"Martinet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was at home." When I had given my name, but not my business, I was ushered up, perhaps after an interval of ten minutes, to a sitting-room on the first floor, and there I found myself face to face with a fat, red-faced man in evening dress; and if ever there was a martinet down Montey way, this fine gentleman was that same. He was fat, I say, and forty—but to write that he was fair would be impossible, for he hadn't more than about half a dozen hairs on his head, and those had drifted ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... and Ubaye are seen the picturesque fort and extensive forest of St. Vincent. 28m. from Gap is Le Lauzet, pop. 1000, Inn: France, surrounded by great mountains, with narrow gorges and lofty waterfalls. In the neighbourhood is a lake abounding with trout. 3 m. higher up is the hamlet of Martinet, at the entrance to the beautiful valley of the Laverq, extending to the S. side of Mt. Siolane, on whose slopes the spire of the church of Meolans occupies a prominent position. From Martinet the road crosses to the right side ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... streams of trade could be diverted violently so as to link the parts of the Empire by common interests, and they were persuaded, I still think mistakenly, that Tariff Reform would have an immense popular appeal. They were also very keen on military organisation, and with a curious little martinet twist in their minds that boded ill for that side of public liberty. So much against them. But they were disposed to spend money much more generously on education and research of all sorts than our formless ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... are certain other obstacles in the way even of the union of indisputable Germans. One element in Germany's present efficiency must become more and more of an encumbrance as the years pass. The Germanic idea is deeply interwoven with the traditional Empire and with the martinet methods of the Prussian monarchy. The intellectual development of the Germans is defined to a very large extent by a court-directed officialdom. In many things that court is still inspired by the noble traditions ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... ready. Their appearance would hardly have captivated a martinet. The eye that lingers lovingly on glittering buttons and spotless belts would have turned away in disdain from Jackson's soldiers. There was nothing bright about them but their rifles. They were as badly dressed, and with as ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... type and model of a soldier and a gentleman, and he maintained that without rigid discipline there could be no order and no safety at home or in the army. But between him and Don John there was all the difference that separates the born leader of men from the mere martinet. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... and had he had the ability—which others have denied for him—to coalesce with France and Russia he would have been warlord indeed. As it is, failing in an effort to realize the dream of Napoleon I., he has at present writing subsided into a martinet. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... smallish, weazened man, with bushy eyebrows and full white beard, dressed in a frock coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... there is no need, that has been the key to most of the sublime surprises of all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddle and toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackle forlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year lunacy to the martinet ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... which has Webster among its captains, Dekker among its lieutenants, Heywood among its privates, and Shakespeare at its head. Nor did he by any means follow the banner of Jonson with such automatic fidelity as that imperious martinet of genius was wont to exact from those who came to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." A rigid critic—a critic who should push rigidity to the verge of injustice—might say that he was one of those recruits in literature whose misfortune it is to fall between two stools—to halt between two courses. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... martinet where school rules were concerned, and the Brackenfield code was strict. She knew that Mrs. Morrison would at least have allowed Marjorie and Dona to see their brother in the drawing-room, but in the absence of instructions to that effect she chose ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... as before. That is, the 'martinet' worse than the 'knout de Russe'; the 'poucettes', the 'crapaudine' on neck and ankles and wrists; all, all as bad as the 'Pater Noster' of the Inquisition, as Mayer said the other day in the face of Charpentier, the Commandant of the penitentiary. How ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lest he should offend and drive her away. But conscience whispered, "Now is your opportunity to speak the 'unvarnished truth,' whatever be the consequences"; and conscience with Hemstead was an imperative martinet. She waited in curious and quiet expectancy. This sincere and unconventional man was delightfully odd and interesting to her. She saw the power and fascination of her beauty upon him, and at the same time perceived that in his crystal ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... dazzled him with her approval when he enlarged on the merits of Kincaid and when he pledged all his powers of invention to speed the bridal. Frantic to think what better to do, she waltzed with him, while he described the colonel of the departing regiment as such a martinet that to ask him to delay his going would only hasten it; waltzed on when she saw her grandmother discover the knife's absence and telegraph her a look of contemptuous wonder. But ah, how time was flying! Even now Kincaid must be returning ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... by observation and imitation. Another was practically the chore boy of the worker who was assigned to teach him. A third was under no direct supervision at all, but was expected to "keep busy," finding his work by himself. A fourth was put through a severe and valuable training by a martinet teacher,—and ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... not a court-martial, but an informal investigation, and I shall be glad to have you and Dr. Connelly entirely free to ask any questions you please," replied the captain, who was anything but a martinet. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... kind that Hanlon found a measure of comfort in the looks and attitude of the officer before him, now suddenly not a dread ogre, and martinet, but ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... lieutenant, first lieutenant, and finally captain of a frigate, the young man acquitted himself well, earning the reputation of a capital officer, hardworking, careful, no martinet towards his men, though by no means to be trifled with. In practical seamanship, he excels any other prince of his age, and can command any kind of naval craft from torpedo boat to battleship, and lead ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... Steuben, a Prussian officer who had served under Frederic the Great, arrived at the headquarters of Washington. Some say that he was a mere martinet, but he was exceedingly useful in drilling the American troops, working from morning till night, both patient and laborious. From that time Washington had regular troops, on which he could rely, few in number, but loyal and true. La Fayette also was present ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... the discharge of the assistant surgeon, the surgeon in charge of the hospital, who was a martinet in discipline, and somewhat irritated for some cause, resolved, in order to annoy her, to compel the discharge of the negro nurses and attendants, and require her to employ convalescent soldiers, as the other hospitals were doing. For this purpose he procured from the medical director an order ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... driven from home. Magda, full of life and the spirit of liberty, goes out into the world to return to her native town, twelve years later, a celebrated singer. She consents to visit her parents on condition that they respect the privacy of her past. But her martinet father immediately begins to question her, insisting on his "paternal rights." Magda is indignant, but gradually his persistence brings to light the tragedy of her life. He learns that the respected Councillor Von Keller had in his student days been Magda's ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... MARTINET. A military term for a strict disciplinarian: from the name of a French general, famous for restoring military discipline to the French army. He first disciplined the French infantry, and regulated ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... society, and which it is so pleasant to find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... old 'alaili,' Turkish officers—those whose whole knowledge of their business was derived from service in a regiment or 'alai,' instead of from instruction at a military school; and his manner towards the men had nothing of the martinet. He addressed them as 'my children,' with affection; and they, though quite respectful, conversed freely in his presence. Hasan Agha paid me many compliments, and repeatedly inquired after my health. He would not hear about my business till I had had breakfast. Luncheon had been arranged ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... from head to foot, and wet through for hours, we had then one of the most dismal experiences I remember. I had not been well since the terrible heat of the 15th, and Strahan, putting on the air of a martinet, sternly ordered me to mount his horse while he ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... General Werder acted under superior orders. But, sir, you must perceive that in these discretionary situations there is no such dangerous man as the innocent executant, the martinet, the person of routine, the soldier stifled in his uniform. I saw Werder after the capitulation. A little man, lean and bilious. Such was the opponent who reversed for us successively, like the premisses of an argument, the bank, the library, the art-museum, the theatre, the prefecture, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... demanded of him. The Czech employees handled almost all the details. Evidently, the word of his evening on the town had somehow spread, and the fact that he was prone to a good time had relieved their fears of a martinet sent down from the central offices. They were beginning to relax ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... away since the races had begun. Hardy had thrown himself into the spirit of them so thoroughly, that he had not only regained all his hold on Tom, but had warmed up the whole crew in his favour, and had mollified the martinet Miller himself. It was he who had managed the starting-rope in every race, and his voice from the towing path had come to be looked upon as a safe guide for clapping on or rowing steady. Even Miller, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... alarmed and arming in their hives, seemed to possess all the pliability of movement fitted to execute military manoeuvres. Their motions appeared spontaneous and confused, but the result was order and regularity; so that a general must have praised the conclusion, though a martinet might have ridiculed the method ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a sound that was almost a sob while he defiantly blinked away a tear. "Sweet little Puritan!—" He covered her hand with kisses. "But it will be a terrible day for me when that martinet of a conscience sits in judgment on my sins. It makes me wish with all my heart that I may be dead before then! I'd ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... ask anyone, even a martinet at heart, whether such treatment of a boy, not thirteen years of age, putting his life into the greatest danger, taking this first step towards breaking his spirit, and in all probability making him, as most likely had been done to the poor men I had seen flogged ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... in the morning is taking it out of her. "No men cooks about me", growls Sir Humphrey Desart, "we'll keep Sarah." So Sarah is kept, and though she be fat, aye, and getting on to three score, yet her strength faileth not, as you may observe. Somewhat of a martinet, yet kindly withal and leading the hubbub in the kitchen with all the gusto of twenty years ago. My lady will descend presently to see if all goes on properly, and Sarah must lose no time. Heavens, how many eggs is she going to break? What are they ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... imagination went a step further until it saw also his wife's figure halting in her task of tidying up the study and her eyes first widening in bewilderment, then blazing into an unspeakable fury—and scorn. How could he have done such a thing—he the martinet of business caution? It seemed to himself inconceivable and not to be accounted for merely by the explanation of a new ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... never fear. My! isn't this rippin'? How does the old soldier make the men keep such order, I wonder! Lem Hunt must be as great a martinet as he ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... officers were disgusted with him, for the company enjoyed the reputation of being the best drilled in the regiment, but here came this hopeless recruit to muddle the rear rank at parades and walk on the heels of his front rank man. Corporal Self, the meanest martinet in the outfit, drilled him till his tongue was hanging out, and then reported to the captain: "Sir, there's slight hope fer thet spalpeen o' a rakroot Daly, fer th' more sittin' up ixercise I giv' 'm th' bigger th' lump on ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire, unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking," transfers; or—yet a third possibility—with the prevailing rate of wage as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of living as ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... a contingency, and moral courage to assume the responsibility of acting on it. Such a crisis is the severest test of character. To dare to disobey from a paramount sense of duty is a paradox that a little soul can hardly comprehend. Unfortunately, Blasco Nunez was a pedantic martinet, a man of narrow views, who could not feel himself authorized under any circumstances to swerve from the letter of the law. Puffed up by his brief authority, moreover, he considered opposition to the ordinances as treason to himself; and thus, identifying himself ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Napoleon's, and being thus deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... to entering, as a cadet, the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. At that time, its commandant was a veteran of Waterloo, a peppery old chap who had left one of his legs on the soil of France, as a souvenir. He was a martinet as to discipline, and Charles, who had become accustomed to doing a good deal of thinking for himself, came into frequent ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Arden a day or two afterwards; and Miss Granger returned with rapture to her duties as commander-in-chief of the model villagers. No martinet ever struck more terror into the breasts of rank and file than did this young lady cause in the simple minds of her prize cottagers, conscience-stricken by the knowledge that stray cobwebs had flourished and dust-bins run to seed during her absence. There was not much room for complaint, however, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... ministers, to encourage the weak hearts of willing but fearful clergymen by fair hopes of deaneries and bishoprics. Its members were no clique of unpractical fanatics—no men less. Though it might number among them a few martinet ex-post-captains, and noblemen of questionable sanity, capable of no more practical study than that of unfulfilled prophecy, the vast majority of them were landowners, merchants, bankers, commercial ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... kindly received by the master and the other officers, who had been prepossessed in my favour. Such was the successful result of my plan. The crimp we did not allow to go on shore, but discharged him into a gun-brig, the captain of which was a notorious martinet; and I have no doubt, being aware of his character and occupation, that he kept his word, when he told Captain Delmar that he would make the ship a hell to him—"and sarve him right too," said Bob ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... martinet in her way, and she demanded all the privileges of her sex. Whiskie always gave her precedence, and once when he, for a moment, forgot himself and started to go out of the dining-room door before her, she deliberately slapped him in the face; whereupon he ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... It would not be difficult to quote both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, who on more than one occasion have manifested their enthusiastic adherence to the gospel of brute force. The world is not likely to forget the Crown Prince's congratulations to the brutal military martinet of the Zabern incident, and still less the shameful fact that when the Kaiser sent his punitive expedition to China, he who once stood within sight of the Mount of Olives and preached a sermon breathing the spirit of Christian humility, said ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... by them and defend them as they defend their colors. Such a distribution of guns would strengthen the body of the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers. Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not so. One of his generals—a martinet of the first class—told me that McClellan waits for the organization of the regulars, to have them for the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West Point martinets will ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... crisis, however unexpected, could take him by surprise; he grasped the situation in a moment, and issued his orders without hesitation, inspiring all ranks with confidence in his power and capacity. He was somewhat of a martinet, and was more feared than liked by his men until they realized what a grand leader he was, when they gave him their entire confidence, and were ready to ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Alexander II. since have been struck with his sour and sullen morosity. No smile ever lights up this "humane" Czar's face. His uneasy glance is that of the misanthrope; his brow seems overcast as with the lowering shadow of a tragic fate. The harsh way in which he was brought up by his martinet father, without the slightest regard for his somewhat delicate health, no doubt laid a foundation for this pensive sadness, which, under a pernicious Court atmosphere, and with the terrible recollections crowding about his family history, gradually changed into the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... every broadside. At half past eleven o'clock, having only three lower-deck guns that could defend the honour of the flag, it became necessary to put an end to so disproportioned a struggle, and Citoyen Martinet, captain of a frigate, ordered the colours to ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... arm round the slight, shaking form, led her to one of the doors and out into a narrow passage that ran up into the deserted street. To have gone down into the stalls and hit that oily martinet in the mouth would have been to lay himself open to a charge of cruelty to animals. He was so puny and fat and soft. Poor little Tootles, who had had a tardy and elusive recognition torn from her grasp! ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... of drill from Frederick of Prussia; and there is still many a martinet who would carry his high-pressure system of discipline into every other service over which he had any control, unable to appreciate the difference of circumstances under which they may happen to be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... cautious modern authorities do not always inspire complete confidence. Martinet is supposed to come from the name of a well-known French officer who re-organised the French infantry about 1670. But we find it used by Wycherley in 1676, about forty years before Martinet's death. Moreover this application of the name is unknown in French, which has, however, a word martinet meaning a kind of cat-o'-nine-tails. In English martinet means the leech-line of a sail, hence, possibly, rope's end, and Wycherley applies the term to a ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Martinet! thought Rachel, nearly ready to advocate the boys making no toilette at any time; and the present was made to consume so much time that, urged by her, Fanny once more was obliged to summon her boys and ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the victories of the Americans by stating (p. 280) that they were lucky enough to meet with frigates and brigs who had unskilful gunners or worthless crews; he also carefully shows that the Macedonian was incompetently handled, the Peacock commanded by a mere martinet, the Avon's crew unpractised weak and unskilful, the Java's exceedingly poor, and more to the same effect. Now the Americans took in single fight three frigates and seven sloops, and when as many as ten vessels are met it is exceedingly probable that they represent the fair average; so ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... patch, I found Bobsey almost asleep, the berries often falling from his nerveless hands. Merton, meanwhile, with something of the spirit of a martinet, was spurring him to his task. I remembered that the little fellow had been busy since breakfast, and decided that he also, of my forces, should have a rest. He started up when he saw me coming through the ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... stout and grizzled and brown and kind. He had a bluff weather-beaten face, lit up with a pair of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased; and his manner, though it was full of the habit of command, was quiet and pleasant. He was a Martinet on board his ship. Not a sailor under him would have dared dispute his orders for a moment; but he was very popular with them, notwithstanding; they liked him as much as they feared him, for they knew him to be their best friend if it came to sickness or trouble ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... to the whirling grindstone. Tubs were filled with hand-grenades and fire-pots, the deck strewn with sand, the magazine opened and powder passed up. Stede Bonnet was careful to see for himself that all things were in order. At such times he was a martinet of a soldier. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... post, and Scammon, among a number of young men who subsequently became distinguished officers, was in this number. It need hardly be said that Scammon was well instructed in his profession. He was perhaps too much wedded to the routine of the service, and was looked upon by his subordinates as a martinet who had not patience enough with the inexperience of volunteer soldiers. He was one of the older men of our army, somewhat under the average height and weight, with a precise politeness of manner which reminded one of a Frenchman, and the resemblance was increased by his free ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... borrowed of Cookie, without his knowledge, a large iron spoon which I thought I could wield more easily than a heavy spade. Besides, Cookie would be less sleuth-like in getting on the trail of his missing property than Mr. Shaw—though there would be a certain piquancy in having that martinet hale me before him for stealing ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... to cheer him up, but she was not herself very hopeful. She, perceived too clearly the martinet in him and the rebel in Cicely. If something were suddenly to throw them together, some common interest or emotion, each might find the other's heart in a way past undoing. On the other hand the jarring habit, once set up, ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the course of his narrative by the President, General W., a severe martinet, who reminded him that an attempt to criminate his superior Officers would only injure ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... From the standpoint of strict justice, the standard from which I always had tried to reason, she was perfectly justified in asking the questions before she took the place. But intuition told me that our home life would be a dreary thing with this martinet in ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... any traditional pattern. A little more air and light should be let in upon life. I should think the world had stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion. It is hard work; the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat or with a shoulder belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... of the Irish priest as a money-grabbing martinet, whom his flock regard with mingled sentiments of detestation and fear, is a caricature as libellous as it is grotesque. Even the high standard of sexual morality which prevails in the country is attacked as being merely the ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... you have been o'er-worried By ultra-Martinet; Into unwisdom hurried, Be sure Bull won't forget. But England's Redcoats must not ape The Hyde Park howl, that's clear; So no more row, row, row, row, From ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... credit the report gained in the regiment created great discontents, which the behaviour of the new lieutenant-colonel unfortunately was not calculated to dissipate.—He certainly did not bear his honours meekly, but, on the contrary, gave himself airs of authority, and played the martinet to a useless and ridiculous degree. This, from a mere parade officer, who had never been out of London, to a man like the major—who had seen service and could show wounds—was, to use the mildest expression, ill-judged. Captain Henry said it was ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... 'you are no such martinet in duty.' And then seeing that the man was shaking from head to foot, Otto laid a hand upon his shoulder. 'If I meant you harm,' he ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shorten your interview, Judge, but you know we have a martinet in yonder, a regular Turk, and he splits ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... me a terrible shock, sir. It will be your duty to have some one find the man who offered one of the stolen securities to your friend, and in that way discover the identity of the guilty person. I shall be sorry for him when found; Mr. Gibbs is a martinet when it comes to duty, and the one who took those papers will undoubtedly have occasion to repent behind ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... assigned to the watch that night, but he could not sleep for a long time. Among these borderers there was discipline, but it was discipline of their own kind, not that of the military martinet. Ned was free to go about as he chose, and he went to the great plaza into which they had driven the cattle. Some supplies of hay had been gathered for them, and having eaten they were now all at rest in a herd, packed close against the ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Glen, knew that young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with the rod, and her children were the terror of the village? And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny Minns scolded Mitty all day long and pretended she was much more feeble than she really was? And who could have such an intimate ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... easy subject for the wisest and kindest of spiritual guides; but no influence, repellent or attractive, could have been more disastrous for that passionate, quick-witted and yet eminently puzzle-headed mixture of Philistine and genius, than the crabbed old martinet whose regulations forbade the students access to Gluck's scores in the library, and whose only theory of art (as distinguished from his practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from Berlioz's Grande Traite de l'instrumentation et d'orchestration: "It was no use ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... child's death, apart from the process and leisurely expansion of its mental agony—in that case there would be no hope. But, because our present murderer is fastidiously finical in his exactions—a sort of martinet in the scenical grouping and draping of the circumstances in his murders—therefore it is that hope becomes reasonable, since all such refinements of preparation demand time. Murders of mere necessity ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... mixtures. The flower heads may be red or white, large or small, cylindric or rounded, the leaves are broader or narrower, with or without white spots of a curious pattern. They may be more or less hairy and so forth. Even the seeds exhibit differences in size, shape or color, and of late Martinet has shown, that by the simple means of picking out seeds of the same pattern, pure strains of clover may be obtained, which are of varying cultural value. In this way the best subspecies or varieties ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... that it should be proved he was a professional "card sharp," expert manipulator and blackleg he never had contemplated as even possible, and yet, with calm and relentless deliberation "that cold-blooded, merciless martinet of a West Pointer," as he referred to the judge advocate at an early stage in the proceedings, had laid proof after proof before the court, and left the case of the defense at the last without a leg to stand on. And then Nevins dropped the debonair and donned the abject, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... summoned. Once more home statesmanship was blind, and local administration blunderingly oppressive. Shepstone was the wrong man for the post of Administrator. Sir Owen Lanyon, his successor, was an arrogant martinet of the stamp familiar in Canada before 1840, and painfully familiar in Ireland. The refusal of an Assembly naturally strengthened the popular demand for a reversal of the annexation, and this demand, twice pressed in ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Province of Quebec. 'Their fellow Subjects' did not, of course, include any 'papist or popish Recusants Convict.' Among the 'Grievances and Distresses' enumerated were 'the oppressive and severely felt Military government,' the inability to 'reap the fruit of our Industry' under such a martinet as Murray, who, in one paragraph, is accused of 'suppressing dutyfull Remonstrances in Silence' and, in the next, of 'treating them with a Rage and Rudeness of Language and Demeanor as dishonourable to the Trust ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... as of relief—or could it have been pleasure? "I quite understand that, madam. He is a martinet. Still, I shall not mind." The same thought was in the mind of each: he was accustomed to serving a hard task-master. "If you don't mind, I shall take O'Toole's place until you find some one else. To-morrow I shall move my belongings from ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Mantles was one of the smartest men in any department, somewhat of a martinet, but inclined to be reasonable with those who had any "gumption." Miss Child had gumption, and though it was nearly time for the public to rush in (there was a bargain sale that day) he gave her a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Gray, a military adventurer of that day, just returned from Germany, seemed vain of his accoutrements, on which he had spent his all,—the king, staring at this buckled, belted, sworded, and pistolled, but ruined, martinet, observed, that "this town was so well fortified, that, were it ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Life and the fear of Death are two famous phrases that grow harder to understand the more we think about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion of boat accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a professional mariner or some landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen boldness ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was replaced by the flint musket, and the rapidity and certainty of fire vastly increased. The undisciplined independence of the officers commanding regiments and companies was suppressed by the rigorous and methodical Colonel Martinet, whose name has remained in other armies besides that of France as a synonyme ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... laugh with a story, that he said the English officers had told him of General Knyphausen, who commanded the Hessian mercenaries, in 1776. This officer, a rigid martinet, knew nothing of the sea, and not much more of geography. On the voyage between England and America, he was in the ship of Lord Howe, where he passed several uncomfortable weeks, the fleet having an unusually long passage, on account of ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... on the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top. Saluting with martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear view of the Rajputni. "As I've said many times, ma'am, the one house in the world where Tom Tripe may sit down with ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... under that cold exterior, the news inspired the hope that here was the talisman which would reveal the hidden treasures of his nature. The stiff form would now unbend; the political leader would figure as a genial host; the martinet would become a man. Assuredly their estimate was correct. Pitt's nature needed more glow, wider sympathies, a freer expression. A happy marriage would in any case have widened his outlook and matured his character. But a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... he saw us descend into the boat, he very coolly slipped down the ship's side, and took his place in the stern-sheets, with as much quiet dignity as if he had been captain. Marble was a good deal of a ship's martinet in such matters, and he did not more than half like the familiarity and impudence ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... sir!" he said with a certain dignity which Fracasse, who was a good deal of a martinet, found ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... with the generalissimo in his flag-ship. In the squadron of Andalusia were ten galleons and other vessels, under General Pedro de Valdez. In the squadron of Biscay were ten galleons and lesser ships, under General Juan Martinet de Recalde, upper admiral of the fleet. In the squadron of Guipuzcoa were ten galleons, under General Miguel de Oquendo. In the squadron of Italy were ten ships, under General Martin de Bertendona. In the squadron of Urcas, or store-ships, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... accompanied by an inscription to the effect that as the Russian censor had blacked so many other people, he might now sit in the black for a while himself. Perhaps the censor thought that remarks of that sort came with peculiar grace from martinet-ruled Berlin. About this time I received a copy of the "Century," containing—or rather, not containing—the first article in the prohibited series by Mr. Kennan. I made no remonstrance, but mentioned the fact, as an item of interest, to the sender, who forthwith dispatched ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... message of discipline from the O.C. just because I was reported by a toy martinet like you!" ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... great New York daily was known in the newspaper world as a martinet and severe disciplinarian. Some of his caustic and biting criticisms are classics. Once, however, the tables were turned upon him in a way that left ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... enemy attempt to skirt the hill and approach at that side. The pieces were heavy, the appliances crude and clumsy, a shrewd east wind was driving in a sea-fog of the chillest description, and Standish, although he toiled and tugged with the best, proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in the heat of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army in Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these moments, and neither the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... hand, imagining that they had done essential service to the Spaniards, the French expected to have received at least civil treatment in return, during their stay in these seas. As soon, however, as Martinet brought his prizes into Calao, and the Frenchmen had received their shares of the prize-money, forgetting the ancient antipathy of the Spaniards for the French, they gave themselves extravagant airs on shore, by dancing and drinking, which still ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of discipline as neither the devil nor De Martinet ever dreamed of; but thoroughly ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... on scientific principles. His deviations from the tone of philosophical discussion were not numerous, but they were marked. The chief police magistrate he compared to the lamplighter, by whom gas is detested. In praising that officer's administrative talent, he observed that he belonged to the martinet school, and that his estimate of human nature depressed it below ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... require from eight to ten tons of coal a day, consumed, before the development of the Siemens system, from sixteen to twenty tons. Twenty-four hours now suffice for the fusion and the casting of the glass, and if the casting were now to be conducted as ceremoniously as in the time of that fine old martinet M. Deslandes, M. Henrivaux would pass his life in a cocked hat, knee-breeches, peruke, embroidered coat, and sword, for the casting now takes place every day and at a fixed hour. None the less, rather the more, it is a work still of extreme nicety, one to be done by experts, who must be as cool ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... beheld from a distance; and it loses none of its attractions when you look at it more closely. There is no such thing as a straight street in the place. No martinet of an architect has been here, to drill the old stone houses into regimental regularity. Sometimes you go down steps into the ground floor, sometimes you mount an outside staircase to get to the bed-rooms. Never were such places devised ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... in uniform, as a sort of floating palace. The Nelson having been only a despatch-boat, it had given them but an indifferent idea of a man-of-war. On board the Yankee every thing was kept in apple-pie order. Discipline was maintained with martinet strictness. The fittings shone like a mirror. The brass cappings glistened in the sun. Complicated rolls of cable were profusely scattered about, but without confusion. The deck always seemed as fresh ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... of all places! She was married at eighteen to a young officer; they ran away, and I believe grandpa never forgave her. He was a General, a strict old martinet, and she was his favourite daughter. After they had been married a couple of years, Aunt Flora's husband was killed in an accident and she was left rather badly off. People out there were very kind to her. She had been hurt in ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the burned house and perform the rites of burial before the corps left the hill; whereupon the face of the young girl more fully repaid him by its expression of true gratitude, than did even her words of sad thankfulness. There are men who have called Colonel Warren not only a martinet but a man devoid of feeling: let his action on this occasion prove how little those know him who speak ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... that the little ormer shell curls about this little lady's face were not all gray, but mixed gray and brown, and that this little face was, if anything, still more frigidly ungracious than the last, a regular little martinet of a face, and I knew that it must be another of ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... Capt. Price went one better than this, for a man who was totally unfit for the service having one day shown him some trifling disrespect, the choleric old martinet promptly set the gang upon him and had him conveyed on board the tender, "where," says Lieut. Collingwood, writing a month later, "he has been eating the king's victuals ever since." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1501 ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the Corporal, after he had communicated from his own pipe the friendly flame to his comrade's; "tell you what—talk nonsense; the commander-in-chief's no Martinet—if we're all right in action, he'll wink at a slip word or two. Come, no humbug—hold jaw. D'ye think God would sooner have snivelling fellow like you in his regiment, than a man like me, clean limbed, straight as a dart, six feet one without ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... disagreeable realities of life grow upon one; do they not? You took off my shoes and dried them for me at a woodman's cottage. I am obliged to put up with my maid's doing those things now. And Miss Blink the mild is changed for Lady Baldock the martinet. And if I rode about with you in a wood all day I should be sent to Coventry instead of to bed. And so you see everything is changed as well ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... We had secured a master with a certificate, for though I was myself a master mariner, and my mate had been in charge of our vessel in the North Sea for many years, we had neither of us been across the Atlantic before. The skipper was a Cornishman, Trevize by name, and a martinet on discipline—an entirely new experience to a crew of North Sea fishermen. He was so particular about everything being just so that quite a few days were lost in starting, though well spent as far as preparedness ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... doctor was a man of sense. If he had been a martinet, it would have been worse for us all. Of course, there is no telling how far people will accept the story; but we may as well try to act as if it were true." There was a pause. Then Bobby inquired, "Well, and now what are ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... across his face, and when he took it down to the astonishment of the watchers there were streaks of blood marking both cheeks and nose. Evidently General von Berthold was considerable of a bully and tyrant when in his cups, even as he may have been a severe martinet ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... worn by Nicko the chocolate peddler. In a trice he clothed himself from top to toe as a Uhlan full lieutenant. He stood before the small glass tacked in the corner and twirled and stiffened his mustache with pomatum. When he turned and strode before Ruth again he was the typical haughty martinet who demanded of the rank and file the goose-step and "right face salute" of ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... yet. These old ladies haven't waked from a dream, that I see." Thus the General, and Gwen told him he was a military martinet, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... pencil, Sissy, a martinet for technic, assumed all the airs of her own professor and prepared to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Fracasse. Martinet though he was, he spoke in grumbling loyalty to his soldiers. "What kind of spirit is there in doing the work of navvies? Spirit! No soldiers ever fought better—in invasion, at least. Look at our losses! Spirit! Westerling drives us in. He thinks ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... were continually lacerated by contact with volunteers, who cared next to nothing for the FORM of war-making, but everything for its spirit, and the martinet heart within him was bruised and sore when he came upon the ground to ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the capital. The men were, therefore, in closer touch with the population than would be the case in ordinary regiments. Their commanding officer at this moment was not only an aristocrat but a martinet, and he completely failed to keep his regiment in hand. Trouble had long been brewing in the ranks and culminated in mutiny and riot at the close of June. Making the most of the state of Paris many of the ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... long thousand yards beyond their own furthest range, there was a sudden bright flash. No smoke, only the throb of flame, and then the long sibilant scream of the shell, and the thud as it buried itself in the ground under a limber. Such judgment of range would have delighted the most martinet of inspectors at Okehampton. Bang came another, and another, and another, right into the heart of the battery. The six little guns lay back at their extremest angle, and all barked together in impotent fury. Another shell pitched over them, and the officer in ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a pace, flung up his hands and opened his eyes wide. "My dear girl, how long is this going on?" he said rapidly, spluttering. "I ask you: is there no limit to it? I say nothing of the demoralizing effect of his martinet views on all around him, of the way he insults all that is sacred and best in me and in every honest thinking man—I will say nothing about that, but he might at least behave decently! Why, he shouts, he bellows, gives ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bit of drapery in the room. Anne's bright head nodded with satisfaction. Here was character; to win Aunt Susan's respect would be no light task, her personal and intimate belongings showed an austere sense of values and an almost surgical cleanliness. Yet Aunt Susan could not be a martinet; her hall, furnished for other people, showed due regard for their comfort; the living room, which took the entire western side of the cottage, bore unmistakable signs of much occupancy, with wide and varied ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... to wear your pretty new hat!" exclaimed Dinah, looking up from her accounts. She was rather a martinet on the subject of dress, and had funny little old-fashioned notions of her own; but Elizabeth, who was ten years younger, was ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had acted the martinet with MacRae, he took another tack and became the very essence of affability toward me. (I'd have enjoyed punching his proud head, for all that; it was a dirty way to serve a man who had ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... now thoroughly aroused. He was a Mexican veteran, a thorough soldier as well as a martinet, and he had never learned to recognize any organizations outside ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Academy as an officer. We had a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me disparagingly ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... General Winfield Scott had many severe critics and not a few personal enemies. By these, he was said to be arrogant, blunt in manners, opinionated, and also a military martinet with terribly unvolunteer ideas relating to the rigid discipline required for success in war. He had seen, however, a deal of hard service in the war of 1812 and otherwise, and his military record was without a flaw. There were good judges, both in America and Europe, who believed ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... speech. The two men could no more meet without striking fire than flint and steel. Moreover, Voltaire was normally satirical, restless, inclined to vanity and jealousy, and that terrible pen of his could never be brought to respect persons and places. With a martinet like Frederick, the visit was sure to end in a quarrel, despite the admiration of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... is most trying to the soldier, and to these men, the greater part of whom were veterans who had fought at Bergen-op-Zoom and Copenhagen, where they had acted as marines, anything approaching to the spirit of the martinet in their superior officers must have been ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... engagement; but it did not take place, and a period of comparative relaxation succeeded one of severe hardship and arduous duty. Men and officers made the most of the holiday. There was never any thing of the martinet about the Duke. He was not the man to harass with unnecessary and vexations drills, or rigidly to enforce unimportant rules. Those persons, whether military or otherwise, who consider a strictly regulation uniform as essential to the composition of a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... he carried before him a prisoner charged with desertion to the enemy. "Marion released him, saying to me, 'let him go, he is too worthless to deserve the consideration of a court martial.'" Such a decision in such a case, would have shocked a military martinet, and yet, in all probability, the fellow thus discharged, never repeated the offence, and fought famously afterwards in the cause of his merciful commander. We have something yet to learn on these subjects. The result of a system in which scorn is so equally blended with mercy, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... continued in Russia to the end of his father's reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was very unfavourable to the development of any originality of thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in general conversation, and books ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and under-civilised in action, he has had a pretty good innings. I must confess I do not find this attitude of his merely ridiculous. It forces clearly upon the modern world the question of kingship, whether it is to be a sham or a reality. Unpopular as William II. has made himself by his martinet methods—ridiculous, if you will—yet there is only one step from the ridiculous to the sublime. In a flippant age he takes himself seriously, has a sense of a responsible relation to his people. Have you seen the cartoon he designed to inspire the nations of the West to league ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... buttering his bread in silence for some minutes, confessed that he loved punctuality. It might be a military prejudice;—it might be too professional, martinet perhaps,—but still he owned he did love punctuality. He considered it as a part of politeness, a proper attention to the convenience and feelings of others; indispensable between strangers it is usually felt to be, and he did not know why intimate ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... in a manner contrary to the prevailing characteristics of a region. Instead of the easy- going habits of life common to so many of his neighbors, Mr. Baron was a martinet by nature, and the absence of large, engrossing duties permitted his mind to dwell on little things and to exaggerate them out of all proportion. Indeed, it was this utter lack of perspective in his views and judgments which created for Miss Lou half her trouble. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her, steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... it will drift on to a sand-bank. He may divide the cable which holds the anchor to the vessel and cause endless trouble. This spirit received its name from an officer who commanded a battalion of fishermen conscripts, and who from his intense severity and general reputation as a martinet obtained a bad reputation among the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... that he might at last provoke his uncle too much, and injure his prospects; so that he conducted himself with caution and tolerable steadiness during his time of travel. To finish this apparent reformation, a commission was obtained for him in an infantry regiment under a martinet colonel, and a moderate allowance provided for his support. Having given this sketch of his appearance, family, character, and antecedents, he is now fairly entitled to take his seat at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the note into a neat little roll, and slipping out the back way went down to leave it at the florist's, to be sent to Dorothy— securely hidden in a big bunch of English violets, lest any martinet of a nurse should see fit to suppress it—the very first thing in the morning. On the way back to her room she danced up the stairs in her most joyous fashion, and when Mary Brooks, coming up from escorting Roberta to the door, intercepted her and demanded where she had been all the evening, ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... possessed it, a man whose word is known to be unbreakable, whose hands are clean, whose record is stainless—the Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts. The man who is to rule South Africa must be a great soldier, not a tyrant, not a martinet, not a bundle of red tape tied up with a Downing Street bow and adorned with frills. The negro trouble is looming large on the African borders, and the negro chiefs know that in Lord Roberts they have ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... in their stylish array, and some laughed at them. In this instance Brother Hecker's chagrin was not overcome by his sense of the ludicrous, for he was naturally very sensitive of personal unbecomingness, and although not precisely a martinet for clerical exactness, he ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... hundred years a mighty change has come over the tastes and fashions of literary life. When The Diary of a Lover of Literature was written, Dr. Hurd, the pompous and dictatorial Bishop of Worcester, was a dreaded martinet of letters, carrying on the tradition of his yet more formidable master Warburton. As people nowadays discuss Verlaine and Ibsen, so they argued in those days about Godwin and Horne Tooke, and shuddered over each fresh incarnation ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... devoted Anita was to her father and Broussard considered the C. O. as a lion in his path. Of course, the old curmudgeon, as Broussard in his own mind called the Colonel, would rake up a lot of imaginary objections—he always was a martinet, and would be a stiff proposition to master in the present emergency. Broussard was tolerably certain of Mrs. Fortescue's assistance, who was an open and confessed sentimentalist, and was generally understood to be the guardian angel of all the love affairs ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... has come to when midshipmen take such liberties with their superiors, eh, Captain Sourcrout?" he exclaimed, giving a poke in the ribs with his elbow to a stiff, old, martinet style of post-captain, who sat next to him, and had looked utterly horrified ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... to go by him. But the Colonel stepped aside also, and so barred his way. "Mr. Asgill," he said—and there was something of the martinet in his tone—"I will trouble you to ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... farther to seek than a few doors off in London, when the Ladies Bawne occupied their sombre old corner-house in Grosvenor Square. It was Lady Bridget-Mary's dearest Lucy and bosom-friend, who had married that handsome, grey-moustached martinet, Richard's Colonel. In Lady Lucy Hawting's drawing-room Lord Castleclare's elder daughter had met Captain Mildare, the hero of Futtehabad and Ahmed Khel. The Colonel's wife was a pretty, delicate, graceful creature, some three ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... subject, at least, we should," says he hotly. "I think your brother should not have left us in ignorance of Miss Kavanagh's safety for so many hours. And you," with a sneer, "who are such a martinet for propriety, should certainly be prepared to acknowledge that he should not have so regulated his conduct as to make her a subject for unkind comment to the County. Badly," looking at her deliberately, "as you think of me, I should not ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... the very next day he conquered her. His scheme was unworthy, as it substituted corporate for personal purity; still it succeeded, as unworthy schemes will do. On the birthday of his sacred Majesty, Charles took Matilda to see his ship, the 48-gun frigate Immaculate, commanded by a well-known martinet. Her spirit fell within her, like the Queen of Sheba's, as she gazed, but trembled to set down foot upon the trim order and the dazzling choring. She might have survived the strict purity of all things, the deck lines whiter than Parian marble, the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... that a strong and generous feeling existed in the breasts of hundreds in the British navy, concerning the nature of the wrong that was done a foreign people, by the practice of impressing men from under their flag. Although Cuffe was too much of a martinet to carry his notions on the subject to a very refined point, he was too much of a man not to be reluctant to punish another for doing what he felt he would have done himself, under similar circumstances, and what he could ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... martinet though he was, would hardly, I think, have inflicted such a punishment on Cecily, who was a favourite of his, had he known the real nature of that luckless missive. But, as he afterwards admitted, he thought it was merely a note from some other girl, of such trifling sort as school-girls ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... puzzled and troubled, but the minister was pronouncing the general absolution that followed the general confession, and such a severe martinet and disciplinarian as old Aaron Rockharrt would on no account fail in attention to ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... political significance which the military martinet who commanded the post understood. It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... politeness, though a bit of a martinet after an ancient and punctilious model. If you go to select a Fiddle from his stock, you may escape a lecture of a quarter of an hour by calling it a Fiddle, and not a Violin, which is a word he detests, and is apt to excite his ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... systems, however excellent in theory, are comparatively useless unless conducted in an enlightened spirit by competent and sagacious officials. The best of systems if worked, as sometimes happens, by a mere martinet, with no horizon beyond insisting on the letter of official regulations, will be productive of no good whatever, and, on the other hand, an indifferent system will achieve excellent results with a competent person at the head of it. This was admirably pointed out by the head of the Danish ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... then, rather a different man from the stern little martinet who had stood in the throat of the arcade. He was ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... steward, a fatherly sort of man, was a martinet in the matter of punctuality at meals. This adjourning of the breakfast hour was a great concession on his part. It showed how strenuous ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... "festivals," where hundreds would engage in the contest of snow-balling, Adjutant Pope always took a leading part. It was this spirit of sport and his mingling with the common soldier, while off duty, that endeared Pope so much to the troop. With his sword and sash he could act the martinet, but when those were laid aside Adjutant Pope was one of the "boys," and engaged a "boat" with them as much as any one in the "Cross Anchors," a company noted for ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... occasion for all of us! Give me that bottle." He seized a magnum of champagne from the orderly and commenced pouring out the foaming liquid into the glasses beside the plates. Schelling made a feeble attempt at a joke at which the officers laughed loudly, for the general was a martinet and ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... general, his fellow staff officers, speaking enthusiastically of her beauty and fascinations and their destructive effects in various quarters? Had he not been compelled in silence to listen again and in detail to the story of old Sam Martindale's nephew?—Sam Martingale, the cavalry called him—"Martinet Martindale" he was dubbed by the "doughboys"—that conscientious, dutiful, and therefore none too popular veteran, whose sister's children much more than supplied ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... of Queenston Heights Sheaffe succeeded Brock in command of the British, and Smyth succeeded Van Rensselaer in command of the Americans. Sheaffe was a harsh martinet and a third-rate commander. Smyth, a notorious braggart, was no commander at all. He did, however, succeed in getting Sheaffe to conclude an armistice that fully equalled Prevost's in its disregard of British interests. After making the most of it for a month he ended ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... battalion of the standing army. The barrack rooms are spotlessly clean, and the order and neatness unsurpassed, which, together with the smart drilling and superb physique of the soldiers, would delight the heart of the severest martinet. Everything connected with the military training of the Montenegrins is up to the standard of Continental excellence. All the officers undergo a long course of training, either in Russia, France, or Italy, and right well have they utilised ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... first month after she came to New York to work for him she had found Galbraith a martinet. She never once caught that twinkling gleam of understanding in his eye that had meant so much to her during the rehearsals of The Girl Up-stairs. His manner toward her carried out the tone of the letter she'd got from him in Centropolis. It was stiff, formal, severe. He seldom praised ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... pleased," she answered, whipping up the fat pony, who responded reluctantly. "But he's a fearful martinet. He nearly frightens me to death when he gets into one of his royal Italian rages—though he's always particularly sweet afterwards! Pobs, I wonder who my man in the train was?" ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... to which she attributed the unusual indisposition, she took full advantage of the rare opportunity of rendering personal attention and fussed to her heart's content, stripping off the stained overall and substituting a loose velvet wrapper; and then stood over her, a kindly martinet, until the light dinner she had brought was eaten. Afterwards she packed pillows, made up the fire, and administered a particularly nauseous specific emanating from a homeopathic medicine chest that was her greatest pride, and then took ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... very excellent friend, who married some ten years ago, and now has her own cares and troubles in a domestic establishment consisting of her husband and herself, five children, and two servants. Like a large majority of those similarly situated, Mrs. Martinet finds her natural stock of patience altogether inadequate to the demand therefor; and that there is an extensive demand will be at once inferred when I mention that four of ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur |
