidy appearance which modern long gloves are apt to present, and the term "to fit like a glove" ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... presence of tobacco smoke,—Steve Armstrong ignored the chair Randall had proffered and remained standing, his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, a look new to his friend—one restless, akin to reckless—on his usually good-humored face. Contrary again to precedent his dress was noticeably untidy, an impression accentuated by a two-days' growth of beard and by neglected linen. That something far from normal was about to transpire Randall knew at a glance, but courteously seemed not to notice. Instead, with a familiar wave, he indicated the cigar-jar he kept on purpose for visitors ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... 'How bare and untidy the room looks at this season of the year; really you and Olive ought to go into the conservatory and see if you ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... physicians thought the sea voyage might give her the vitality she needs. It was at least a chance, and she was determined to take it. Then thy father put all his own desires behind him, and came with her. We will talk more in a little while. I see thy dress is untidy, and I dare say thou art hungry. Go, eat and dress, by that ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and scullery. Upstairs there were two good-sized bedrooms with a small third room in a lean-to at the back, the lower part of which was occupied by a wash-house. Through the windows could be seen a neglected bit of garden, and an untidy orchard. ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A fat untidy man meditatively approached the doorway. He had a roll of tracing papers in his hand, and the end of a long, thick pencil in his mouth. He was the man who interpreted the dreams of the architect to the dreamy British artisan. Experience ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into a corner after they had eaten the meat; they even split the bones to extract the marrow just as savages do now. Among the animals are found not only the hare, the deer, the ox, the horse, the salmon, but also ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... and certainly were never built on any plan, or for any particular purpose, and have no window-sashes, and are a little like deserted breweries, and might be warehouses but for having nothing in them. Opposite to one of these, a white house, the scaffold was built. An untidy, unpainted, uncouth, crazy-looking thing of course: some seven feet high, perhaps: with a tall, gallows-shaped frame rising above it, in which was the knife, charged with a ponderous mass of iron, all ready to descend, and glittering brightly in the morning sun, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... see you to-morrow? I must change my dress a little. I am expecting my cousin, and I look too untidy. Come, Mother, help me a moment. Take the book, Brackenburg, and bring me such ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... correctness which an examiner might expect the school to reach. At any rate, the experiment is much too risky to be tried. In the lower classes the results produced would certainly be rough, imperfect, untidy. Therefore self-expression must not be permitted in that part of the school. And if not there, it must not be permitted anywhere, for the longer it is delayed the greater will be the difficulty of starting it and ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons - in short, with hardly any of those ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... twitching eyebrows of old Stroud; he saw at once how it must annoy a man who had a billet in the "Woods and Forests," and plenty of time for "bridge" and gossip at his club, to see these people with untidy lives. A minute later the man with the "game leg" passed close behind his chair, and Shelton perceived at once how intelligible the resentment of his fellow-members was. He had eyes which, not uncommon in this country, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hug of gratitude, and kissed Pat's silky head before he went away. And he hurried home and washed the dinner things, and cleared up the untidy kitchen like one in a dream. Sometimes it seemed to Dick that all his work went for nothing at all, for Mrs. Fowley always muddled things as soon as ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... you?" said Sina, laughing. "I would ask you to come indoors, but I am afraid things are rather untidy, as I have been ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... that the weft is turned neatly round at the margins, because if it is at all loose there the work has a ragged, untidy appearance. This applies also to any turnings that may occur in other parts due to the carrying out of the pattern; if in these places the thread is too loose upon the warp, the fabric will be uneven and pushed ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... been out before." Then, too, Count and General though he was, dining with the Empress herself almost every week, and going about the palace as he pleased, he dressed as plainly as any peasant, and slept on straw like a common soldier. Once or twice the palace servants, seeing this untidy little fellow coming up to the grand entrance, took him for a tramp, and wanted to drive him away; but they soon found out that that ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... see—I remember your brother twenty-three years ago when I first came to St. Ignace. A strange, bookish, freakish character, but a gentleman, that goes without saying, Ma'amselle Pauline. And you, just a little black-haired girl, reciting French tragedy in the untidy garden! Ah—ah! I see it clearly—no father, no mother, save old Victoria Archambault, and yet you grew up a handsome young lady, always thinking of making your fortune, eh? And you cannot have made it yet or you would ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... a man came into the room. He was dark and clean-shaven sallow rather, with the eyes of imagination, and dark hair growing scantily about the temples. He was dressed in a shabby tweed suit, and wore an untidy flannel collar at the neck. The dominant expression of his face was startled—hunted; an expression that might any moment leap into the dreadful stare of terror and announce a total loss ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... and dreamily scratching her ankle as she read; she was a tall, awkward girl, younger far at twenty-one than Cherry was at eighteen, pretty in a gipsyish way, untidy as to hair, with round black eyes, high, thin cheek-bones marked with scarlet, and a wide, humorous mouth that was somehow droll in its expression even when she was angry or serious. She was rarely angry; she was unexacting, good-humoured, preferring animals to people, and unconventional ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... boy had been sent on an errand with sixpence and had stolen the money; with many sobs and tears he confessed that he had spent it in cakes. Mr. Kent looked at the tear-stained face; the untidy brown head scarcely reached to the table, and the good magistrate thought, with something like pain at his heart, of a fair-haired boy at home. So he spoke kindly to the poor, trembling prisoner, and while he strongly reprimanded, still encouraged him to better ways. The boy ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... other in character if given the same environment is, therefore, erroneous. That these differences are original, or inborn, and not acquired, may be readily seen by observing children of different sex. Even from their earliest years boys are more active, restless, energetic, destructive, untidy, and disobedient, while little girls are quieter, less restless, less destructive, neater, more orderly, and more obedient. These different innate qualities fit the sexes naturally for different functions in human society, and there is, therefore, a natural division of ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... No untidy church, home, or school expresses Christ—for Christ represents perfection in cleanliness and order. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" we are told. Cleanliness shows the spiritual, the God, but dirt in any form is an ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... hand she held one of the extremities of my friend's property, feeling—good, careful soul!—what was the texture of the cloth. As she did so, I could see a glance of approbation pass across her warm features. I liked that lady's face, in spite of her untidy hair, and felt that had she been alone my friend would not have ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... Adonis line. "He is a little queer to be sure, doesn't believe in love or sentiment or anything of that sort, you know, and he says he wears his hair cropped close because people have a general idea that artists are long-haired, lackadaisical fellows,—not to say untidy, you know,—and he is determined that no one shall be able ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... pathetic little entries one sees the spirit that was dogmatic and proud among men abasing itself in humility and pouring out the generous tenderness of an affectionate nature. In these moments of contrition small peccadilloes took on tragic importance in his mind. Rising late in the morning and the untidy state of his papers seemed unforgivable sins. There is hardly any more moving picture in the history of mankind than that of the rugged old doctor pouring out his innocent petitions for greater strength in ordering ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... Phoebe's home before. At the Terrace she was smart, attractive, and as particular as her mistress about her clothes. Nobody ever saw Phoebe with untidy shoes or stockings, and even in the morning, before she was supposed to be dressed, her little feet were as neat as if she had nothing to do but to sit in a drawing-room. She was now lying on a stump bedstead ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... and nervously arranging the long curls that would fall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old girlish enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart warmed towards "Harrie." She would have liked to stay talking longer, but for a vision of Mr. Harper ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to be very particular about their not coming to sit down untidy," said Fanny. "He said it was not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... world is a looking glass. Smile into it and it smiles back; frown and you get black looks. In Bohemia we sometimes find it well to overlook soiled table napery, sanded floor or untidy appearance. Of course this is not in the higher class of restaurants, but there are times and places when you must remember you are making a study of human interest and not getting a meal, and you must leave your fastidiousness ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... placed the residence of his David Deans. His fellow-student, pale and emaciated from recent {p.158} sickness, was seated on a stone bench by the door, looking out for his coming, and introduced him into a not untidy cabin, where the old man, divested of his professional garb, was directing the last vibrations of a leg of mutton that hung by a hempen cord before the fire. The mutton was excellent—so were the potatoes and whiskey; ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... remind me of Mrs. Benson. The day after I came, she asked me whether Miss Greenway didn't write books; she thought all people who wrote books were generally a little untidy." ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... morning she was up betimes, and stood at the window looking out over the sprawl of the south side of the river to the dome of Bedlam and the tower of Southwark Cathedral, the clustered chimneys, and the gray litter of untidy, huddled roofs. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... there were serious talks about her character. The Vicar, whose classes she attended, was mostly concerned with doctrines, and Mrs. Marston with what one might call a list of ideal vices and temptations which pupils must guard themselves against. Miss Arundel talked to her about her untidy exercise books, her unpunctuality, her loud voice in the corridor, and her round shoulders, and explained very properly that inattention in these comparatively small matters showed a general want of self-control. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... turning back to her embroidery again. "And, Alexia, your room looks very badly. I'm astonished that you are so untidy, when I talk to you about ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... himself standing in front of the untidy writing desk, littered like a recent battlefield. The photograph of the American girl drew his eyes. What had happened? Was there not perhaps some word for her? He turned about as if to enquire of the dying man and found Sir Richmond's eyes open and regarding him. ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... with me, and sit here on the green settee, where you can see the old oak case with its untidy lines of volumes. Smoking is not forbidden. Would you care to hear me talk of them? Well, I ask nothing better, for there is no volume there which is not a dear, personal friend, and what can a man talk of more pleasantly than ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... back, and yet as I carried my eye from the dainty boot which rested on the lowest step to the small gloved hand on the railing, to the small black hat with its blue wings airily poised, I found myself making comparisons between this daintiness and the untidy loveliness of Gladys Todd. I was almost angry with Gladys Todd because she did not dress with such simplicity, not knowing that all her wardrobe cost hardly as much as this unobtrusive gown, this masterpiece of a ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... old servant entered with the boy. Edgar was in a dishevelled condition, the result of several struggles with Andrew. His face was begrimed with dirt, his clothes were torn and untidy. His father looked at him in grave surprise. It was not that he had not seen him before, for occasionally he had noticed him going across the garden, but though his eyes had observed him, his mental vision had ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... dampness; on one side several of the buttons were gone, and others were broken or cracked; while, alas! my many mad endeavours to rub it black on the decks had now imparted to the whole garment an exceedingly untidy appearance. Such as it was, with all its faults, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... which these untidy bricks overlook is now given up to stalls and is the centre of the cheap clothing district. Looking diagonally across it from the church one sees the great walls of the courtyard of what is now the Riccardi palace, but was in the great days the Medici palace; ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... down in his untidy room and struggled to find a way out. With Mary gone he could not even vote a dividend unless he came to an agreement with Stoddard. He could not get the money to carry out his plans, not even when it lay in bank. He could not appoint ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the brilliance of the eyes, deep-set under finely-drawn brows and with thick lashes, golden-brown, and curling up at the tips. Peculiar eyes: Mrs Gildea, who knew them well, never could decide their exact colour. The nose was a delicate aquiline, the chin pointed. An untidy mass of wavy chestnut hair stuck out in uneven puffs and insubordinate curls, all round the small head. At this moment Mrs Gildea remembered a suggestive charm sent to Lady Bridget by her cousin, Chris Gaverick, one Christmas, of a ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his depot of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... fashion which lasted for a century and a half which was so untidy, so uncomfortable, so costly, and so ridiculous that we can only wonder that it was endured for a single season—I mean the fashion of wig-wearing by men. The first colonists wore their own natural hair. The ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... music is a particularly severe mistress. Nothing slovenly, untidy, or out of order will do. The count must be absolutely right, not fast nor slow as our fancy dictates, but even and regular. The hands must do their task together in a friendly manner; the one never crowding nor hurrying the other, each willing to yield ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... folly of your clinging to this vale of tears which I deplore. And I protest that this rope"—he fished up a coil from the corner—"appears to have been deposited here by a benign and all-seeing Providence to Suggest the manifold advantages of hanging yourself as compared with the untidy operation of cutting ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... hate to be hot and untidy, and to get my hands soiled, and my face flushed. That was your condition when you returned home; but all the same, he said you looked like a ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... wedding present), and on the wall above a large autotype of the chief figure in Titian's Virgin of the Assumption, is very inviting. Altogether the room is the room of a good housekeeper, vanquished, as far as the table is concerned, by an untidy man, but elsewhere mistress of the situation. The furniture, in its ornamental aspect, betrays the style of the advertised "drawing-room suite" of the pushing suburban furniture dealer; but there is nothing useless or pretentious in the room. The paper and panelling ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... which is something like curds and whey. Lots of bread and butter and cheese, and half an apple pudding. Also a great jug of cider and another of milk, and several half-full glasses, and no end of dirty plates, knives, and forks. All were scattered about the table in the most untidy fashion, just as the servants had risen from their supper, without ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... touched here and there with whimsical tones. When he was absent, Mariana often thought how much she liked his voice; but whenever she saw him she consumed her friendly interest in wishing he wouldn't wear a beard. She was a fastidious woman, and a beard seemed to her untidy. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... little flight of stone steps that led from the iron gate to the door was also very dirty; and the servant girl, whose head appeared against the area railings as the carriage drove up, was more untidy, more unkempt, in appearance than ever Janetta could have expected. "We can't be rich, but we might be clean!" she said to herself in a subdued frenzy of impatience, as she fancied (quite unjustly) that she saw a faint smile pass over Lady Caroline's delicate, impassive face. "No wonder ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... me two young students entered the waiting-room. They looked dirty from head to foot, mud-bespattered, untidy, and exhausted with travelling. One of them, a fair boy with a charming profile, seemed absent-minded or depressed. He sat down in a corner, took off his cap, and hid his face in his hands. His companion bought ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... drawn to her. When she forgot to narrow her eyes, or to furrow her forehead, or to screw up her mouth, she was almost attractive, despite her freckles! Her eyes, of an agaty gray-green, were transparently honest. She had brushed the untidy mop of red hair, parted it in the middle, and wore it in a thick bright plait, tied with a black ribbon. She wore a simple middy blouse and a well-made blue skirt. Altogether, she looked more like a normal young girl than he had ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... as I saw, a conspicuous virtue of the society. Dr. Keil, the president, was the only person with whom I came in contact who was not very neat. He is a snuff-taker; and he walked over the orchard with me in an untidy ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... know how to be; and you can see also the utterly good-humoured indifference with which the crowds who listen to them regard their crankiness—which also has its meaning. The other evening a middle aged woman of untidy locks was crying that England alone was responsible for the war. Another—in this instance a young man—was deploring the recent blockade of Germany, viewing at the same time in quite a tender light the Zeppelin raids on ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... needn't talk, Guy," put in Ida. "You're untidy enough. I don't know what state your clothes would get into if you lived ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... would prevail and all but get entire possession of me, now I would fall to the other again, All the time they were exchanging loud protests: 'He is mine, and I mean to keep him;' 'Not yours at all, and it is no use your saying he is.' One of them seemed to be a working woman, masculine looking, with untidy hair, horny hands, and dress kilted up; she was all powdered with plaster, like my uncle when he was chipping marble. The other had a beautiful face, a comely figure, and neat attire. At last they invited me to decide which of them I would ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... recognize in him the calm and cheerful Tom Gates they had visited in the county jail; for his face was drawn with care and anxiety, eyes were bloodshot, and his former neat appearance was changed to one careless and untidy. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... guard Riouperoux, - Small untidy village where the river drives a mill: Frail as wood anemones, white and frail were you, And drooping a little, ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... that his room ought to satisfy her, for though untidy in female eyes, it did not betray ultra self-neglect. The fire was brisk, there was a respectable luncheon on the table, and he had even treated himself to the Guardian, some new books, and a beautiful photograph of a ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... king found M. Fouquet waiting for an audience. M. Colbert had lain in wait for his majesty in the corridor, and followed him like a jealous and watchful shadow; M. Colbert, with his square head, his vulgar and untidy, though rich costume, somewhat resembled a Flemish gentleman after he had been over-indulging in his national drink—beer. Fouquet, at sight of his enemy, remained perfectly unmoved, and during the whole of the scene which followed scrupulously resolved to observe a line of conduct ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and stuffed the tag-end of fear back into the jammed, untidy mental pigeon-hole she used for all unpleasant thoughts. "Don't run too ...
— Tree, Spare that Woodman • Dave Dryfoos
... the initials for 'Clean and Sober,' the report the officer-of-the-deck makes when the enlisted men come aboard after being on liberty. If they are intoxicated and untidy they check them up D. and D.—which means Drunk and Dirty. You'll never hear the last of Betsy ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... habited in a long, faded, palm-figured bed-gown, all muffled up round his chin, and sheep-skin slippers without heels. He had a lank, pale, discouraged visage, and thin, light hair, streaked with gray, in a very untidy state straggling about his face. He pulled his wrapper up yet closer about his head, when he discovered the washerwoman, and shambled across the clean-swept floor, his heelless slippers going clip-clap after him, as he stalked along. What a gaunt, unhealthy-looking ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... manner of study was to spread himself on his belly on the floor. He did not sit down, he lay down; and the "Biographie Universelle" has (for so grave a work) an amusing pic- ture of the short, fat, untidy scholar dragging himself a plat ventre across his room, from one pile of books to the other. The house in which these singular gym- nastics took place, and which is now the headquarters of the gendarmerie, is one of the most picturesque at Bourges. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... "A more untidy-looking place than yours, Edgar, I never saw," he declared. "Your grounds have become a jungle. Don't you ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and in the raw ash-coloured light she thought he looked more changed than at the theatre. She remarked, too, that his clothes were worn and untidy, his gloveless hands soiled and tremulous. None of the degrading signs of his infirmity were lacking; and she saw at once that, while in the early days of the habit he had probably mixed his drugs, so that the conflicting symptoms neutralized each other, he had ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... their cousins—although his wife was constantly urging him to do so. It was, to Madame Duburg, a terrible thing that her boys—instead of being always tidy and orderly, and ready, when at home, to accompany her for a walk—should come home flushed, hot, and untidy, with perhaps a swelled cheek or a black eye, from the effects of a blow from a cricket ball or ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... her tribute to the Muses, as the poets of the period used to say, the king found M. Fouquet waiting for an audience. M. Colbert had laid in wait for his majesty in the corridor, and followed him like a jealous and watchful shadow; M. Colbert, with his square head, his vulgar and untidy, though rich, costume, somewhat resembled a Flemish gentleman after he had been overindulging in his national drink—beer. Fouquet, at the sight of his enemy, remained perfectly unmoved, and during ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... my house if you used tobacco," she always replied. And she would get quite excited at the mere thought of such an untidy habit. ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... slow-moving self-powered monocars full of vegetables and other produce. Every few moments one would stop and hawk his wares. As Alan started hesitantly up the endless-seeming street, one of the venders stopped virtually in front of him and looked at him imploringly. He was a small untidy-looking man with a dirty face and a red scar streaking ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... many petty self-indulgences which, if continually practised, can do great and irreparable harm in undermining the will. Every man or woman knows his own little weaknesses best, but that which leads to the greatest harm is the excuse, "It is my temperament; if I were not tardy, or irritable, or untidy,"—or whatever it may be,—"I would not be myself." Our temperament is given us as a servant, not as a master; and when we discover that an inherited perversion of temperament can be trained to its opposite good, and train it so, we do it not at a loss of individuality, but at a great gain. This ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... But this was probably a libel. Madame Jequier, at any rate, never saw it done. She looked the other way. 'We all must live,' was her invariable answer to such foolish stories. 'One cannot sleep if one's supper is too light.' Like her body, her soul was a bit untidy—careless, that is, with loose ends. Who would have guessed, for instance, the anxiety that just now gnawed her very entrails? She was a mixture of shameless egotism, and of burning zeal for others. There was a ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... of the Blue-gums, do not attain a large size; but they grow tall and tolerably straight, and stand well apart. The bark of some of the Eucalypti falls annually, or hangs dead in long shreds which swing about with the wind, and give to the woods a desolate and untidy appearance. I cannot imagine a more complete contrast, in every respect, than between the forests of Valdivia or Chiloe, and the woods ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the air like great white bees drifting down out of the picker chimney. They lodged in the cramped and dingy elms and horse-chestnuts which a former agent had planted along the streets, and the English sparrows squabbled over them in eaves-corners and made warm, untidy great nests that would have contented an Arctic explorer. Somehow the Corporation homes looked like make-believe houses or huge stage-properties, they had so little individuality or likeness to the old-fashioned buildings that made ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sure to be untidy; hanging probably in straight, black locks over her forehead, and her frock will look as if it had been pitchforked on to her, and requires only the insubordination of one pin to leave her without ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... roll-call. Never had he been absent since his first day at school, and Miss Bailey was full of uneasiness. Nathan Spiderwitz, Morris's friend and ally, was also missing, but at half-past nine he arrived entirely breathless and shockingly untidy. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the steep steps, Helen following. The room was dirty and untidy. A rusty stove and table, three chairs and an ill-smelling cupboard in the corner, with some gaudy glass dishes upon it, were the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... gesture of a man whose choice of ready words was not large enough to describe all that he longed and tried to be to her. And then he stood back with his long legs wide apart and his large hands thrust into his pockets and his rather untidy gray head stuck on one side and studied her as if she were a picture in a gallery. He looked like a great big faithful ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... replied the little girl complacently. "I've quite left off being careless and untidy; it's so much nicer to be careful and neat. Good-night, grandmother dear, and thank you so much for teaching me ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... and this time I managed to get a show. "Three more whiskies, please landlord," and Tony in clear view cut up into nice squares by the little leaded panes. I got mine absorbed just in time, and was on the doorstep to meet her, draggle-skirted and untidy, but enthusiastic about her "burn." She broke her vows three times on the way up to number ten, and excused her lapses on the ground that the "burn" was the perfect image of one near a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the study, it suddenly struck him that the room looked disgustingly slovenly and unkempt. Phil was such an untidy beggar! He would fix things up a bit. If he did it carefully and methodically, no doubt he could consume a good hour and a half that way. It would then be half past nine. Possibly, if he tried hard, he could use up another hour bathing and getting ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... with me, English and German, because I'm going to learn German that way among other ways while I'm here, and I think it's a very good way, and it immensely impressed Frau Bornsted to see me take two Bibles out for a walk,—when I got back about five, untidy and hot and able to say off a whole psalm in perfect Lutheran German, I found several high yellow carriages, like the one I was fetched in on Saturday, in front of the paling, with nosebags and rugs on the horses, and indoors in the parlour a number of other ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... look at a learned little bower-hen," said the bird who had first objected to untidy and studious young hens. "For my part, I never allow a chick of mine even to mention insects, unless ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... pleasure, and heart-heavy with feelings that had no longer any reason to exist, pale with fatigue, untidy with crush, their pretty white gowns sullied and passe, each went her way; in every heart a wonder whether the few hilarious hours of strange emotions were worth all they claimed ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... you fire her, Sally?" her husband asked, as he had asked of almost every maid they had ever had—of lazy Annies, and untidy Selmas, and ignorant Katies. And, as always, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and recklessness that made me shudder. The windows were tight closed to keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed breath ran in streams down the panes, chequering the dreary outlook of ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... did Pollyanna give about her; then, with a confused vision in her eyes of crimson draperies, book-lined walls, a littered floor, an untidy desk, innumerable closed doors (any one of which might conceal a skeleton), and everywhere dust, dust, dust, she fled back through the hall to the great carved door, still half open as ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... matter of Aunt Jane's invitation. A quarrel might be inevitable later on; Rachel wanted to save all her resources for that. She gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote Aunt Jane's name down on the wedding list in her large, somewhat untidy handwriting—a handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother. Rachel never could understand this irritation. She could never guess that it was because her writing looked so much like that in a certain packet of faded letters which Mrs. Spencer kept at the bottom of an old horsehair trunk ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... estate. He was obviously breaking- up very rapidly. The surroundings appear to have reflected the gloomy nature of the master of the estate. The house was dilapidated, "with everything about it more or less untidy," {470b} although at this period his income amounted to upwards of five hundred ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... was less than five years old when a new governess came into the family, to teach his elder brother Nicholas and his cousin Lydia. As a little boy he was apt to be untidy, with buttons missing and rumpled hair. But his nature was so affectionate and sympathetic that he charmed every one with his pretty, loving ways. This natural gift he always retained. The governess was a very superior person and her influence ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... where Charmion and I were lolling over our tea. There was fruit on the table, besides a selection of cakes from town, and as we had been gardening in the earlier part of the afternoon, and got thoroughly grubby and untidy, we had changed into the tea-gowns which we wear in the evening when we are too lazy to put on more elaborate clothes. They are very nice tea-gowns, and, though I say so who shouldn't, we look exceedingly nice in them, but to the eye of a hard-working country clergyman the ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... little time, a girl, dirty, ragged, and untidy, came into the room, and taking Duncan up in her arms, carried him upstairs, Elsie following with ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... when in rest camp the men were encouraged to bathe, a portion of "X" Beach, which was within half a mile of our lines, being allotted for this purpose. Full advantage was taken of this. The cliff overlooking the beach was honeycombed with untidy dug-outs; the beach itself rough and dirty, the water still dirtier, clay-coloured and coated with a thick scum of straw, grain, and other light debris from the barges that were unloading—all that could honestly ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... and his respect for her demand that he shall appear not only in good clothes, but with well combed hair, exquisitely clean hands, well trimmed beard or cleanly shaven face, while the lady will not show herself in an untidy dress, or disheveled hair. They should ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... Thebault, more usually called Kennette. She was advanced in years, and old residents remembered when she was one of the quaintest figures and most assertive spirits in the town, for until a few years before her death she was rude of speech, untidy in appearance, loved nothing or respected nothing unless it might be her violin and her money, and lived alone in a little old house on the river-road to Springwells. Though she made shoes for ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... food," mourned the captain, chafing the untidy stubble on his cheeks, and staring gloomily down at the worthless brass. "I bought chow, when all Saigong was ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... with Josie's decisions. When, the next morning, her friend started for the village to call upon Old Swallowtail, she pressed her hand and wished her good luck. Josie departed in her plain gingham dress, shoes run over at the heels, hair untidy and uncovered by hat or hood—a general aspect ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... reception of a prince. The preacher had not been seated long, scarcely long enough to pass the usual interchange of first salutations and enquiries, when Mrs. Hopkins began in her old style to say she was "sorry that things were so untidy; her house was upside down; she was mortified to be found in such a plight; she really hoped before his arrival to have had all things in such order as she always liked to see them. She hoped he would excuse ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... the world he shines,'" said the clergyman, completing the quotation, right good-humouredly, though he was somewhat bewildered; for he had begun to fall a-marvelling at the little dingy maiden, with the untidy hair and dirty frock, who had thoughts of her own, and would not concede the faculty of song to the greatest of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... girlishness, construed to mean just a love of dress and finery, does not make womanliness. If it did, every well-clothed girl on the street would be virtuous. I confess, however, that it would require a good deal of persuasion to make me believe that untidy skirts, buttons clinging by a thread, or utter inattention to style, to neatness and wholeness, were traits in ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... more about Potts. It will have been inferred that he was objectionable. For the fact, he was objectionable in every way: as a human being, a man, a citizen, a member of the Slocum County bar, and a veteran of our late civil conflict. He was shiftless, untidy, a borrower, a pompous braggart, a trouble-maker, forever driving some poor devil into senseless litigation. Moreover, he was blithely unscrupulous in his dealings with the Court, his clients, his brother-attorneys, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... out with her husband and there was no one in the apartment that seemed so big and grand to Mary Rose's unsophisticated eyes. But Aunt Kate sniffed at the untidy kitchen ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... a new character, and found one to suit me. The German professor was becoming popular as a hero about this period. He wore his hair long and was otherwise untidy, but he had "a heart of steel," occasionally of gold. The majority of folks in the book, judging him from his exterior together with his conversation—in broken English, dealing chiefly with his dead mother and his little sister Lisa,—dubbed ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Minister, Mr. Marsh, though suffering with a lame foot, took me in charge, and in due course of time I was presented to King Victor-Emmanuel. His Majesty received me informally at his palace in a small, stuffy room—his office, no doubt—and an untidy one it was too. He wore a loose blouse and very baggy trousers; a comfortable suit, certainly, but not at all conducing to an ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... placed first the few old chairs that were in the room, against the wall, at regular distances from each other. Then she cleared the littered floor of chips, pieces of paper, and various articles that had been left about by the untidy girl who was Mrs. Elder's only attendant, and next straightened the cloth on the table, and arranged the mantel-piece so that its contents no longer presented ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... transformed an untidy, uncared-for bachelor habitation into a wholesome, clean establishment of well-ordered life. She had lifted a lazy Chinaman into a reasonable specimen of comparative energy, and saw to it that meals were well and carefully served, and partaken of at regular hours by men who quickly discovered ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was like Mart, or rather ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and lively, though ageing fast. The face was thin, rather wrinkled, dark and weather-beaten, with light untidy wisps of hair round the mouth. I was immediately struck by a curious twitching in his features, perhaps a relic of former bouts of drinking. Otherwise his expression was harsh and melancholy. His hands were red, swollen and calloused as if ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... brownies put on their clothes in a great hurry and crept softly down to the kitchen, where at first there seemed enough work for a dozen brownies to do. Tommy built up a blazing fire, and, while the kettle was boiling, swept the untidy floor, while Johnnie dusted, placed his grandmother's chair, got the cradle ready for the baby and spread the table. Just as everything was in order they heard their father's footstep on the stairs. "Run!" ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... cash. He lived with his aunt. Mitia quite realised that Mahin was not a respectable fellow, but when he was in his company he could not help doing what he wished. Mahin was in when Mitia called, and was just preparing to go to the theatre. His untidy room smelt of scented soap ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... well kept cellar revealed her safety. Vegetable bins, a neat pile of kindling wood, a large portable closet of wire netting, with occasional plates and covered dishes suggestively laid away in it, met her eye; on the floor in front of this last rested a little heap of something wet and glistening. Untidy as it looked, it had an eatable appearance to Caroline, whose instinct in these matters was unimpeachable, and bending over it she ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon |
