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Quaintly   /kwˈeɪntli/   Listen
Quaintly

adverb
1.
In a strange but not unpleasant manner.
2.
In a quaint old-fashioned manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Quaintly" Quotes from Famous Books



... mist-gray mountain lion hunted along snow-banked ranger trails. The blue grouse sat stiff and close to the tree-trunk, while gray squirrels with quaintly tufted ears peered curiously at sinuous forms that nosed from side to side ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... the various castellated turrets, and the clusters of decorated chimneys, with the quaintly carven beasts seemingly toboganning down the gables of the wings, together form a fine example of Tudor architecture, though the appearance would have been still better had the Gatehouse when restored ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... The country appeared every where the same bleak and inhospitable wilderness;[73] but the harbors were numerous, convenient, and abounding in fish. He describes the natives as well-proportioned men, wearing their hair tied up over their heads like bundles of hay, quaintly interlaced with birds' feathers.[74] Changing his course still more to the south, he then traversed the Gulf of St. Lawrence, approached the main-land, and on the 9th of July entered a deep bay; from the intense heat experienced there, he named it the "Baye de Chaleurs." ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... Ran stream, or bubbling fountain's wave did spin, On bark or rock, if yielding were the stone, The knife was straight at work or ready pin. And there, without, in thousand places lone, And in as many places graved, within, MEDORO and ANGELICA were traced, In divers cyphers quaintly interlaced. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... hands, my child," said the old gentleman in his quaintly garrulous fashion, peering with dimmed eyes at the volume in ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... cloud lifted. It turned out that Martha had been in some peril at sea, but got safe into Leith Roads at six in the morning. A clairvoyant dream was also vouchsafed to Dr. Pitcairn, though 'a Jacobite, and a person of considerable sense,' as Wodrow quaintly remarks about another individual. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... the Bible, which Professor Stuart quaintly calls "the good old book," by turning away from "self-evident truths" to receive its instructions? Can these truths be contradicted or denied there? Do we search for something there to obscure their clearness, or break their force, or reduce their authority? Do we long to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... of Christ in song an essential part of public worship. It was here that the Brethren excelled, and here that they helped to free English Christianity from the chilling influence of Deism. The whole point was quaintly expressed by Bishop ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... an error for Karabugha, the name given by the Turks and Arabs to a kind of great mangonel? This was known also in Europe as Carabaga, Calabra, etc. It is mentioned under the former name by Marino Sanudo, and under the latter, with other quaintly-named engines, by William of Tudela, as used by Simon de Montfort the Elder ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Vyavahara is Law. Three kinds of Vyavahara or Law are here spoken of. The first is the ordinary Law, according to which the disputes of litigants are decided, it includes both civil and criminal law, it is quaintly described here as Vattripratyayalakskana, i.e., 'characterised by a belief in either of two litigant parties.' When a suit, civil or criminal, is instituted, the king or those that act in the king's name must call for Evidence and decide the matter by believing either of the two parties. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... an opponent because he did not agree with him in his theory of irregular verbs. Freeman, whose self-assertion was perpetual, represented himself throughout his libel as fighting for the cause of truth. His own reverence for truth he illustrated quaintly enough at the close of his last article. "I leave others to protest," said this veracious critic, "against Mr. Froude's treatment of the sixteenth century. I do not profess to have mastered those times in detail ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... you a note on this subject, extracted, some years ago, from a very quaintly-written History of England, without title-page, but apparently written in the early part of the reign of George the First. It is among the remarkable events of the reign of James ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various

... us to Sir Walter Raleigh's house, now the property of Sir John Pope Hennessey. It was probably built by Sir Walter while he lived here in 1588-89, during the time of the great Armada; for it is a typical Elizabethan house, quaintly gabled, with charming Tudor windows, and delightfully wainscoted with richly carved black oak. A chimney-piece in the library where Sir John's aged mother received us most kindly and hospitably is a marvel of Elizabethan woodwork. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... never having heard of him, inclines to condemn the whole business beforehand as an impossible fable. I fancy Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM felt something of this difficulty with regard to the protagonist of his quaintly-called The Moon and Sixpence (HEINEMANN), since, for all his sly pretence of quoting imaginary authorities, we have really only his unsupported word for the superlative genius of Charles Strickland, the stockbroker who abandoned respectable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... retyre, farewell, my Lord. Ha, Rodoricke, are not we fine Polyticians That have so quaintly wrought the king of Fraunce Unto our faction that he threatens warre ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... Venice is first, in his Life of the Castelfranco painter, ascribed by Vasari to Giorgione, and then in the subsequent Life of Titian given to that master, but to a period very much too late in his career. The biographer quaintly adds: "This figure, which many have believed to be from the hand of Giorgione, is to-day the most revered object in Venice, and has received more charitable offerings in money than Titian and Giorgione ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... so narrow, as to admit with difficulty three horses abreast, and evincing with what strictness the ancient lords of the village adhered to their prejudice against fortifications, and their opinion in favour of keeping the field, so quaintly expressed in the well-known proverb of the family,—"It is better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep." The streets, or rather the lanes, were dark, but for a shifting gleam of moonlight, which, as ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... handsome boy, too, notwithstanding the deplorable state of his wardrobe. Thick, clustering curls of jet-black hair fell in tangled disorder around a forehead broad, white and smooth as that of a girl; slender and quaintly arched black eyebrows played above a pair of mischievous, dark-gray eyes that sparkled beneath the shade of long, thick, black lashes; a little turned-up nose, and red, pouting lips completed the character of a countenance full of fun, frolic, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... capacity, moreover, his name comes first in all the formulae of prayer, and he is looked upon—not indeed as the father of the gods—for that is a much too anthropomorphic notion—but as what we might now term their 'logical antecedent': divum deus, as the song of the Salii quaintly puts it, principium deorum, as later interpretation explained it. Yet through all he remains the most typical Roman deity: he does not acquire a temple till 217 B.C., nor a bust until quite late, nor is he ever identified with a Greek counterpart. In his capacity as pater matutinus he has ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... you will understand... I am not very old," said Candeille quaintly, "I... I am only an actress... but if a ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the people who dwelt in the Marche au Vendredi and similar places, or I really should not have understood my handsome hostess, as she offered to present me to her husband, a henpecked, gentlemanly man, who was more quaintly attired than she in the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself that in France, as in England, it is the provincials who carry fashion to such an excess as to ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the house, was comparatively modern, built of stone in solid Georgian fashion, but quaintly flanked at either end by a massive, mediaeval tower, survival of the good old days when the Lovells of Fallowdene had held their own against all comers, not even excepting, in the case of one Roderic, his liege lord and master the King, the latter having conceived a not entirely unprovoked ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... this newly-created office, lived at the other end of the village and a little way outside it, in a low-storeyed house which had been greatly improved by Suzanne's good taste and fancy. It was surrounded by a garden with arbours and quaintly-clipped old trees and a clear, winding stream that flowed under the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... her followers were frequently abused and persecuted; and in 1773 "she was by a direct revelation instructed to repair to America;" and it is quaintly added that "permission was given for all those of the society who were able, and who felt any special impressions on their own minds so to do, to ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... the most beautiful studies of childhood—Rebecca's artistic, unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... quaintly beautiful white frock that John had so admired when he first saw her at the lawn fete at the Barton Randolph home. He saw that her eyes and hair were brown, her lips a coral red, her skin faintly tinted ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... one can write at once so beautifully, so quaintly, so suggestively, and so evangelically as John Bunyan. 'The Lord Willbewill,' says John Bunyan, 'took special care that the gates should be secured with double guards, double bolts, and double locks and bars; and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... "Nome beach gold is redder and brighter than any other Alaskan gold. I guess I'll have to get you each a piece for a souvenir," and both boys were made happy by the present of a quaintly shaped nugget, bought by Mr. Strong from the very miner who had mined it, which of course ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

... Thanksgiving dinner?" was a question which distressed more than one household that year. Indeed, it was often a question what to have for dinner, supper, or breakfast on any day. For that was the strangely unpropitious, unproductive season of 1816, quaintly known in local annals as "1800 ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... the laughing-bird, called Cockatoo, Who drops them a courtesy, and cries "How d' ye do?" Or Mungo, the negro, who quaintly and sly Takes his tea, Cayenne pepper, and cold apple-pie. Some gaze on the Cygnets that glide like a dream, And bend down to admire their fair forms in the stream; Some laugh at their fancies, or muse on a flower, And ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset

... daughters of the friendly spirits, and has made a mere fabliau episode of another thing of the kind. Nevertheless the attractions of Grettla are unique as regards the mixture of the natural and supernatural; not inferior to any other as illustrating the quaintly blended life of Iceland; and of the highest kind as regards the conception of the hero—a not ungenerous Strength, guided by no intellectual greatness and by hardly any overmastering passion, marred by an unsocial and overbearing temper, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it about, a garden-plat stretched upward to the whispering birches on the slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had stood almost a century ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... entrance to the court. The grandeur of the place, its magnificent proportions, terminating in the great, upward sweep of steps, and the mellow stained window, struck her more than ever after coming from the crowded and inconvenient little court within. The vaulted roof, with its quaintly carved angels, was for the most part dim and shadowy, but here and there a ray of sunshine, slanting in through the clerestory windows, changed the sombre tones to a golden splendor. Erica, very susceptible to all high influences, was ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... prominent chimneys of the condensing machinery—for there is scarcely any fresh water—seem to suggest manufacturing activity. But a nearer view reveals the melancholy squalor of the scene. A large part of the town is deserted. The narrow streets wind among tumbled-down and neglected houses. The quaintly carved projecting windows of the facades are boarded up. The soil exhales an odour of stagnation and decay. The atmosphere is rank with memories of waste and failure. The scenes that meet the eye intensify these impressions. The traveller who lands on Quarantine Island ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... undergraduate journals. And yet this obscure group, which had drawn together in a spirit of satire, had in it two or three men of real gift. Forbes himself was a man of uncommon vivacity. Small, stocky, with an unruly thatch of yellow hair and a quaintly wry and homely face, he hid his shyness and his brilliancy behind a brusque manner. Ostensibly cynical and a witty satirist of his more sentimental fellows, his desk was full of charming ballades and pieces d'amour, scratched ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... machines in scores, and behind them are long lines of covered wicker chairs of peculiar form, each with its foot-stool, where one may sit, shaded, from the sun and sheltered from the wind, and read, chat or doze by the hour. Bath women are seen quaintly clad with their baskets of bathing dresses and labeled with the signs bearing their names, such as Trintje or Netje; everywhere there are sightseers, pedlers calling their wares, children digging in the sand, strolling players performing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... winds through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. Up these stairs the military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a governor have trodden, as the wearers mounted to the cupola, which afforded them so wide a view over their metropolis and ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... Water-colour Room, are many interesting productions, and some curiosities in their way. We have Paul Sandby and the quaintly precise Capon beside Glover and Landseer—so that the drawings are as motley as the paintings. Here also are Lawrence's inimitable chalk portraits of his present Majesty and the Duke of Wellington, which show us how much true genius can accomplish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... Kashmiri Bhanrs are said to be of quite recent origin, having been invited from Kashmir by Nasir-ud-Din Haidar, king of Oudh." The Bhands perform their marriages by the Nikah form, in which a Kazi officiates. In virtue of being Muhammadans they abstain from pork and liquor. Dr. Buchanan [424] quaintly described them as "Impudent fellows, who make long faces, squeak like pigs, bark like dogs, and perform many other ludicrous feats. They also dance and sing, mimicking and turning into ridicule the dancing boys and girls, on whom they likewise ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... Australians!" Mrs. West ran on. "So interesting! I always do think that Australians are so original—so quaintly original. It must be the wild life you lead. So unlike dear, quiet little England. Bushrangers, and savage natives, and gold-mining. How I should ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... to real country—beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself. Then came broad, fair pastures of fairy green, and slow winding rivers that we overtook almost before we had seen them, with ghostly ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the kind of a marlinespike I am," replied the Captain quaintly. "I'd have got you out of Salem jail, unless it is a good deal ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... been a great traveller, had improved himself diligently in the art of war; and, as the old chronicles quaintly relate, "he visited most of the courts of Europe, even as far as Constantinople; wherein he made such advances in the school of Mars, that his superior skill in arms was generally applauded in every country he passed through." So distinguished ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... up, as the old books have it, in the year 1669, by order of Charles II.; and in addition to the parts represented in the cut, the inventer intended to place a water-dial at each corner, which he had nearly completed when the original Dial for want of a cover, as he quaintly observes, (which according to his Majestie's Gracious Order should have been set over it in the Winter) was much injured by the snow lying frozen upon it. But there was no chance of obtaining this out of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various

... and also that it is "an ethnological treasure, which tells us as much of Hindu human nature as The Thousand Nights and a Night of Arab manners and customs in the cinquecento." In India the book is known as the Kama Shastra or Lila Shastra, the Scripture of Play or Amorous Sport. The author says quaintly, "It is true that no joy in the world of mortals can compare with that derived from the knowledge of the Creator. Second, however, and subordinate only to his are the satisfaction and pleasure arising from the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... to the oldest of the daring navigators of this frozen sea, the worthy knight Sir Martin Frobisher, and tell the story of his notable efforts to discover a Northwest Passage, "the only thing left undone," as he quaintly says, "whereby a notable mind ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... I owe you my life, and therefore from this time forward my life is for yours, if need be. Nor shall my men be behind in that matter—that is if I ever see them again," he added, looking quaintly at me, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... almost immediately with the brandy in a quaintly cut liqueur glass. A glance at the clock as she passed seemed ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... monument, unequalled in Brittany, richly sculptured and ornamented. It rests on five arches, and you ascend to the platform by a short staircase in the interior. Here are crosses bearing the Saviour, and the thieves, quaintly carved, but with a great deal of religious feeling. The Evangelists, each with his particular attribute portrayed, are placed at the angles: and the whole history of the Life of Christ is represented by a countless number of small figures or personages dressed in costumes ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... magnificent. She looked like some imperial goddess, her forehead encircled by the faint band of mist that still lingered caressingly to the mountain tops, her countenance glistening with the dew on the green hill-slopes, her garments quaintly fashioned for her by the civilization that had brought her into being, her slippers the lustrous waters of the Bay itself. Later I came to know that she, too, was a goddess of moods, and dangerous moods; a coquette to some, a love to others, and to many ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... works dealing with those times it is not often that we get penetration into the underlying methods of the trading class. But a lucid insight is inadvertently given by Walter Barrett (who, for sixty years, was in the mercantile trade), in his smug and conventional, but quaintly entertaining, volumes, "The Merchants of Old New York." This strong instance shows like a flashlight that while the success of the shippers was attributed to a fine category of energetic qualities, the benevolent assistance of the United States Government was, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... man beat the bass with a stick, whilst the women took it in turns to kneel on the floor, with a stick in each hand, to play a tune on the series of six. A few words were passed between the three men, when suddenly one of them arose and performed a war-dance, quaintly twisting his arms and legs in attitudes of advance, recoil, and exultation. The dance finished, I mounted my horse and left the settlement in embryo, called by the missionaries Reus, which is the name of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... flourish; and this was then planted in pots as an act of gallantry. "Basil," says John Evelyn, "imparts a grateful flavour to sallets if not too strong, but is somewhat offensive to the eyes." Shenstone, in his School Mistress's Garden, tells of "the tufted Basil," and Culpeper quaintly says: "Something is the matter; Basil and Rue will never grow together: no, nor near one another." It is related [47] that a certain advocate of Genoa was once sent as an ambassador to treat for conditions with the Duke of Milan; but the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... turned it over to study the picture, she was greatly disappointed to find it had an old, cheap, stained frame. The picture seemed nondescript to her. It was a scene of an old bridge with fine old trees on both banks of the river. Quaintly costumed people strolled along both sides of the stream, and a funny tower rose at the further end of the bridge. The colors were crude and primary—no fine shading or artistic handling to be seen. A title under the picture, and several inscriptions in French at the left side of the bottom, ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... years, Jenner's gift to humanity had been accepted with that readiness with which the drowning clutch at straws. The most diverse climes, races, tongues and religions were united in blessing vaccination and its discoverer. The North American Indians forwarded to Dr. Jenner a quaintly worded address full of the deepest gratitude for what he had saved them from: "We shall not fail," said these simple people, "to teach our children to speak the name of Jenner, and to thank the Great Spirit for bestowing upon him so much ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... iron rule of the inexorable Roberval. Michel Gaillon was detected in a petty theft, and hanged. Jean de Nantes, for a more venial offence, was kept in irons. The quarrels of men and the scolding of women were alike requited at the whipping-post, "by which means," quaintly says the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Suja-ud-daula greeted him with a sympathetic interest, which Law quaintly likens to that shown by Dido for Aeneas, but money was not forthcoming, and Law soon found that Suja-ud-daula was not on sufficiently good terms with the Mogul's[110] Vizir[111] at Delhi to risk ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... said, with a quaintly pretty inclination of her head. "I am only sent here to make her Ladyship's apologies. She has put the poor dear dog into a warm bath, and she can't leave him. And Mr. Moody can't come instead of me, because I was too frightened to be of any use, and so he had to hold the dog. ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... and next a looking-glass worth three halfpence. With these aids to vanity are a case of tobacco-pipes valued at fourpence, half an ounce of tobacco valued at sixpence, and three pence in coin, or, as it is quaintly worded, "in money and golde." Satirists of course made fun of the smoker's pocketful of apparatus. A pamphleteer of 1609 says: "I behelde pipes in his pocket; now he draweth forth his tinder-box and his touchwood, and falleth to his tacklings; sure his throat is on fire, the smoke flyeth ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... the ultimo piano that the Leatherstonepaughs pitched their lodge in a vast wilderness of colorful tiled roofs, moss-grown and lichen-laden, amid a forest of quaintly-shaped and smokeless chimneys. Their floors, guiltless of rugs or carpets, were of earthen tiles and worn into hollows where the feet of the palace-dwellers passed oftenest to and fro. A multitude ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... they stooped to taste thy stream. The sportsman, tired with wandering in the still September noon, has bathed his heated brow In thy cool current. Shouting boys, let loose For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped Into a cup the folded linden leaf, And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side Has sat, and mused how pleasant 'twere to dwell In such a spot, and be as free as thou, And move for no man's bidding more. At eve, When thou wert crimson with the crimson ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... been a slavey for those stuck-up pigs," said the girl in a subdued mutter, and then she went on to recount, quaintly and in a half incoherent jumble, the salient facts of her life. I glanced at Mick. He was leaning forward, peering through another slit. His face had its old set look; stern, condemnatory. Twice I had had to reach out and grip his wrist. He wanted ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... say, what the errand pressing him to such speed. In soliloquy he has himself declared it: hastening to communicate news which he knows will be welcome to the Paraguayan tyrant, and afterwards return to Halberger's estancia with a party of those hireling soldiers—quaintly termed cuarteleros from their living in barracks, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... speculation, Morton peered among these faces, not quite sure that he would know Lambert if he saw him. As a matter of fact, he would have missed him had not the miner laid a hand upon his arm, saying, quaintly: "Howdy, professor, howdy! What's the state ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... far away, by the bye, that the old Jewish cemetery is to be found. Alderman Curran quaintly suggested that an unwarned stranger might easily stub his toe on the little graveyard on Eleventh Street. It is Beth Haim, the Hebrew Place of Rest, close to Milligan Lane. The same Eleventh Street, which ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... may be seen the fat figures of the Seven Gods of Wealth, the deities most beloved in every Japanese household. Then there are the God and Goddess of Rice, who protect the crops, and who are attended by the figures of foxes quaintly carved in wood or moulded in white plaster. The Goddess of Mercy, with her many hands to help and save, is ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore

... thing at least of which he could still feel the spirit of a debutante. In this matter of war he was not, too, unlike a young girl embarking upon her first season of opera. Walkely, the next morning, saw this mood sitting quaintly upon Coleman and cackled with astonishment and glee. Coleman's usual manner did not return until he detected Walkely's appreciation of his state and then he snubbed him according to the ritual of the Sunday editor of the New York Eclipse. Parenthetically, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... so quaintly, imitating his stride, his awkward gesture, and his faulty phraseology with such funny exaggeration that Heron laughed ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... Budleigh Salterton (why either, but especially both?), quaintly pretty, and rather Holland-like with its miniature bridges and canal. Then to Exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny "Maison Carree" (which would remind one more of Nimes if it had no bay windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... and talk to these people. No, no, he may to some extent have secured notoriety in circles even as far off as London, but really there is nothing in the man. Why, he was brought up here in the village! But these quaintly prejudiced folk are, after all, but a remnant, and the great mass of people all around in the farms and cottages prize his fame highly. The pride with which a villager refers to the fact that he went to school with Mr. Lloyd George must be one of the highest ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... and all around lay the garden—flowers and fruit quaintly intermingled. Down the long path to the gate, where three roads met, great bunches of peonies lifted white blossoms—luminously white in the moonlight; and on either side rows of currant bushes cast low, dark shadows, and here and there dwarf crab-apple trees tossed pale, scented ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... examining the leaves and the flowers with extraordinary interest. From time to time a deep, sad sigh broke from his oppressed chest; he passed his hand over his brow as if to efface the importunate images. He sat down amid the quaintly clipped boxwood which ornamented the garden in the antique fashion, called his son again to him, held him between his knees, interrogating him again, in a low voice, as he had done before; then drew him ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... disorder in her hair and more than once the wind whaffed it into my face. In walking our fingers touched once and again; greatly daring, mine slipped over hers, and so like children we went hand in hand. An old romancer tells quaintly in one of his tales how Love made himself of the party, and so it was with us that night. I found my answer at last without words. While the heavens wept our hearts sang. The wine of love ran through me in exquisite ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those who browse in the sleepy meadows of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... stretching themselves upon the ground near by. Then a garland was set up at the far end of the glade, and thereat the bowmen shot, and such shooting was done that day as it would have made one's heart leap to see. And all the while Robin talked so quaintly to the Bishop and the Knight that, the one forgetting his vexation and the other his troubles, they both laughed aloud ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... surroundings. It is about six o'clock, after a day spent on duty, when I reach Diou-djen-dji. The evening sun, low in the sky, on the point of setting, pours into my room, and floods it with rays of red gold, lighting up the Buddhas and the great sheaves of quaintly arranged flowers in the antique vases. Here are assembled five or six little dolls, my neighbors, amusing themselves by dancing to the sound of Chrysantheme's guitar. And this evening I experienced a real charm in feeling that this dwelling and the woman who ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... I owe it to my grandmother. I will perhaps be pardoned if I say that all my girlhood life was spent with my Grandmother Bronson, a very small woman, weighing less than ninety pounds, small featured, always quaintly dressed in the old-fashioned Levantine silk with two breadths only in the skirt, a crossed silk handkerchief with a small white one folded neatly across her breast, a black silk apron, dainty cap made of sheer linen lawn with full ruffles. ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... precipitous gullies with deep water rushing between. Attached to each Nepaulee pad, by a stout curiously-plaited cord, ornamented with fancy knots and tassels of silk, was a small pestle-shaped instrument, not unlike an auctioneer's hammer. It was quaintly carved, and studded with short, blunt, shining, brass nails or spikes. I had noticed these hanging down from the pads, and had often wondered what they were for. I was now to see them used. While the mahouts in front rained a shower of blows on the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... mother whom all of them united to adore. There is an actual photograph of her here, taken at the age of twenty, which goes far to explain how she came to be the heroine of the story; the lurking gaiety and laughter of it quaintly foretelling the great ecclesiastical lady who, on one occasion when the Archbishop was absent, could announce to her enraptured children that family prayers should be remitted, "as a treat!" Schooldays at Wellington; Cambridge; ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... stuck in one corner of the mouth, or twisted in the hatband, and would never be in the way. Thus ended this alarming insurrection, which was long known by the name of the Pipe Plot, and which, it has been somewhat quaintly observed, did end, like most plots and seditions, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... made no reply, but seemed lost in a reverie, and Albert slowly puffed his cigar and looked out on the ocean, and along the ever-widening path of moonlight. He very much wished that this fair girl, so quaintly spoken of, were there beside him, that he might talk to her about her art. And as he grew curious and a bit surprised at the sort of people he had unexpectedly come upon, a little desire to know at least ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... Verrall is in her company. She comes back into my memories now, just as she came back then, rather quaintly at first—at first not seen very clearly, a little distorted by intervening things, seen with a doubt, as I saw her through the slightly discolored panes of crinkled glass in the window of the Menton post-office and grocer's shop. It was on the second ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... buncher there, as they're called," he was quaintly explaining—"quite the best one in the shop, I'm told, though she's only eighteen years old. She has a record of 6,500 ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... rivers and only differences need be paid; that money (heart and driving-force of all the mysteries) should have within itself the mysterious and astounding quality of ceaselessly reduplicating itself—"the only thing in the world," as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs—"the only thing m the world that people, business people, will take care of for you without charging you for storage or for trouble"—that these mysterious and extraordinary things should ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... group! in Bowness' street we stand— Nine swains enamoured of our wives, Each quaintly writing on his hand, In haste, as 'twere ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... to another room, and partook of a homely yet not uninviting repast. When men are pleased with each other, conversation soon gets beyond the ordinary surfaces to talk; and an exchange of deeper opinions was speedily effected by what old Barnes* quaintly enough terms, "The gentleman-usher of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the mother of that handsome, proud-looking man. We drove through the streets, away out of the town, to the place where the fair was held. It was an odd, picturesque sight, with the gaily decorated booths, the crowds of quaintly dressed men and women, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... Iron Ships, The Marine Steam-engine, and An Outline of Ship-building, Theoretical and Practical, could hardly have dreamed that their works would one night go up-stairs in the embrace of a young woman's arms. The books would have struck a naval architect as quaintly old-fashioned, but to Marie Louise they were as full of news as the latest evening extra. The only one she could understand with ease was Captain Samuels's From the Forecastle to the Cabin, and she was thrilled by his account of the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... may season it in the charge;[1] [Sidenote: Fayth as you] You must not put another scandall on him, That hee is open to Incontinencie;[2] That's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly, That they may seeme the taints of liberty; The flash and out-breake of a fiery minde, A sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... at tea-time," said Miss Barton hopefully. "Mrs. Marsden surely can't go very wrong there. We're going to walk to the woods this afternoon. I've bespoken Jenny, the fourth child, as a guide. She's the most quaintly fascinating person. I hope she won't be long; we're waiting for ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... when the charms of Iole Were shrin'd within his heart. And yet there hides No sorrowful repentance here, but mirth, Not for the fault (that doth not come to mind), But for the virtue, whose o'erruling sway And providence have wrought thus quaintly. Here The skill is look'd into, that fashioneth With such effectual working, and the good Discern'd, accruing to this upper world From that below. But fully to content Thy wishes, all that in this sphere have birth, Demands my further parle. Inquire thou wouldst, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... I have hesitated to describe the hollow-eyed cripple, the quaintly-dressed artisan's wife, a few pages ago, what shall I do with this graceful, shapely, elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she has been merged within these two months? In good faith she was ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... extravagance of green and crimson, red and white carnations, red, white, and yellow roses. The sunshine broke into colour, it laughed, it danced, it almost rioted, among the flowers; but in the prim alleys, and on the formal hedges of box, and the quaintly-clipped yews, and the old purple brick walls, where fruit trees were trellised, it lay fast, fast asleep. Without the walls, in the deep cool greenery of the park, there was a perpetual drip-drip of bird-notes. This was the web, upon which a chosen handful of more accomplished ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... Dominie came, mounted on a clumsy-footed, big-headed, bay cob—a little bright-eyed girl, whose face was full of sweetness and love, and dressed in blue and white, riding behind him. His broad, kindly face, shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, his flowing white hair, his quaintly cut coat, with the ample side pocket, and his long, white necktie, presented a picture so full of truth and simplicity as to be worthy of being preserved on canvas. He was, in truth, a figure belonging to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... earnest and beautiful spirit. Even he, however, admits the demoralising influence of the surrounding paganism—an influence which none wholly escaped, and before which some actually succumbed. "I feel in myself," quaintly writes another, "a great want of that spirituality of mind which New Zealand is so very unfavourable for; because of the continual scenes of evil that there is before our eyes, and for want of Christian society. So that you must excuse my barrenness of writing, and give me all the Christian ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... short hickory bow, while the other rather touched than sought support, from the long, delicate handle of an ashen lance. A quiver made of the cougar skin, from which the tail of the animal depended, as a characteristic ornament, was slung at his back, and a shield of hides, quaintly emblazoned with another of his warlike deeds, was suspended from his neck by a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... shades and bowers, In durance vile must pass the hours; There con the scholiast's dreary lines, Where no bright ray of genius shines, And close to rugged learning cling, While laughs around the jocund spring. How gladly would my soul forego All that arithmeticians know, Or stiff grammarians quaintly teach, Or all that industry can reach, To taste each morn of all the joys That with the laughing sun arise; And unconstrain'd to rove along The bushy brakes and glens among; And woo the muse's gentle power In unfrequented rural bower: But, ah! such heaven-approaching joys Will never greet my longing ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... said the Captain quaintly. "I never stopped long enough in France to get hold of ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... by Colonel Whittlesey,[235] the total area covered by these intrenchments is no less than twelve square miles, and the length of the mounds exceeds two miles. The large entrances protected by mounds thirty-five feet high, the avenues leading to them which are regular labyrinths, the quaintly shaped mounds — one, for instance, represents the foot of a gigantic bird — all combine to strike the visitor with astonishment. We give a representation (Fig. 86) of a group, not unlike that we have just described, which is situated at Liberty (Ohio), and includes two circles ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... there—a Parisian—I forget his honoured name—Leblanc, or Lenoir, or Lebrun, or something—but he's a most humorous artist, and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer beasties ALMOST as quaintly and expressively as you do. Mind, I say ALMOST, for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything QUITE so good, quite so funnily mock-human, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... over the sill to rob some new-made grave. Certainly he would have a selection here. The very walks have been carried over forgotten resting-places; and the whole ground is uneven, because (as I was once quaintly told) 'when the wood rots it stands to reason the soil should fall in,' which, from the law of gravitation, is certainly beyond denial. But it is round the boundary that there are the finest tombs. The whole irregular space is, as it were, fringed with quaint ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a month passed rapidly and pleasantly away, what with exploring excursions by land and air, in the latter of which by no means the least diverting element was the keen and quaintly-expressed delight of Louis Holt at the new method of travel. Two or three times Arnold had, for his satisfaction, sent the Ariel flying over the ridge across which she had entered Aeria, but he had always been content with a glimpse of the outside ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... this part of Carlyle's life without mention of what I conceive to be his most original and remarkable production,—"Sartor Resartus,"—The Stitcher Restitched: or, The Tailor Done Over,—the title of an old Scotch song. It is a quaintly conceived reproduction of the work of an imaginary German professor on "The Philosophy of Clothes,"—under which external figure he includes all institutions, customs, beliefs, in which humanity has draped itself, as distinguished from the inner reality of man ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... of gastronomy, quaintly puts it that smell and taste form only one sense, having the mouth as laboratory, with the nose for the fire-place or chimney; the one serving to taste solids, the other gases. George Dallas, too, the gifted author ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... before its hospitable doors, travel-worn and weary, we had been pained to find a sort of full-dress dinner going on where we expected to find an ordinary table d'hote. For this reason alone we passed the hotel by, and hunted out the quaintly named Hotel du Croissant, in a dimly lighted little back street, indicated by a flaring crescent of electric ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... was a secret compact between them, for he said, quaintly: "They all sing one song, and she hath ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... of the impressions made upon her reads just a little quaintly, possibly because of the unfamiliar Quaker phraseology. "To-day I have felt that there is a God! I have been devotional, and my mind has been led away from the follies that it is mostly wrapped up in. We had much serious conversation; in short, what he said, and what I ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... reflect: especially when he remembers how far finer and how thoroughly charming a tribute of dramatic and poetic celebration had been paid full eighteen years earlier to the same favored craft by the sweeter and rarer genius of Dekker. This quaintly apologetic assurance of by-gone popularity in subject and in style will remind all probable readers of Heywood's prologue to "The Royal King and Loyal Subject," and his dedicatory address prefixed to "The Four Prentices of London." It happily ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... that climb the laden fruit-trees, its firs, magnolias, great laurels, its glowing tomatoes and melons, its lettuces and capsicums and scattered flowers, all mingled with that carelessness which is art unconscious of its own grace; its daedalian paths, its statues so quaintly placed in unsuspected corners, its—well, the picture is finished, for now begins the effort to recall its details. The eye's memory is a judicious painter that never overcrowds the canvas. I can see on that side of the building, which ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... belongings in a little heap. They were considerable. Over thirty pounds in gold and silver. Twenty pounds in notes in an old pocket-book. His watch—certainly a valuable one. A pipe, a silver match-box, a tobacco-box of some metal, quaintly chased and ornamented. Various other small matters—but, with one exception, no papers or letters. The one exception was a slightly torn, dirty envelope addressed in an ill-formed handwriting to Mr. Salter Quick, care of Mr. Noah Quick, The Admiral Parker, Haulaway Street, Devonport. There ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet, meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... number of variants legion. Saint Peter is represented as afflicted with the toothache, and sitting on a marble stone by the wayside. Our Lord passes by, and cures him by a few spoken words. The following quaintly illiterate version of this spell was in vogue in the north of Scotland within recent years: "Petter was laying his head upon a marrable ston, weping, and Christ came by and said: 'What else [ails] thou, Petter?' Petter answered: 'Lord God, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... by the butler, assisted by a trim parlor-maid. Fenella presided. The note of domesticity which her action involved seemed to Arnold, for some reason or other, quaintly incongruous. Arnold waited upon them, and Fenella talked all the time to the pale, silent girl at her side. Gradually Ruth overcame her shyness; it was impossible not to feel grateful to this beautiful, gracious woman who tried so hard to make her feel at her ease. The time ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... car rolled up before it and came to a dead and silent halt. Charles, the mechanician, jumping out, ran hastily up the path towards the inn. In the car Brentwick turned again, his eyes curiously bright in the starlight, his forehead quaintly furrowed, his ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... and I saw Lee standing beside a slender figure in unbecoming dress among a group of men in blue shirts and quaintly mended jackets; also that some planks had been laid across ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... told us in "Persia and the Persians," wood is abundant; and the Persian architect, taking advantage of his opportunity, has designed his houses with wooden piazzas—not found elsewhere—and with "beams, lintels, and eaves quaintly, sometimes elegantly, carved, and tinted with brilliant hues." Another feature of the decorative woodwork in this part of Persia is that produced by the large latticed windows, which are well adapted to ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... as is evident from the kernelling and the battlements mentioned. Castles of jelly templewise made. Lel. Coll. IV. p. 227. [2] lynger. longer. [3] gretust. greatest. [4] ee, i. e. thou. [5] kyrnels. Battlements. V. Gloss. Keyntlich, quaintly, curiously. V. Gloss. [6] bataiwyng. embatteling. [7] helde. put, cast. [8] another. As the middle one and only two more are provided for, the two remaining were to be filled, I presume, in the same manner alternately. ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge

... you have awakened it. I was just thinking how vivid you looked with that setting of overhanging bushes and the background of fields. I—I think it must have been your gown that gave such a quaintly incongruous effect.' ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... was done between 1631 and 1635, and in 1636 Charles I and his Queen visited Oxford and were entertained in the newly-finished college. Much bad verse was written on this event, two lines of which as a specimen may be quoted from the quaintly-named poem, "Parnassus Biceps": ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... chant in the cotton fields. Aged fingers and youthful hands were eager with grabbing the cool, dew-dampened fleece of the fields. The women wore bandana handkerchiefs, and picturesquely down the rows their red heads were bobbing. Whence came their tunes, so quaintly weird, so boisterous and yet so full of melancholy? The composer has sought to catch them, has touched them with his refining art and has spoiled them. The playwright has striven to transfer from the field to the stage a cotton-picking scene and has made ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... [1]Herr Diels quaintly finds that Esperanto has only one gender—the feminine! Surely an ultra-Shavian obsession of femininity. It is perhaps some distinction to out-Shaw ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark



Words linked to "Quaintly" :   quaint



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