"Overdone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a mighty fine thing, takin' it by and large; but it kin be overdone. It's barely possible that some of this here new crop of your well-wishers and admirers will be makin' little business propositions to you—desirin' to have you go partners with 'em in business, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... danger with rustic work is the temptation, to which most builders yield, to make it too fancy and intricate in place of practical and simple. Figs. 323, 324, 325, and 326 are as ornamental as one can make them without incurring the danger of being overdone, too ornate, too fancy to be ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... "Overdone," said Dr. Trendon, with some irritation. "Cost you something in strength. Foolish performance. Turn ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... must have been pretty clear, then—at the moment. Afterwards (I don't mind confessing to you) I lay for some minutes where the explosion flung me. In my hurry I had overdone the dose." ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... I do not hesitate to say it is that we have over-trained our taste, we are overdone with criticism, we are too systematically drilled, there is far too much moderate literature and far too fastidious a standard in literature. Everyone is afraid to let himself go, to offend the conventions, or to raise a sneer. It is the inevitable result of uniformity in education ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... rather overdone in these days, I may, perhaps, be permitted a few personal reflections in bringing my chapters to a close. And I shall not write a long, tedious tale, and why? Because, like the needy knife-grinder, I have no story to tell. Happy, we are told, is the country that has no history, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... speak; then she held out her arms. "Run off and dress, dearest; and don't have me on your mind." She clasped Leila close, pressing a long kiss on the last afterglow of her subsiding blush. "I do feel the least bit overdone, and if it won't inconvenience you to have me drop out of things, I believe I'll basely take to my bed and stay there till your party scatters. And now run off, or you'll be late; and make ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... turned to look at her again. "Have I concealed my admiration so successfully as that? Perhaps I have overdone the concealment." ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... and soft tenor, and he had sung very naturally, carelessly almost. But everything had been just right. When he had stolen time, when he had given it back, the stealing and repayment had been right. His expression had been charming and not overdone. There had been at moments a delightful impudence in his singing. The touches of tenderness had been light as a feather, but they had had real meaning. Through his last song he had kept a cigarette alight in his mouth. He had merely hummed the melody, but it had been quite delicious. Even Garstin ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Protestant at meals, unless it happened that they were underdone, or overdone, or indeed that anything occurred to put her out of humour. Her spirits rose considerably on beholding these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works, she passed to the somethingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness. Nay, under the influence of these wholesome stimulants, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... here are well enacted, being neither overdone nor forced. It is here at least shown that Miss Neilson can, when she pleases, express great passions with that suppressed vehemence which carries the cultivated spectator away far more than violence of voice and gesture. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... intellect of many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey and melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and incompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are like Boucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so that all should ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... being rather overdone; I have had so much to arrange, for I must leave here tomorrow, ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... to this, as he did not understand the chopping of the reed. "I'm afraid I've been wrong about this collection of people down at Gatherum," continued the younger Duke. "Glencora is impulsive, and has overdone the thing. Just look at that." And he handed a letter to his friend. The old Duke put on his spectacles and read the letter through,—which ran ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Ernest Thornton, it is my turn," said Tom, as he partially closed the door of my cell, and gazed in upon me. "You are a smart boy, but you have rather overdone it this time. I told you in the beginning that I was not to be trifled with. You begin to believe what I said by this time. Have you anything to say before I ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... tumbled masses of trees which, as they climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... again on a low fire and let it simmer for three hours, keeping the saucepan closed, but opening from time to time to turn the meat. When it is cooked, throw away the onion, rub the sauce through a sieve, remove its fat and put it with the meat when served. The mutton must not be overdone, for in this case ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... made in the course of a long book, between the genius of Mr. Shaw and the genius of Moliere is extraordinarily detailed. Perhaps the detail is overdone in such a passage as that which informs us regarding the work of both authors that "suicide is never one of the central features of the comedy; if mentioned, it is only to be made fun of." The comparison, however, between the sins that have been alleged against both ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... suppose a graceful woman would be graceful even when a disembodied spirit. I should think she would be getting a little tried with all this questioning; but perhaps we're only reading the fatigue into her. The ghost may be merely overdone." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... no doubt, to the being actually in question. His impatience, however, to get over the interval of time which must elapse ere his curiosity could be gratified, was sensibly felt by every inmate of the mansion. Nothing seemed to go right; the soup was tasteless, the viands were overdone, and the vegetables raw. Never was there so fastidious a bear; the cook more than once contemplated some rash act; the poor little turnspits crept into corners with their tails between their legs, fully expecting to be sacrificed in some moment of wrath; whilst the various house-servants, ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... entirely pro-English. He concluded, ridiculously enough, that I was sent by the British Government, and made a long report to Vienna about me, as I ascertained later. I was unaware then of the activity being shown by the Franco-Russian combine and England, and thought his anxiety overdone. To an outside observer, however, Anglo-Russian activity also seemed perilous. Baron Greindl, Belgian Minister at Berlin at that very time, wrote (July 4, Letter 49): "I asked the Secretary of State yesterday ... if he had not yet received the English proposals with regard to reforms in Macedonia. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... about that, because it will give me an opportunity of doing a good turn to a friend of mine, who wants to take my work here. He is a weaver from Yorkshire, who has rather overdone himself between his weaving and his mathematics, both indoor work, you see; and being a great friend of mine, he naturally came to me to get him some outdoor work. If you think you can put up with me, pray take me as ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... water of the pool was supposed to reseal the pores which the treatment in the hot room had caused to open. In the best gymnasium circles it is held to be a fine thing to have these educated pores, but I am sure it can be overdone, and personally I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed it. I kept it up largely for their sake. They became highly trained, but developed temperament. They were apt to get the signals mixed and open unexpectedly on the street, resulting in bad ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment being overdone before the slow fire ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... beak to tail it threw off this glowing hue, except for its chin and throat, which were a limpid amaranth purple; and the effect on the excited rods and cones in one's eyes was like the power of great music or some majestic passage in the Bible. You, who think my similes are overdone, search out in the nearest museum the dustiest of purple-throated cotingas,—Cotinga cayana,—and then, instead, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... her hoe and nonchalantly regarded the gathering forces. She had often thought out the scene, and her air of indifference was somewhat overdone. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... frolick to disguise themselves like country lasses, in red petticoates, waistcoates, etc., and so goe see the faire. Sir Bernard Gascoign, on a cart jade, rode before the queen; another stranger before the Duchess of Buckingham, and Mr. Roper before Richmond. They had all so overdone it in their disguise, and look'd so much more like antiques than country volk, that as soon as they came to the faire, the people began to goe after them; but the queen going to a booth to buy a pair of yellow stockins for her sweethart, and Sir Bernard asking for ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... the least emotion in his voice. But he walked with uneven steps. At times he staggered like one overdone and very tired. But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that he had his friend's ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... no overdone affection for their craft, and there was no struggle to the last to leave it. One by one—whichever could grab the line first was the first to come—they were hauled through the thundering waves and their boat was left to sink. Then, before they could ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... shocked. No wonder she found her mistress tired and overdone. "Shall I tell them to get you some now?" she asked, moving towards ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... mind the girl turned, with an air of indifference that might have seemed slightly overdone to a calmer observer than was the young minister at that moment and, with a gesture of command to her dogs, walked quickly away into the scrub spruces. She was so tall that her uncovered head was visible over ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... England, in France, and in Italy. You must bide to marry her, lest that cuckoo, Hugh de Cressi, that cuckoo with the sharp bill, should creep into my nest. I'll not be worsted by a stripling clad in merchant's cloth who slew my only son. Take not my words ill, noble Noyon, for I am overdone with grief for the past and fear for the future. You must bide to marry her by fair means or by foul. Draw her from the sanctuary and marry her whether she say you yea or nay. You have my leave, noble Noyon," and so speaking he swayed and fell ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... it not also be asked, whether the perfect display of a future state of existence would be compatible with the activity of civil life, and with the success of human affairs? I can easily conceive that this impression may be overdone; that it may so seize and fill the thoughts as to leave no place for the cares and offices of men's several stations, no anxiety for worldly prosperity, or even for a worldly provision, and, by consequence, no sufficient stimulus to ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... along it will come in contact with the forked branches of some tree, and then unless the animal can snap the rope in twain, she is fairly caught; there ends the chase. But even so, if caught in this way or overdone with fatigue, it were well not to come too close the quarry, should it chance to be a stag, or he will lunge out with his antlers and his feet; better therefore let fly your ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... admired and wondered at the cold and formal bow and shake of the hand, the tender inquiries after the health of the maiden aunt and the baby, the carelessly expressed wish that we may meet somewhere—all so palpably overdone? That the heroine of the impassioned scene at which we had unfortunately to assist an hour ago! Where are the tears, the convulsive sobs, the heartbroken grief? And that the young gentleman who saw nothing for ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... agricultural labourer. He knows however how to call a spade a spade, if not something more picturesque, and he treated the measure and its authors to all the resources of a varied vocabulary. Possibly his brother peers, while enjoying his invective, thought that it had been a little bit overdone, for of the subsequent speakers only Lord HINDLIP announced his intention of voting against the Bill, the others being of opinion that parts of it were, not excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... to no purpose. Behold, your friend the kaimkam is gloomy and impassive as a camel; what can you do? Whisper in his ear? The Padres have done that before you. Slip a purse into his pocket? They have done that, too, and overdone it long since. Yes, the City Hall of every city in the Empire is an epitome of Yildiz Kiosk. And your kaimkams, and valis, and viziers, have all been taught in the same Text-Book, at the same Political School, and by the same Professor. Let Khalid rest, therefore and ponder ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... to copies of Chinese and Japanese scenes. Flowers, cupids, garlands, landscapes—never was such a diversity of decoration attempted as during the reigns of Louis XIV and XV. As a result the output became very overdone and ornate. Fortunately for art, Louis XVI had better taste. Instead of continuing this garish type of design he procured a collection of Greek vases to serve as models for his workmen, and as a result the product ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own image, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... for so much time or money. It cannot be bought or sold; it comes, if it comes at all, as the result of a wisely-directed determination. The teacher's part is to exalt, enthuse, stimulate. He must criticise, certainly, but this is generally overdone. Like some teachers of English who can never overlook a misplaced comma, whose idea of English seems to be to spell and to punctuate correctly, there are teachers of public speaking whose critical eye never ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... of cheese, two dishes of fruit, and a floating island pudding of frosted eggs in a deep salad-bowl had now been placed along the middle of the table. The pudding caused a moment of respectful attention even though the overdone egg whites had flattened on the yellow custard. It was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... As for Primrose, the worthy Halfpenny is quite enough for her, and Lily is well out of it; but Fly is a little shrimp, overdone all round, and I don't like the notion of ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said that they farmed much of their own land. One, a wiry, energetic, elderly man, of a brisk presence and ruddy complexion, said he constantly went over to the markets in England. "I go to Norwich," he said, "not to Liverpool. Liverpool is only a meat-market, and overdone at that. Norwich is better for meat and for stores." Both agreed this was a great year for the potatoes, and said Ireland was actually exporting potatoes to America. One mentioned a case of two cargoes of potatoes just taken from Dundrum for America, the vessel ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... credulity. The Italians not only know where the Austrian headquarters is situated, but they know in which houses the various generals live, and the restaurants in which they eat. This extreme reticence of the Italians seems a little irksome and overdone after the frankness one encounters on the French and British fronts, but it is due, no doubt, to the admonitions which are posted in hotels, restaurants, stations, and railway carriages throughout Italy: ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... those are of Tennyson's"—they had just come out,—"'Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness Which often lured her from herself!' There is nothing more absolutely refreshing when one is overdone or anxious, or oppressed by the vague anxieties of the world, than the conversation and the society of children, the unconscious ignoring of all grave possibilities, yet often accompanied by that curious ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... but they now rose puffily in a manner to obstruct the free movement of the neck, which had grown too short. Her plump and dimpled arms ended in pretty little hands that were, alas, too fat. She was, in fact, so overdone with fulness of life and health that her flesh formed a little pad, as one might call it, above her shoes. Two ear-drops, worth about three-thousand francs each, adorned her ears. She wore a lace cap with pink ribbons, a mousseline-de-laine gown in pink and ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... I never even said it justified the suspicion, any more than I said that balls might not easily be overdone, especially ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is overdone; The humour of it grows a little thin; You fail, in fact, to gather where the fun ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... importance of East Falls; but this was worse than all discounting. Things were more meagre than he had dreamed. The general store took his breath away. Countless myriads of times he had contrasted it with his own spacious emporium, but now he saw that in justice he had overdone it. He felt certain that it could not accommodate two of his delicatessen counters, and he knew that he could lose all of it in one ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... to conceal the design, and long before he was ready he found himself securely blockaded by a Dutch flotilla supported by an English squadron. So firm indeed was the English hold on the army, that for a time it was overdone. The bulk of the English fleet was kept on the line of passage under Howard, while Drake alone was sent to the westward. It was only under the great sailor's importunity that the disposition, which was to become traditional, was perfected, and the whole fleet, with the exception of the squadron ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... look so starched. The little beggar's been starving himself for the occasion, and overdone it. He'll pull round with a little feeding up. Tell me what you thought of the race! Splendid chap, that animal ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... by Eaton Stannard Barrett, which appeared in the same year, with no very different object and subject, though written in lighter vein, are one that it could not help and another that it could. Unjustly, but unavoidably, the first is the worst. That it is a burlesque rather overdone—a burlesque burlesque—not in the manner of Thackeray, but in that of some older and some more recent writers—is unfortunate, but not fatal. One can forgive—one can even enjoy—the ghost who ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... "Better ask her. Maybe you overdid your politeness. Overdone courtesy is often worse than boorishness. You may have been so polite on some occasion that you made Miss Hollister think you considered her an inferior person. You know what the poet insinuated. Sorosis holds no fury like a woman condescended ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... come often in any one's life, and having about a thousand people to look at 'em, both the girls were flushed up a good deal. It set them off first-rate. I never saw either of them look so handsome before. Old Barnes had come down well for once, and they were dressed in real good style—hadn't overdone ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... visited almost daily a distant neighbor, far gone in consumption, whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she passed their house in returning home, too much overdone to call, as she thought to do, and had gone a quarter of a mile toward home, when it occurred to her, Mr. W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as she feared, found him dying. As she sat by his bedside, holding ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the weather and wind. Inquiries had been made in every by-way that could be thought of, until at last the wise and learned men has asserted, as we have been already told, that "love, the life-giver, could alone give new life to a father;" and in saying this, they had overdone it, and said more than they understood themselves. They repeated it, and wrote it down as a recipe, "Love is a life-giver." But how could such a recipe be prepared—that was a difficulty they could not overcome. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... there to be done that is worth doing? It seems to me that everything is overdone. I go into a town, big or little: ten stores where one is needed. How do all these poor creatures live? Do you see anything noble in this petty struggle for existence? I can't. I serve my kind best by getting out of their way: that makes one less in ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... admit that my friend here has done, and after roping your pugnacious hands, as I myself was obliged to do, we never can launch you upon the moor, in such weather as this, without some food. You are not very strong, and you have overdone yourself. Let us go to the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... arms at the elbow, allowing your chest to sink to the floor; then raise up your chest and upper-body by straightening out your arms, the entire weight falling upon the arms, with the toes as a pivot—this last is a difficult motion, and should not be overdone at first. ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... course, to present a letter of introduction under such circumstances, was quite out of the question, my errand would have been the last hair to break the camel's back, final embarrassment of an already overdone hostess. But night was at hand; the last train to Troyes, the nearest town, had gone, no other would pass through Arcis-sur-Aube until the small hours of the morning. Unless I could procure a room, therefore, I should be in the position ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... would produce a plant which seemed to resemble in a general way the picture on the outside of the package. Now, under the fluctuating influences of irresponsible isotherms, phlegmatic Springs, rare June weather and overdone weather in August, I find it almost impossible to produce a plant or vegetable which in any way resembles its portrait. Is it my fault or the fault of the climate? I wish the club would take hold of this at its next regular meeting. I first noticed the change in ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... at stories," she ventured modestly. "I wrote one—a little story about university life—and sent it to a magazine. They wrote a lovely letter about it, but it seems that field is overdone, or something. The editor asked me why, living out here in the very heart of the West, I don't try Western stories. I think I shall—and that's why I said I should need your help. I thought we might work together, you know. You've lived here ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... economically. If you understood it, it wouldn't cost you half so much!' And the alternative is, 'Get a man at seventy-five dollars a month and save repairing and replacing bills.' Nice for business, Barry, but very much overdone for pleasure, I think. I myself hate those days spent with five people you hardly know," she went on, "rushing over beautiful roads that you hardly see, eating too much in strange hotels, and paying too much for it. I sha'n't have ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... is not at all herself," he told Marshall Wace, at breakfast next morning—"quite overdone, I am sorry to say, and upset. I blame myself. I must keep a tight hand on her and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the highly respectable opinion that character-mongering is much overdone nowadays. After all, what does it matter—that Fanny Elmer was all sentiment and sensation, and Mrs. Durrant hard as iron? that Clara, owing (so the character-mongers said) largely to her mother's influence, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... grow suddenly stronger with a great earnestness. "Listen, dear. This must not make any difference to this wonderful work that has just begun here. I was cured of my hip disease—perfectly cured—no one can deny that—this is my own fault, I have overdone it—I would not listen to reason—to do what I have done in the last few days, when for a year and a half I had never moved a step, was more than my heart could stand. I should have been more quiet—but I was so glad, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... quite new to her. He had noticed it before: it was the English, the American sign that duplicity, like "love," had to be joked about. It couldn't be "gone into." So the note of his inquiry was—well, to call it nothing else— premature; a mistake worth making, however, for the almost overdone drollery in which her answer instinctively ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... that look as baked as a loaf of overdone bread?" snorted Jimsy. "No, thank you. I'm going to stay home and read a nice book ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... POULTRY BUSINESS? Various Poultry Products The Duck Business Squabs Have Been Overdone Turkeys not Adapted to Commercial Growing Guinea Growing a New Venture Geese, the Fame of Watertown The Ill-omened Broiler Business South Shore Roasters Too Much Competition in Fancy Poultry Egg Farming the Most ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... there was a subdued air of mystery about the three lads, which Dorothy noticed, if none of the other girls did. Also, they were so extremely courteous and thoughtful that it was rather overdone. However, politeness was agreeable, and there followed the happiest evening the young guests had spent since the departure of ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... it, keeping their whole attention concentrated on the point of how long it will be before their time comes to get out of it. Mr. Fothergill evidently had much knowledge and experience of the Fernan Vaz district and its natives. He had, I should say, overdone his experiences with the natives, as far as personal comfort and pleasure at the time went, having been nearly killed and considerably chivied by them. Now I do not wish a man, however much I may ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Eunice was gratified by this tribute to her familiar surroundings, she fancied that its expression was overdone, and resented its seemingly patronizing insincerity. Placing a chair directly in the glow of the fire, she invited Katharine to take it, while she herself sat down on a straight-backed ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... they did their washing at home, and burned tallow or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-fond of Gruyere cheese—the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formidable cheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun with mice, and used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither; and bought violets, or pinks, or gillyflowers in season, and kept them too long; and fasted on Friday with red or ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... any regular practitioner of that tribe. The Roman emperors, almost from the beginning, threw themselves into such hands; and the mischief increased every day till the decline and final ruin of the empire. It is therefore of very great importance (provided the thing is not overdone) to contrive such an establishment as must, almost whether a prince will or not, bring into daily and hourly offices about his person a great number of his first nobility; and it is rather an useful prejudice that gives them a pride in such a servitude. Though they are not much the better ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I have the greatest difficulty in saving myself from the superstition of an active Providence. It's irresistible.... The alternative, of course, would be the personal Devil of our simple ancestors. But, if so, he has overdone it altogether—the old Father of Lies—our national patron—our domestic god, whom we take with us when we go abroad. He has overdone it. It seems that I am not simple enough.... That's it! I ought to have known.... And ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... news. He was bursting with news, and he hailed the approach of Tony and Welch with pleasure. With any other leading light of the School he might have felt less at ease, but with Tony it was different. When you have underdone a fellow's eggs and overdone his toast and eaten the remainder for a term or two, you begin to feel that mere social distinctions and differences of age no longer ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... name of Mah-Jongg and the other corruptions of Mah-Diao, and it is the true and original Chinese game translated by the addition of numerals just enough to be readily understood and not enough to spoil the artistry of the tiles. The addition of numerals has been overdone in the marking of many of the cheaper imported sets, and give the appearance of having had numerals sprinkled on them regardless of where they may land and ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr
... "heating" in the "receptacle" (i.e., in man) is the soul rising into the higher regions. Distilling like rain drops [destillare drop down], it brings each time to the thirsting materia a divine gain. But this process is not to be overdone, for the thirsting earth must be gently instilled with the heavenly moisture of the water of ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... would you have, little father? The horses, you see yourself, are overdone... and then the heat; and I can't sing. I'm not a coachman.... Hullo, you little sheep!' cried the peasant, suddenly turning to a man coming along in a brown smock and bark shoes downtrodden at heel. 'Get ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... however, he was rebelling against the situation. "This guest business is being overdone," he observed to himself. "These people are probably some more off the Peyton piece of cloth. An invalid girl lying round on couches for Fiddle to wait on—another Lucy, probably, only worse, because she's ill. Well, I'm not going to be any more cordial than the law calls for. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the South for purposes of traffic may or may not be favored with large profits. All the products of the mechanic arts are very scarce in the interior, while in the larger towns trade is generally overdone. Large stocks of goods were taken to all places accessible by water as soon as the ports were opened. The supply exceeded the demand, and many dealers suffered heavy loss. From Richmond and other points considerable quantities of goods have been reshipped to ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... wearisome of all pains to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora, and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another thing, its atmosphere is so depressingly Slavonic. It is as dismal and as overdone as Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor. How shall I give you the sharp flavour of it, or catch the temper of ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... than performers, and those made up of fellows evidently not in the habit of shirt-wearing; of women there were very few— of ladies none; the fireworks were bad and brief, and the waterworks the most absurd affair I ever beheld; the thing was overdone. To the people who would like to go to Vauxhall in fine weather, second-rate Italian singing and broken down English prima donnas are no inducement, a bad ballet in a booth has no attraction, and an attempt at variety ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... Macaulay, Brougham and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone." ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... circumstances a common symptom—affecting a "bonhomie," a joviality of demeanour, indeed, which was rather overdone. He suggested that Mary should ask some people to tea, and twice he went out shooting, a sport which he had almost abandoned. Only when she wanted to invite certain guests to stay, he demurred a little, on account of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... and spirited, the figures have never been wanting in grace, and, though by comparison with the time of the Renaissance there is a great falling off, still, the work executed in Italy during the present century has been of considerable merit as regards ornament, though this has been overdone. In construction and joinery, however, the Italian work has been very inferior. Cabinets of great pretension and elaborate ornament, inlaid perhaps with ivory, lapislazuli, or marbles, are so imperfectly made that one would think ornament, and certainly ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... great quantities of half-cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a time ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... elements of constitutional government which he found in existence. There was more manliness in his nature than in that of his brother, more belief in the worth of his own people. The espionage, the servility, the overdone professions of sanctity in Manteuffel's regime displeased him, but most of ail he despised its pusillanimity in the conduct of foreign affairs. His heart indeed was Prussian, not German, and the destiny which created him the first Emperor of united Germany was not ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... seen Stuyvesant awhile," he answered hurriedly. "He isn't so well. I reckon he must have overdone it," and away he went with his springy step until he reached the forward end of the promenade, where he tapped at the stateroom door. The surgeon ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... overact, overdo. Adj. affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted, stagy, theatrical, big-sounding, ad captandum; canting, insincere. not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial; overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist &c. 577. stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles, quakerish, puritanical, prudish, pragmatical, priggish, conceited, coxcomical, foppish, dandified; finical, finikin; mincing, simpering, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Supervision can be overdone; Needed in rural schools; No supervision in some states; Nominal supervision; Some supervision; An impossible task; The problem not tackled; City supervision; The purpose of supervision; What is needed; The term; Assistants; ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... a tide of reminiscence, and his daughter was spared for the time being. The dinner went on from bad to worse, but the guests were most polite, and tried their best to keep up a brisk conversation, while they nibbled at the underdone potatoes and picked at the overdone asparagus. Miss Bean alone was unconscious of the true state of affairs, for Mrs. Adams had thought it unnecessary to inform her of the cause for the party, and she commented with a perfect unconcern, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... known for his minutely painted flowers, is now a pronounced landscape painter. His cloud studies are marvellous, though perhaps the landscape colours are somewhat hard and overdone in the effort to produce the desired effects. He paints, as a rule, the rolling cumulus, and is one of the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... battle royal that might have put to shame two Bengal tigers. Twelve is tractable and intelligent. With his assistance and my bull whip I succeeded in separating them before either was killed. Your greatest error was in striving at first for such physical perfection. You have overdone it, with the result that the court of mystery is peopled by a dozen brutes of awful muscularity, and scarcely enough brain among the dozen to ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... from coming down to dinner, as she felt too ill. Then Robert entered to ask should he serve dinner or wait until Mr. Holmes came in. "Wait!" said Bayard, bluntly. But five minutes passed; the dinner would be overdone; so Robert slipped out in search of the truant, and Miller saw him going over to Bedlam. But the upper gallery was empty; Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest had disappeared; the adjutant came striding up from the guard-house, and together the two officers ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... arrival, dispute in friendly fashion every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not scemo—witless, soft-headed—the unforgivable sin in the south. You may be a forger or cut-throat—why ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... easily be overdone, and does not answer on the long run. A blaze among the stubble, and then all is dark. I have seen in my time various instances of the way in which Lectures really gain upon the public; and I must express my opinion that, even were it the sole object of our great ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... vague ideas about the Father of Realism. Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE, approaching the subject not for the first time, here essays a brief life and appreciation of the poet, told in picturesque but simple style. Sometimes indeed the simplicity is apt to appear overdone, so that one gets a suggestion that the story is being presented to us in thoughts of one syllable. Apart from this, however, there is much to be said for Mr. STACPOOLE's vivid reconstruction of medival France, and the Paris that sheltered VILLON himself, TABARY, MONTIGNY ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... other. The hog was placed before us, and the fat and blood before them, on which they chiefly dined, and said it was Mamity, very good victuals; and we not only said, but thought, the same of the pork. The hog weighed about fifty pounds. Some parts about the ribs I thought rather overdone, but the more fleshy parts were excellent; and the skin, which by the way of our dressing can hardly be eaten, had, by this method, a taste and flavour superior to any thing I ever met with of the kind. I have now only to add, that during the whole of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... rapidly in French—with rather overdone eagerness—to Mrs. Perrault. She took no notice of her fellow-voyager as she lightly stepped exactly in the centre of the canoe, and sank down on the rug in front of him, with the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to that somewhat treacherous craft. The ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... had packed the old rags into the bottom of the pannier with the double motive of indicating an accident and of carrying the child under beneath its weight had overdone the trick. For the rags, once soaked, proved so much heavier than the frail body that it turned turtle and threw the child face upward and partially above the surface. The load instead of sinking buoyed her up, and, being strapped securely ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... of what one ought to be," she laughed, "and it almost makes me feel not legally married. But don't—don't, please, if you love me, use that awful word 'parson' again. I can't stand it. Don't you think it sounds just like the crackle of cold, overdone toast?" ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... advanced, but entertained the seamen with a lively and graphic account of the running down of the Skylark, and entered into minute particulars—chiefly of a comical nature—with such recklessness that the cause of Mr Jones bade fair to resemble many a roast which is totally ruined by being overdone. Jones gave him a salutary check, however, on being landed next day at a certain town on the Kentish coast, so that when Billy was taken before the authorities, his statements were brought somewhat more into accord with those of ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... months of Charles Osmond's careful preparation were over, her baptism was over, and a little weary and overdone with all that she had lived through that summer, she had come down to Greyshot expecting rest, and behold, fresh vexations had ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... His constrained, overdone manner was not calculated to abate Mrs. Kilgore's astonishment, and she continued to stare at him with an expression in which a vague terror began to appear. There are few shorter transitions than that from panic to anger. Seeing ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... a word not to be used too lightly in passing judgment, as if it were an element to be thrown out or treated with small consideration. Reason may be the lever, but sentiment gives you the fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move the world. Even "sentimentality," which is sentiment overdone, is better than that affectation of superiority to human weakness which is only tolerable as one of the stage properties of full-blown dandyism, and is, at best, but half-blown cynicism; which participle and noun you can translate, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... little all eyes in the room rested intent upon Ramon Garcia. The first estimate, founded upon dandified clothes and manner, had changed swiftly. He was a man even though he wore gloves and was overfond of posing. Even though everything he did was overdone, whether it be the bowing over an old Frenchman's hand, the wide sweep of his hat in a flourish of slow gracefulness, the tender love making to a woman for whom he did not care the snap of his little white fingers, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... with pepper and salt, and when done brown on both sides, without being overdone, place them in a dish before the fire while you fry some sliced onions in the fat which remains in the pan; as soon as the onions are done, and laid upon the steaks, shake a spoonful of flour in the pan, add a gill of water and a few drops of vinegar; give this gravy a boil up on the fire, and pour ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... hat and with it the picturesque trappings the Southwest borrows on occasion from across the border. Vanity disclosed itself in the gold-laced hat, in the silver conchos of the fringed chaps, in the fine workmanship of the saddle and bit. The man's finery was overdone, carried with it the suggestion of being on exhibition. But one look at the man himself, sleek and graceful, black-haired and white-toothed, exuding an effect of cold wariness in spite of the masked smiling face, would have been enough to give the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... roystering drinking song of Cardenas, the Mexican bandit, who was characterized by Eugene Cowles without in any way overdoing a part easily overdone. ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... I have not quite made up my mind which are the greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of both. They used to be rare, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,) but nowadays they are overdone. I am half-inclined to think that the sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do we really have so many? Can't they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... may be of importance to add that this kind of instruction can be easily overdone, and it is better to proceed too slowly than too rapidly. It is a healthy and permanent development that is wanted, and the teacher should rest satisfied if it is slow. It is by no means feasible to attempt to subordinate all study to specific aims; we cannot see our way to accomplish ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... widely recognised that Flag Days, however admirable their objects, have been a little overdone. But it was sheer bad luck that brought Stuttfield face to face with a flag-seller just as we were entering the Fitz. She came at him with a determined aspect and began ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... indolent indifference that was rather overdone, the turnback stooped low enough to extract the pin. But his fingers trembled in the act, and half a dozen cadets noted ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... failures in which he alone discovers all that is lacking in the eyes of the public. He is whimsical to the last degree. His friends have seen him destroy a finished picture because, in his eyes, it looked too smooth. "It is overdone," he would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... as though to proceed. There was no sign of fear in her. No haste. At that moment her dignity was superb. Every word she had spoken had been calculated, and the sting she had conveyed with her information had not been overdone. She looked for its effect, which came with a dramatic change in the man's whole demeanor. His evil face lost its smile, and, in a moment, he had bared his bristling head. But even as Elvine beheld these things she understood the curious expression ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—quel coup d'oeil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 instead ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are at their work. A score of them are close at hand, with their baskets already filled. Observe how they choose the dark red, and eschew the unripe green, or the black and overdone berry. The second overseer, whip in hand, is ever behind, to see that the pickers do not flag. He is a genuine white; but his complexion is so bronzed, that you would scarcely distinguish him from a mulatto, save for his lank hair and thin lips. He volunteers explanation. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, with ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... credulity and our fears for purposes of their own. Last of all, it is not to be denied that in what I have been saying, I do not represent the public sentiment. The nation is not at all conscious of being overdone. The people see that their House of Commons is the hardest-working legislative assembly in the world: and, this being so, they assume it is all right. Nothing pays better, in point of popularity, than those gratuitous ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... mind and remained silent. So the topic dropped, but that it stood very straight upon its feet in Mr. Knight's mind was clear from the compression of his thin lips and the ill-humour of his remarks about the coldness and overdone character of the beef and sundry other household matters. As soon as the meal was concluded and he had washed it down with a last glass of water and with a very wry face thanked Providence for all that he had received, he retired into his study and ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... changed at once. He eagerly apologized. He was perfectly aware of her extraordinary merits, and should be entirely lost without her help. The fact was he had had a painful scene, and was overdone. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or overdone about Psmith's methods. The ordinary man, having conceived the idea of haunting a fellow clubman, might have seized the first opportunity of engaging him in conversation. Not so Psmith. The first time he met Mr Bickersdyke in the club was on the stairs after dinner ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... head as she left the arbor, she almost ran into Bouchard, who apologized with the single word "Pardon!" as he lifted his cap in overdone courtesy, which his stolid ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... other) got a crumb in his beard, had a little, had enough, got more than he can carry, been among the Philistines, lost his legs, been in a storm, got his night-cap on, got his skin full, had a cup too much, had his cold tea, a red eye, got his dose, a pinch of snuff in his wig, overdone it, taken draps, taking a lunar, sugar in his eye, had his wig oil'd, that he is diddled, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that real issues were the stake of his success, added a zest which he could not have found on the boards. He spoke to the gentlemen present or replied to their greeting with a manner of dignity which was effective because it was not in the least overdone, and then sat down very quietly to await what might ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... which D'Artagnan—calmest and most appreciative of men—did not consider overdone; so many strange and startling aspects wore the proposal which Aramis had just hazarded. "The king's dresses! Give the king's dresses to any mortal whatever! Oh! for once, monseigneur, your grace is mad!" cried ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... a second. Madame found out the father, and kicked Sarah out. Mr. W...t.n then kicked Madame out, and went to live with Sarah, rows ensued, other companies of "Poses plastiques" came into competition, the thing got overdone, he could not get his living; he knew a trade, but was I expect too lazy to work at it; so Sarah took to letting herself out as model, and that being poor pay, to letting out her cunt to get their bread; she had ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... and pick up the tell-tale coppers before he was surrounded by a noisy and excited group of Chinese, gesticulating furiously and rending the hot, blue air with their outlandish cries. A policeman came in sight, and a passing motor filled with foreigners stopped to see the trouble. He had overdone things, surely. There was nothing for it ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... amount of petty vanity in his composition which manifested itself by an ostentatious and overdone disregard of all personal considerations. He straightened his lips and looked rigidly at the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled with bitterness against the whole race of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... last pudding he had baked one, for a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime. It was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone. The bet ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... know—only you shouted a lot. You're overdone, aren't you? Been working too hard I expect." Then he added, slowly, "You were crying out ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... fashions have got even here," thought I; for the old woman was dressed in the latest style,—or, rather, she had overdone it sadly; for her gown was nearly up to her knees, and she was nearly as ridiculous an object as some of the young ladies I had seen at home. She had a respectable bonnet on, however, instead of a straw saucer; and her hair was ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... embroidery, and ornament of every kind, and the plume of feathers which he wore was so high, as if intended to sweep the roof of the hall. In short, the usual gaudy splendour of the heraldic attire was caricatured and overdone. The Boar's Head was not only repeated on every part of his dress, but even his bonnet was formed into that shape, and it was represented with gory tongue and bloody tusks, or in proper language, langed and dentated gules, and there was something ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... cost of a few pounds. They produce various kinds of modern antiques in Violins, some of which display an amount of ingenuity worthy of being exercised in a better cause; but usually the whole thing is overdone, and the results, in point of tone, are far more disastrous than in the common French copies. The following list of French, Belgian, and Dutch makers contains many names not included in the first ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... were gathered together. As he came among them, their curiosity was aroused to learn who he was. And he heard many remarks, such as "Whew! what an odor this corpse emits!" "He must have been long dead." He had rather overdone the matter of the rancid oil. Even Milu himself, as he sat on the bank watching the crowd, was completely deceived by the stratagem, for otherwise he never would have permitted this bold descent of a living man into ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... cook, crossing herself; "from no good, at any rate. Troth, I'll get a gospel and a scapular, for, to tell you the truth, I observed that Masther Harry gave me a look the other day that made my flesh creep, by rason that he thought the mutton was overdone." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... as he was formally deferential to the men; he required the same final obedience of them, and it was not always so easy to make them obey. In non-essentials he yielded at times, as when one of the ladies had overdone a point, and he demurred. "But I always got a laugh on that, Mr. Godolphin," she protested. "Oh, well, my dear, hang on to your laugh, then." However he meant to do Haxard himself, his voice was for simplicity ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... sprightliness are pleasant and commendable; smartness is a limited and showy acuteness or shrewdness, usually with unfavorable suggestion; pertness and sauciness are these qualities overdone, and regardless of the respect due to superiors. Impertinence and impudence may be gross and stupid; pertness and sauciness are always vivid and keen. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Ephraim would have gone about a love affair, had he had one. Sam Price's were the approved methods in that section of the country, though Sam had overdone them somewhat. It was an unheard-of thing to ask a man right out like that where a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her appetite for the perfectly served repast. Mrs. Barry's regal personality seemed to pervade the whole establishment. One could not imagine any detail venturing to go wrong; any food to be underdone or overdone; any servant to venture to make trouble. The machinery of the household moved on oiled wheels. A delicate cleanliness, quietness, order, pervaded the home ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... of him. Excessive suspicion is not a good thing. It was your chief fault as an overseer, although I willingly pay tribute to your energy and attention to detail. This business of hunting spies is greatly overdone. The fate of Vicksburg will be settled by the cannon and ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to be regarded by the layman with reserve—nay more—with suspicion. The part of the bacteriologist has been somewhat overdone. The conditions of popular credence are not what they were. A great change has awakened the masses of the people and a new intelligence is born which now discerns that disease is one great Unity just as ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... alcove and knelt down before the crucifix, trying to compose his mind to the proper attitude for prayer and meditation. But this he found difficult to accomplish. He had, as Thomas said, rather overdone the Lenten privations, and they had gone to his head like strong wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam in a misty cloud before his eyes. It was only after a long litany, mechanically repeated, ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... silence, interrupted by outbreaks of passionate argument, entreaty, invocation. It was Verena who talked incessantly, Verena who was in a state entirely new to her, and, as any one could see, in an attitude entirely unnatural and overdone. If she was deceiving herself, as Olive said, there was something very affecting in her effort, her ingenuity. If she tried to appear to Olive impartial, coldly judicious, in her attitude with regard to Basil Ransom, and only anxious to see, for the moral ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... movement of this nature naturally excited considerable attention in Pretoria; but the success of it was wholly unexpected. The President and his party had played to the South African gallery, and they had not yet realized that they had in any way overdone the theatrical part. They had no suspicion of the real feeling with which the sentences were regarded, nor of the extent to which they had alienated sympathy by that and the subsequent 'magnanimous' action. 'Magnanimity by inches' had been placarded ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... an ill-concealed restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays a ball on to his pad. ''s that?' asks the bowler, with an overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now I'm in,' and already he is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here, you idiot, I hit it hard.' 'Rot, man, out of the way.' '!!??!' 'Look here, Smith, are you going to dispute the umpire's ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... he grows up, in morally kicking other things! At least, that is how I regard it. The over-cultivation of physical strength leads to mental callousness and brutality. These are scientific points which require discussion,—not with you,—but with a scientist. Nothing should be overdone. Too much enervation and lack of athleticism leads to moral deterioration certainly,—but so does too much 'sport' as they call it. There is a happy medium to be obtained on both sides, but human beings generally miss it. Prince Humphry, born of a beautiful, introspective, selfish—yes, I ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling, half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it was, detached himself from the person he was talking to, and came forward and gave him a sufficiently cordial welcome. The person with ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... who forgets all else and wraps himself in a dream. Other people in the room were noting that changeless stare and the whisper buzzed more and more loudly, but Donnegan had forgotten the rest of the world, it seemed. It was a very cunning piece of acting, not too much overdone, and once more the ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Presently Lady Cynthia and Sir Timothy appeared upon the bridge and crossed the lawn. They were walking a little apart. Lady Cynthia was looking down at some roses which she had gathered. Sir Timothy's unconcern seemed a trifle overdone. Margaret ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... off and the newer generation comes on, departments of agriculture and horticulture will be organized in the universities, where it has not already been done, and the farmers will be a class of people right up to date. Modern civilization tends to drive the sons back to the farm and that is overdone sometimes. People think they want to go to farming when they don't. We ought not to take up this idea "back to the farm" too largely at once but gradually grow into it. I know what it is to be on the farm and work hard day after day; there is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... with a run. To all such I say: Do not run. I know all about it for I have tried it. I was on my university football team. And all my life I have been fond of athletics. I am still fond of this kind of life and always expect to be, but exercise is frequently overdone by nervous people. Usually, the physically strong man who breaks down with "nerves" thinks at once of physical training. But strange as it may seem, you can make such a man's muscles as hard as iron but that alone will not cure him. And it ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... had were not likely to take nearly so much interest in her as Mr. Bell; but she was resolved to leave no stone unturned, and went to see several of them. They gave Miss Melville very faint hopes of success. Edinburgh was overdone with masters and mistresses, rents were very high, and classes the most uncertain things possible. But she might apply at one of the institutions. Thither she went, and found that her want of accomplishments prevented her from getting a good situation; and her want of experience was ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... required in the shape of heavier form lumber and stronger framing to provide for the wear and tear of repeated use, and it is always economy to provide it when repeated use is possible. The thing can be overdone, however; there is an economical limit to repeated use, as we demonstrate further on. In the matter of economy in carpenter work, a certain amount of extra work put into framing the forms to withstand the stress of repeated use is economically justifiable. Also carpenter work ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... walls are in Carboniferous Limestone with a pleasing variety of color in the strata, and the erosion-carving not overdone, the most notable piece being the Knife-blade. This, at first view, appears to be a high, round tower, but the train following the curve, reveals the fact that it is not a tower, but a thin, curved knife-blade. The sun just for one instant shone through a rift ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen |
