Think of people FARMING on a slant which is so steep that the best you can say of it--if you want to be
fastidiously accurate--is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quite so steep as a mansard roof.
Others are still more capricious in their tastes; and after gathering together a heap of the nuts of all ages, and ingeniously tapping them, will first sip from one and then from another, as
fastidiously as some delicate wine-bibber experimenting glass in hand among his dusty demi-johns of different vintages.
Ellenwood was a shy, but not quite a secluded man; selfish, like all men who brood over their own hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object, either of public advantage or personal ambition; a gentleman, high bred and
fastidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considerable relaxation, in his behalf, of the common rules of society.
But he was very tentative,
fastidiously so, letting Ruth set the pace of sprightliness and fancy, keeping up with her but never daring to go beyond her.
I was unarmed, but the Chinese have learned to be
fastidiously careful of American hip pockets, and it was upon this that I depended to keep him and his savage crew at a distance.
She remained quiet, for she had learned the hypersensitiveness induced by drink and was
fastidiously careful not to hurt him even with the knowledge that she had lain awake for him.
"I was, sire, even if it were nothing more than an indigestion," said Colbert; "for people do not give their sovereigns such banquets as the one of to-day, unless it be to stifle them beneath the burden of good living." Colbert awaited the effect this coarse jest would produce upon the king; and Louis XIV., who was the vainest and the most
fastidiously delicate man in his kingdom, forgave Colbert the joke.
She drew a green vase with a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling out the tight little chrysanthemums, which she laid on the table-cloth, arranging them
fastidiously side by side.
Daylight was
fastidiously chivalrous on this point.
He saw her against a background of pale grottos and sleek hides; camels slanted their heavy-ridded eyes at her, giraffes
fastidiously observed her from their melancholy eminence, and the pink-lined trunks of elephants cautiously abstracted buns from her outstretched hands.
Rosamond, though no older than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with; but she, for her part, had remained indifferent and
fastidiously critical towards both fresh sprig and faded bachelor.
He was
fastidiously exclusive, and no guest at the cottage ever succeeded in making up to him.