"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of one or two hack settlers, negotiating sales of timber, from forests where axe had never sounded. Sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing her steps in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying, with lofty grace, to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The life of the town seemed to have its very centre not far from an old mansion, that stood somewhat back from the pavement, surrounded by neglected grass, with a strange ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... granted by society to genius. And yet of late he had been behaving himself in a marvellous manner. He had never bothered her. On the voyage back to France he had not bothered her. They had separated with punctilious cordiality. Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he was working diligently and satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her. It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her relations with Mr. Gilman ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... his masterpiece in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same sentence for the purposes of the rhyme, which shews either a want of technical resources, or great inattention to punctilious exactness. But to ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Next morning Mrs. Dampier awakes to find herself in the awkward predicament of Ariadne on the beach of Naxos, with the aggravation (spared to Theseus' bride) that the hotel people absolutely deny that she came with a husband at all. A punctilious if sceptical American senator (refreshingly guiltless of accent) and his enthusiastic son and daughter take pity on her, and the rest of the book resolves itself into a detective story, saved from conventionality ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... week of the trial, she had seen him but twice, and immediately after he had been summoned to attend some suit in New Orleans, and had hurriedly bidden her adieu in the presence of others. With punctilious regularity he wrote studiedly polished, graceful yet merely friendly letters, and like ice morsels they slowly widened the glacier ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the Colonel bowed the ladies out of the room with punctilious courtesy, and motioned to Hugh to follow them; then he turned to the ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... father, who had begged that he consider carefully and with due regard to his own future the proposals to be set before him, Hal was ready to receive the deputation in form. Pierce's presence surprised him. He greeted all four men with equally punctilious politeness, however, and gave courteous attention while Hollenbeck spoke for his colleagues. The merchant explained the purpose of the visit; set forth the importance to the city of the centennial Old Home Week, and urged the inadvisability of any ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... been as if she looked on that as a kind of subterfuge—almost as a form of disloyalty. Yet what was it she had in mind, what did she wish to make of him beyond what she had already made, a patient, punctilious host, mindful that she had originally arrived much as a stranger, arrived not at all deliberately or yearningly invited?—so that one positively had her possible susceptibilities the MORE on one's conscience. The Miss Lutches, the sisters from the middle West, were there as friends ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... rose with punctilious courtesy and saluted Oliver Pollock, who introduced in turn the five, to every one of whom the Governor General gave a bow and a friendly word. Like all others in New Orleans who had seen them, he bestowed an admiring look upon their size, their straightness, and above all, the extraordinary ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Stewart; but the latter was not at the station. This made him vaguely uneasy, he hardly knew why. He did not know Stewart well enough to know whether he was punctilious in such matters or not: as a matter of fact he hardly knew him at all. It was because he had appealed to him that Peter was there, it being only necessary to Peter to be ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... part of the stream." This shrinkage is not accounted for. The stream has bends in it, a sure indication that it has alluvial banks and cuts them; yet these bends are only thirty and fifty feet long. If Cooper had been a nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed that the bends were oftener nine hundred feet long than ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... petty personal annoyance, at least never take care not to 'jar each other's elbow-nerves,' or set on edge the teeth that never bit them. We are careful not to wound the feelings or even the weaknesses of a brother. Punctilious courtesy, frank apology for unintentional wrong, is with us a point of honour. Disputes, when by any chance they arise, are referred to the arbitration of our chiefs, who never consider their work done till the disputants are cordially reconciled. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... back to sing again at the bidding of a highly excited boy, but of a deeply moved man; and his emotion was of no ordinary kind. That Garth Dalmain should have been so moved as to forget even momentarily his punctilious courtesy of manner, was the highest possible tribute to her art and to her song. While she played the Handel theme—and played it so that a whole orchestra seemed marshalled upon the key-board under those strong, firm finger—she suddenly ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to Beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation. But Deronda's last sentence ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... him. He was punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He received them ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Council were by no means in an obsequious mood. Hastings greatly disliked the new form of government, and had no very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard of this, and were disposed to be suspicious and punctilious. When men are in such a frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give occasion for dispute. The members of Council expected a salute of twenty-one guns from the batteries of Fort William. Hastings allowed them only seventeen. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whose own conduct is irreproachable," said Henri, in an indefinable tone between jest and earnest, "a brother a king, and very punctilious—" ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... The old ferryman at Bandjermasin has been so successful in the conduct of his curious avocation that, so the Dutch Resident assured me, he has several hundred policy holders who pay him their premiums with punctilious regularity, thereby giving him a ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... shilling a day in Paris, though, by Heaven, I should hate to do it. Nicely administered it might save a woman from rapid starvation and keep her thin for quite a time. But even this measure of relief was difficult to get. French officials are extraordinarily punctilious over the details of their work, and it takes them a long time to organize a system which is a masterpiece of safeguards and regulations and subordinate clauses. So it was with them in the first weeks ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... appropriateness of his remarks. Words seemed for the first time in his life to ran at him shrieking to be used, gathering themselves into carefully arranged squads and platoons, and being presented to him by punctilious adjutants of paragraphs. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... wool, I found myself in a small room with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean; order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it soothed my punctilious soul to behold. And I had hesitated to enter the abode, because I apprehended after all that Mdlle. Reuter's hint about its extreme poverty might be too well-founded, and I feared to embarrass the lace-mender by entering ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... had complimented me on my work and manner, and Mr. Robbins, the mate, said I was worth my salt-horse and hardbread. Of course while on duty Ben Gibson, the young second mate, and I must of necessity hold to "quarterdeck etiquette;" he was "Mr. Gibson" and I was "Webb." We were punctilious indeed about these niceties of address. Off duty, however, we were two boys together, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Brownrigg was killed in a struggle with an Arab slaver, owing chiefly to his own punctilious respect for the French flag under which the dhow was sailing. Not wishing to begin hostilities, he came alongside the Arab without arming his men, who were powerless to make any resistance when boarded by the enemy. The Captain, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Black and Dr. Hutton, were particular friends, though there was something extremely opposite in their external appearance and manner. Dr. Black spoke with the English pronunciation, and with punctilious accuracy of expression, both in point of matter and manner. The geologist, Dr. Hutton, was the very reverse of this: his conversation was conducted in broad phrases, expressed with a broad Scotch accent, which often heightened the humour of what ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... alone give to men humanity and grandeur of soul. The notion of a tyrant God can create but abject, angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. Every religion which supposes a God easily irritated, jealous, vindictive, punctilious about His rights or His title, a God small enough to be offended at opinions which we have of Him, a God unjust enough to exact uniform ideas in regard to Him, such a religion becomes necessarily turbulent, unsocial, sanguinary; the worshipers of such a God never believe they can, without ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... Repentance would have brought God. Dragging the ark thither only removed Him farther away. We need not be too hard upon these people; for the natural disposition of us all is to trust to the externals of worship, and to put a punctilious attention to these in the place of a true cleaving of heart to the God who dwells near us, and is in us and on our side, if we cling to Him with penitent love. Even God-appointed symbols become snares. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are treated by multitudes as these elders did the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... had been carried on with a due regard for the unwritten but rigid code of underworld etiquette. From neither side had there issued a single unethical word. The detectives had been punctilious to avoid ruffling the sensibilities of any and all. All the same, the prisoner chose of a sudden to turn nasty. It was at once manifest that he aimed to give offence without giving provocation or real excuse for reprisals on the part of the invaders. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... use, governing the style of furnishing in a room, is very well understood. Thus, while both drawing-room and dining-room must express hospitality, it is of a different kind or degree. That of the drawing-room is ceremonious and punctilious, and represents the family in its relation to society, while the dining-room is far more intimate, and belongs to the family in its relation to friends. In fact, as the dining-room is the heart of the house, its furnishing would naturally be quite different in feeling and character ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... a pang how punctilious they were in England about asking gentlemen to perform this duty, and I received one more impression of the permanence of British ideas of propriety. But Dicky declined; said he couldn't undertake it—for a party, and that Mrs. Portheris must please help herself and never mind him, ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to do for a punctilious lawyer, as was Master Skyffington, but to obey forthwith. This he did, without another word, collecting the various bundles of paper and placing them one by one in the brown leather wallet which ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... us west-country folks "geese-dancers." As we met on board the cutter which was to carry us to Plymouth we were not, I will allow, altogether satisfied with our personal appearance, and still less so when we stepped on the quarter-deck of the seventy-four, commanded by one of the proudest, most punctilious men in the service, surrounded by a ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... partly; and his low opinion of mankind deceived him still more. For if there had been any love between Maltravers and Evelyn, why should the former not have stood his ground, and declared his suit? Lumley would have "bah'd" and "pish'd" at the thought of any punctilious regard for engagements so easily broken having power either to check passion for beauty, or to restrain self-interest in the chase of an heiress. He had known Maltravers ambitious; and with him, ambition and self-interest meant the same. Thus, by the very finesse of his character—while ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Giddy's business to walk back along the curve about three hundred yards and put out torpedoes to warn any train which might be coming up from behind—a freight crew is not notified of trains following, and the brakeman is supposed to protect his train. Ray was so fussy about the punctilious observance of orders that almost any brakeman would take a chance once in a while, from ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of Society teach us to love one another. That is a miserable society, where the absence of affectionate kindness is sought to be supplied by punctilious decorum, graceful urbanity, and polished insincerity; where ambition, jealousy, and distrust rule, in place of simplicity, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... novel rendering of light seemed an insult to them. Some old gentlemen shook their sticks. Was art to be outraged like this? One grave individual went away very wroth, saying to his wife that he did not like practical jokes. But another, a punctilious little man, having looked in the catalogue for the title of the work, in order to tell his daughter, read out the words, 'In the Open Air,' whereupon there came a formidable renewal of the clamour, hisses and shouts, and what not else besides. The title ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... in the society of his most intimate friends, so jealous was he of his dignity and power. Unscrupulous in his public transactions, and immoral in his private relations with women, he had a great respect for the ordinances of religion, and was punctilious in the outward observances of the Catholic Church. The age itself was religious; and so was he, in a technical and pharisaical piety and petty ritualistic duties. He was a bigot and a persecutor, which fact endeared him to the Jesuits, by whom, in matters of conscience, he was ruled, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... sure whether, under all the circumstances, I did not go further in the attempt to accommodate than a punctilious delicacy will justify. If so, I hope the motives I ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... way and, moreover, satisfied his appetite with a good supper, Pignaver took leave of the Bravi with considerable ceremony, for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy, France, or Spain; and it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point of manners. Indeed, as he retraced his steps to the office ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... district ransacked plain, valley, and mountain to collect the poles, beams, thatch, and cordstuff; when the workers were so numerous that the structure grew and took shape in a day, we may well believe that ambitious and punctilious patrons of the hula, such as La'a, Liloa, or Lono-i-ka-makahiki, did not allow the divine art of Laka to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean—order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it suited my punctilious soul to behold.... Poor the place might be; poor truly it was, but its neatness was better than elegance, and had but a bright little fire shone on that clean hearth, I should have deemed it more attractive than a palace. No fire was there, however, and no fuel laid ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... to struggle with in this way than others. Nature has made them precise and exact. They are punctilious in their hours, rigid in their habits, pained by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... had settled upon the others at the announcement of Herr Rosen's arrival passed away. Courtlandt, who had remained seated during the initial formalities (a fact which bewildered Abbott, who knew how punctilious his friend was in matters of this kind) got up and took a third ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... considerably my senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you—could you in my circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even punctilious enough to tell your daughter—an excessive scruple, I ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... that queenly office to the royal old lady, and Arthur was pleased with this opportunity of gratifying his godmother's taste for stateliness. Old Mr. Donnithorne, the delicately clean, finely scented, withered old man, led out Miss Irwine, with his air of punctilious, acid politeness; Mr. Gawaine brought Miss Lydia, looking neutral and stiff in an elegant peach-blossom silk; and Mr. Irwine came last with his pale sister Anne. No other friend of the family, besides Mr. Gawaine, was invited to-day; there was to be a grand dinner for ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... now did not forget his punctilious salaam before departing. Never had he seemed more the beautiful serpent with the shining scales than the instant he bent gracefully at Democrates's feet, the red light falling on his gleaming ear ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Caribou,' says Texas Thompson, 'is a mighty sight too punctilious about them drinks; which thar's no doubt of it. Do they ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... saluted him and returning to his own house, informed his nephew of the King's wish to see him, to which Bedreddin replied, "The slave is obedient to his lord's commands." So next day he accompanied his uncle to the Divan and after saluting the Sultan in the most punctilious and elegant manner, repeated ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... night he acquired in Dona Victorina's eyes the reputation of being brave and punctilious, so she decided in her heart that she would marry him just as soon as Don Tiburcio was out of the way. Paulita became sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls called cochers could occupy Isagani's attention, for the name had certain disagreeable associations that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... hear the same passages unmoved, because they, in the excess of artificially gained wisdom, have deadened their instincts so far, that while they listen to a truth pronounced, they already consider how best they can confute it, and prove the same a lie! Honest enthusiasm is impossible to the over- punctilious and pedantic scholar,—but on the other hand, I would have it plainly understood that a mere brief local popularity is not Fame, . . No! for the author who wins the first never secures the last. What I mean is, that ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Paul deals a death blow to the Law. When a person has put on Christ nothing else matters. Whether a person is a Jew, a punctilious and circumcised observer of the Law of Moses, or whether a person is a noble and wise Greek does not matter. Circumstances, personal worth, character, achievements have no bearing upon justification. Before ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty of Man, or from The Academy of Compliments! We confess we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The neglect of punctilious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the "licence of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of intellectual refinement in the character, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... disposal of the body the family begins to plan for the second and final funeral, which is considered a compensation to the departed soul for the property he left behind. Caution demands that they be very punctilious about this, for the ghost, though believed to be far above this plane, is thought to be resentful, with power to cause misfortunes of various kinds and therefore is feared. Until recently, when a man of means died, a slave had ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... sovereign have the imprudence to appear either to deride, or doubt himself of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity, attempt to protect those who did either the one or the other, the punctilious honour of a clergy, who have no sort of dependency upon him, is immediately provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to employ all the terrors of religion, in order to oblige the people to transfer their ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... with ever-widening circles of people, all of whom were disposed, even anxious, to treat him well, to get in his good graces. Possibly most of these were what we would call the worst elements; and by that we would mean not only the roughnecks of the police or sheriff's offices, but also the punctilious, smooth-mannered Southerners who practically monopolized the political offices. These men would have been little considered in the South; in fact, in many cases, they had left their native states under a cloud ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... of etiquette is that which requires prompt replies to invitations. The reason why an invitation to dine or to an opera-box should be answered as soon as received is so evident that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... from his well-worn snuff-box. Such familiarities were not rare in that day between the gentlemen of New France and their old servants, who usually passed their lifetime in one household. Felix was the majordomo of the Manor House of Tilly, trusty, punctilious, and polite, and honored by his mistress more as an humble friend than as a servant of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in 1839. Frail most of his life, in later years he has become robust, and now (1913) is the only surviving member of the family besides Mr. Burroughs. He is cheery and loquacious, methodical and orderly, and very punctilious in dress. (One day, in the summer of 1912, when he was calling at "Woodchuck Lodge,"—the summer home where Mr. Burroughs has lived of late years, near the old place where he was born,—this brother recounted ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... escape embarrassment, public and private, we must cease to run in debt except for objects of necessity or such as will yield a certain return. Let the faith of the States, corporations, and individuals already pledged be kept with the most punctilious regard. It is due to our national character as well as to justice that this should on the part of each be a fixed principle of conduct. But it behooves us all to be more chary in pledging it hereafter. By ceasing to run in debt and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... and the refinement and love of literature, which they introduced and fostered in their dominions. During the greater part of their rule, the court of Cordova was the most polished and enlightened in Europe removed equally from the martial rudeness of those of the Frank monarchs, and the punctilious attention to forms and jealous etiquette, within which the Grcek emperors studiously intrenched themselves. The useful arts, and in particular the science of agriculture, necessary for the support of a dense population, were cultivated to an extent of which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... are classic illustrations of a cut-and dried formalism in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and devotion to the good. The letter killeth, and a punctilious observance of rules may choke out the aspirations of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... one of the classic oratorical gems of American eloquence, and the editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper under his arm when he climbed the hill to Lincoln Avenue the following Sunday night, and presented them to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was punctilious to call "the ladies," and he assured Miss Molly and Mistress Culpepper—he was nice about those titles also—that their father and husband had a great future before ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... been forced to see Cleopatra, for the sake of realizing a childish dream, and impressing her lover, squander vast sums, which diminished the prosperity of her subjects; place great and important matters below the vain, punctilious care of her own person; forget, in petty jealousy, the justice and kindness which were marked traits in her character; and, though the most kindly and womanly of sovereigns, suffer herself to be urged by angry excitement ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of a "Miss"! And he the most punctilious of men in everything pertaining to polite address and chivalric reverence for women! His eyes had strange flashes in them when he turned to me. He was grave, but with a gravity that overlaid smiles. His ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... next morning he dressed himself in his best, and presented himself at the door in Mount Street, exactly as the clock struck twelve. He had an idea that these people were very punctilious as to time. Who could say but that the French ambassador might have an appointment with Madam Gordeloup at half-past one—or perhaps some emissary from the Pope! He had resolved that he would not take his left glove off his hand, and he had thrust the notes in under the palm of his glove, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... not in innuendo or double entendre. Beside the page of modern realism, the ballad page is clean and wholesome. Human passion unrestrained there may be; but no sickly or vicious sentiment. There is a punctilious sense of honour; and if it is sometimes the letter rather than the spirit of vow or promise that is kept, the knights and ladies in the ballads are no worse than are the Pharisees of our day; and they are always ready ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... family affairs to arrange." She seemed about to explain further; but Marmaduke looked so uneasily at her that she stopped. Then, resuming gaily, she added, "I told Ned that he need not stand on ceremony with you. Fancy my saying that of you, the most punctilious of men!" ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Direct communication between the chief and the head of the stranger party is not customary. In approaching they often ask who is the spokesman, and the spokesman of the chief addresses the person indicated exclusively. There is no lack of punctilious good manners. The accustomed presents are exchanged with civil ceremoniousness; until our men, wearied and hungry, call out, "English do not buy slaves, they buy food," and then the people bring meal, maize, fowls, batatas, yams, beans, beer, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... and their companion cuffs or sleeves. Catherine de Medicis induced one Frederic Vinciolo to come from Italy and make ruffs and gadrooned collars, the fashion of which she started in France; and Henry III. was so punctilious over his ruffs that he would iron and goffer his cuffs and collars himself rather than see their pleats limp and out of shape. The pattern-books also gave a great impulse to the art. M. Lefebure mentions German books with patterns of eagles, heraldic emblems, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... in the world which should be filled with such punctilious' devotion, propriety, and self-respect as that of hostess. If a lady ever allows her guest to feel that she is a cause of inconvenience, she violates the first rule of hospitality. If she fail in any way in her obligations as hostess to a guest whom she has invited, she shows herself to be ill-bred ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... a cold punctilious leave of Catherine, and a still colder and slighter leave of Langham. Elsmere accompanied him ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which now cause such uproar, and engender such confusion. Avarice, ambition, cruelty, selfishness, were never heard of: Cordial affection, compassion, sympathy, were the only movements with which the mind was yet acquainted. Even the punctilious distinction of MINE and THINE was banished from among the happy race of mortals, and carried with it the very notion of property and obligation, justice ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... picture no more animating scenes than those which were presented to the beholder at the seasons of the year when Judea poured forth her inhabitants in crowds to attend the solemn festivals appointed by Jehovah, and observed with punctilious exactness by the people. Our present study leads us to contemplate one of ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... his own counsel with punctilious care; for he had never even mentioned the skilful detective in his family, though the members of it had met the gentleman in Paris and in Havre. Mr. Gilfleur was in constant communication with him while he was working up the exposure of the treason of Davis, who ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... who settled in Edinburgh as Writer to the Signet, a position corresponding in Scotland to that of attorney or solicitor in England. The character of this father, stern, scrupulous, Calvinistic, with a high sense of ceremonial dignity and a punctilious regard for the honorable conventions of life, united with the wilder ancestral strain to make Scott what he was. From "Auld Wat" and "Beardie" came his high spirit, his rugged manliness, his chivalric ideals; from the Writer to the Signet came that power of methodical labor which made ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... punctilious, all at once, are you? Talk ethics, eh? Where were your scruples, a year ago, when people were paying 25 cents a loaf for bread, because of that big wheat pool you put through? How about the oil you've just lately helped me boost by a 20 per cent. increase? And when the papers—though mostly ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... precision of her policy for expelling all while banishing none. Bruno, the big actor, was so babyish that it was easy to send him off in brute sulks, banging the door. Cutler, the British officer, was pachydermatous to ideas, but punctilious about behaviour. He would ignore all hints, but he would die rather than ignore a definite commission from a lady. As to old Seymour, he had to be treated differently; he had to be left to the last. The only way to move him was to appeal to him in confidence as an old friend, to let him into ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... not conceal his cordial feeling toward Loyola and his companions. He seems to have perceived clearly that these men, resolute in their punctilious adherence to the doctrine and ritual of the Church, and committed by the most solemn engagements to its service—deep-purposed as they were, full of a well-governed energy, resolute in the performance of the most arduous duties, and, moreover, highly accomplished in secular ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... with the deepest reverences, which the first paid after the fashion of the court, and the second after that of the congregation. The Earl returned their salutation with the negligent courtesy of one long used to such homage; while the Countess repaid it with a punctilious solicitude, which showed it was not ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... kept in touch with his old associates; he liked to meet them at luncheon at the University Club or at the monthly dinner of the Chit-Chat Club, which he had seldom missed in thirty-nine years of membership. He was punctilious in the preparation of his biennial papers, always giving something of interest and value. His intellectual interest was wide. He was a close student of Shakespeare, and years ago printed a modest volume on the Sonnets. He also published a fine study of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... kingdom? Surely a day's somewhat murderous sport was allowable in that realm! After all, energy, ambition, nervous force, must have an outlet somewhere. Men could look after themselves. They had no mercy on women when they lay in their power. Why should a woman be so punctilious? ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... was conscious of a stimulus and charm that she had never previously experienced; and the eager tongues never flagged till Felix came in. He had evidently taken pains with his toilette, in honour of the unusual event; and the measured grave politeness of his manners renewed Alice's scared punctilious dignity of demeanour, and entire consciousness that she was a major's daughter and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sensitive and punctilious nature the situation was almost intolerable. The pity of this tender, innocent life, his care, which seemed like some little inland bird, torn by the tempest from its native fields and tossed out to be the plaything of an immense and terrible ocean whose deeps no man has sounded! The ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... run off with his master's plate. The pandar was assured that a Christian man might innocently earn his living by carrying letters and messages between married women and their gallants. The high spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France were gratified by a decision in favour of duelling. The Italians, accustomed to darker and baser modes of vengeance, were glad to learn that they might, without any crime, shoot at their enemies ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... together there, frantically shrieking for the door to be opened. Death for all of them would be a matter of only a few minutes. The guard in the corridor above, a huge, burly personage, with the brains, it would be flattery to say, of a calf, and exceedingly punctilious in his notions, came down the stairs to see what was the matter. One of the men shouted out to him, forgetting decorum in the desperate hurry of the moment, "Why don't you open the door, you —— —— ——?" Now, it was not only ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... self-regard, but by continual obedience to their Lord's commandment. As He said on the Sermon on the Mount, 'Whoso shall do and teach one of the least of these commandments shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' The higher we are, the more we are bound to punctilious obedience to the smallest injunction. The more we are obedient to the lightest of His commandments, the greater we become. Thus the least in the kingdom may become the greatest there, if only, cleaving ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fact way, and Grandma Keeler announced hopefully to each in turn—"and this is our teacher!" they accepted the fact with no more flattering sign than that of a dumb and helpless resignation to the inevitable. They seated themselves about the room in punctilious order, assuming positions painfully suggestive of a conscientious disregard for ease, and seemed to draw some silent support and sympathy out of their hats, which they caressed with lingering ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... is Cobber Carkeek. There's a spring above his head, And his mattress is a special kind of clay. He's a most punctilious bloke about the fashion of his bed, And he makes it with ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... punctilious with me. For we have nothing to write about, except it be how much we all love and honour you; and that you believe already, or else you ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... not enough that one make a costly offering to the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... much attached to the colony, and filled the post of Registrar of Deeds for many years under its successive Governors. I just remember him, as a gentle, affectionate, upright being, a gentleman of an old, punctilious school, strictly honorable and exact, content with a small sphere, and much loved within it. He would sometimes talk to his children of early days in Bath, of his father's young successes and promotions, and of his grandfather, General Sorell, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... months had passed" since that first up-stream voyage of the Votaress, or, to be punctilious, something under a hundred and two. It was the opening week of that mid-autumn month in which it became evident that Abraham Lincoln would be the next president. Another new boat, new pride of the great ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... gentleman had taken tea American fashion with his daughter's Quadrangle friends. With punctilious enjoyment he had eaten everything that was offered to him, cloudbursts, salmon sandwiches, stuffed olives and chocolate cake. The girls had heard that raw carp was a favorite Japanese dish, and salmon being the only fish convenient, they had ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... educated class soon found fitter work than as laundry-men or car conductors. The more exacting places called for occupants. There was a great enlistment in the ranks of teachers. Lee took the presidency of Washington university and gave to its duties the same whole-hearted service, the same punctilious care, that he had given to the command of the army of Northern Virginia. In peace as in war he was an exemplar to his countrymen,—and his countrymen now were spread from ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... right: 'They have only got the fashion of the time; and, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of tricks of speech,—a yesty, frothy mass, with nothing in it, which carries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice, choice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' Yesty I take to be right, and prophane (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to fond (foolish); of trennowed I can make nothing beyond ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... training adopted at Suez derived its inspiration from the French Army, whose text-books of 1916 taught that close order drill and punctilious discipline, tempered by games and sports, were ideal means of reviving the all-important offensive spirit ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... lash of his merciless sarcasm. An Ishmael in society, his uplifted hand smote all conventionalities and shams, spared neither age nor sex, nor sanctuaries, and acknowledged sanctity nowhere. The punctilious courtesy of his manner polished and pointed his satire, and when a personal application of his remarks was possible, he would bow gracefully to the lady indicated, and fill her glass with wine, while he filled her heart with chagrin and rankling hate. Since ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... war had made themselves felt, and the cholera had ravaged the province, this variety of color was lost, and the congregation appeared a veritable house of mourning. This was not, however, due to the appalling mortality, but to the Filipinos' punctilious habit of putting on mourning. When death visits a family, rich or poor, even the most distant relatives go into mourning, and they cling to it for ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... last spoke out, 'God, Doctor! he gart kings ken that they had a lith in their neck'—he taught kings they had a joint in their necks. Jamie then set to mediating between his father and the philosopher, and availing himself of the judge's sense of hospitality, which was punctilious, reduced the debate to more order. WALTER SCOTT. Paoli had visited Auchinleck. Boswell wrote to Garrick on Sept. 18, 1771:—'I have just been enjoying the very great happiness of a visit from my illustrious friend, Pascal Paoli. He was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... alluded sometimes, but very rarely, for she observed punctilious discretion. The girl had gone out with Agricola and his mother. Such occasions were, indeed, holidays for her. Many days and nights had she toiled hard to procure a decent bonnet and shawl, that she might not do discredit ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... all eyes were upon him, Ascher showed himself most punctilious in the discharge of even the minutest of communal duties which devolved upon him as a denizen of the Ghetto, and his habits of life were almost ostentatiously regular and decorous. His business had prospered, and Gudule had borne him ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... her head with a little laugh. This man was different from the punctilious aides-de-camp and others who had hitherto begged most respectfully ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... when the family mansion was the scene of princely hospitality, and drew its guests from the aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had brought all its old pride and scruples of honour, an antiquated and punctilious politeness, and (you would ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... is a barren one, dear," he said. "What the man lying there may be matters nothing. It is not to him that I have given my word, but to myself. In our hurried modern life we are not punctilious enough about these things. Perhaps, in the old days, the men and women were worse than we in many ways. But they held to a few traditions, or the best of them did, that make the loose and tawdry manners of this age seem cheap indeed. All my life I have known ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... be accommodated within her own house. She had then been distinctly pleased; one could hardly have expected good breeding upon so large a scale. And her present subconscious impression of the Dauphin was that it was ducal, if not regal, in its reserved splendor, in its manner of subdued, punctilious ceremony. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander —from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain —this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... representative of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and that in him was personified the very embodiment of her rule and authority in India. He thoroughly understood the Indian appreciation of the spectacular, and this understanding was doubtless the reason for the punctilious dignity with which he invested all his public and semi-public functions, while the hospitality at Government House during his regime was truly regal. His statue on the maidan gives a good idea of his commanding appearance. It used to be one of the sights of ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... fact, often failing to exact payment from those who are perfectly able and willing to meet the account. Others are careless about paying their debts, and lose financial standing in the community by neglecting their dues, without any desire whatever to avoid payment, while others are punctilious in financial matters to the greatest degree. All of which variety of financial dispositions are the result of development of special combinations of brain organs, and susceptible to ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... soldier be always neatly dressed, but he should also be properly dressed—that is, he should be dressed as required by regulations. A soldier should always be neat and trim, precise in dress and carriage and punctilious in salute. Under no circumstances should the blouse or overcoat be worn unbuttoned, or the cap back or on the side of the head. His hair should be kept properly trimmed, his face clean shaven or beard trimmed and his shoes polished, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... polite world, from the outlook of social respectability, where self rules every action with the question, 'What will others say?' So should I two years ago, but conditions have somewhat changed my views. Professional necessity can never afford to be quite so punctilious, cannot always choose the nature of its environments: the nurse must care for the injured, however disagreeable the task; the newspaper woman must cover her assignment, although it takes her amid filth; and the actress must thoroughly assume her ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... receive from him. This he did on the ground that Ferdinand, as king of Castile, represented the elder branch of Trastamara, while he represented only the younger. It will not be easy to meet with an instance of more punctilious etiquette, even in Spanish history.—Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... rurales[73] presently galloped up and demanded to know whether they had seen an escaped prisoner they swallowed their conscientious scruples and answered "No!" Personally they met with nothing but the most punctilious courtesy from the Mexican officials. When Mrs. Stevenson received a Christmas box from her daughter, the chivalric comandante at Ensenada, in order to make sure that she should have it in time, sent it out to Sausal magnificently conducted ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... without impartial evidence of the facts, and without taking into consideration the Conde of Onis' brilliant career in the Service, the king deprived him of his commission, and all the crosses and decorations in his possession. The punctilious old soldier was completely crushed by this unexpected blow. His comrades snatched the pistol from him just when he attempted his life. Accompanied by a faithful attendant, he left Madrid and came to Lancia, where his wife and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... punctilious letter of the chevalier was considered evasive, and only intended to gain time. The information given by Washington of what he had observed on the frontier convinced Governor Dinwiddie and his council ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... mind when one has done reading him, and this very faculty—of communicating to us, who never saw him or heard him speak, the vivid impact of his overbearing presence—is itself evidence of a rare kind of genius. It is even a little ironical that he, above all men the punctilious and precious literary craftsman, should ultimately dominate us not so much by the magic of his art as by the spell of his wilful and wanton individuality, and the situation is heightened still further by the extraordinary variety of his works and their amazing perfection ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... like all new-made soldiers, he is punctilious of the rules of war. Partly because he hopes to turn his capture to some account. Poor Randolph had upon him a letter in cipher from the King to a certain lord. Randolph may buy his life with the key to ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... interrupted by the short blast on the bugle that signified "attention," and everybody straightened like a flash. A big gray automobile pulled up in front of headquarters, and from it descended the general, accompanied by officers of his staff. Punctilious salutes were exchanged, and then the general, accompanied by some of his officers and also those of the regiment, passed slowly between the long files of straight-backed soldiers. His searching glance seemed to ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... pink of 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 wrath. He is ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... horse for some minutes in a quiet punctilious way, for the sour-looking man had gone, and as I waited about, the great yard seemed with its big wall and gates, and dog-kennels, such a cold cheerless place that the trees had all turned the shabby parts of their backs to it and were looking the other way. Everything was very prim ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... think, because I return the salute of the students in the Quarter, that you may be received in particular as a friend? I do not know you, Monsieur, but vanity is man's other name;—be content, Monsieur Vanity, I shall be punctilious—oh, most punctilious in ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... lay in ambush for him at his nefarious goal: evidently Western Union had been punctilious about his duty; not even so much as the tip of a corner of yellow envelope peeped ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... not sure of what it really means, but I rather fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well as an impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same order of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in telegrams. The order of clocks and set hours which English business has always ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... ought to be careful. But I do maintain that we may be too punctilious. As a matter of course I ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... at the rear), and that was almost as wide as it was long, with doors opening into rooms on both sides. Here I was presented to Governor Delassus, who received me cordially, and who, with his dark eyes and punctilious manners, was my idea ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Woman's School and who was qualified to be a "Bible Woman" or native Christian teacher. It was whispered that she had actually met her betrothed on several occasions, but on their wedding day no trace of recognition was visible, and the marriage was performed with all the punctilious Chinese observances ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... "Oh, you can make me out an I O U some time, and get Jimmy to witness it, if you're so damned—what's the word?— punctilious. If you can't do me this simple favour, why then you must sign the business over to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his time and country which had caused the King to seek him for a companion seemed to have vanished with his feebleness and timidity. The manhood that had been awakened was not the chivalrous, generous, and gentle strength of Henry and his brothers, but the punctilious pride and sullenness, and almost something of the license, of the Scot. The camp had not proved the school of chivalry that James, in his inexperience, had imagined it must be under Henry, and the tedium and wretchedness of the siege ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... obstinacy of the peasants. It was a new spectacle for Russia to see a public function fulfilled by conscientious men who had their heart in their work, who sought neither promotion nor decorations, and who paid less attention to the punctilious observance of prescribed formalities than to the real objects ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... moon have not the same regularity in their meals, or time for sleep, as we have, but consult their appetites and inclinations like other animals. But they make amends for this irregularity, by a very strict and punctilious observance of festivals, which are regulated by the motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, like the hopes which the approach of that benignant luminary inspires. The others are of a grave ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... thought from public care will rarely allow them to speak on any other subject than business, can be a remedy large enough for so large an evil. True it is, that a peculiarly frank or jovial temperament in a sovereign may do much for a season to thaw this punctilious reserve and ungenial constraint; but that is an accident, and personal to an individual. And, on the other hand, to balance even this, it may be remarked, that, in all noble and fashionable society, where there happens to be a pride in sustaining what is deemed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... measurements; because it is less influenced by temporary and extraordinary causes that may obscure the operation of those that are being investigated. On the other hand, the abrupt deviations of a punctilious zigzag may have their own logical value, as will ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read |
