"Slovenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the German versions of this story, a king's elder daughter, when asked to marry her rich but slovenly suitor, replies, "I would sooner go into the deepest water than do that." In a Russian version,[469] the unwashed soldier lends a large sum of money to an impoverished monarch, who cannot pay his troops, and asks his royal creditor to give him one of his daughters ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... however, we begin to look quite distinguished. The difficulty then is to ascertain just when the law of diminishing returns comes into play. When do we cease to look distinguished and begin to appear merely slovenly? Careful study has taught us that this begins to take place at the end of sixty-five days, in warm weather. Add five days or so for natural procrastination and devilment, and we have seventy days interval, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... A slovenly, half-grown Indian girl, Anita, the cook's daughter, came in from the kitchen, directed the slumbrous eyes of her race upon the sheriff who fitted well in a woman's eye, and went to serve the single other late diner. Norton caught ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... are generally well set in their limbs, slender round the waist, broad across the shoulders, and have black hair and dark eyes. They are very nimble and fleet, well adapted to travel on foot and to carry heavy burdens. They are foul and slovenly in their actions, and make little of all kinds of hardship; to which indeed they are by nature and from their youth accustomed. They are like the Brazilians in color, or as yellow as the people who sometimes pass through the Netherlands and are called Gypsies. The men generally have no beard, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... in the house on Sunday evenings, always first scrupulously knocking at the door. An untidy room gave him positive pain, and the most slovenly boys would endeavour to get their filthy rooms into some sort of order, "just to please old John." John was passionately fond of flowers, and one would meet the most unlikely boys with bunches of roses in their hands. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... wholesome. The other was an army lieutenant, but Molly promptly quelched her first inclination to address him, as she noted his red, inflamed face and dissipated appearance. As she nibbled, half-heartedly, at the miserable food brought by a slovenly waiter, the two men exchanged barely a dozen words, the lieutenant growling out monosyllabic answers, finally pushing back his chair, and striding out. Again the girl glanced across at the older man, mustering courage to address him. At the same moment ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... waist, and with hooks and eyes instead of buttons, and it would have been strange if he had smelt of eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, which looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and in the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh, and his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, interesting talker who used in old days to make the husbands of the district jealous on account of ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... whose flaming face seemed ever ablaze with the dark-red hair uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed so often the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who worked Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me how the crops needed the boys; and the thin, slovenly mother, whose face was pretty when washed, assured me that Lugene must mind the baby. "But we'll start them again next week." When the Lawrences stopped, I knew that the doubts of the old folks about book-learning had conquered again, ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... who was habited in a coarse, blue coat, which, without being either a greatcoat or a surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their Christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. He wore a pair ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... in a ruinous condition, and bearing evident marks of neglect. The people of Atooi, again, inter both their common dead and human sacrifices, as at Tongataboo; but they resemble those of Otaheite in the slovenly state of their religious places, and in offering vegetables and animals ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... is always a most abominable stench. One must be careful how one walks thro' these streets at night, from the liability of being saluted by a golden shower. The lower classes of the Auvergnats have the reputation of being dirty, slovenly and idle. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... thought, the mind can and will move of itself unhampered; and when the mind keeps and develops such freedom of movement, it commonly breaks new ground and handles new things. Not to be careful of our speech means for most of us slovenly thinking; but when a man thinks in earnest and takes truth seriously, when he speaks with his eye on his object, his language will not be slovenly, his instinct for fact will keep his speech pure and true. This is what ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... dyed carpet rags into a huge, madder-colored ball, but there were delicate points in its execution which a restless civilization has hurried into oblivion along with the other lost arts, and Marg'et Ann surveyed her ball critically now and then, to be sure that it was not developing any slovenly one-sidedness under her deft hands. The minister's crutches leaned against the arm of his painted wooden chair with an air of mute but patient helpfulness. Marg'et Ann had cushioned them with patchwork, but he had walked ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... red-haired, slovenly girl, with an impediment in her speech, took her order and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and Miss Donovan discreetly lifted her eyes to observe the man sitting nearly opposite. He was not prepossessing, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... about the middle appeared good substantial dishes, roasted mutton, plain pudding and such like. At the bottom coarse pieces of beef, sheeps' heads, haggiss, and other national but inelegant dishes, were served in a slovenly manner in great pewter platters; at the head of the table were placed guests of distinction, to whom alone the dainties were offered; the middle was occupied by gentlemen of his own tribe, who well knew their allotment, and were satisfied with the share assigned to them. At the foot of the table ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... to ask me a question like that. Have I fretted and pined, and forgot to eat and sleep, and gone dowdy and slovenly, because my lover has been fool enough to desert me? Well, then, that is what any other girl would have done. But because I am of thy blood and stock, I take what comes to me as part of my day's work, and make no more grumble on the matter than one does ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... train. But surely she ought to have apologised for bringing a girl reared in Edinburgh to a place like this. On one of the gates they passed was written "Hiemath," and there was something very characteristic of the jerry-built and decaying place in the cheap sentiment that had been too slovenly to spell its own name correctly. Yet to the left, over the housetops of foul black streets running upwards from the railway-lines, there shone the great silver plain, and afar off a channel set with white sailing-ships and steamers, and dark majestic hills. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... small animal, about one fourth the size of a common flea: it is very troublesome, in warm climates, to the poor blacks, such as go barefoot, and the slovenly: it penetrates the skin, under which it lays a bunch of eggs, which swell to the bigness of ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown
... influence of self-interest. He is generally, therefore, indifferent to the adverse or prosperous fortunes of his master, being contented if he can escape his displeasure or chastisement, by a careless and slovenly performance ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... The fellow is a little slovenly to-day in his appearance, and you see he has brought already several partridges, besides a rabbit. We shall have venison, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... just now with a certain man, who came to you with letters from a certain old gentleman, y'cleped your father; whereby I am given to understand, that to-morrow you are to take an oath in the church to be grave henceforward, to go ill-dressed and slovenly, to get heirs for your estate, and to dandle them for your diversion; and, in short, that love and courtship are to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... be generally overcome or prevented by calling attention to them. Good mental attention is the most infallible cure for slovenly habits of attack. It may be that there are in all schools a certain proportion of the pupils who have very weak and imperfect vocal organs; in their cases, even good attention cannot ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... with aught else, and this valuable root should, if possible, be grown on a different plot every year, so that it shall be three or four years in travelling round the garden. Lastly, sow everything in drills at the proper distances apart. Broadcasting is a slovenly mode of sowing, and necessitates slovenly cultivation afterwards. When crops are in drills they can be efficiently thinned, weeded and hoed—in other words, they can be cultivated. But broadcasting pretty well excludes the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... since I had expected a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen, gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers frayed. Though young, his long back was already bowed, and he walked with a forward thrust of his head and a general air of peering benevolence. As he entered his eyes ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... and leant heavily upon a staff cut roughly from a tree, and from its green bark and slovenly-stripped branches ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... pouncet-box, which ever and anon, He gave his nose, and took 't away again;— And still he smiled and talked; And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He called them—untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; among the rest, demanded My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... be retrenched, or indeed left unemployed, any of that military exhibition, which tends to impress upon the many the moral superiority of the few, where, he argued, would be their safety in the hour of need; and if those duties were performed in a slovenly manner, and without due regard to SCENIC effect, the result would be to induce the wily savage to undervalue that superiority which discipline chiefly secured to the white warrior. Captain Headley was discriminating and observant. He had, more than once, remarked the surprise and admiration ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... and yellow complexion, brightened only by two eyes glistening with shrewdness and firmness." Bourrienne, who had now returned from diplomatic service, was not edified by the appearance or temper of his acquaintance, who, he says, "was ill clad and slovenly, his character cold, often inscrutable. His smile was hollow and often out of place. He had moments of fierce gaiety which made you uneasy, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... men what faith is, by charity, by self-denial, by meekness, by gentleness, by long-suffering, by patience, by love to enemies, and by doing good to them that hate us. Now he walketh upon his high places, yea, will not now admit that so slovenly a conversation should come within his doors, as did use to haunt his house in former times. Now it is Christ-mas, now it is suffering-time, now we must keep holy ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... door one evening, and Dick, who happened to answer the summons, looked at him for a moment in astonishment, he was so completely changed. In a new suit of clothes and with smart collar and tie he looked altogether unlike the slovenly, poorly-clad Paddy of old. ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... nothing of the realities of industrialism. He saw only the beauty of the great chimneys that rose against the sullen smoke-barred sunsets, and he felt only the romance of the lurid shuddering flares that burst out from squat stacks of brickwork and lit the emptiness of strange and slovenly streets.... ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... fashion, too, to say that he was slovenly, and careless in his dress. This also is a mistake. His clothes could not fit smoothly on his gaunt and bony frame. He was no tailor's figure of a man; but from the first he clothed himself as well as his means allowed, and in the fashion of the time and place. In reading the grotesque ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... wear wide drawers with the pink shirt over them; the women have a chemise reaching to the calf of the leg, dirty and coarse, an apron round the waist, sometimes so scanty or so ragged that it will not meet, and a handkerchief tied in a slovenly manner on the head. In these three articles of dress they drive the horses and oxen; the sun burns them to a dark brown, almost black. The children we saw were quite naked. Various attempts have been made ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... last inquiry was made whether all companions expected were present, the red flag began to quiver and writhe most noticeably and finally to unfurl, and there emerged from its depths the dirtiest and most slovenly man I had ever seen, and the frouziest and most repulsive of dogs. This man, if man I may call him, was bony and ill-built, and appeared to consist largely of hands and feet. His arms were abnormally long and his chest narrow and hollow, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... perfect ease, at more than the rate of three miles an hour, round and round a field, partly in wheat and partly in barley, cutting a breadth of corn in its progress with a regularity and evenness that was surprising. No straggling stalks of corn were left, none of the slovenly irregular work too often seen where manual labor is employed was to be discovered; on the contrary, the field after shearing, looked nearly as smooth and even as a kitchen floor or turnpike road. The farmer has now no longer occasion to be behind the ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Perhaps it will surprise some good people to hear that Santa Claus knew the old alleys; but he did. I have been there with him, and I knew that, much as some things which he saw there grieved him,—the starved childhood, the pinching poverty, and the slovenly indifference that cut deeper than the rest because it spoke of hope that was dead,—yet by nothing was his gentle spirit so grieved and shocked as by the show that proposed to turn his holiday into a battalion drill of the children from the alleys and the courts for patricians, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... who were enjoying their undress in their own apartments. When they appeared, I could scarcely believe that one half were gentlewomen. As they wear neither stay nor bodice, the figure becomes almost indecently slovenly, after very early youth; and this is the more disgusting, as they are very thinly clad, wear no neck-handkerchiefs, and scarcely any sleeves. Then, in this hot climate, it is unpleasant to see dark cottons ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... it. I said this trapper was out a skin through sheer carelessness, for it is a slovenly way of trapping to let a nice mink like that get away. If you care to step this way with me I'll show you something which perhaps neither of you have ever seen before, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... the identity to the observer's eye; and of course the suggestion stops there if not borne out by the face. But if Davenport's hands might go unchanged, he decided that his handwriting should not. It was a slovenly, scratchy degeneration of the once popular Italian script, and out of keeping with the new character he was to possess. The round, erect English calligraphy taught in most primary schools is easily picked ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... abandoned the profession to search the world in the hope of finding my progenitor, had it not been that I was without the means. Latterly, I had hoarded up all I could collect; but the sum was small, much too small for the proposed expedition. I became melancholy, indifferent to the business, and slovenly in my appearance, when a circumstance occurred which put an end to my further dispensing medicines, and left me a ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... your youthful pupils to be indeed so slovenly and so saucy, Bertram?" answered the lady. "I for one will not imitate them in that particular; and whether Sir John be now in the Castle of Douglas or not, I will treat the soldiers who hold so honourable a charge with a washed brow, and a head of hair somewhat ordered. As for going back ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... find him extraordinarily odd, but in the old days he met not only with acceptance but respect. He was alive until within a year or so ago, but his later appearance changed. As I saw him that afternoon he was a very slovenly, ungainly little human being indeed, not only was his clothing altogether ugly and queer, but had you stripped the man stark, you would certainly have seen in the bulging paunch that comes from flabby muscles and flabbily controlled appetites, and in the rounded shoulders and flawed and yellowish ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... but there is no one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted, and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of family life and support and bring up their children with an average degree of success. ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... his home, he met Tchernoff. Don Marcelo was in high good humor. The certainty that he was soon going to see his son filled him with boyish good spirits. He almost embraced the Russian in spite of his slovenly aspect, his tragic beard and his enormous hat which made every one turn to look ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... enforced, in the outward appointments of the farm house,—and that is, the entire withdrawal of any use of the highway, in its occupation by the stock of the farm, except in leading them to and from its enclosures. Nothing looks more slovenly, and nothing can be more unthrifty, in an enclosed country, than the running of farm stock in the highway. What so untidy as the approach to a house, with a herd of filthy hogs rooting about the fences, basking along the sidewalk, or feeding at a huge, uncouth, hollowed log, in the road near ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... boarding house on the west side. And when the slovenly, smelly maid said, "Go right up to her room," he knew it was—probably respectable, but not rigidly respectable. However, working girls must receive, and they cannot afford parlors and chaperons. Still—It was no place for a lovely young girl, full of charm ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... was Oliver Cromwell. At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of horse, and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. He was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hampden, and had secured the attention of the members in spite of his slovenly appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. Under his rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not perceived, except by two or three penetrating intellects; but they were shortly to appear, and to ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... manoeuvres are done with much hesitation and uncertainty. For all this the captain has, as the boys say, plentifully "bawled us out," constantly working us more than any other officer has done in the battalion. We can't deny that we are ragged and slovenly, but why is it? ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... England and Wales was regulated by the Gordon-Ashley Act of 1828,[296] which, among other reforms, had substituted for the authority of five Fellows of the College of Physicians, who performed their duties in the most slovenly manner, fifteen metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy. I find, on examining the Annual Report of these Commissioners issued in 1841, that it does not extend over more than one page and a half! It is signed by Ashley, Gordon, Turner, Southey, and Proctor. ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... they passed a larger and noisier hotel, in front of which were collected many curious people of the country, many of whom were lazy-looking, slovenly-garbed half-breeds. ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... "They look in a slovenly state indeed," he said to himself, "infinitely worse than the Chilian ships did when we first got out there. There are two or three by the flag-ship that look in a fair state of order, but the rest might be a fleet of big ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... back turned, or had he seen him earlier and followed him? The facts were these: about an hour before the time when Richling omitted to apply for employment in the ill-smelling store in Tchoupitoulas street, Mr. Raphael Ristofalo halted in front of the same place,—which appeared small and slovenly among its more pretentious neighbors,—and stepped just inside the door to where stood a single barrel of apples,—a fruit only the earliest varieties of which were beginning to appear in market. These were very small, round, and smooth, and with a rather wan blush confessed to more ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... to pass without being noticed; neither precise nor formal, slovenly nor dandyish; dress like a man or woman. Conduct yourself as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... once in all his writings thus rhymes off two consecutive couplets in one sentence so slovenly, as with "I saw," and "I guess." But Mr Horne is so enamoured "with the old familiar faces" of pet cockneyisms, that he must have his will of them. Of the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... you that?" Norgate protested. "Whatever my feeling for England may be at the present moment, however bitterly I may regret the way she has let her opportunities slip, the slovenly political condition of the country, yet I cannot put away from me the fact that I am an Englishman. If trouble should come, even though I may have helped to bring it about, even though I may believe that it is a good thing for the country to have to meet trouble, ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... men. Instead of consulting contemporaneous documents,—which would have entailed both cost and labor,—modern writers have, unfortunately, been satisfied to serve up a rehash of the detractions written by the old historians. In 1885 came a discovery that punished such slovenly methods by practically wiping out the work of the pseudo-historians. There was found in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, and Hudson's Bay House, London, unmistakably authentic record of Radisson's voyages, written by himself. The Prince Society of ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... pirates would escape. However, on the 31st of March, the two British ships discovered the vessel of which they were in search off Barracoa. Captain Walcott had disguised both ships as merchant-vessels, and their sails being set in a slovenly manner, they stood in towards the schooner. For several hours it was evident that the pirate did not suspect what they were. Before, however, they got up with her, she, setting all sail, steered for the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... two quite noble ones, Redgauntlet and Nigel; two of very high value, Durward and Woodstock; the slovenly and diffuse Peveril, written for the trade; the sickly Tales of the Crusaders, and the entirely broken and diseased St. Ronan's Well. This last I throw out of count altogether, and of the rest, accept only the four first named as sound work; so that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... a set of young men who certainly pursue their studies with zeal, but who nevertheless are more brutal in conduct, more insolent in manner, more slovenly and ruffian-like in appearance, and more offensive from the fumes of tobacco and beer, onions and sourcrout, in which they are enveloped, than are to be met with in any other part of Europe. In a small town of a small state a German university is a horrible nuisance; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... cab, and in the interval which elapsed before her ring was answered by a slovenly little servant, who gaped visibly at the lady's hurried request that her name should be taken up to Mr. Oswyn, she had leisure for the first time to realize the strangeness ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... attention to such details as these that makes a success of the work, and I would urge upon the amateur lawn-maker the absolute necessity of working slowly and carefully, and slighting nothing. Undue haste and the lack of thoroughness will result in a slovenly job that you will be ashamed of, before it is done, and so disgusted with, on completion, that you will not feel like doing the work over again for fear another effort may be more unsatisfactory than the first one. Therefore do good work in every ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... together in one room, and Little L, as I said, was very clean and neat; the big one, on the contrary, was very slovenly. And so Little L fairly made himself servant to his brother, and it turned out that he even cleaned the brass buttons on his uniform for him, and just before the ranks formed for roll-call would place himself, with ...
— Good Blood • Ernst Von Wildenbruch
... disheartened, slovenly; a man indifferent to everything—put the pince-nez crookedly upon his nose, looked at the list, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... remains between decks but the mess-tables, stools, and the soup and grog kids. Long before this hour, the greater number of the whole ship's company have dressed themselves and are ready for muster; but the never-ending sweepers, the fussy warrant-officers' yeomen, the exact purser's steward, the slovenly midshipmen's boy, the learned loblolly boy, and the interminable host of officers' servants, who have always fifty extra things to do, are often so sorely pressed for time, that at the first tap of the drum beating to divisions, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... For the widow had a certain indolent Southern negligence, which in a less pretty woman would have been untidiness, and a characteristic hook and eyeless freedom of attire which on less graceful limbs would have been slovenly. One sleeve cuff was unbuttoned, but it showed the blue veins of her delicate wrist; the neck of her dress had lost a hook, but the glimpse of a bit of edging round the white throat made amends. Of all which, however, it should ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... went through his lessons in Horace and Virgil and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, Dr. Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar.... I ought to have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... have accepted a day without bread, for the utmost glory art could bestow. As he had said himself, he sent art to the deuce, as soon as he recognised that it would never suffice to satisfy his numerous requirements. His first efforts had been below mediocrity; his peasant eyes caught a clumsy, slovenly view of nature; his muddy, badly drawn, grimacing pictures, defied ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... was of a Norse temperament: reflective, thorough, Puritanically correct, and inclined to melancholy; my mother of nondescript exotic blood, beautiful, sensual, naive, at once slovenly and passionate, and of an impulsive and unprincipled mind. Quite without doubt this was a mixture which involved extraordinary possibilities, and extraordinary dangers. What came of it was this: a commoner who lost his way ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door, and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... hovels to sell the trifling products of their industry, and stare at what to them is a perpetual miracle,—the passing train. Five races met upon that railroad platform, and together illustrated the history of the country. First, in respect to time, was the poor Indian, slovenly, painted and degraded, yet characterized by a kind of bovine melancholy on the faces of the men, and a trace of animal beauty in the forms of the young squaws. Teasing and jesting with the latter were the negro porters of the train, who, though their ancestors were as little civilized ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... particularly severe mistress. Nothing slovenly, untidy, or out of order will do. The count must be absolutely right, not fast nor slow as our fancy dictates, but even and regular. The hands must do their task together in a friendly manner; the one ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... and to atone for the avarice of his sovereign. The picture painted however by muster-master Digger of the plumed troops that had thus come forth to maintain the honour of England and the cause of liberty, was anything but imposing. None knew better than Digges their squalid and slovenly condition, or was more anxious to effect a reformation therein. "A very wise, stout fellow he is," said the Earl, "and very careful to serve thoroughly her Majesty." Leicester relied much upon his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... all kinds of use, and likely to remain so for an indefinite period; good for all ranks and for all ages. One canon, however, should be laid down as to the cut:—no pockets should be tolerated on any account whatever: they make a man look like a Yankee. 'Tis the most slovenly custom on earth to keep your hands in your pockets—you deserve to have them sewed in if you indulge in it. And therefore, to avoid this disagreeable penalty, have your pockets ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... a gentleman or lady pays you a visit, run out, the more slovenly the better; it will shew your attention to business, and a due sense of the honour they do you. It would be proper also that your wife hold the door open; your ushers be all ready to bow as they pass; and that your best looking boys be called into ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... door with their tin pails of raspberries to sell, and just knowing English enough to ask a big price for them. But it was on the squaws we depended in those days, or go without raspberry preserves for the winter. Slovenly-looking things they were with their three or four coloured petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for dirt—! But I thought they were all ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... you," said Sidney, with decision. "It leads to slovenly habits, such as going without when you're in a hurry, and that sort of thing. The only thing is to have some one expecting ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wealth and poverty, are jumbled together as in no other district in London. The modest wife, coming out of her door at ten in the morning to do her marketing, meets, face to face, her next neighbour standing at her door, a jug in her hand, waiting for some late milkman to pass—a slovenly dame in a dressing-gown with half the buttons off, primrose-coloured hair loose on her back, and a porcelain complexion hastily dabbed on a yellow dissipated face. The Maryleboners (or -bonites) being a Happy Family, in the menagerie sense, do not vex their souls ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... whilst the latter is only nine miles round. Both are lofty, clothed with impenetrable forests almost to the beach, and surrounded by a barrier of reefs thirty-six miles in circumference, with here and there a narrow strait between them. The inhabitants, who are lazy, slovenly, stupid, fierce, cowardly, and avaricious, do not exceed twelve or fifteen hundred in number. It was unfortunate for La Perouse to be shipwrecked amongst such people, when he would have received a reception ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... real teachers is to make great and arduous things seem simple and desirable and beautiful. A teacher is not a person who provides short-cuts to knowledge, or who only drills a character out of slovenly intellectual faults. The essence of all real teaching is a sort of inspiration. Take the case of a great teacher, like Arnold or Jowett; Arnold lit in his pupils' minds a kind of fire, which was moral rather than intellectual; Jowett had a power of putting a suggestive ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sturdy body, waddling on a pair of short bandy legs; slovenly, shabby, unbrushed clothes; a big square bilious-yellow face, surmounted by a mop of thick iron-grey hair; dark beetle-brows; a pair of staring, fierce, black, goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... HOFFMAN (DR. HENRY)—Slovenly Peter. Original Edition. This celebrated work has amused children probably more than any other juvenile book. It contains the quaint hand colored pictures, and is printed on extra quality of paper and durably bound. Quarto. ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... front, shows where you have tightly grasped it in the struggle to stand your ground at a Chicago literary luncheon. Your right overshoe has a large block of Buffalo mud just under the instep, the odor of a Utica cigar hangs about your clothing, and the overcoat itself shows the slovenly brushing of the porters of the through sleepers from Albany, and stenciled upon the very end of the 'Wellington' in fairly plain lettering is your name, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens and his serial novels.—What a regular, lime-juicer spread!" he added contemptuously. "Marmalade—and toast for the old man! Nasty, slovenly pigs!" ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... remarkable. His hat was what might have been truly called "a shocking bad one." He generally wore an old and very much patched brown coat, corduroy breeches, and thick, slovenly shoes; but his underclothing was always of the finest description, and faultless in cleanliness and colour. His manners were ordinarily rough and uncouth, speaking gruffly, bawling loudly, and even rudely ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... which a careful routine of this nature evoked. There was a homelike air about the tent at supper time, and, though a lunch camp in the middle of the night is always rather bleak, there was never anything slovenly. Another thing which struck me even more forcibly was the cooking. We were of course on just the same ration as the tent from which I had come. I was hungry and said so. "Bad cooking," said Wilson shortly; and so it was. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... was that Germinie's abasement and degradation began to be visible in her personal appearance, to make her stupid and slovenly. A sort of drowsiness came over her ideas. She was no longer keen and prompt of apprehension. What she had read and what she had learned seemed to escape her. Her memory, which formerly retained everything, became confused ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... began a long season of hard work. The opera "Iphigenie" took about a year to compose, besides a careful study of the French language. He had even more trouble with the slovenly, ignorant orchestra, than he had with the French language. The orchestra declared itself against foreign music; but this opposition was softened down by his former pupil and patroness, the charming ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... sometimes at least, trying to follow in Pigault's popular footsteps. But he had not that writer's varied knowledge of actual life or his power of telling a story, and though he for the most part avoided Pigault's grossierete, the chaotic plots, the slovenly writing, and other defects of his model abode ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... are, of course, operators who would see that this was done anyway, rules or no rules; but like every other profession there might be men who, off on an isolated spot with no one to keep them up to the mark, would grow careless and slovenly. Too much depends on wireless stations to run the risk of errors through imperfections in ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... skipper, after another attempt, gave it up, and, falling back upon the universal language of signs, pointed first to the man and then to the sea. The other understood him, and, in a heavy, slovenly fashion, portrayed a man drifting in an open boat, and clutching and clambering up the side of a passing ship. As his meaning dawned upon us, we rushed to the stern, and, leaning over, peered into the gloom, but the night was dark, and ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... and neatest in the end. A good many grape-growers train their vines to stakes, believing it to be cheaper, but I have found it more expensive than trellis made in the above manner, and it is certainly a very slovenly method, compared with the latter. Trellis is much more convenient for tying the vines, the canes can be distributed much more evenly, and the fruit and young wood, not being huddled and crowded together as on stakes, will ripen much more evenly, and be of better quality, as the air and sun have ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... sugar is of fine quality, almost equal to our maple sugar. They plant the seed in a careless way and tend it in the most slovenly manner imaginable, and yet, they get immense crops. One man, who put in a crop near where some soldiers were encamped in order to have their protection, told us that he sold the product from this small stretch of ground of not more than five or six ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... Clare made of the subject, we found that the name by which the shark is technically known is Squalidae, which includes a large family fitly designated, as your Latin dictionary will prove when you find the adjective squalidus—"filthy, slovenly, loathsome." It is a family of many species, there being some thirty or forty cousins; and the different forms of the teeth, snout, mouth, lips, and tail-fins, the existence or absence of eyelids, spiracles, (those are the apertures by which the water taken in for respiration is ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... rather surprised on first entering a painting-room here. Your eye is struck with the appearance of a dozen slovenly attired fellows, who are variously engaged, some in beginning pictures, some in finishing, &c. The window, which is remarkably large, and situated so as to command a good prospect from without, admits light sufficient ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... to lean upon he did during those dark days—the end in darkest night nearer than anyone could divine. He showed stronger mettle than had been allowed him: bore a manlier part than was commonly ascribed to the slovenly slipshod habiliments and the aspects in which benignancy and vacillation seemed to struggle for the ascendancy. Abroad the elements conspired against him. At home his wife lay ill, as it proved, unto death. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... would do if it were worth while—if he had the heart. Since none of these things, however, can be had without long attention, or, at any rate, without skill carefully bestowed in due season, you do not find such things decorating the homes of weekly tenants. The cottages let by the week look shabby, slovenly, dingy; the hedges of the gardens are neglected, broken down, stopped up with anything that comes to hand. If it were not for the fruitful and well-tended vegetable plots, one might often suppose the tenants to be ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... thorough. He foresaw a hard and trying day before him, and he wished to start it fresh and clean. He would come into contact with new people; he saw himself playing an important role in a most important affair; he would naturally and as usual make himself valued. A slovenly air did not conduce to that. It seemed fitting to put on his darkest tweed suit and ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... and soon John Loveday would be leaning all a forenoon at the shed door, watching the lithe ply of Hogarth's hips, and the white-hot iron gushing flushes; while Margaret, peeping, could see Loveday's slovenly ease of pose, his numberless cigarettes, and hear the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... good sleep at a farmhouse hard by, which farmhouse one of them claimed to espy through the impenetrable night. The drunk was accordingly escorted into the dark, his friends' abrupt steps correcting his own large slovenly procedure out of earshot.... Some of the Black People sat down near me and smoked. Their enormous faces, wads of vital darkness, swooned with fatigue. Their vast gentle hands ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... contrive his Medicines, first, That they may be taken in small quantity, and be made more grateful to the tast, and stomach, and perform more then those of the Apothecaries, commonly slovenly made, and of themselves Fulsom, Nauseous, and Sluggish. Secondly, His Medicines made for particular persons, may last Weeks, Months, nay Years, whereas the Apothecaries Drinks, especially in the Summer time, must be renewed once, or twice every day, to the excessive charge ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... the "supernatural." He joins an ethical society, and before he knows where he is, he is a vegetarian. The rebellious moderns have a curious tendency to flock together in self-defence, even when they have nothing in common. The mere aggregation of denials rather attracts the slovenly and the unattached. The lack of positive dogma expressed by such a coalition encourages the sceptic and the uneducated, who do not realize that the deliberate suppression of dogma is itself a dogma of extreme arrogance. ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... over the telephone. Bat sat down on the table and waited. The news editor was thin-faced and nervous and alert and immaculately groomed. Bat was round-faced and sleepy-eyed—tortoise-shell eyes—and all that prevented his suit from looking positively slovenly was that his own ample avoirdupois filled ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... mining industries in the world! To think that the Government of Canada actually allows the refining of that ore to be done outside of its own country! Folly, folly, criminal folly! But it is all the same in this country, too. The mining work in America is unscientific, slovenly, unorganised, wasteful. I am sorry to say," he continued, turning suddenly upon Larry, "in your western coal fields you waste more in the smoke of your coke ovens than you make out of your coal mines. Ah, if only those wonderful, wonderful coal fields were under the organised ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... moonlight came faintly in—enough for him to distinguish the few objects in the room. He dared not attempt to wash, he was so afraid of being late. He managed to get out his oldest pair of trousers, and hurried on his clothes as fast as he could, feeling miserably dirty and slovenly, and thinking to himself he would never again be hard on poor people for not being clean! "I must try to wash when I come back," he said to himself. Then he hurried out, ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... the Sultan confirmed them. The nominal approval of measures initiated by the Resident and agreed to in council, and the signing of death-warrants, are among the few prerogatives which "his Highness" retains. Then a petition for a pension from Rajah Brean was read, the Rajah, a slovenly-looking man, being present. The petition was refused, and the Sultan, in refusing it, spoke some very strong words about idleness, which seems a great failing of Rajah Brean's but it ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I imagine, rot - and slovenly rot - and some of it pompous rot; and I want you to understand it's ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... canvas. Details no longer fascinated him, but were annoying and depressing. In fact, he ignored them and began to paint in a broad, slap-dash style. Thus, instead of a clear, powerful portrayal of life, the picture became ever more plain of a tawdry, slovenly female. There was nothing original or charming about such a dull stereotyped piece of work, so he thought; a veritable imitation of a Moukh drawing, banal in idea as in execution; and, as usual, Yourii ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... advocates ill-considered and sweeping measures of reform (especially if they are tainted with vindictiveness and disregard for the rights of the minority) is particularly blameworthy. The several legislatures are responsible for the fact that our laws are often prepared with slovenly haste and lack of consideration. Moreover, they are often prepared, and still more frequently amended during passage, at the suggestion of the very parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our great clusters ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... story, I believe, among the "wise speeches" in Camden's Remaines, where it is thus told: "Johannes Erigena, surnamed Scotus, a man renowned for learning, sitting at the table, in respect of his learning, with Charles the Bauld, Emperor and King of France, behaved himselfe as a slovenly scholler, nothing courtly; whereupon the Emperor asked him merrily, Quid interest inter Scotum et Sotum? (what is there between a Scot and a Sot?) He merrily, but yet malapertly answered, 'Mensa'—(the table): as though the emperor were the Sot and he the Scot." p. 236. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... close up to him as possible and thus gained a very good view. The man was a poverty-stricken, slovenly boatman and the fur coat seemed by no means appropriate. It was, in addition, a perfectly ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... with its squalor, and impurity, and idolatry. It is true that environment does not regenerate the soul, but the renewed soul transforms the environment. Better conditions are evidence of the new life. On the contrary, when some fall back to heathenism, they fall into slovenly attire, ill-kept homes, and neglected fields." [Footnote: Rev. C. L. Hall, D.D., ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... Commissioner on the east. Most of the streets run at right angles to each other; the principal, the Strada Real, runs to the gate which forms the chief entrance to the town. The houses are for the most part built in an irregular and slovenly manner; and even the public buildings cannot boast of much beauty. The inhabitants, of the town especially, are a mixture of Greeks and Venetians. In the country the population is more purely Greek. The roads, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Her guns were of the heaviest calibre. Her steel walls were decorated with ponderous Pallasier shot and shell. I was struck with the marvellous cleanliness. Her decks were white. Every inch of brasswork was shining; everything in order; everything trim and neat; neither slovenly men ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... of the Japanese which will not be improved by contact with foreigners, and especially with Americans, is thoroughness. This trait is seen on every hand in Japan. Nothing is built in a slovenly way, whether for private use or for the government. The artisan never scamps his work. He seems to have retained the old mechanic's pride in doing everything well which he sets his hand to do. This is seen in the carving of many works of art, as well as in the building of ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... minute I'll go down to the Guardians and make my complaint. (He notices his appearance) I'm going about all day with my boots unlaced. I'm falling into bad ways, bad, slovenly ways. And my coat needs brushing, too. (He takes off his coat and goes to window and brushes it) That's Myles Gorman going back to the Workhouse. I couldn't walk with my head held as high as that. In this house I ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... elaborately with small conical silver buttons; and while some of them concluded their attire with breeches extending to the knees and there clasped with buckles, others, more fantastic in taste, preferred the loose trowsers of the Ottoman. Hair, prodigiously long, flowing slovenly over the shoulders, was common to all. Hats were worn, but they may be exceptions. A blue petticoat, blue as their beautiful sky, and a jacket bound by a scarlet sash around the waist, and a coloured silk kerchief wreathed about the head, its two ends ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... sent yesterday to the Vice Chancellor, and of my letter accompanying it. They will not, I presume, detain the letter merely to give themselves the trouble of copying or translating papers, the original of which is in the hands of the principal Minister. I have only to apologise to you for the slovenly appearance of this copy, with its interlineations and obliterations. I have not time to make a fair copy for this day's post, and though but a few days might be lost here by waiting for the next post, yet an opportunity might be lost for a long time ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... obscure) but himself—an indirect argument in favour of the general opinion as to the source from which they spring—and the other was, to hint our astonishment at the innumerable and incessant in-stances of bad and slovenly English in them, more, we believe, than in any other works now printed. We should think the writer could not possibly read the manuscript after he has once written it, or ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine, about three miles westward of the city of Rouen. The one speaker was lean, old, crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young, oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... this, my dear child. And perhaps I should say that my mind was, and has always remained, with my mother on such matters. If God gives food for the use of His creatures, it is to His honour and glory to serve it handsomely, so far as may be; and I see little religion in a slovenly piece of meat, or a shapeless hunch of butter on a ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... would halt me, I walked up to him; and he continued to munch the green bough-apple he was eating, making me a most slovenly salute. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... a strain of candor to admit that this author speaks at random; that he is only slovenly and inaccurate, and not fallacious. In matters of account, however, this want of care is not excusable; and the difference between neutral nations entirely engrossing our navigation, and being only subsidiary to a vastly augmented trade, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is conducted in the most slovenly manner. The ripe ears with the dry stalks are thrown on the sand, and then half-a-dozen donkeys are driven over them—an animated threshing machine. The grain, of course, mixes with the sand, and is separated from it with considerable ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... changed he was, since they last met. The wicked career of a few months had stamped and furrowed his brow with the lines of years. His dress was mean and faded. He looked dirty and slovenly, and little of his former manly beauty and elegance of person remained. So utterly degraded was his appearance, that a cry of surprise broke from Anthony's lips, so inexpressibly shocked was he at an alteration ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Arnold had criticized General Grant's English, and Clemens immediately put down other things to rush to his hero's defense. He pointed out that in Arnold's criticism there were no less than "two grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English," ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Mary came, or rather, when she was about to come, things were altogether changed at the doctor's. People had hitherto wondered—and especially Mrs Umbleby—how a gentleman like Dr Thorne could continue to live in so slovenly a manner; and how people again wondered, and again especially Mrs Umbleby, how the doctor could possibly think it necessary to put such a lot of furniture into a house because a little chit of a girl of twelve years of age was ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... having in contemplation the quantity of provisions necessary for their real use, and not as calculating what is to be lost by the wanton waste, mismanagement, and carelessness of those employed about it. If magazines of beef and pork are suffered to rot by slovenly butchering, or for want of timely provision and sale; if quantities of flour are exposed by the commissaries entrusted with the keeping it, to pillage and destruction; and if, when laid up in the Continental stores, it is still to be embezzled and sold, the land of Egypt itself would ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... circumstances have required from men." "Long generations" of subjection are, strangely enough, held to excuse the timorousness and the shifts of women to-day. But the world, unknowing, tampers with the courage of its sons by such a slovenly indulgence. It tampers with their intelligence by fostering ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... school-master and Jack, waiting for him, and he forgot hunger and weariness as he trod on eagerly toward them. That night, he stayed in a mountain-cabin, and while the contrast of the dark room, the crowding children, the slovenly dress, and the coarse food was strangely disagreeable, along with the strange new shock came the thrill that all this meant hills and home. It was about three o'clock of the fourth day that, tramping up the Kentucky River, he came upon a long, even stretch of smooth water, from the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... his occupation through reducing them to a series of effective habits will surely succeed. Note the ease and perfection with which the skilled workman performs his labor and compare it with the slow, slovenly work of ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... them from the passage, being careful he should not detect it, for fear of his contempt. Then I minutely examined my clothes and thought that everything looked old, worn and threadbare. I had let myself get too slovenly. My uniform, perhaps, was tidy, but I could not go out to dinner in my uniform. The worst of it was that on the knee of my trousers was a big yellow stain. I had a foreboding that that stain would deprive me of nine-tenths of my personal ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... very kindly, making many apologies for the dirty house, which she partly attributed to its being Saturday; but I could plainly see that it was dirt of all days. I sate in the midst of it with great delight, for the woman's benevolent, happy countenance almost converted her slovenly and lazy way of leaving all things to take care of themselves into ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... awning-posts, and other wrecks of the fight. The grog-shops were open, in which men with bloody noses, and bruised and battered faces, obtained the necessary stimulus to continue the desperate struggle. Dirty, slovenly-dressed women stood in the door- ways or on the steps, swearing and denouncing both police and military in the coarsest language. Though the immense gatherings of the preceding days were not witnessed, yet there was a ground-swell ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... which are the same in all the villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity for news perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and then fall silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out under this regimen, like a fire without ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... long as they can carry on from one day to another they are quite content. The bit of ground they live on is not half cultivated. In the summer time you may see two or even three crops growing up together. If they had potatoes on last, they got them up in the most slovenly way, leaving half the crop in the ground. They just hoak out with a stick or a bit of board what they require for that day's food, picking the large ones and leaving the small ones in the ground. Oats or something else will be seen half-choked with weeds and the growth from the potatoes ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... He was without a collar, so his throat was bare above the neck-band of his flannel shirt. Altogether she disapproved of his slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... to paint her. I'm just crazy about her face," said the girl, whose name she learned afterwards was Rosy Plover. Though she was undeniably pretty, and had just powdered her face with scented powder, she had a slovenly, unkempt appearance which Gabriella, from that moment, associated with art students. "If she'd only dress herself properly, she'd be a beauty," she thought, with the aversion of one who is an artist in clothes. She herself, after her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... he asked himself the question as he allowed his horse to mouche, with slovenly step, over the sodden prairie; but no answer presented itself. His thin, eagle face was puckered with perplexity. The sleepy eyes gleamed vengefully from between his half-closed eyelids as he gazed across the sunlit prairie. His ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum |
