"Delicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the silence upon the sea was something to put all sorts of moods into a man. The sky was a hovering velvet stretch of stars, with a young moon lying curled among them, and winkings of delicate violet sheet-lightning down in the southwest, as though some gigantic-tinted lantern, passing, flung its light upon the dark blue obscure there. The captain went below, after a long, impatient look round, and I overhung the rail, peering into the water alongside, or sending my gaze into ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... these?' I asked in astonishment, for he was attired in a delicate plum-coloured suit with gold buttons and trimmings, set off by silken hosen and Spanish leather shoes with roses ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bee. I shall dispatch the business that takes me there as quickly as I can and hasten back," he replied; but he forbore to hint the nature of this business; it was a subject with which he did not wish to wound the delicate ear ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... toes of his hind-feet—so slight, indeed, that it assisted him but little in swimming—and his tiny, polished claws were plum-coloured. Except when he was listening intently for some sign of danger, his small, round ears were almost concealed in his thick fur. His mate was of smaller and more delicate build—this was especially noticeable when once I saw her swim with Brighteye through the clear water beneath the bank—and she was clad in ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... come to it yet; but he never came to it, or so much of it as some people seemed to do, and he always had his sorrowful misgivings as to whether they liked it as much as they pretended. I think, too, that it should be a flavor, a spice, a sweet, a delicate relish in the high banquet of literature, and never a chief dish; and I should not know how to defend my boy for trying to make long poems of his own at the very time when he found it so hard to ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... me there fairly," laughed Coleman; "but come along in, now, I want to introduce you to my mother and the governor; they are longing to see you after all I've told them about you, though I can't say you look much like the thin delicate youth ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the most sceptical of your sub-committee were slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were veritable facts. The result of their long-continued and carefully-conducted experiments, after trial by every delicate test they could devise, has been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... perceptable alimentary duct. I find them best when cooked in Indian stile, which is by roasting a number of them together on a wooden spit without any previous preperation whatever. they are so fat they require no additional sauce, and I think them superior to any fish I ever tasted, even more delicate and lussious than the white fish of the lakes which have heretofore formed my standart of excellence among the fishes. I have heard the fresh anchovey much extolled but I hope I shall be pardoned for beleiving this quite as good. the bones are so soft and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... of letters and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautiful—I mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and give her back her portrait and those letters myself. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... was carry'd off not much hurt, but his delicate Beast suffer'd much more. However I could not but think afterward, that the good natur'd Bull came short of fair Play. If I may be pardon'd the Expression, he had us'd his Adversary with more Humanity than he met with; at least, since, after he had the Cavaliero under, he generously ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... occupation which had not much more savor of death in it than the analysis of a portion of a plant out of which the life went when it was plucked up by the roots. Custom inures the most sensitive persons to that which is at first most repellant; and in the late war we saw the most delicate women, who could not at home endure the sight of blood, become so used to scenes of carnage, that they walked the hospitals and the margins of battle-fields, amid the poor remnants of torn humanity, with as perfect self-possession as if ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... I think you may be able to repay me very shortly"—he coughed—"or even now. The matter is much changed. Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an adage was current, that cotton would promise more and do less and promise less and do more than any other green thing that grew. The plants in the earlier stages were very delicate. Rough stirring of the clods would kill them; excess of rain or drought would be likewise fatal; and a choking growth of grass would altogether devastate the field. Improvement of conditions would bring quick recuperation to the surviving stalks, which upon ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to look as strong as he—slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous modesty. And she knew of her power ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... shipwrecked, there the black hole that swallowed up the offspring of frailty and shame. And while Mathieu's spell of waiting continued he saw three poor creatures arrive at the hospital. One was surely a work-girl, delicate and pretty though she looked, so thin, so pale too, and with so wild an air that he remembered a paragraph he had lately read in a newspaper, recounting how another such girl, after forsaking her child, had thrown herself into the river. The second seemed to him to be a married woman, some workman's ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... directed in the recipes make, in a few minutes, creams of a most delicate kind, remarkable for smoothness of texture and ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... father had a weaklier child, Of a soft cheek and aspect delicate; But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little he said, and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep deadly thought that they ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... is only the experience of the pain of casting out a darling evil, and the consciousness of God's pitying mercy as given to us, that makes the eye keen enough, and the hand steady and gentle enough, to pull out the mote. It is a delicate operation, and one which a clumsy operator may make very painful, and useless, after all. A rough finger or a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... what finger they make their appearance. When these islands are found at the commencement of the line under the first finger or Mount of Jupiter (3, Plate IV.), it will be found that the subject in early life was delicate mentally, and displayed no energy of will; no desire to study, was listless ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... household with sturdy goodwill. She possessed beauty that was unusual. They were a good-looking family, and she was the fairest of them all. Her eyes were dark and very shrewd, under their straight black brows; her face was delicate in colouring and outline; her hair was red-gold and abundant. Moreover, she was clever in a strictly practical sense. She enjoyed life in spite of straitened circumstances. And she possessed a serenity ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and good-breeding. He watches how they address themselves to their superiors, how they accost their equals, and how they treat their inferiors; and lets none of those little niceties escape him which are to good-breeding what the last delicate and masterly touches are to a good picture; and of which the vulgar have no notion, but by which good judges distinguish the master. He attends even to their air, dress, and motions, and imitates them, liberally, and not servilely; he copies, but ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... name of the thing she was making. She flushed and fumbled—thought of dressing-tables and the little objects of which she had made so many hanging to the mirror by ribbons; "toilet-tidies" haunted her—but that was not it—she smoothed out her work as if to show it to Fraulein—"Na, na," came the delicate caustic voice. "Was wird das wohl sein?" Then she remembered. "It's for a pin-cushion," she said. Surely she need, not venture ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... impossible at the bottom of the sea: 1, because it is in complete darkness; 2, because the terrible pressure would burst any organism; 3, because all motion would be impossible there, and so on. Some inquisitive person sends down a dredge, and brings up lovely creatures, so delicate in structure that the daintiest touch must proceed with circumspection. There is no light in these depths: they make it with their own phosphorescence. Other inquirers visit subterranean caverns, and discover animals and plants whose ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... saw the grosser facts of life, so often lamentable and tender, in the spirit of a Voltaire doubled by a Rabelais. There is honest and also shocking laughter in these early illustrations. A fantaisiste, graceful, delicate—and indelicate—emerged after the lad went up to Paris, as if he had stepped out of the eighteenth century. Rops summed up in his book plates, title-pages, and wood-cuts, illustrations done in a furious speed, all the elegance, the courtly ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... any such thing as conversation? It is a delicate subject to touch, because many people understand conversation to be talk; not the exchange of ideas, but of words; and we would not like to say anything to increase the flow of the latter. We read of times and salons in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... understand. Any one who is at all responsive to the charm of great architecture, can sit for hours under the old trees on the little common, and drink in the whole scene,—the beautiful building with its delicate shapes outlined in shadows upon ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... was one of those which, to this day octogenarian porters of old chateaus point out to visitors as "the state bedroom where Louis XIII. once slept." Fine pictures, mostly brown in tone, were framed in walnut, the delicate carvings of which were blackened by time. The rafters of the ceiling formed compartments adorned with arabesques in the style of the preceding century, which preserved the colors of the chestnut wood. These decorations, ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... velvet; little blue flames start up and flicker and play about in the glowing depths of the brasier. A mysterious artist comes and adapts that flame to his own ends; by a secret of his own he draws a visionary face in the midst of those flaming violet and crimson hues, a face with unimaginable delicate outlines, a fleeting apparition which no chance will ever bring back again. It is a woman's face, her hair is blown back by the wind, her features speak of a rapture of delight; she breathes fire in the midst ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... a subordinate, not a wage-slave but a follower—which was a restraint. Yes! The other sort of disposition simplified matters in general; it wasn't to be gainsaid. But it was clear that it could also complicate them—as in this most important and, in Ricardo's view, already sufficiently delicate case. And the worst of it was that one could not tell exactly in what precise manner ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Magnifico. But look at a personality like that of Ariosto, especially as shown in his satires. In what harmony are there expressed the pride of the man and the poet, the irony with which he treats his own enjoyments, the most delicate satire, and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... that Captain Sankey went down to the school and arranged that Charlie, now ten years old, should accompany his brother. There were several boys no older than he; but Charlie differed widely from his elder brother, being a timid and delicate child, and ill fitted to take care of himself. Captain Sankey felt, however, after what Ned had told him of Mr. Porson, that he could trust to him during the school hours, and Ned would be an active ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... (relapsing into disdain and anger). Only hear the great lady! Girls of your station generally think themselves fortunate to obtain such promotion. What is your dependence, my dainty one? Are these fingers too delicate for work?—or is it your pretty baby-face that makes ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... New York street,—Fifth Avenue at the height of the afternoon; a gallant and brilliant throng. Looking over the glittering array, the purple and fine linen, the sweeping robes, the exquisite equipages, the stately houses; the faces, delicate and refined, proud, self-satisfied, that gazed out from their windows on the street, or that glanced from the street to the windows, or at one another,—looking over all this, being a part of it, one might well say, "This is existence, and beside it there is none ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... who have the longing for amusement strongest within them, and plenty of combativeness to back it, are the standing terror of good society, and our Fourth of July is a day of fear to all invalids and persons of delicate nervous organization, and of real, appreciable danger of life and limb ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... colleagues contrived not to offend either the King or Pitt. This sleekness had its reward. The perversities of Thurlow having led to his fall in 1792, Loughborough became Lord Chancellor. His sage counsels heightened his reputation; and in October 1794 Pitt assigned to him the delicate task of seeing Earl Fitzwilliam and Grattan in order to smooth over the difficulties attending the union with the Old Whigs. At his house in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, occurred some of the conferences which ensured Fitzwilliam's acceptance of the Irish ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... gentle as the whirring of doves' wings. In the center of the picture on the screen were those half-dozen amphibians laying waste Manhattan. Maniel set his intricate, delicate ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... was on delicate as well as dangerous ground. Nothing had been said to arouse his suspicions but he could feel by instinct that the Englishman was ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... the yet unbuilt stage, she felt a deep interest in the project and begged Dan to lose no time in beginning his experiment. Bess also confessed that studies from nature would be good for her, and wild scenery improve her taste, which might grow over-nice if only the delicate and beautiful were set ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... youth of about seventeen, with fair hair and blue eyes, the lower part of his face slightly projecting like a monkey's. He was four feet nine inches in height, broad-shouldered, with tiny hands and delicate little feet, which had never worn shoes nor been put to their natural use, for the soles were as soft as a baby's. He was dressed in grey riding-breeches, a round jacket, which had been made out of a frock-coat by cutting off the skirts, and wore a round felt hat ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... aquiline nose and a pair of very large soft-brown eyes. His dark hair was brushed straight back from his forehead and was always very slick. Harry was what Roy called "a fussy dresser" and affected knickerbockers and golf-stockings, negligee shirts of soft and delicate hues of lavender or green or blue and, to quote his disrespectful room-mate once more, "symphonic ties." Harry was the embodiment of aristocratic ease and always lent a "tone" to any gathering. He maintained an air ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... She knew that neither six months nor six years would make her a fit wife for Hazard, and that it would be dishonest to lure him on by any hope that she could change her nature; but it was not easy to put this in delicate words. At length ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... highwayman who sought to rob one of any other property. A man's thoughts are certainly his own most private possession, and you must be very intimate to seek to be admitted to a share in them. Even if you are so, it is far more delicate to wait until confidence is offered to you. A man has a perfect right to defend himself from cross-examination by any means, except ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... nail, thereby to fix the Saddle; whereupon we call upon the Devil, and away we go.... For their journey they said they made use of all sorts of Instruments, of Beasts, of Men, of Spits and Posts. What the manner of their Journey is, God alone knows.... Blockula is scituated in a delicate large Meadow whereof you can see no end. They went into a little Meadow distinct from the other, where the Beasts went that they used to ride on: But the Men whom they made use of in their Journey, stood in the House by the Gate in a slumbering ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... the great physician all his symptoms as though he believed in the foolish farce. Sir Antony held his head solemnly on one side, weighed him with puritanical scrupulosity to a quarter of an ounce on his delicate balance, listened attentively at the chest with his silver-mounted stethoscope, and perpended the net result of his investigation with professional gravity; then he gave Edie his full advice and opinion to the maximum extent ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... essential purity. A great fear, or an obsessive moral struggle (as when one fights hopelessly against temptation), has the same effect. The enthusiasm of purpose and the eagerness of appetite go at once, in certain delicate people, when pride is seriously injured or when a once established superiority is crumbled. The humiliated man is anhedonic, even if he is ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... She seemed to be incapable of speaking beyond a whisper. But the whisper was delicate and agreeable; and perhaps it was a mysterious sign of her alleged ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... gold and scarlet and yellow and blue—fresh and bright and brilliant as the sky beneath which they were nurtured. The great toucan, with a beak nearly as big as his body, flew clumsily from stem to stem. The tiny, delicate humming-birds, scarce larger than bees, fluttered from flower to flower and spray to spray, like points of brilliant green. But they were irritable, passionate little creatures, these lovely things, and quarrelled with each other ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been observing a change in the appearance of the child. He had noticed the gradual paling of her cheek, and rapid attenuation of her form,—the natural consequence of such a terrible exposure to one accustomed all her days to a delicate and luxurious ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... then, that is needed, the model's wage; she has felt the common lash of the poor. Plainly here is some one who has stepped down from her place in life, who has descended far below her inclinations, to raise a small sum of money. Why she does so is of course her own sacred and delicate affair. But the spirit in which she does this becomes our affair, because it becomes a matter of expression with her. This self-sacrifice, this ordeal which she voluntarily undergoes to gain her end, shows in her face; and if while she poses, you should ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... drawing-room Ellen remembered in the Ruston house, or in this small apartment, illumined by fire and candle-light, and graced by a little old lady in cap and kerchief of fine lace. There were flowers on the table under the candles, and a tray with delicate glasses and a plate of little cakes. Altogether, the whole atmosphere of the room was so comfortably hospitable, and the charm of Charlotte's gay manner so convincing, that both her guests went away with the pleasant sense that they left real home happiness under the ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... knowledge, to experience. Save for a few doubtful moments at the beginning, when he had all but surprised himself in something more poignant, what he had been conscious of had been nothing more than a suave and delicate charm of sentiment, a subtle surrender to one exquisite aesthetic impression after another. And these things in other relations the world ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... subject of her thoughts claimed her father's acquaintance; and was introduced by him to her as Major Colquhoun. He looked about thirty-eight, and was a big blond man, with a heavy moustache, and a delicate skin that flushed easily. His hair was thin on the forehead; in a few more years he ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... needn't. Jake Bradley ain't that delicate that it'll hurt him to sleep out. No, Ben, save your money, and ef I actilly need it I'll make bold to ask you for it; but I don't throw away no ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... 3, 186; Minto, Aug. 10, 1799; Records: Austria, vol. 56. "I had no sooner mentioned this topic (Piedmont) than I perceived I had touched a very delicate point. M. de Thugut's manner changed instantly from that of coolness and civility to a great show of warmth attended with some sharpness. He became immediately loud and animated, and expressed chagrin at the invitation sent to the King of Sardinia.... He considers the conquest of Piedmont as one ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... he dressed himself with as much care as if he were to call upon her alone, and he dressed very well now. His clothes were substantial and fitted him well. His year's immunity from hard work had left his large hands supple and delicate of touch, and his face had attained refinement and mobility. His eyes had become more introspective and had lost entirely the ox-like roll of the country-born man. He was a handsome and dignified young man. His bearing on the street ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... eye. He has caught the very spell of the wilderness; she has laid her hand upon him, and he has gone forth with her blessing. So bold and truthful and minute are his countless representations of forest scenery; so delicate the tracery of branch and stem; so patriarchal the giant boles of his woodland monarchs, that the' gazer is at once satisfied and entranced. His vistas lie slumbering with repose either in shadowy glade or fell ravine, either with glint of lake or the glad, long ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... white from the fatigue of the journey, but beautiful as alabaster; at the blue of her eyes; at the delicate taper of her small white hands that from her birth had done only the daintiest of service; at the small feet that had never once walked the rough and ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... a clerk named Whittaker, a little his senior in the office, was struck by Harvey's curious and delicate face. ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... from this habit was the least evil, though very great, and must have absorbed all the produce of his writings and lectures and the liberalities of his friends." Cottle addressed to him a letter of not very delicate remonstrance on the subject, to which Coleridge replied in his wontedly ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... of more modern authors we are on much more delicate ground. First editions of really great men, such as Milton, Pope, or Dryden, probably will always command a high price not only on account of their scarcity but because they are sought for by all students who make a study of those authors. But when we come to those more modern ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Vilda, she was at peace with all the world. That she was eating the bread of dependence did not trouble her in the least! No royal visitor, conveying honor by her mere presence, could have carried off a delicate situation with more distinguished grace and ease. She was perched on a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and immediately began blowing bubbles in her mug of milk in the most reprehensible fashion; and glancing up after each naughty effort with an irrepressible gurgle ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... replied with stern dignity, "Who the h—- are you calling Jacky-Jacky? Do you think I'm a —— black-fellow?" The cook, a quiet and ladylike little woman, who had been a schoolmistress "at home" was not less astounded by the excellent English, than by the delicate way in which his disapprobation was expressed. This story of Jim reminds me of one about his master. He was a man who liked to have everything about him smart and showy, and was quite willing that every one should look upon him as a tremendous swell with the purse of a Croesus. I heard ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... touching scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress beautifully illustrates this fact. When Christian led Hopeful into Bye-path Meadow, so that they fell into the hands of Giant Despair, Hopeful says, 'I wold have spoke plainer, but that you are older than I.' That whole scene manifests the most delicate sensibility ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... him, "and find his daughter. Tell her that young Ferret is a scapegrace and a good-for-nothing fellow, and that Judge Fox has sent him to prison. Then tell her that I am very rich, and that my son Longtail is making a handsome fortune by his school. This is a delicate matter, Bantam: if you manage cleverly, I will be your friend through life; if you betray me, mark this." And the old man clapped his paw on the cutlass he usually ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... expresses things slender, delicate (in two ways); the downward movement expresses moral and ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... strenuous beats Of manhood's heart in this full-sinewed breast Which thou may'st even now discern is mine, — Sir, full aware, each instant in each day, Of motions of great muscles, once were mine, And thrill of tense thew-knots, and stinging sense Of nerves, nice, capable and delicate: — Sir, visited each hour by passions great That lack all instrument of utterance, Passion of love — that hath no arm to curve; Passion of speed — that hath no limb to stretch; Yea, even that poor feeling of desire Simply to turn me from this side to that, (Which ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips, 20 And shapes the drifts To curves of transient loveliness, he slips Upon the pasture's ineffectual brown A swan-soft vestment delicate as down. ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men and women there are who will ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... leaves contain, beside a stimulant and flavour, an undesirable substance known as tannin, which is injurious to the delicate lining of the stomach. If the tea be properly made, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... some other person, the King desired her to take him who came in last; she turned about, and viewing him as he was passing over the seats to come to the place where they danced, she immediately concluded he was the Duke of Nemours. The Duke's person was turned in so delicate a manner, that it was impossible not to express surprise at the first sight of him, particularly that evening, when the care he had taken to adorn himself added much to the fine air of his carriage. It was as impossible to behold the Princess ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... needful facts are long since gathered, sown, and known. We have been seekers after those facts from the days of Aristotle. Are we to put off the day of attempting interpretation for three thousand years more, to allow the human physiologist time to slice the brain into more delicate atoms than he has done hitherto, in order to coin more names, and swell the dictionary? No! The work must now be retrospective, if we would render true knowledge progressive. It is not a list of new and ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... broad-brimmed hat was cocked jauntily on one side, and again the brim was fixed over the face like a visor. At one moment a drifting misshapen mass of drapery, at the next its vague garments, beaten back hard against the figure, revealed outlines far too delicate for that rude enwrapping. For it was Mrs. Rylands herself, in her husband's hat and her "hired man's" old blue army overcoat, returning from the post-office two miles away. The wind continued its aggression ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... first visit. Before she left she sent for her cameras and made studies of each side of it and of the cathedral. She was entranced with the delicate beauty of the place, while her eyes kept following Freckles as if she could not believe that it could be ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Jimmy heartily regretted that he had allowed his appreciation of the dramatic to lead him into this situation. It would have been so simple to have roused the house in a prosaic way and avoided this delicate position. Suppose his bluff did not succeed. Suppose the other still clung to his pistol at the end of the five seconds. He wished that he had made it ten instead. Gentleman Jack was an enterprising person, as his previous acts had showed. He might very well ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... four Esopus chiefs appeared before the gate of the village. Delegates from other tribes also appeared, and a grand council was held. It is very evident from this interview, that many of the more delicate feelings of the civilized man had full sway in the hearts of these poor Indians. Instead of imploring peace themselves, the Esopus Indians employed two chiefs, one of the Mohawk and the other of the Mingua tribe, to make the proposition ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... Without some feint, to hinder our old man From seeing that this wench is Clitipho's. As for the money, and the trick I dream'd of, Those hopes are flown, and I shall hold it triumph, So I but 'scape a scouring—Cursed fortune, To have so delicate a morsel snatch'd Out of my very jaws!—What shall I do? What new device? for I must change my plan. —Nothing so difficult, but may be won By industry.—Suppose, I try it thus. (Thinking.) —'Twill never do.—Or thus?—No ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... he won his suit. The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the law exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But at any rate it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one. However, he was used to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate success. His behaviour was from the first moment impeccable. His manner towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... take this opportunity of recording my grateful sense of the unsparing labour, learning, and devotion, with which my father's valued friend, Professor Henri Cordier, has performed the difficult and delicate task which I ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... strong. She is only asleep. Sleep is a reprieve. It is the happy blindness. What can I do to prevent people walking about here? Gentlemen, if there be anybody on deck, I beg of you to make no noise. Do not come near us, if you do not mind. You know a person in delicate health requires a little attention. She is feverish, you see. She is very young. 'Tis a little creature who is rather feverish. I put this mattress down here so that she may have a little air. I explain ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Foreign Body Extraction.—Two different strengths of forceps are supplied, as will be seen in the list in Chapter 1. The regular forceps have a powerful grasp and are used on dense foreign bodies which require considerable pressure on the object to prevent the forceps from slipping off. For more delicate manipulation, and particularly for friable foreign bodies, the lighter forceps are used. Spring-opposed forceps render any delicacy of touch impossible. Forceps are to be held in the right hand, the thumb in one ring, and the third, or ring finger, in ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... William was so delicate that he was never sent to school, and at one time it was feared he would not have been reared; but a doctor prescribed liberal doses of port wine, and this 'pleasant medicine,' we hear, pleased the child, and he drank a great deal of it daily. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... or sit, and smoke his pipe in pleasant weather. And finally he brought the professor back to the front office, where he found his hostesses, Miss Jenny and Miss Nelly Downey, waiting to welcome him. Nice, delicate, refined-looking old maiden ladies they were—tall, thin, and fair complexioned, with fine, gray hair, and cobweb lace caps and pale gray dresses, and having pleasant ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... proportion to our eyes, causes a very painful sensation. Which is wisely and favourably so ordered by nature, that when any object does, by the vehemency of its operation, disorder the instruments of sensation, whose structures cannot but be very nice and delicate, we might, by the pain, be warned to withdraw, before the organ be quite put out of order, and so be unfitted for its proper function for the future. The consideration of those objects that produce it may well persuade us, that ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... visitor to the door. There was a question which he had it in his mind to ask, but the question was delicate. He stood uneasily on ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything? Is not machinery linked with animal life in an infinite variety of ways? The shell of a hen's egg is made of a delicate white ware and is a machine as much as an egg-cup is: the shell is a device for holding the egg, as much as the egg-cup for holding the shell: both are phases of the same function; the hen makes the shell in her inside, but it is pure pottery. She makes her nest outside ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... we must begin by keeping still. We must listen. The whole world is a tongue of which the spirit is the meaning. God engraved its fiery capitals in the immensity of the heavens, and traced its delicate smaller letters on the flower, on the grass, on the human soul, as rich, as incommensurable as the abysses of space. Whosoever you are, brother, before letting yourself utter one word, lend your ear to that voice that seeks you, I might almost add, that implores you. Listen!—Listen to the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... Schwanthaler; Austria with Monti's veiled heads, henceforth to be credited to Lombardy; Prussia with Rauch; and Denmark with Thorwaldsen—all pure form, copied without color from Nature, from convention and from the antique. Then came design and color united in ceramics—in the marvelously delicate flowers of Dresden, purified in the porcelain-furnace as by fire; in the stately vases of Sevres, just but varied in proportion, unfathomable in the rich depths of their ground-shadows, and exact and brilliant in the superimposed details; the more raw but promising efforts of Berlin, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... first idly and then with interest. Lady Elisabeth, in her cool muslin gown and simple hat, seemed to be moving in a world of her own, into which her companion's chatter but rarely penetrated. She walked with a slow and delicate grace, not without a characteristic touch of languor. Once or twice she looked around her—one might almost have imagined that she was seeking escape from her companion—and on one of these occasions her eyes met Maraton's. She stopped short. They were within a few feet of one another, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the chairs hung a ragged shawl, a pair of muddy pantaloons and a dress or two—all too bad for the old-clothes man to buy. In the middle of the mantel between two mismated tin candlesticks was a bundle of pawn tickets from the Mont-de-Piete. These tickets were of a delicate shade of rose. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... mind, which excited our wonder and admiration. As the most effectual means to bring about a reconciliation, she presented us with a hog, and several other things, among which was a dog. We had lately learnt, that these animals were esteemed by the Indians as more delicate food than their pork; and upon this occasion we determined to try the experiment: The dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook. He killed him by holding his hands close ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... is true of all mankind, can only be, that a different supposition would be inconsistent with the uniformity which we know to exist in the course of nature. Whether there would be this inconsistency or not, may be a matter of long and delicate inquiry; but unless there would, we have no sufficient ground for the major of the inductive syllogism. It hence appears, that if we throw the whole course of any inductive argument into a series of syllogisms, we shall arrive by more or fewer steps at an ultimate syllogism, which will ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... delicate, with a peculiar flavour, slightly aromatic rather than nutty; and answers admirably to the improved taste ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... swift pursuit on the other. Thus horridly impaled, his body hanging down along the sidewalk, the wretched man was left to die. At length Captain Hedden noticed him, and lifting up the corpse, laid it down on the sidewalk. It was found, to the surprise of all, to be that of a young man of delicate features and white, fair skin. "Although dressed as a laborer, in dirty overalls and filthy shirt, underneath these were fine cassimere pants, handsome, rich vest, and fine linen shirt." [Footnote: D.M. Barnes.] He was evidently ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... delicate, and could not thrive on the Indians' fare of meat and hominy, with no bread or salt; of sugar and honey there was plenty; but he missed the things he was used to at home. When he grew older he was given a gun, and sent hunting, and whenever he came ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... secretary for almost twenty years, given him the best years of his life—slaved for him—lied for him—made money for him. Billy said his father regarded him as an excellent piece of office machinery, and treated him as if he were nothing more. The poor chap had always had hard luck; a delicate wife, three or four children who were eternally having or needing something, and poor relations demanding help he couldn't refuse. Between doctors' bills and clothing—and the relatives—he had no ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... side of their white beds the night after the wedding, for on that propitious day two friends of the bridegroom's—one of them the owner of the yacht—decided to return again to the place where there were to be found the most nymphlike of pretty creatures a man had ever by any chance beheld. Such delicate little fair crowned heads, such delicious little tip-tilted noses and slim white throats, such ripples of gay chatter and nonsense! When a man has fortune enough of his own why not take the prettiest thing he sees? So Alice and Olive were borne away ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Buyukderer on a breezy blue day, a day which seemed full of hope and elation, which was radiant with sunlight and dancing waters, and buoyant with ardent life. Gone were those delicate dreamy influences which sometimes float over the Bosporus even in the noontides of summer, when the winds are still, and the long shores of Asia seem to lie wrapped in a soft siesta, holding their secrets of the Orient ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... leisurely into a small village on my way to this town, I met a crowd of worshippers on their way to mass. Nearly all the women were on mule back, and sat or lolled as if they were in an easy chair in their own homes. A few, probably wealthier than the others, or else delicate in health, were accompanied by little darky boys, who held over them ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... man of refinement and delicate feeling. I am kindly disposed to him already. There is something chivalric and what is called 'old-fashioned' in his expressions. No young ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... causes. One author states: "Mental abnormality is always due to either imperfect or eccentric physical development, or to the effects of inborn or acquired physical disease, or to injurious impressions, either ante-natal or post natal, upon the delicate and intricate physical structure known as the human brain." Some physical imperfections, more than others, give rise to mental derangements, and some persons, more than others, when affected by any bodily ailment, tend to aberrated conditions of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... big cigar, as always after supper, but to Lenore's delicate sensitiveness he seemed to ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... not spend my labour upon a reproduction of the verbal torrent of wrath, wounded dignity, disgust, and contempt, with which the father assailed his shrinking, delicate, honest-minded woman-child. For Nicie, he dismissed her on the spot. Not another night would he endure her in the house, after her abominable breach of confidence! She had to depart without even a good-bye from Ginevra, and went home weeping in great dread of what her ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... and well-proportioned. His hands and feet were rather small and delicate. He carried his head erect with ease and freedom. Jet-black hair, slightly waving, streamed loose over temples and cheeks, and was gathered at the back in a short thick knot. In front it parted naturally, leaving exposed a narrow strip ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Words and phrases which occurred to him were beautiful likewise. But all were seen and heard remotely, as through some softly dazzling medium which, while heightening the charm of them, produced a delicate confusion leaving him uncertain whether he really slept or woke. More than once, not without effort, he roused himself; but only to slip back again into the same state of fair yet ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... of it. He always brought his book to the table; he liked to eat slowly, to gaze out and digest one or two thoughts at his leisure, as well as the delightful breakfast set before him. He was a man of delicate tastes and much refinement, for with all the New England sturdiness, hardness one might say, there was in many families a strain of what we might term high breeding. His face, with its clear-cut features, indicated ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... creepers climbed, divided the lawn and its magnificent Wellingtonias from the meadow. There was little grass to be seen, for it was at this time one vast profusion of delicate ixias of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... iridescent colours like a soap-bubble. Here we found our first jelly-fish, a beautifully clear disc of transparency about the size of a penny bun, and from which, when we plunged it in the first rock pool, hung down quite a lovely fringe of the most delicate hues. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... called the flounder, perhaps you may know, Has one side for use and another for show; One side for the public, a delicate brown, And one that is white, which he always ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... the largest of the rodents, and the ground-rat or ground-pig of western and southern Africa. The chinchilla, which is the typical form of the third family, is known to all, especially ladies, from its delicate soft fur. The agouti of South America is the representative of the Dasyproctidae. The family Dinomyidae consists of one animal only, Dinomys Branickii; the only known example of which was obtained in Peru on the Montana de Vitoc. It was found walking ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... exertions. Once only there was a momentary embarrassment. "Then you fired that shot to bring me back?" said the Old Man, gratefully. In the awkward silence that followed, the hands of the two brothers sought and grasped each other, penitently. "Yes," interposed the Judge with delicate tact, "ye see the Right and Left Bower almost quarreled to see which should be the first to fire for ye. I disremember which did"—"I never touched the trigger," said the Left Bower, hastily. With a hurried backward kick, the Judge resumed, "It ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... conception that you had such a delicate sense of humor, Bonnithorne," he said, with only the shadow of a smile. "Feelings! ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... of two miniatures, which he placed upon one side, they were letters written in Spanish and in a very delicate hand. Brant knew Spanish well, and in twenty minutes he had read them all. They proved to be epistles from a lady who signed herself Juanita de Montalvo, written to the Count Juan de Montalvo, whom she addressed as her husband. Very piteous documents ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... That he was younger brother, one year younger, of a certain "Anne of Cleves;"—a large fat Lady, who was rather scurvily used in this country; being called, by Henry VIII. and us, a "great Flanders mare," unsuitable for espousal with a King of delicate feelings! This Anne of Cleves, who took matters quietly and lived on her pension, when rejected by King Henry, was Aunt of the young Lady now in question for Preussen. She was still alive here in England, pleasantly quiet, "at Burley on the Hill," till ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... had beaten the famous Boston in a great race. She always spoke of "Fash" with a tone of real tenderness in her voice, and looked after her, and discussed her ailments, which were always numerous, as if she had been a delicate child. Mounted on this beast, with her bags and bundles, and shawls and umbrella, and a long stick or pole, she used occasionally to make the tour of the neighborhood, and was always really welcomed; because, notwithstanding the trouble ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... appointed to fish, and others were occasionally sent for meat, as the hunters procured it. This latter employment, although extremely laborious, was always relished by the Canadians, as they never failed to use a prescriptive right of helping themselves to the fattest and most delicate parts of the deer. Towards the end of the month, the rein-deer began to quit the barren grounds, and came into the vicinity of the house, on their way to the woods; and the success of the hunters being consequently great, the necessity ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... land generally good with good grasses. The land near the creek was particularly good and thinly wooded with box. Having found four emu eggs today Mr. Bourne and I made an excellent dinner of one of them boiled. We thought it had as delicate a flavour as a hen's egg; the rest of our party made emu-egg pancakes, and although they had no salt or sugar they relished them exceedingly. We came here today in the following direction: at 1 east-south-east for nine and a quarter miles; 1.40 ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... weighted beneath the feeling that something dreadful was about to happen. The trembling of the tiny hands and twitching of the delicate face betrayed a heart suffering which a child of her ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... who thus made love to his vessel was Wilhelm Barentz. He was a young man, apparently not thirty years of age, of diminutive stature and delicate proportions. His face was handsome, but womanish. His movements were rapid and restless, and there was that appearance in his eye which would have warranted the supposition that he was a little flighty, even if his conduct had not fully proved ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... have a talk with old man Vose about this steamer," said Captain Wass. "Now, son, a last word. I don't want to pry into any delicate matters. But I sort of smell a rat in those papers in your pocket. When she took 'em out of her muff all I could smell was violet. Do you think you've got anything about you that would help me—help ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... professor at West Point, to take the lead in the matter. The death of Mr. Ellicott, Professor of Mathematics at that institution, who was his father-in-law, and his appointment to the vacant chair, from that of engineering, placed him in a very delicate and arduous situation. He has never received credit for the noble manner in which he met this crisis. He was not only almost immediately required to teach his class the differential calculus, but the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... desire, of course, that her children shall be healthy and whole-minded; they do not desire that marriage should be for her the beginning of disease, from the disastrous effects of which she may never recover. But these are delicate matters, and prudery forbids that they should be inquired into; yet every father who permits his daughter to marry without having satisfied himself on these points is guilty, at the least, of grave delinquency of duty, and may, in effect, be conniving ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... general recalled that worn a century ago. As my brother gazed at him, he got up, putting his hands on the arms of the chair to raise himself, and causing the creaking so often heard before. The hands forced themselves on my brother's notice: they were very white, with the long delicate fingers of a musician. He showed a considerable height; and still keeping his eyes on the floor, walked with an ordinary gait towards the end of the bookcase at the side of the room farthest from the window. He reached the bookcase, and then John suddenly lost sight of him. The figure did not fade ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... globose, or irregular, sessile, more or less aggregated, ochraceous-yellow, peridium double, the outer, thick, cartilaginous, at length irregularly ruptured, and reflexed, disclosing the more delicate, ashen-gray, inner membrane which encloses capillitium and spores; capillitium abundant, showing large, white irregular calcareous thickenings which are often consolidated in some sporangia tend to aggregate at the centre; spore-mass brown, spores ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... be distinguished from patrician pride, or the noli-me-tangere of social exclusiveness. Nor, again, was it, like Callimachus's, the fastidious repulsion of a delicate taste for the hackneyed in literary expression; it was the lofty disdain of aspiring virtue for ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... his health. He was delicate as a boy. He must have been about eight or nine years old when Uncle Henry left Foxon Falls for the west,—that was before you were born. Uncle Henry died somewhere in Iowa. He and my father never got along. Uncle ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... public gardens, I revelled in the beauty of the Milanese women. Italian ladies at that time still wore black lace over their heads instead of hats. Their dresses were open in front, the neck being bare half-way down the chest. I was struck by the feminine type. Upright, slender- waisted women; delicate, generally bare hands; oval faces, the eyebrows of an absolutely perfect regularity; narrow noses, well formed, the nostrils curving slightly upwards and outwards—the models ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... as McDougall calls it, is aroused by other children than one's own, and by others than children. It is called out particularly by things that are by nature helpless and delicate, but may be aroused by adults who are placed in situations where they are suffering and powerless. Samson, shorn of his strength, has been a traditional occasion for pathos. The sick, the bereaved, the down-and-outers, the failures, the forlorn and broken-hearted, call ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the same to anything she suggested. When McLean came, he found the Angel flushed and glowing, sitting on the wagon, her hands already filled. One of the men, who was cutting a scrub-oak, had carried to her a handful of crimson leaves. Another had gathered a bunch of delicate marsh-grass heads for her. Someone else, in taking out a bush, had found a daintily built and lined little nest, fresh ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... liked to see rooms in order, she hated to sweep, as no speck escaped Mrs. Grant's eye, and only the good old-fashioned broom, wielded by a pair of strong arms, was allowed. Baking was another trial: she loved good bread and delicate pastry, but did not enjoy burning her face over a hot stove, daubing her hands with dough, or spending hours rolling out cookies for the boys; while a "boiled dinner" was her especial horror, as it was not elegant, and the washing of vegetables ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... neither very choice nor delicate in his epithets, once called a clergyman a fool, and there was probably some truth in his application of the word. The clergyman, however, being of a different opinion, declared he would complain to the bishop of the usage. "Do so," ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out by the struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but something in his personality, and in the nature of his effort—some brilliant, tender note—had kept his memory alive in ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the reflections which have occurred to us during a watchful attention paid to the course of public affairs, both foreign and domestic, in the interval alluded to; though feeling the task which we have undertaken both a delicate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... boy espied, in morning light, A little rosebud blowing. 'Twas so delicate and bright, That he came to feast his sight, And wonder at its growing. Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red, Rosebud ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... Sterne must approach with reluctance. There is, of course, a sense in which Sterne's humour—if, indeed, we may bestow that name on the form of jocularity to which I refer—is the very reverse of pure and delicate: a sense in which it is impure and indelicate in the highest degree. On this it is necessary, however briefly, to touch; and to the weighty and many-counted indictment which may be framed against Sterne on this head there is, of course, but one possible plea—the plea of guilty. Nay, the plea ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... free-stone, but the vault is of clunch. The arch of communication with the Tower is also very beautiful; it is similar in form to the exterior arch, but the ornaments in the mouldings are richer and more delicate: this has just been restored, and the Purbeck marble pillars—some of which had disappeared and others had become decayed—have been replaced by pillars of Devonshire marble with Purbeck plinths and capitals; the vesica ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... her stead (for she had departed in the interval) a delicate-looking young woman, plain and poor, a widow evidently from the style of her shabby mourning and sad expression of face, bearing in her arms a weird and sickly-looking child, evidently a sufferer from spinal ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... let a single magnificent jewel, that guarded the plain circlet of gold on her fourth finger, flash in the moonlight. She held it raised so for a moment, watching the play of light from the facets. Suddenly she clinched her delicate fist spasmodically; shook it forcibly upwards towards the supreme strength of those silent hills, which, in comparison with the human three score and ten, may well be termed "everlasting", and, muttering ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... the same paddock and their charioteers sleep beside the same fire; each night Cuchulainn sends to his wounded friend a share of the herbs that are applied to his own wounds, while to Cuchulainn Ferdiad sends a fair half of the pleasant delicate food supplied to him by the men of Erin. We may recall, too, Cuchulainn's act of compassion towards Queen Medb near the close of the Tain. Her army is flying in rout homeward across the Shannon, closely ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... cleaves the skies. It was in the spring-time; luxuriant nature seemed to have nothing to do but to grow and bloom, and the huge mountain itself was profoundly at peace,—smiling a welcome, apparently, to the delicate bean-plants and wild vines which clambered up its sides, and wearing a light curl of smoke, like a gay coronal, around its brow. The bay was alive with red-capped fishermen, each one intent on fishing up his inverted brother below him; the beach was thronged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... enough the necessity for speed, she had no breath to expend expressing her appreciation of Pretty's delicate position. She was too frightened to run even as well as she knew how, and she was going at a gait that was neither very fast nor very economical of muscle and breath. Pretty, however, ran scientifically: ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... shadow, with the lamp in his hand. This he set on the table in his own room, and sitting before it, began moving the balls in the adding machine. Upon the low voices in the kitchen, the dry click of the shifted balls broke in sharp staccato, followed by pauses when, with a hand as delicate as a woman's, he traced the Chinese characters on ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... governance,—knowing Gautier, Count of Antwerp,[122] for a noble and discreet gentleman and their very faithful friend and servant, and for that (albeit he was well versed in the art of war) he seemed to them more apt unto things delicate than unto martial toils, they left him vicar general in their stead over all the governance of the realm of France and went on their way. Gautier accordingly addressed himself with both order and discretion to the office committed unto him, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... had been some heavy storms of rain, and the water lay in deep gutters on the sides of the gravel walks in the garden of Broxton Parsonage; the great Provence roses had been cruelly tossed by the wind and beaten by the rain, and all the delicate-stemmed border flowers had been dashed down and stained with the wet soil. A melancholy morning—because it was nearly time hay-harvest should begin, and instead of that the meadows ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... bedside, but this was no more than could be expected from a tender-hearted nurse towards a poor fellow who had fallen among enemies, and whose life depended upon unremitting care. The young man had throughout acted like a gentleman, was cautious, delicate, reserved, and quite above taking advantages of his position to toy with the feelings of Pauline. Furthermore, the girl had long been devoted to Major Hardinge, and the Major was devoted to her. Indeed, their relations ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... cream. Well, my dear, I'm obliged to speak out; for you really are a pair of impostors, and I cannot have my house made a meeting place for would-be lovers. There—there—there, Mr Stratton, don't pray turn like that, and look as if you were going to rush away. Mine is a very delicate position, and I know my brother will be taking me to task some day about all this. Now, do take my advice; and give it all up—Percy Guest, if you break that cup I'll never forgive you. ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... Greeks, and favete linguis, or bona verba quaeso, of the Romans, evince the care with which they endeavored to repress the utterance of any word expressive or suggestive of ill fortune; not from notions of delicate politeness, to which their general mode of conduct and feeling had very little reference, but from bona fide alarm lest the event so suggested to the imagination should in fact occur. Some vestige of a similar superstition has been known to exist among uneducated persons ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... element in the production of agricultural as well as all other wealth. It is not true, however, that the problem of labor is more difficult or more intricate than that of other industries. In fact, that problem is less delicate than in some other occupations, because farming ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... The dinner was served: and, behold, a great pile of cabbage and a bit of middling about four inches long and two inches across! The guests, with commendable politeness, unanimously declined middling, and it remained in the dish untouched. Next day Gen. Lee, remembering the delicate tit-bit which had been so providentially preserved, ordered his servant to bring 'that middling.' The man hesitated, scratched his head, and finally owned up: 'De fac is, Masse Robert, dat ar middlin' was borrid middlin'; we all did'n had nar spec; and I done paid it back to de man whar ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... It is delicate work at best, coping with the intricacies of celestial mechanics upon a semicircular trajectory with retarding velocity, and with a makeshift crew we could easily have come ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings |
