"Punctilious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forensic restraint was placed on record by the depositions clerk in the exact words of the unvarying formula between bench and bar. "Do you ask anything, Mr. Middleheath?" Mr. Justice Redington would ask, with punctilious politeness, when the Crown Prosecutor sat down after examining a witness. To which Mr. Middleheath would reply, in tones of equal courtesy: "I ask nothing, my lord." Counsel's cross-examination of Inspector Fredericks consisted of two questions, intended to throw light on the accused's state ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... sins as the Church prescribed he could obtain a plenary absolution. If salvation was to be secured only by particular rules, why, then, one might despair of salvation altogether. And, perhaps, eternal damnation was indeed his destiny, were it only for his doubts, and in despite of all his punctilious mechanical worship. Oh, for a deliverer—a deliverer from the questionings that made the splendid gloom of cathedrals a darkness for the captive spirit! Those cursed Jesuits, zealous with the zealotry of a new order! His blood flamed as he thought ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 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 don't do ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... has a brother 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
... 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
... the incidental. We may come to be concerned more with manners than with morals; with ritual, than with right. Customary morality tends to emphasize, moreover, the letter rather than the spirit of the law. It implies complete and punctilious obedience, meticulous conformity. It emphasizes form rather than content. Since conformity is the only criterion, the appearance of conformity is all that is required. The individual may fear to dissent openly rather than actually. This is seen frequently ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... a little too—too punctilious? Very lovely, dear; you look all that a man could wish for, but it's a wedding, my pet, and you—you do not quite look ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... about the person whom the caretaker thus greeted with so much punctilious ceremony. He was a little, somewhat insignificant-looking man—at first sight. His clothes were well-worn and carelessly put on; the collar of his under-coat projected high above that of his overcoat; his necktie had slipped round towards one ear; his linen was frayed; ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... serious toil: he weighs your least actions, interrogates your looks, and scrutinizes all you say, lest there should be some hidden allusion to affront him. I doubt whether there was ever a provincial man of quality so punctilious in breeding as he is: he endeavors to attend to the slightest rules of etiquette, and does not allow one of them to be waived towards himself: he is full of scruples and at the same time of pretensions; he wishes to do enough, but fears to do too much; and as he does not very well know the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... miners as might be in a condition to feast and drink copiously. When he found that neither Hope nor his son could join these festivities, he was very sorry he had named so early a day; but he was so punctilious and precise that he could not make up his mind to change one day for another. So a great confectioner at Derby who sent out feasts was charged with the affair, and the Colonel's own kitchen was at his service too. That was not all. Bartley ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... should be straight, and as ruled paper is not permissible in formal notes, invitations or punctilious correspondence, savoring too nearly of the school-room and the counting-house, some little practice may be necessary to keep the lines even. Should this prove impossible, let a sheet of paper with heavily ruled black lines ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... efficient." The stories of his difficulty with the English language are many, and most of the classic stories told of various members of the French Faculty by successive student generations were originally told of him. He was the first "infiddle," though he was always punctilious in attendance at chapel, which he adjourned on one occasion because the "praying Professor" did not appear. His "vocabul'-ary" was good, but in the words of the time-honored song, "He went up on ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... is an open-minded, confiding young man. He has just been making a dinner call (he is very punctilious in all social matters), and our entire conversation was devoted to the girl in Detroit. He is lonely and likes to talk about her; and the wonderful things he says! I hope that Miss Detroit is worthy of ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... 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 ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... a native potentate arriving at the northern gate. They're very punctilious about ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... your time is all the shorter." She was nettled that he should be oblivious of his lapse. Their relation had never been sentimental, but he had always been punctilious. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... day was still up and came running to see what the commotion was about—and several other officers came. Colonel Gregory, a punctilious gentleman of the old school—who is in command just now—appeared in a striking costume, consisting of a skimpy evening gown of white, a dark military blouse over that, and a pair of military riding boots, and he carried an ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... 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
... glad I've been punctilious in the matter," said Peyton, but without any increase of deference. "Egad, I think I've been as scrupulous as ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... "full of repentance," like the Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to expense and pleasure, "so that now I can hardly reclaim myself." He interests himself in Dr. Williams's remarkable dog, which not only killed cats, but buried them with punctilious obsequies, never leaving the tip of puss's tail out of the ground. Then he goes to the play, "after swearing to my wife that I would never go to the play without her." He remembers one night that he passed "with the greatest epicurism of sleep," because he ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... to the memory of this punctilious veteran, to say that he would have made the same reply to any question which could, at that particular moment, have ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... authority and resistance to the unwritten power of Parliament and to the control of the cabinet. He had virtues not inherited and not common in his time; he was a good husband, a kind-hearted man, punctilious, upright, and truthful. He had, therefore, a certain popularity, notwithstanding his narrow-mindedness, obstinacy, and arrogance. Resolved to take a personal part in the government of his country, he began by ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... retired into a thicket and ate their porridge; then all stood up, and clapped their hands, and praised Intemese for it. The Makololo, who are accustomed to the most free and easy manners, held out handfuls of what they had cooked to any of the Balonda near, but they refused to taste. They are very punctilious in their manners to each other. Each hut has its own fire, and when it goes out they make it afresh for themselves rather than take it from a neighbor. I believe much of this arises from superstitious fears. In the deep, dark forests ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Romans, very shortly after he has established his sovereignty in the Isle of Britain. Walter, or Chrestien, or whoever it was, saw that such a waste of good romantic material could never be tolerated. The romance is never—it has not been even in the hands of its most punctilious modern practitioners—very observant of miserable minutiae of chronology; and after all, it was reasonable that Arthur's successes should give him some considerable enjoyment of his kingdom. It will not do to scrutinise too narrowly, or we should have to make Arthur a very old man ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... way possible. He came in with punctilious politeness, obviously assumed, with sarcastic intentions. When I took up the cane he stood with arms folded, and a singularly dogged look; in fact, his manner disarmed me. You know I detest caning, and I really could not do it, never having ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... exigencies of the case. The largest sum to be returned was three hundred dollars. He had borrowed it from a merchant in good circumstances, who could at any time command his thousands, and to whose credit there usually remained heavy balances in bank. But he was exceedingly punctilious in all business matters. ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... the war remained popular with practically all the men with whom I talked. Various companies were being formed, and militia captains, to make sure of seeing active service, were not punctilious as to where and by what means they secured their men. There was much ill-natured bickering over this rivalry, with several matters assuming such proportions that only Colonel Lewis could straighten ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... course, largely stimulated by the fashion of wearing ruffs, 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, hunting ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... By the most punctilious respect and nice regard to precedency, even by words of courtesy—"Your ladyship does me honour," &c.—Lady St. James contrived to mortify and to mark the difference between those with whom she was, and with whom she was not, upon terms of intimacy and equality. Thus the ancient grandees of Spain ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... heart. But can the crude fruit of casual observation, never brought to the test of judgment, formed by comparing speculation and experience, deserve such a distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practice the minor virtues with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when the education has been the same; all the difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty which enables the former to ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... admiration, he did not join the ranks of her more or less avowed lovers; a fact that in turn piqued and oddly comforted Kate. For at times this new life of hers seemed a strange dream, in which Benoix, with his gentleness, his punctilious courtesy, his rather formal friendliness of aspect, was the only fixed reality. She felt, vaguely, that she was safe with him; safer than with her husband. She thought of him more as a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... All you see are stars overhead and the glowing eyes of cat ladies, of lithe silken ladies who pass you, or of stiff-whiskered men. Beware of those men and the gleam of their split-pupiled stare. They are haughty, punctilious, inflammable: self-absorbed too, however. They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you are lost. They take offense in a flash, abhor strangers, despise hospitality, and would think nothing of killing you or me on their way home ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... 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 quite ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not all, of his quarrels he seems to have had at least a very strong show of right on his side, and to have put himself in the wrong by an excessive insistence upon his own dignity. He was one of those ingenious people who always contrive to be punctilious in the wrong place. It is amusing to observe how Scott generally bestows upon his heroes so keen a sense of honour that he can hardly save them from running their heads against stone walls; whilst to their followers he gives an abundance ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... new. The political ideals of the far-off, easy days of peace will not do for these new and searching times. Political ideals have been different from any other. Men who would not rob a bank or sandbag a traveler, and who are quite punctilious about paying their butcher and their baker, have been known to rob the country quite freely and even hilariously, doctoring an expense sheet, overcharging for any service rendered. "Good old country," they have seemed to say, "if I do not rob you, ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... of the 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. ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Sterry proved the key to the whole situation. When Inman learned how he had been outwitted he was enraged to the point of ordering an attack at once, with the resolve to give mercy to no one. He even threatened to visit his fury upon Fred Whitney, who had shown such punctilious regard for his parole, for it would seem that under the circumstances he would have been warranted in staying ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... This soldier-like and 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 that the French were ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Viola putting aside any punctilious feelings she had, partook of the homely meal with what grace and relish she could command, and thanking them all for their ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... most punctilious English courtesy, sang the praises of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love with ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 who have the idea ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... you will choose your guests with extreme care as to their appeal to the model young men they are likely to meet at Annapolis, for I don't doubt your aunt, Mrs. Harold, is a most punctilious chaperon." ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... sick people will sometimes utter to their attendants. "If you don't take better care of me," a man will sometimes say, "and if you don't do everything you possibly can to preserve my valuable life, my ghost will serve you out." That is why friends and relations are so punctilious in paying visits of respect and condolence to the sick. Sometimes the last request which a dying man addresses to his kinsfolk is that they will kill this or that sorcerer who has killed him; and he ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... only by doing violence to his own high principles that he constrained himself to accept the emoluments which poor Richard Vinnicomb had provided for a singing foundation, and he was scrupulous in showing his disapproval of such vanities by punctilious absence from the week-day service. This ceremony was therefore entrusted to white-haired Mr Noot, whose zeal in his Master's cause had left him so little opportunity for pushing his own interests that at sixty he was stranded as an underpaid curate ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... she dressed with neatness. Her hair, a stringy bush at home, appeared a miracle of coiffure. Lips and eyes received punctilious attention. The perfection of her high-heeled shoes was a matter of grave concern. Whatever may have been underneath, the outside of her toilette received anxious care. She thought much of externals. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... excuses," said Marian. "He has some pressing 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
... certainly a gross mistake: and from the nature of the thing, it is hardly possible to suppose it to be a mere mistake. But take it that it is a mistake, and to have nothing of fraud, but mere carelessness; this, in a man valued by Mr. Hastings for being very punctilious and accurate, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the afternoon, and been so whimsical as to go thither with a man in woman's apparel; and he that same day waited on the French minister, in full confidence of obtaining his discharge; but met with more difficulty than he expected, the court of France being extremely punctilious in everything that concerns a prince of the blood: the ambassador was therefore obliged to talk in very high terms; and, though the present circumstances of the French politics would not allow them to fall out with the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... body as in black flaps that ever trail behind its energy. Where they made him Heaven knows. No university owns him. It may be he is a renegade Dissenting minister, neither good Church nor wholesome Nonconformity. Him my cricketer regards with malignant respect. Respect he shows by a punctilious touching of his hat brim, directed to the sacred office; all the rest is malignity, and aimed at the man that fills it. They come into contact on the cricket-field, and on the committee of our reading-room. For our vicar, in spite of a tendency to myopia, conceives it his duty to encourage cricket ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Throckmorton had been telling her the story of his engagement to Miss Gower, and, as might be anticipated, he was not as devoutly grateful to her ladyship as he might have been. He was careless to a fault in some things, and punctilious to a fault in others; and he was very punctilious about Priscilla Gower. He was not an ardent lover, but he was a conscientiously honorable one, and, apart from his respect for his betrothed, he was very impatient of interference with his affairs; and my lady was not chary ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, everyone told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honor, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came to ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... candor of genuine enthusiasm, and related the incredible narrative in his rich, Irish brogue, which affected his hearer, as it did every one else, with such singular sentiments in contrast with his remarkable countenance, all traces of punctilious restraint and artificial reticence vanished, and with the mien of one who proposes to extract all the entertainment possible from an undreamed-of experience, the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... he only loved them because they were his—a portion of himself; and it was merely himself that he loved through them. In a certain sense, he was a devoted son. His education had rendered him punctilious, to the highest degree, in the observance of all those forms that betoken filial veneration. He always treated his august mother with the most profound reverence. He paid her the most courteous attentions,—opened ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... "You're far too punctilious," remarked Mrs. Hsueeh, "as to entertain such notions! No such ideas as these crossed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that it is a strict principle that "hearsay evidence" of an utterance will not be accepted in lieu of that of the person to whom the remark was made. Neither can we think it out of probability that such an objection may have been made by some over punctilious judge wishing to restrain Sam's exuberance. A Scotch judge once quoted in court a passage from The Antiquary in which he said the true view of an intricate point was given; but then ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... check the rude speech and manners of the warlike nobles who thronged the castle halls, as well as to put some limit to the bold words and glances of the troubadours, who were often hard to repress. Her previous education had been bestowed with care, however, the advantages of a formal and punctilious etiquette had been preached more than once, and she was even advised that the enemy of all her friends should find her civil-spoken; so, my lady managed her difficult affairs with tact and skill, and contrived in many cases to acquire such fame for her moderation and her wisdom that many ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... translation of the Iliad, which has been considered as 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 have ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... questions, and then converses with us through the guides. 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, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the 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 ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... Ginsburg and Dr. Nogueira Paranagua escorted me. When we started I suggested that we take a street car. Not so those Brazilians! We must go in an automobile. We were very careful to wear our Prince Albert coats, too; for, above all things, the Brazilian is a master in punctilious ceremonies. We were ushered into the waiting room by a doorkeeper, a finely-liveried mulatto with a large chain around his shoulders to indicate his authority. The waiting room was full of people, but we were not kept waiting long. We sent in our cards and soon we heard our names announced ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... youth. Her child, her estate, and her few tried friends absorbed her. For the sake of her daughter's future, she ordered out her ancient coach and made the round of the Island once a year. The ladies of St. Kitts were as moderately punctilious. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... that something radiant in her that marked her apart from all the other daughters of men. The few remarkable personalities that count in society and who were admitted into Henry Allegre's Pavilion treated her with punctilious reserve. I know that, I have made enquiries. I know she sat there amongst them like a marvellous child, and for the rest what can they say about her? That when abandoned to herself by the death of Allegre she has made a mistake? I think that any woman ought ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... usually addressed by his parishioners as "Sir" John, or "Sir" George, etc., quite irrespective of his actual rank,[89] and this in an age of punctilious distinctions in forms of address. In the small country parishes the incumbent was often the only, or almost the only, educated man in the community. His advice had naturally considerable weight in parish affairs, and his pen was often required in the drawing up of official or legal documents, ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... 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 ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... astonishing himself by the debonnaire 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
... hour, when fiction takes forms so ingenious and so specious, it is perhaps necessary to say that the following narrative, in all its parts, and so far as the punctilious attention of the writer has been able to keep it so, is scrupulously true. If it were not true, in this strict sense, to publish it would be to trifle with all those who may be induced to read it. It is ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... a reverie about his proposed visit to Mrs. Adams. Last night it had appeared to him an easy and natural thing to do. He was not so sure of his position this morning. Mr. Adams might be present; he was punctilious in the extreme, and a call without an invitation at that early hour might be considered an impertinence—especially if he had no opportunity to enlighten Mrs. Adams about his love for Miss Moran, and so ask her assistance. Then he began to ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... time, like a lightning-streak across a cloud. Wounded, in the most susceptible part of his nature, Kresney saw no reason to deny himself the satisfaction of hitting back. Whatever may have been his principles in regard to debts in general, he was scrupulously punctilious in settling debts of malice,—indirectly, if possible; and in this instance personal antipathy added zest to the mere ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... But be it (the punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero of more than mortal birth must needs be had, even for this we have a remedy. We can easily derive our hero's pedigree from a goddess of no small power and authority amongst men, and legitimate and install him after the right ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and ducking of all who have not passed the line before. But our attitude was strictly Erastian, and the demigod retired discomfited to the second class, where from the sounds which arose he seemed to find more punctilious votaries. On the 23rd we sighted a sail—or rather the smoke of another steamer. As the comparatively speedy 'Dunottar Castle' overtook the stranger everybody's interest was aroused. Under the scrutiny of many brand-new telescopes and field glasses—for ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... sign that she was one of those who are destined, by a mysterious decree, never to receive the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. Hence, while her husband was a deacon of the church, she, for years, had sat in her pew while the sacramental elements were distributed, a mournful spectator. Punctilious in every duty, exact, reverential, she still regarded herself as a child of wrath, an enemy to God, and an heir of perdition; nor could she see any hope of remedy, except in the sovereign, mysterious decree of an Infinite and Unknown Power, a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... certain propriety binding even on a chauffeur and a limit to the freedom of the speech you may apply to your Commandant. This afternoon Tom has exceeded all the limits. The worst of Tom is that while his tongue rages on the confines of revolt, he himself is punctilious to excess on the point of orders. Either he has orders or he hasn't them. If he has them he obeys them with a punctuality that puts everybody else in the wrong. If he hasn't them, an earthquake wouldn't ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... 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 ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... bailiwick tried ordinary civil suits and breaches of the peace. This bailiwick also offered what might be euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising members. True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... honor 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. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... do was to go to the clerk at his office. This man, a very fleshy person, decidedly English and punctilious, was most reluctant to divulge what he was pleased to term the professional secrets ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... also been discussed. The city was sorry to relinquish its noble guests. Society had taken on an aspect of dignified courtesy; contending parties had ceased to rail at each other, and there was a greater air of punctilious refinement, that was to settle into a grace less formal than that of the old-time Quaker breeding, but more elegant and harmonious. A new ambition woke in the heart of the citizens to beautify, adorn, and improve. There was a stir in educational circles, and the library ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... recently acquired carriage clock whose face the lights of a passing trolley made plain. She looked, gasped, and looked again in horrid fascination. The punctilious Beverwyck Club had decreed that its reception should end at eleven, and the decrees of the Beverwyck Club were rigidly enforced. The carriage clock pointed its inexorable hands to ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... twice, and it was nearly Thanksgiving now. Billy had seen him once or twice, also, at the Beacon Street house, when she and Aunt Hannah had dined there; but on all these occasions he had been either the coldly reserved guest or the painfully punctilious host. Never had he ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... needful to have the HULDIGUNGEN (Homagings) done, the Fealties sworn; and the young Majesty in due course goes about, or gives directions, now here now there, in his various Provinces, getting that accomplished. But even in that, Friedrich is by no means strait-laced or punctilious; does it commonly by Deputy: only in three places, Konigsberg, Berlin, Cleve, does he appear in person. Mainly by deputy; and always with the minimum of fuss, and no haranguing that could be avoided. Nowhere are the old STANDE (Provincial Parliaments) assembled, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and begged a pinch 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 ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 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 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... followed in the wake of that in which she was, when the sounds of voices in the adjacent cabin attracted her attention; and as the partition was but slight, and the persons discoursing spoke Italian, she could not help overhearing the conversation which there look place, even if she had possessed any punctilious feelings to have prevented her from becoming ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... be careful. But I do maintain that we may be too punctilious. As a matter of course I shall ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... generally requiring punctilious attention), or mischievous, or determined enemies of mankind. But infinite as are their variations, the ordinary Asiatic no more doubts their existence than he doubts the existence of animals. The position which ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Take a look at her!'" some one hummed as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... behind the mushrabieh screens. The niceties of his dress were Parisian, punctilious, perfect. In his right lapel was the unostentatious ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... ought to act as though Sabina had ordered him to be freed in express terms, since she certainly was under the impression that she had ordered it. I am sure that you will be of my way of thinking, for you are most punctilious in carrying out the intentions of a dead person, which are, with honourable heirs, tantamount to legal obligations. For with us honour has as much weight as necessity has with others. So I propose ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... enraged: his pride became his post, and his punctilious behaviour merited all the ridicule which could be attached to it: he quitted her abruptly, with all the fine advice he had prepared for her, and was almost tempted to carry it to Lady Castlemaine, and to unite himself with her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... on the point of telling Athos all; but one consideration restrained him. Athos was a gentleman, punctilious in points of honor; and there were in the plan which our lover had devised for Milady, he was sure, certain things that would not obtain the assent of this Puritan. He was therefore silent; and as Athos was the least inquisitive of any man on earth, d'Artagnan's ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their voices below. She cried out to herself that it was her doing, and blamed her beloved, and her master, and Dr. Shrapnel, in the breath of her self-recrimination. The demagogue, the over-punctilious gentleman, the faint lover, surely it must be reason wanting in the three for each of them in turn to lead the other, by an excess of some sort of the quality constituting their men's natures, to wreck a calm life and stand in contention! Had Shrapnel been commonly reasonable ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 a book or poem ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... ingenious and profound speech upon the foreign relations of his sovereign, made a sly allusion to the intrigues that inspired the policy of a great country. This reference, which was receive with smiles by the Imperial Parliament, was certain to irritate a punctilious republic. It aroused the national susceptibility, which directed its wrath against its amorous Minister. The Deputies seized upon a frivolous pretext to show their dissatisfaction. A ridiculous incident, the fact that the wife of a subprefect had danced at the Moulin ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... they turned Albania into a region of utter darkness—at any rate, they did practically nothing to shake off the barbarism which they had inherited. They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediaeval ideas on the sanctity of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their honour,[80] their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are very abstemious, their morals are pure, they ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... punctilious in all the finer details of living that all who infringed upon them felt her mere presence a reproach. Children were never rough or loud-voiced or naughty when Miss Camilla was near, though she never admonished otherwise than by example. As for ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sitting up, the first time for a week, and even to-day she is scarcely fit to do so; but she remembers that the month is coming round, and her rent will soon be due; and in her feebleness she will stretch every nerve to meet her engagements with punctilious exactness. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... happy by a kiss before she left her. It was a cheering belief that, whatever the future trials of her life might be, the gentle little lady would meet them with a healthier mind, more vigorous in overlooking troubles and without punctilious sensitiveness on the lookout for affronts. "Believing all things, bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things," would be to her the true ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... 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 some of their youthful exploits, especially the one which yielded the material for the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... person with whom the appointments lay, or because he was in need of an opportunity for making money easily. That there have always been statesmen and subordinate officials above all such self-seeking, men of punctilious honour and of absolutely clean hands, is known to all; but such men—as Espartero, for instance—too often threw up the sponge, and would have naught to do with governing nor with office of any description. Espartero, who is generally spoken of as the "Aristides of Spain," when ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... punctilious chap. Then you would be neutral, as you call it, and let Villarayo smash up and murder everybody, because Don Ramon has not ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... (within which again different shades appear). (1) The Gospel has to do with the people of Israel, and with the Gentile world only on the condition that believers attach themselves to the people of Israel. The punctilious observance of the law is still necessary and the condition on which the messianic salvation is bestowed (particularism and legalism, in practice and in principle, which, however, was not to cripple the obligation ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... house which gave signs of comfort and taste. At the head of a flight of stairs on the broad veranda was a man in gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a red breechclout. His well-shaped, bald head and punctilious manner would have commanded attention in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... "proprieties" of fashionable life. In the genuine sense of the word, "Cobbler" Horn was a Christian gentleman; and he would have sustained the character in any position in which he might have been placed. But he had a feeling akin to contempt for the punctilious and ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... Praised by their companions as persons of distinguished genius, or admired for a natural wit, they sacrifice every thing to flattery. They have been stimulated to believe that the possession of religion is a decisive proof of intellectual inferiority; or at least, that a punctilious observance of its practices, or a fervent attachment to its peculiar doctrines, is enthusiastic. They listen to the artful seducer, who assures them that their principles are too evidently drawn from the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... that the master's business is before all things else. My imperial master awaits me at Regensburg, and I shall then have the honor of being permitted to accompany him to Vienna. His Imperial Majesty is a strict and punctilious lord, and has calculated to the very day and hour when I may again reach the imperial palace. For our interview here he allowed me one hour; and, lo! the cock of your great wall clock had just stepped out and crowed eleven ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... his teens he was sent into the counting-house, an apprentice to commerce, and so he escaped the 'education of a gentleman' in the brutal public schools and the degenerate universities of the time. Business in those days had a sort of sanctity and was governed by punctilious—almost religious—routine. In the interests of the business he travelled, while young and impressionable, to Russia, and mixed to his advantage with the cosmopolitan society of the capital. Ill-health ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... hope that his private affairs were sacred in the hands of his prospective kinsman, the little incident recorded at the close of the last chapter did away with the last remnant of any such delusion. He did not say anything about it. He was punctilious to a degree in anything which affected his honour; and as what he had overheard on the occasion in question had been part of a private conversation not intended for his ears, he felt himself unable to take any notice of it. Still, it was impossible ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... impiety, and a wanton and inexcusable recklessness in regard to women, which made him a slave to his passions. The first alienated him, so far as he was known, from the higher respectable classes, who generally were punctilious in the outward observances of religion; and the second made him abhorred by the virtuous middle class, who never condoned his transgressions in this respect. But at this time his character was not generally ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... busybodies—was already beginning to leave its traces on Herr Linders. It was less known than guessed that the state of things between Courvoisier and von Francius was less peace than armed neutrality. The intense politeness of von Francius to his first violinist, and the punctilious ceremoniousness of the latter toward his chief, were topics of speculation and amusement to ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... most sensible (one a forger, the other a kleptomaniac on an important scale) are friends of mine. They are fairly well educated, respectable city men, clean, solemn, stodgy, punctilious, and resigned, but they are both unhappy; not because they are cursed with the double brand of madness and crime, and have forfeited their freedom in consequence; but because they find there are so few "ladies and gentlemen" in a criminal lunatic asylum, and they ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... 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 ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... over, 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
... like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,—in a word, they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and privations, ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... not always go with fine manners, and that Lovelace had a fascination of address which John Knox lacked. The chaff and slang of the Bayard of to-day are at least decent, and his morals probably purer than those of the courtly and punctilious old Sir Roger de Coverleys. Possibly; but it has been wisely said that hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue. The good manners of a bad man are a rich dress upon a diseased body. They are the graceful form of a vase full of dirty water. The liquid ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... careful to observe all the rules that the punctilious etiquette of the profession demanded. He found Dr. Haines sleeping heavily in his clothes. He had had a bad night. He was uneasy at the outbreak of sickness in his camp, and more especially was he seized with an anxious ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... Mr. Henry Norman declared, after his study and observation of the Far East,[31] that only the respect in which Japan differed from other oriental despotisms lay in "the ruling influence among her people of the strictest, loftiest, and the most punctilious codes of honor that man has ever devised," he touched the main spring which has made new Japan what she is and which will make her what she is destined ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... our race—take delight in the infliction of 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. Envy, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... them—CALLOT'S free brush might have managed it—gathered in pow-wow around the camp-fire, Sun-tanned and wind-browned, in picturesque raiment, with wisp of the wild hop or trail of the briar Hat-wreathed or button-holed. BURNS should have sung of them; trim-skirted Muse, with punctilious tastes, Were not at home with these waifs from the rookery, pastured at large in free Nature's wild wastes, Bounding, and breathing fresh air, romping, wrestling, and disciplined only to cleanness and order. Otherwise free as the tent-dwelling Arabs, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... plurality of wives, which they also obtain by purchase, there is still love in all their marriages, and courtship among them is a very formal and, in some respects, a rather punctilious affair. When a young Bushman falls in love, he sends his sister to ask permission to pay his addresses; with becoming modesty the girl holds off in a playful, yet not scornful or repulsive manner if she likes him. The young man next sends his sister with a spear, or some other trifling ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... punctilious and courteous the Malays are, how rough many of the best of us are, how brutal in manner many of us are, and how inconsiderate our sailors are of the customs of foreign peoples, especially in regard to the seclusion of their women, it is wonderful that bloody revenge is not ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... his shoulders without anger at this ferocious prejudice. Rejected by his old friends and mistrusting profoundly the advances of royalist society, the young and handsome general (he was barely forty) adopted a manner of punctilious and cold courtesy which at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the peculiar uplifting happiness of a man very much in love. The charming girl looked out by ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... unasked, etc. "The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious excess, are said to have considered it as churlish to ask a stranger his name or lineage before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would in many cases have produced the discovery of some circumstance which might have ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... be said in behalf of the punctilious giver, of the man who repays a gift as scrupulously as he returns a blow. He wants to please, but he is baffled by not knowing, and by not being sympathetic enough to divine, what his inarticulate friend ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... a 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, his trousers pressed, the garrison belt accurately ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the Opposition, so far, is one of wasted opportunities and ill-conceived tactics. They have been beaten, out-manoeuvred and discredited by a foe on whom, with proper management, they might often have turned the tables.... These are no days for punctilious or overstrained courtesy in dealing with political opponents.... Conservatives and Unionists may be tolerably certain that they will gain nothing by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... 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
... entered in his riding dress, with his whip in his hand and his hat on his head (he was one of those men who are most punctilious with strange ladies, but do not feel it necessary to behave like gentlemen in the presence of their own wives, making it appear as if the latter had lost cast and forfeited all claim to their respect by marrying them) Mrs. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and there was something of the rake at heart about Mrs. Woodward. She never could be got to express adequate horror at fast young men, and was apt to have her own sly little joke at women who prided themselves on being punctilious. She could, perhaps, the more safely indulge in this, as scandal had never even whispered ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... attitude lasted over into the earlier stages of the romantic movement. So late a poet as Bowles delighted to stress the "churchman's ardor" of the poet. [Footnote: See his verse on Southey and Milton.] Southey also was ready to exhibit his punctilious orthodoxy. Yet poor Southey was the unwitting cause of the impiety of his brothers for many years, inasmuch as Byron's A Vision of Judgment, with its irresistible satire on Southey, sounded the death-knell of the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... they were, these "ingegni fiorentini," these Tuscan wits! What innate breeding and reticence! What punctilious loyalty to the little observances of literature, of wall-decoration, call it, in the most licentiously minded of them! Lorenzo Magnifico was a rake and could write lewdly enough, as we all know. Yet, when he chose, that is when Art bade ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... friend," (as the story is related by Dr. Shaw,) "do not you know that my subjects are a band of robbers, and that I am their captain?"—better it would be a thousand times, and a thousand thousand times more manly, than an hypocritical process, which, under a pretended reverence to punctilious ceremonies and observances of law, abandons mankind without help and resource to all the desolating consequences of arbitrary power. The conduct and event of this cause will put an end to such doubts, wherever they may be entertained. ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... made, however, was on Charles alone, and he was surrounded by councillors, so much the more pedantic and punctilious as they were incapable, and placed amidst pressing necessities with which in themselves they had no power to cope. It may easily be allowed, also, that to risk any hopes still belonging to the hapless young King on the word of a peasant girl was in itself, according to every law of reason, madness ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... replied, "but if you had known Mr. Bisbee you would think it strange, too. He had a horror of infectious and contagious diseases. His apartment and his country home were models. No sanitarium could have been more punctilious. He lived what one of his friends called an antiseptic life. Maybe I am foolish, but it keeps getting closer and closer to me now, and—well, I wish you'd look into the case. Please set my mind at rest and assure me that nothing is wrong, that it ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... we would 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 applying the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren |
