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More "Overdone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the photograph was just of the kind one would expect from a madly jealous woman. Everything planned with supreme cunning, but the scene at which the hated rival enters the scheme badly overdone." ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... on board the prow, great and small, belched forth a volume of smoke, flame, and metal, but the result was trifling. In his anxiety to do deadly execution, the pirate had overdone his work. He had allowed his foe to come too close, and most of the discharge from the heavy guns passed over her, while the men with small arms, rendered nervous by prolonged delay, fired hastily, and, therefore, badly. A few wounds were suffered, and many narrow escapes were ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Delia resented the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol herself among them—to worship with the rest—from afar; were it not for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It was not the greatest men—not the best men—who were so easily ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time, we would by no means scoff at the counsel of our Ahitophels. A glance at the newspapers of last month, and their interminable advertising columns, is quite enough to convince us that the thing may be overdone. True, not one out of five—nay, perhaps, not one out of fifteen—of these swarming schemes, has the chance of obtaining the sanction of Parliament for years to come; still, it is not only a pity, but a great waste and national grievance, that so large ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington. This painter's notion of personal dignity has far more of the intellectual quality than Van Dyck. He loves to give us stately, able, fairly conscientious gentry, rather than overdone royalty. His work represents a certain mood in design that in architecture is called colonial. Such portraits go with houses like Mount Vernon. Let the photographer study the flat blacks in the garments. Let him note the transparent impression of the laces and flesh-tints that ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... have been overdone in Art and Literature. Leave them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send a stamp ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... thrown in the midst of dissipation, gaming, and every species of vice. Such was the crowd of adventurers in 1829, to this hitherto almost unknown and desolate region, that the lead business was greatly overdone, and the market for awhile nearly destroyed. Fortunes were made almost upon a turn of the spade, and lost with equal facility. The business has revived and is profitable. Exhaustless quantities of mineral exist here, over a tract of country ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... remembered that story, told in twilight and firelight by my father!), and only the set of Robert's shoulders deterred me. What was a romantic fragment of history, compared to the certainty that the roast would be overdone? ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... read his little unsuccessful circumstances vanished and the wonder of life returned to him, the routine of reluctant getting up, opening shop, pretending to dust it with zest, breakfasting with a shop egg underdone or overdone or a herring raw or charred, and coffee made Miriam's way and full of little particles, the return to the shop, the morning paper, the standing, standing at the door saying "How do!" to passers-by, or getting a bit of gossip or watching unusual visitors, all these things ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... spiritualism. Religious vagaries, with all their absurdities, always have a lofty, sometimes even a sublime, side. It would be wrong to fancy that there is nothing but ignorant superstition in the Starovere's scrupulous attachment to his ancestral worship. The vulgar heresy is, in fact, only an overdone ritualism, whose logic lands it in absurdity. The Old Believer's reverence for the letter comes from his belief that letter and spirit are indissolubly united, and that the forms of religion are as needful as its essence. Religion is to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... tribe. The Roman emperors, almost from the beginning, threw themselves into such hands; and the mischief increased every day till the decline and final ruin of the empire. It is therefore of very great importance (provided the thing is not overdone) to contrive such an establishment as must, almost whether a prince will or not, bring into daily and hourly offices about his person a great number of his first nobility; and it is rather an useful prejudice that gives them a pride in such a servitude. Though they are not much the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... next stage to which I introduce him; the subjects I suggest for his consideration rouse his curiosity, because they are fine in themselves, because they are quite new to him, and because he is able to understand them. Your young people, on the other hand, are weary and overdone with your stupid lessons, your long sermons, and your tedious catechisms; why should they not refuse to devote their minds to what has made them sad, to the burdensome precepts which have been continually piled upon them, to the thought of the Author of their being, who has been represented ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... soon, made a short run of about 1/2 mile, and then after a short halt to cool, a long non-stop for quite 3 miles. The Barrier, five geographical miles from Cape Armitage, now looked very close, but Lashly had overdone matters a bit, run out of lubricant and got his engine too hot. The next run yielded a little over a mile, and he was forced to stop within a few hundred yards of the snow slope leading to the Barrier and wait for more ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... spread it upon; but in this case, without duly considering the relation between the two, the table-cloth has been created, but the table refuses to appear. The napkin business, therefore, seems to have been slightly overdone. Finally, the call of the scattered household to dinner by kettle-drums and whistling savors too strongly of Indian ways and usages to be diverted into a summons to the dancers, as Herrera suggests. This Aztec dinner-call, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... pa I had only been teaching the monk manly tricks, and pa said: "Well, you have overdone it." And then the Humane society had pa arrested for cruelty to animals. But the monk got over it, and now he tries to be a masher, and winks at women, and flirts with them just as the men do ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... is a great deal of symbolism; there is, I think, too much. It is overdone at times, and becomes mechanical; it ceases to be impressive, and grazes triviality. The idea of the mystic A which the young minister finds imprinted upon his breast and eating into his flesh, in sympathy with the embroidered badge that ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... this censure attaches not to the poetic but to the histrionic art; for gesticulation may be equally overdone in epic recitation, as by Sosi-stratus, or in lyrical competition, as by Mnasitheus the Opuntian. Next, all action is not to be condemned any more than all dancing—but only that of bad performers. Such was the fault found in Callippides, as also in others ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... treated us it needs not to be told, for it was in the way of a good Somerset franklin, and that is saying much. But that night he would talk little, seeing that I and Wulfhere were overdone with want of sleep. Indeed it was but the need of caution that had kept me from falling asleep on my horse more than once on the road. So very soon they brought us skins and cloaks, and we stretched ourselves before the fire, and warmed, and cleansed, ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... contrary it is often stimulating and may actually increase the vigor of a weak or declining tree. All practical experience teaches us that pruning is a reasonable, necessary, and advantageous process. True, it is often overdone, and improperly done. As in many other things, certain fundamental principles underlie and should govern practice. When these are known and observed, pruning ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... to add the woman, Penelope, who has her part, perhaps the most difficult in this difficult business. She cannot resort to violence, she must use her feminine weapon, tact, with a degree of skill which makes her an example for all time. Indeed not a few of her sex declare that she has overdone the matter, and that her acts are morally questionable. But there can be no doubt that it is the part of tact to find fault with tact, and that woman will always decry woman's skill in artifice, without refraining from its employment ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... No? But you ought to, that is, if you care for such things. He goes after blue—the misuse of it. He says it's the color most pleasureable to the eye in its purest intensity. But you mustn't dab it on. A blue house is a crime. Blue's overdone here too, blue sky, blue mists, blue shadows, blue lakes, blue flowers,—anemones, harebells, columbines and the rest. It's a relief to get into the reds ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... words. May Webster had spoken truly when she said that this man lived in the hearts of his people. Sally delayed her departure for London for a few weeks when she found that she could be of great service in the village by going and lending a helping hand when the mothers got overdone with nursing, for it was chiefly among the children of the place that the fever found its victims. Twenty succumbed, and then there was a day or two when ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... allegory of Vertumnus, with his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and on the other Pomona, Diana, &c. Perhaps in these last he has carried his imitation of Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of draperies, which are too profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works are overdone; he was so anxious to rival his master that he forced his invention, altering and labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of his work. Some of his frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but they are not fair specimens of his best style, as they were ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... early childhood, they talked freely of the Applegarth business, and Mr. Turnbull promised to make inquiries at once. Of course, he took a despondent view of jam. Jam, he inclined to think, was being overdone; after all, the country could consume only a certain quantity of even the most wholesome preserves, and a glut of jam already threatened the market. Applegarth? By the bye, did he not remember proceedings in bankruptcy ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... Mr. Tiralla had indeed overdone it. He felt very unwell. As they all sat drinking coffee round the [Pg 186] festive-looking table, on which a coloured cloth had been spread, he looked at them with doll eyes. "So now we're all together again." Then he nodded to his son and got ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... you were happy at first, perhaps you are only miserable now because you are tired and overdone. I think even if I were going to marry Rex, I should feel sad the last few weeks when I thought of leaving father and the old home, and all the rest of you. It seems only natural. It would be rather heartless ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... we must return to the invalid, restore her serenity with a smile, give her reason to hope for convalescence in every line of our faces. Then we feel an unconquerable longing to rush from the room and from the poor creature. We leave the house, we wander at random through the streets; at last, overdone with fatigue, we sit down at a table in a cafe. We mechanically take up a copy of L'Illustration and our eyes fall at once upon the solution of its last riddle: Against death, there is ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... unpleasant an idea from their minds; you persuade them to remain as they are, from a new fear that their activity may bring on the apprehended mischief before its time. I confess freely that this evil sometimes happens from an overdone precaution; but it is when the measures are rash, ill-chosen, or ill-combined, and the effects rather of blind terror than of enlightened foresight. But the few to whom I wish to submit my thoughts are of a character which will enable them to see danger without astonishment, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... they chiefly dined, and said it was Mamity, very good victuals; and we not only said, but thought, the same of the pork. The hog weighed about fifty pounds. Some parts about the ribs I thought rather overdone, but the more fleshy parts were excellent; and the skin, which by the way of our dressing can hardly be eaten, had, by this method, a taste and flavour superior to any thing I ever met with of the kind. I ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better he might have ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... cook, crossing herself; "from no good, at any rate. Troth, I'll get a gospel and a scapular, for, to tell you the truth, I observed that Masther Harry gave me a look the other day that made my flesh creep, by rason that he thought the mutton was overdone." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Contemporaries. Eleventh edition. Revised by Thompson Cooper. London, 1884. Sm. 8vo. A volume of 1168 pages should contain a fair representation of the men of the day, and yet it is ludicrously incomplete. The literary side is as much overdone as the scientific side is neglected. This is not the place to make a list of shortcomings, but it will probably astonish most of our readers to learn that such eminent Men of the Time as Sir Frederick Abel, Sir Frederick Bramwell, ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... if exhibition dancing will ever be overdone. It is popular, and good dancers for this line of work are not too numerous. So it seems likely to be in ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... generously for the erection and maintenance of luxurious church buildings and for the sustenance of men appointed to the idolatrous service of Rome. I saw bishops and priests grow rich until they possessed the choicest real estate. I thought then that Paul's admonitions were overdone. I thought he should have requested the people to curtail their contributions. I saw how the generosity of the people of the Church was encouraging covetousness on the part of the clergy. I ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... in front of that moving-picture theatre again. "THE DOUBLE LIFE"—his eyes were attracted involuntarily to the lurid, overdone display. It seemed to threaten him; it seemed to dangle before him a premonition as it were, of what the morning held in store; but now, too, it seemed to feed into flame that smouldering fury that possessed him. His life—or Whitey Mack's! Men, women, and the children who ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... well charged with living freight already," said the Genoese, regarding the deeply loaded bark with a half-distrustful eye 'I hope thou hast not overdone thy vessel's powers in receiving ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... frustrated by the thick heads, or worse, by the inevitable suggestions of those remarkably intelligent corporals, who seem to consider themselves as having a special mission direct from heaven to know everything except how to do what they are bid. And oh! the first camp cookery, when everything is overdone except what is underdone; when the soup is water, and the coffee grounds, and the tea (we had tea in the three-months!) senna! And after a day of worry, hurry, confusion, and awful cooking, the first rough sleep, with a root running across your ribs, and a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Duane. I've only overdone myself—just all in. The wounds I got at Bland's are healing. Will you take this girl in—hide her awhile till the excitement's ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... worship of the "sane mind" has been a little overdone, I think. The men who are prone to say of everyone that they "exaggerate a little," or "are morbid," are like weights in a scale—just, but oh, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... distance. Other varieties of the common white poplar or abele are occasionally useful, although most of them sprout badly and may become a nuisance. But the planting of these immodest trees is so likely to be overdone that one scarcely dare recommend them, although, when skillfully used, they may be made to produce most excellent effects. If any reader has a particular fondness for trees of this class (or any others with woolly-white ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... reflects the sun. From beak to tail it threw off this glowing hue, except for its chin and throat, which were a limpid amaranth purple; and the effect on the excited rods and cones in one's eyes was like the power of great music or some majestic passage in the Bible. You, who think my similes are overdone, search out in the nearest museum the dustiest of purple-throated cotingas,—Cotinga cayana,—and then, instead, berate me ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... a warm and soft tenor, and he had sung very naturally, carelessly almost. But everything had been just right. When he had stolen time, when he had given it back, the stealing and repayment had been right. His expression had been charming and not overdone. There had been at moments a delightful impudence in his singing. The touches of tenderness had been light as a feather, but they had had real meaning. Through his last song he had kept a cigarette alight ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... and importance of East Falls; but this was worse than all discounting. Things were more meagre than he had dreamed. The general store took his breath away. Countless myriads of times he had contrasted it with his own spacious emporium, but now he saw that in justice he had overdone it. He felt certain that it could not accommodate two of his delicatessen counters, and he knew that he could lose all of it ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... silence, consuming great quantities of half-cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... had proved more of a Job's comforter in the literal sense of the term, than he had intended; in fact he had overdone it—the picture was too highly coloured to appear natural, and at once threw back poor Job upon a full view of all his troubles, which Mr Smith perceiving, mildly resumed, "I'm not surprised, my good fellow, at your being excited, from the violent shock ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... "You're overdone, MacIan," said Turnbull, putting him on one side. "It's only someone playing the goat. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... at least came and went in Monteith's agitated mind; the oddest intensity of apprehension, admiration, mystification, which the high north-light of the March afternoon and the quite splendidly vulgar appeal of fifty overdone decorative effects somehow fostered and sharpened. Everything had already gone, however, the next moment, for wasn't the man he had come so much too intelligently himself to patronise absolutely bowling him over with the extraordinary speech: "See here, you ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... evening of the married pair's return, a handsome dinner was served. The train was a trifle behind time; the day had been cold, and several other untoward circumstances had conspired to let loose the bridegroom's natural depravity. An overdone roast served to touch ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... welcome, dear. What a time those little squares of lace must take. I am like yourself in respect of religion; in the first place, I think that nothing should be overdone. Have you ever-I have never spoken to any one on the subject, but I see your ideas are so in accordance with my ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... depositors are either laborers or in "business;" business that they would enlarge if business of all kinds was not already overdone. It is not to be inferred from this that the new law will cause factories to run day and night, or keep the merchant's door always on the swing. There will be an increase of business surely; but this world is not like a goose whose liver ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... showing that she was quite Parisienne; and there again she was mistaken; for having lived half her life out of Paris, she had forgotten, if she ever had it, the tone of good society, and upon her return had overdone the matter, exaggerated French manners, to prove to her niece that she knew les usages, les convenances, les nuances—enfin, la mode de Paris! A more dangerous guide in Paris for a young married woman in every respect could ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... few minutes the mother was covering her only son's head with tender kisses, so violently and so long that her strength failed her and she fell back on the pillows, overdone. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... whole; but a large head and shoulders are quite sufficient for a dish, and contain all that is usually helped, because, when the thick part is done, the tail is insipid and overdone. The latter, cut in slices, makes a very good dish for frying; or it may be salted down and served with egg sauce and parsnips. Cod, when boiled quite fresh, is watery; salting a little, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... bed—arose on the shelf and convinced her that she was in the presence of a mouse. She retreated, and perhaps if any convalescent patient had been awake she would have enlisted his aid to expel the mouse; but in the ward the patients were, as one man, snoring vociferously. It was this slightly overdone snoring, at the finish, which gave birth to suspicions and caused the ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... speech is indistinct; you must manage never to miss a word she says. She is slightly—very slightly—deaf; you must speak in your natural voice, yet never oblige her to be in doubt as to what you say. She likes a respectful manner, but if it is overdone the indiscretion soon receives a startling reproof. Be as easy as you like in her presence provided that your ease is natural; if it strikes Lady Ogram as self-assertion—beware the lash! From time to time ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the tumult Cassel still apparently slept. Only a few soldiers stood in the square, looking up at a drift of white cloud behind which—they averred—a Taube had just slipped out of sight. Cassel was evidently used to Taubes, and I had the sense of having overdone my excitement and not being exactly in tune; so after gazing a moment at the white cloud I slunk back into the hotel, barred the door and mounted to my room. At a window on the stairs I paused to look out over ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... time there was a subdued air of mystery about the three lads, which Dorothy noticed, if none of the other girls did. Also, they were so extremely courteous and thoughtful that it was rather overdone. However, politeness was agreeable, and there followed the happiest evening the young guests had spent since the departure of Gray Lady for ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... of the Wee Frees. I wanted this to be rather pathetic, but I'm not sure that I haven't overdone it. The symbolism, though, is well-nigh perfect, and, after all, the symbolism is the chief thing. This goes to the tune ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... truth, not above it, to avert disappointment, nay to create some gleam of inverse joy, when the actual meeting occurs. That is his art in driving the fiery little Arab ignominiously yoked to him; and it is clear he has overdone it, for once. This is Friedrich's THIRD utterance to him; much the most ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... with the fellows in their own slang; but I perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. I like and admire W * *n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[65] It is overdone and defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy without feeling of Gulliver's Travels?—When he talks of Lady's Byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the figure was not the figure I was looking for. On sending a review of it to The Middle I was surprised to learn from the office that a notice was already in type. When the paper came out I had no hesitation in attributing this article, which I thought rather vulgarly overdone, to Drayton Deane, who in the old days had been something of a friend of Corvick's, yet had only within a few weeks made the acquaintance of his widow. I had had an early copy of the book, but Deane had evidently had an earlier. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—quel coup d'oeil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the corner of that street and Piccadilly. He was particular in the article of gloves, and the getting up of his shirts was a matter not lightly thought of in the Ullathorne laundry. On the occasion of the present visit he had rather overdone his usual efforts, and caused some little uneasiness to his sister, who had not hitherto received very cordially the proposition for a lengthened visit from the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan; overact, overdo. Adj. affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted, stagy, theatrical, big-sounding, ad captandum; canting, insincere. not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial; overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist &c. 577. stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles, quakerish, puritanical, prudish, pragmatical, priggish, conceited, coxcomical, foppish, dandified; finical, finikin; mincing, simpering, namby-pamby, sentimental. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... imprisonment and the third that I had been without food. The men below were sleeping after their carouse, stretched out on the decks of the proas. A sentinel on the rocky point poked the smouldering embers of the fire and raking out some overdone fragments of fish made a breakfast from them and pitched the bones into the sea. Only those who have lived three days without food can understand how delicious even those cast-off fish bones looked to me. I walked away from the mouth of the cave to be where I could not see the man eat. The daylight ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... (I wish there were more stations on this road,) With hardly half a chance for observation. (If I know where I am, may I be blowed!), Without an opportunity to examine The district. (Wish that I could spot a pub! For I am overdone with thirst and famine, And see no chance of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... was, an English TRANSLATION of the whole of them, better or worse, for behoof of the curious:—but on serious consideration now, I have to decide, That they are but as a Scene of clowns in the Elder Dramatists; which, even were it NOT overdone as it is, cannot be admitted in this place, and is plainly impertinent in the Tragedy that is being acted here. Something of Farce will often enough, in this irreverent world, intrude itself on the most solemn Tragedy; but, in pity even to the Farce, there ought at least ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... exclaimed, and turned to look at her again. "Have I concealed my admiration so successfully as that? Perhaps I have overdone ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... "you've overdone it a bit—women hate to be disillusioned. What you ought to have done, sir, is to describe me as a sort of ass—genial and all that sort of thing, but a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... self-possessed than she had ever been before. She did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling, half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it was, detached himself from the person he was talking ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... quite true," said the king, "and therefore I thought it best to bring Dick up on fairy books, that he might know what is right, and have no nonsense about him. But perhaps the thing has been overdone; at all events, it is not a success. I wonder if fathers and sons will ever understand each other, and get on well together? There was my poor father, King Grognio, he wanted me to take to adventures, like other princes, fighting Firedrakes, and so forth; and I did not care for it, ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays a ball on to his pad. ''s that?' asks the bowler, with an overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now I'm in,' and already he is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here, you idiot, I hit it hard.' 'Rot, man, out of the way.' '!!??!' 'Look here, Smith, are you going to dispute the umpire's ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Europe would live on what America wastes"—but a comparison of conditions in America with those in the Orient is even more to our discredit. In Lafcadio Hearn's books on Japan we find a glorification of the Japanese character that is unquestionably overdone on the whole, but in his contrast between the wasteful display of fashion's fevered followers in America and the ideals of simple living that distinguished old Japan, there is a rebuke for us whose justice we cannot gainsay. Take an old Japanese sage like Baron Shibusawa, who, like ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... radical monogamist and a rash enthusiast upon this matter, but I still adhere to my original motto, one country, one flag and one wife at a time. Matrimony is a good thing, but it can be overdone. We can excuse the man who becomes a collection of rare coins, stamps, or autographs, but he who wears out his young life making a collection of wives, should ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... excitement took away her appetite for the perfectly served repast. Mrs. Barry's regal personality seemed to pervade the whole establishment. One could not imagine any detail venturing to go wrong; any food to be underdone or overdone; any servant to venture to make trouble. The machinery of the household moved on oiled wheels. A delicate cleanliness, quietness, order, pervaded the home and ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... tune. His feet were planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a bright-coloured ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... bound backward, which D'Artagnan—calmest and most appreciative of men—did not consider overdone; so many strange and startling aspects wore the proposal which Aramis had just hazarded. "The king's dresses! Give the king's dresses to any mortal whatever! Oh! for once, monseigneur, your grace is mad!" cried the poor ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... induced brain-fever and intense suffering, and he never entirely rallied from its effects. A weakness followed, which constantly increased. To one friend he remarked: "The 'Seasons' have brought this trouble upon me. I ought not to have written it. I have overdone;" and to another: "I have done; my head is no longer what it was. Formerly ideas came to me unsought: I am now obliged to seek for them; and for this I feel I am not formed." It is a sad picture, that of the old composer sitting down to work in his seventieth year, distrustful of his own powers, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... His constrained, overdone manner was not calculated to abate Mrs. Kilgore's astonishment, and she continued to stare at him with an expression in which a vague terror began to appear. There are few shorter transitions than that ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... was sitting on the mint beside the well-house, weaving herself a wreath of buttercups. Felicity was sipping from the cup of clouded blue with an overdone air of unconcern. Each was acutely and miserably conscious of the other's presence, and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other was less than nothing to her. Felicity could not succeed. The Story Girl managed it better. If it had not been ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of notebook work, there will always be a considerable difference of opinion. It is much easier to state what notebook work should not be than to outline precisely how it should be conducted. Certainly it should not be overdone. It should not be an exercise usurping time disproportionate to its value. It should not be required primarily for exhibition purposes, although such notes as are kept should be kept ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell
... I can see. It is as safe as government bonds, and infinitely safer than most mercantile ventures. It is a dignified employment, free from the ordinary risks of business; and it is not likely to be overdone. All one needs is energy, a little money, and a good bit of well-directed intelligence. This combination is common enough to double our rural population, relieve the congestion in trades and underpaid employments, and add immensely to the wealth of the country. If we can only get the people ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... had were not likely to take nearly so much interest in her as Mr. Bell; but she was resolved to leave no stone unturned, and went to see several of them. They gave Miss Melville very faint hopes of success. Edinburgh was overdone with masters and mistresses, rents were very high, and classes the most uncertain things possible. But she might apply at one of the institutions. Thither she went, and found that her want of accomplishments prevented her from getting a good situation; and her want of experience was objected ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... walls are in Carboniferous Limestone with a pleasing variety of color in the strata, and the erosion-carving not overdone, the most notable piece being the Knife-blade. This, at first view, appears to be a high, round tower, but the train following the curve, reveals the fact that it is not a tower, but a thin, curved knife-blade. The sun just for one instant shone through ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... breed is degenerating in the forsaken person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical erudition in pointing out where ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... the course of a long book, between the genius of Mr. Shaw and the genius of Moliere is extraordinarily detailed. Perhaps the detail is overdone in such a passage as that which informs us regarding the work of both authors that "suicide is never one of the central features of the comedy; if mentioned, it is only to be made fun of." The comparison, however, between the sins that have been ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... 'I had overdone it. I had overworked myself. I had let myself run down. The doctor said that I didn't eat enough meat. You know I never ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... sometimes. But to all his anxious, tender questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented and wished nothing different; and the next time he saw her she was more lively than usual. It might be that she was a little overdone with work and anxiety now, for soon after Christmas Mrs. Poyser had taken another cold, which had brought on inflammation, and this illness had confined her to her room all through January. Hetty had to manage everything downstairs, and half-supply ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... but one room, and the fire-hearth was placed outside under a small shed. This primitive abode contained neither chairs, tables, nor benches. Sumichrast was full of admiration at this simplicity, which I considered rather overdone; but my friend compared the life of civilization, in which luxury has created so many wants, with the lot of these men who can dispense with almost every thing, and decidedly came to the conclusion that the latter are ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... moved far upon our return, when one of our most valuable dray-horses became completely overdone with fatigue, and I was obliged to take it out of the team and put in a riding horse, to try, if possible, to reach the plains where the grass was. We just got to the borders of this open patch of country, when the poor animal (a mare) could not be got ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... have the subject moved farther than a few steps and at different paces. Depending then, upon the character of lameness manifested, as well as upon its degree of intensity, one needs to exercise the subject in various ways, but this should not be overdone. ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... I must say quickly." Her voice seemed to grow suddenly stronger with a great earnestness. "Listen, dear. This must not make any difference to this wonderful work that has just begun here. I was cured of my hip disease—perfectly cured—no one can deny that—this is my own fault, I have overdone it—I would not listen to reason—to do what I have done in the last few days, when for a year and a half I had never moved a step, was more than my heart could stand. I should have been more quiet—but I was ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... I have trained you into my own style of playing: I never could get Jupp entirely into it; he is too fond of noise and flourishes. It has struck me that perhaps Mr. Galloway might spare you: his office is not overdone with work, and I would make ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime. It was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone. The bet was for more ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... also, avoid the too common error of overstocking with sheep when the price of wool is high. Sheep Husbandry has been a very profitable branch of business for the farmers of this State; but like every other business it may be overdone, and is liable to fluctuations and changes. Sheep must be well fed and cared for in order to produce heavy fleeces; and there is certainly a limit to the number which may profitably be kept upon any farm; and it not unfrequently happens that a flock of fifty sheep on a small farm, will yield ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... sturdiness is required in the shape of heavier form lumber and stronger framing to provide for the wear and tear of repeated use, and it is always economy to provide it when repeated use is possible. The thing can be overdone, however; there is an economical limit to repeated use, as we demonstrate further on. In the matter of economy in carpenter work, a certain amount of extra work put into framing the forms to withstand the stress of repeated use is economically ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... bridegroom live in the same town, and know a large number of people, they are overdone with festivities from the moment of betrothal to the day of marriage. The round of entertainments begins with a gala dinner given by the bride's father, and this is followed by invitations from all the relatives and friends on either side. When you receive a German Brautpaar they should ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... when he grows up, in morally kicking other things! At least, that is how I regard it. The over-cultivation of physical strength leads to mental callousness and brutality. These are scientific points which require discussion,—not with you,—but with a scientist. Nothing should be overdone. Too much enervation and lack of athleticism leads to moral deterioration certainly,—but so does too much 'sport' as they call it. There is a happy medium to be obtained on both sides, but human beings generally miss it. Prince Humphry, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... laughed, "and it almost makes me feel not legally married. But don't—don't, please, if you love me, use that awful word 'parson' again. I can't stand it. Don't you think it sounds just like the crackle of cold, overdone toast?" ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for it but immediate rest and warm baths,' said Lady Northmoor to Constance, who was waiting anxiously for the doctor's verdict some hours later. 'It is only being overdone—no, my dear, there is nothing really to fear, if we can only keep business and letters out of his way for a few weeks, my ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... grow clear. She even saw how Linda, having friendly association with no man save Peter, would naturally use him for a model. The trouble was that, with her gift of penetration and insight and her facility with her pen, she had overdone the matter. She had not imitated Peter; she had ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... no guest arrived. The baron descended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed. The meats were already overdone, the cook in an agony, and the whole household had the look of a garrison, that had been reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to give orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... told the lady that she did not know her, and at that moment was altogether at a loss to guess who the lady might be. The lady might be forty years of age, but was still handsome, and carried with her that easy, self-assured, well balanced manner, which, if it be not overdone, goes so far to make up for beauty, if beauty ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... coarseness that mistakes itself for force, may well be glad to follow the mental history of a man who knew how to move and grow without any of these reactions and leaps on the one hand, or any of that overdone realism on the other, which may all make a more striking picture, but which do assuredly more often than not mark the ruin of a mind and the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... of philosophic novels, we find their tales of life and manners still more absurd in their total untrueness than the others were hateful in their design. There is a novel just now appearing in one of the most widely-circulated of the Parisian papers, so grotesquely overdone, that if it had been meant for a caricature of the worst parts of our own hulk-and-gallows authors, it would have been very much admired; but meant to be serious, powerful, harrowing, and all the rest of it, it is a most curious exhibition of a nation's taste and a writer's audacity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... Bride of Lammermoor is indeed deplorable. He thought it like Scott's previous work, but "laboured in an inferior way, and more careless, with many repetitions of himself. Caleb is overdone.... The catastrophe is ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... a lonely wood, A new Bellerophon,[16] whose life, Knew neither comrade, friend, nor wife,— Became insane; for reason, as we term it, Dwells never long with any hermit. 'Tis good to mix in good society, Obeying rules of due propriety; And better yet to be alone; But both are ills when overdone. No animal had business where All grimly dwelt our hermit bear; Hence, bearish as he was, he grew Heart-sick, and long'd for something new. While he to sadness was addicted, An aged man, not far from there, Was by the same disease afflicted. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... does not relinquish control of himself as is commonly believed. Actually, more control is gained. Self-sufficiency and self-confidence are inevitable results. It is well to remember, however, that even good things may be overdone, and good judgment is necessary for favorable results. Neither hypnosis nor self-hypnosis should ever be used indiscriminately. The effectiveness of self-hypnosis depends upon many factors. Strong motivation, intelligent application of ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... minutes later he was happily sitting on the deck by the galley "alonga self," eating half the overdone bird which Bostock had given him, while the old sailor had roughly prepared the most tempting part for his young companion and taken it ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... singers' throats, that they can no longer vibrate with the passionate and perfect freedom indispensable to melody? It must not be. The soul is too rich in resources to let all its interests fail because one fails. If business and material speculation have been overdone, if we are checked and flung down in these mad endeavors to accumulate vast means of living, we shall have time to pick ourselves up, compose ourselves to some tranquillity and some humility, and actually, with what small means we have, begin to live. Panic strangles life, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... with an almost overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, with ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... this sort: the scores of younger sons of impoverished Noblemen who are packed off to the wilds of Australia or to the Great Desert of America, to finish sowing their wild oats in remote places, where such agriculture is not so overdone as ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... on Marcia can easily be overdone," he remarked. His eyes moved restlessly left and right. He lowered his voice. "Nobody knows how long her hold over Caesar will last. She owns him at present owns him absolutely—owns Rome. He delights in letting ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... of life they were placed they were always exquisitely dressed. Nigel appreciated this sartorial gift, it was an art he understood and that amused, but weren't they on the whole—also in every walk of life—a little too much arranged, overdone, too much maquillees; weren't their faces too white, their lips too red, their hats too new? They knew how to put on their clothes to perfection, but he was not sure that he didn't prefer these beautiful clothes not quite so well put on; he thought he liked to see the ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... soldierly fellow, with close-cropped fair curly hair and a fair moustache, and frank blue eyes that, even in Parliament, had seen no harm in his fellow-creatures. Aristide's magical vision caught him wincing ever so little at Mr. Smith's effusive greeting and overdone introductions. He shook Aristide warmly by ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... As they had overdone the grasp of hands some time sooner, she touched his fingers but lightly when he went out now. He had hardly gone from the door when, with a dissatisfied look, she jumped on a form and opened the iron casement of a window beneath which he was passing in the path without. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the poor animal. Once my people were on a visit to Dualla. Old Rody, who was much addicted to the pleasures of the table, was especially fond of roast goose. This, to satisfy him, had to be done to a particular turn. On the occasion in question the bird was brought to table slightly overdone, so Old Rody told the butler to retire and send up the cook. No sooner had the butler left the room than Old Rody picked up the goose by, its shanks and took his stand behind the door. A dreadful silence reigned; the guests were as though stiffened into stone. The cook, a stout, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... ruin other charities quite as worthy, because its maintenance pumps dry the pockets of those who have to give. It will require a drastic course of training, I fear, to open the eyes of the public to the fact that even generosity can be overdone, and I must disclaim any desire to superintend the process of securing their awakening, for it is an ungrateful task to criticise even a mistakenly generous person; and man being by nature prone to thoughtless judgments, the critic ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... omelette overdone, the sausages too greasy, and the bread so hard that he had to cut it into fingers for Christine lest she should hurt her wrist. They emptied two bottles of wine, and began a third, becoming so gay and noisy that they ended by feeling bewildered ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... up as she spoke and brought out her strong, almost harsh features and deep-set black eyes. Amelia Phillips looked like an overdone sketch ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... connect with the Judith they had known. Not till they saw the beam of her eyes, as profound but somehow less sad than the eyes of the girl had been, did they feel it was the same Judy. The exaggerated colour on her face, the white powder and overdone rouge, embarrassed them both. Judy saw it and laughed, and when they were in the waggonnette and driving along the road she said: "You're thinking how horribly I'm made up! I can't help it. I began it and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the hiss of the escaping air above all the industry clamor; heard, and saw the car start backward. Then he had a flitting glimpse of a man in grimy overclothes scrambling terror-frenzied from beneath the Rosemary. The thing done had been overdone. The fireman had "bled" the air-brake too freely, and the liberated car, gathering momentum with every wheel-turn, surged around the circling spur track and shot out masterless on the steeper gradient ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... then he would keep them for the rest of his life, to show how his labours had been rewarded.[602] The event—which always justifies true manliness—proved the sagacity of this proud demeanour. Fonseca was baulked of his gratification. The clumsy Bobadilla had overdone the business. The sight of the Admiral's stately and venerable figure in chains, as he passed through the streets of Cadiz, on a December day of that year 1500, awakened a popular outburst of sympathy for him and indignation at his persecutors. While ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... He did not wear a beard, another unusual bit of individuality, but his long, drooping mustache was extraordinarily becoming and—yes, aristocratic was the word. His smile was pleasant, his handshake was cordial, but not overdone, and his voice low and pleasant. Above all he had a manner, a manner which caused Sears, who had sailed pretty well over the world and had met all sorts of people in all sorts of places, to feel awkward and countrified. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... work is the temptation, to which most builders yield, to make it too fancy and intricate in place of practical and simple. Figs. 323, 324, 325, and 326 are as ornamental as one can make them without incurring the danger of being overdone, too ornate, too ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... Father of Realism. Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE, approaching the subject not for the first time, here essays a brief life and appreciation of the poet, told in picturesque but simple style. Sometimes indeed the simplicity is apt to appear overdone, so that one gets a suggestion that the story is being presented to us in thoughts of one syllable. Apart from this, however, there is much to be said for Mr. STACPOOLE's vivid reconstruction of medival France, and the Paris that sheltered VILLON himself, TABARY, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... stand out in every line of this story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative who has any virility is the antiquarian, ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... afterwards.'" The Duke of St. Bungay said nothing in answer to this, as he did not understand the chopping of the reed. "I'm afraid I've been wrong about this collection of people down at Gatherum," continued the younger Duke. "Glencora is impulsive, and has overdone the thing. Just look at that." And he handed a letter to his friend. The old Duke put on his spectacles and read the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... impatiently. "College professors, delicate ladies, children not yet in their teens, have committed homicide, why not this handsome gentleman in the wool business? Or if you won't have murder—and I agree that blood is rather tiresome, it has been overdone so much—bring a woman into the case. Let us have a betrayal, a wronged virgin, and ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... the watch was more than suspicious. He was an old hand at mischief himself, and not easily hoodwinked by "our fellows." He could not help thinking that McDougal had overdone his part, for a bold young man, like him, would not behave so much like a coward under any circumstances. Just before breakfast time the captain and first lieutenant came on deck together, and Pelham reported "number three" ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... into the market, they are no less good for stairs. There is nothing better for wainscoting, and in fact for any surface whatsoever subject to soil and wear. These materials combine permanent protection and permanent decoration. But fired by the zeal of the convert the use of ceramics may be overdone. One easily recalls entire rooms of this material, floors, walls, ceilings, which are less successful than as though a variety of materials had been employed. It is just such variety—each material treated in a characteristic, and therefore different way—that gives charm to so many foreign ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... theory, my dear," he said, "but it can be overdone. There is such a thing as going too far. You have to compromise even if you don't look as well as you might. You can't be too very conspicuously different from your neighbors, even ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... toward his. I dare say she was suffering as much as he. But women consider it a point of honour to smile when they stab; Margaret smiled with an innocence that would have seemed overdone in ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... Dutchess of Buckingham, had a frolick to disguise themselves like country lasses, to red petticoats, wastcotes, &c., and so goe see the faire. Sir Barnard Gascoign, on a cart jade, rode before the queen; another stranger before the Dutchess of Buckingham; and Mr. Roper before Richmond. They had all so overdone it in their disguise, and looked so much more like antiques than country volk, that, as soon as they came to the faire, the people began to goe after them; but the queen going to a booth, to buy a pair of yellow stockings for her sweet hart, and Sir Bernard asking for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... splendors of Karlee's establishment. If he had been a rich Anglicized baboo, he would have had a profusion of hot, tawdry chairs, and a vulgar-gorgeous cramming of gilt-edged tables, sweaty red sofas, coarse pictures in overdone frames, Bowery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... lively name for the kitchen knave, gets the holly-wand across his quarters when he deserves it; but Tusser seems to feel that discipline may be overdone. It may be waste of good stick and good ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... people it. The dissenters perceived that, though they might think as they pleased in England, they could not combine this privilege with keeping clear of the fagot or the gibbet; and though martyrdom is honorable, and perhaps gratifying to one's vanity, it can be overdone. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... had struck. From this moment the respect shown to Bill, and to Gus also, by those who had no desire to do otherwise was really almost overdone, his classmates being generally proud of him, and the teachers and seniors pleased to have him a member of the school. But the sophs mostly grew more inclined to consider both boys a menace to ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... are among the most difficult to write. The thing had, it seemed, been done to death and underdone and overdone when Packard came along. In all seriousness, it may be said that Packard has restored the underworld to respectability—as a domain for fictional purposes at least! It is not that his crooks are real crooks—though they are—but that he is able to put life into them, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... marked their religion, their institutions, their literature, and their art. Their virtues and their vices turned upon it. Hence the golden mean is eminently a Greek conception, a leading idea of the Hellenic race. The Greek hated a thing overdone, a gaudy ornament, a proud title, a fulsome compliment, a high-flown speech, a wordy peroration. Nothing too much was the inscription over the lintel of the national sanctuary at Delphi. It is the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... head of this list I would place what may be called the "white marriage" theme: not because it is ineffective, but because its effectiveness is very cheap and has been sadly overdone. It occurs in two varieties: either a proud but penniless damsel is married to a wealthy parvenu, or a woman of culture and refinement is married to a "rough diamond." In both cases the action consists of the transformation of a nominal ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the house the foreman, with a specially pleasant smile, asked him if he would not have his dinner now, expressing the fear that the feast his wife was preparing, with the help of the girl with the earrings, might be overdone. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... which he alone discovers all that is lacking in the eyes of the public. He is whimsical to the last degree. His friends have seen him destroy a finished picture because, in his eyes, it looked too smooth. "It is overdone," he would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Many things could be said against their sufficiency as instructors in matters of thought; and many more against the low and barbarous tone of their morale—the inhumanity and brutality of both their principles and their practice. All this might no doubt be very easily overdone, and would certainly be so, if undertaken in the style ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... danger, but to remove so unpleasant an idea from their minds; you persuade them to remain as they are, from a new fear that their activity may bring on the apprehended mischief before its time. I confess freely that this evil sometimes happens from an overdone precaution; but it is when the measures are rash, ill-chosen, or ill-combined, and the effects rather of blind terror than of enlightened foresight. But the few to whom I wish to submit my thoughts are of a character which will enable them to see danger without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... editor of the Cape Times, and other prominent men. A movement of this nature naturally excited considerable attention in Pretoria; but the success of it was wholly unexpected. The President and his party had played to the South African gallery, and they had not yet realized that they had in any way overdone the theatrical part. They had no suspicion of the real feeling with which the sentences were regarded, nor of the extent to which they had alienated sympathy by that and the subsequent 'magnanimous' ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... said the king, "and therefore I thought it best to bring Dick up on fairy books, that he might know what is right, and have no nonsense about him. But perhaps the thing has been overdone; at all events, it is not a success. I wonder if fathers and sons will ever understand each other, and get on well together? There was my poor father, King Grognio, he wanted me to take to adventures, like other princes, fighting Firedrakes, and so forth; and I did not ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... was nothing to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course, and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting of the Red Cross Committee was held at the hospital, and I was sent for and formally installed as Matron of the hospital with full authority to make any improvements ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and shows a gilded side that gives it ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... it may be of importance to add that this kind of instruction can be easily overdone, and it is better to proceed too slowly than too rapidly. It is a healthy and permanent development that is wanted, and the teacher should rest satisfied if it is slow. It is by no means feasible to attempt to subordinate all study ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... that they appear to mix with the other foliage; or else they should be seen at some distance. Other varieties of the common white poplar or abele are occasionally useful, although most of them sprout badly and may become a nuisance. But the planting of these immodest trees is so likely to be overdone that one scarcely dare recommend them, although, when skillfully used, they may be made to produce most excellent effects. If any reader has a particular fondness for trees of this class (or any others with woolly-white foliage) ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... far upon our return, when one of our most valuable dray-horses became completely overdone with fatigue, and I was obliged to take it out of the team and put in a riding horse, to try, if possible, to reach the plains where the grass was. We just got to the borders of this open patch of country, when the poor animal (a mare) could not be got a yard farther, and we were compelled ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... and attentions were being overdone, Lieutenant James took them amiss and elected to become jealous. He talked darkly of "calling out" one of his wife's admirers. But before there could be any early morning pistol-play in the Phoenix Park, an unexpected solution offered itself. Trouble was suddenly threatened ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a ...
— Statesman • Plato
... water of the pool was supposed to reseal the pores which the treatment in the hot room had caused to open. In the best gymnasium circles it is held to be a fine thing to have these educated pores, but I am sure it can be overdone, and personally I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed it. I kept it up largely for their sake. They became highly trained, but developed temperament. They were apt to get the signals mixed and open ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... other charities quite as worthy, because its maintenance pumps dry the pockets of those who have to give. It will require a drastic course of training, I fear, to open the eyes of the public to the fact that even generosity can be overdone, and I must disclaim any desire to superintend the process of securing their awakening, for it is an ungrateful task to criticise even a mistakenly generous person; and man being by nature prone to thoughtless judgments, the critic of a philanthropist who spends a million ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... do,' Rose said cheerfully. She was too cheerful for Sophia's romantic little theory, but an acuter audience would have found her too cheerful for herself. She had overdone it by half a tone, but the exaggeration was too fine for any ears but her own. She was, as a matter of fact, in the grip of a violent anger. She was not the kind of woman to resent the new affections of a rejected lover, but she had, through her own folly, attached herself to Francis Sales, as, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... not laughed in his sleeve to see it acted?—Who has not admired and wondered at the cold and formal bow and shake of the hand, the tender inquiries after the health of the maiden aunt and the baby, the carelessly expressed wish that we may meet somewhere—all so palpably overdone? That the heroine of the impassioned scene at which we had unfortunately to assist an hour ago! Where are the tears, the convulsive sobs, the heartbroken grief? And that the young gentleman who saw nothing for it but flight or a pistol bullet! There, all the world's a stage, and ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... country, or the first ascent of a peak, is usually accorded privilege of nomenclature. Yet it is a privilege that is often abused and should be exercised with reserve. Whether or not it has been overdone in the present case, others must say. This, however, the author will say, and would say as emphatically as is in his power: that he sets no store whatever by the names he has ventured to confer comparable with that which he sets ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... insisted upon seeing. It was the only room to the decoration of which she gave whole-hearted praise and approval. The cooking at the Green Gate she admitted to be perfect, without pretension. In fact, she thought everything in the house a little overdone, except ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... danger with rustic work is the temptation, to which most builders yield, to make it too fancy and intricate in place of practical and simple. Figs. 323, 324, 325, and 326 are as ornamental as one can make them without incurring the danger of being overdone, too ornate, too fancy ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... the humble elements of constitutional government which he found in existence. There was more manliness in his nature than in that of his brother, more belief in the worth of his own people. The espionage, the servility, the overdone professions of sanctity in Manteuffel's regime displeased him, but most of ail he despised its pusillanimity in the conduct of foreign affairs. His heart indeed was Prussian, not German, and the destiny which created him the first Emperor of united Germany was not of his own ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... almost sorry for the man; but really the thing was overdone when, not content with overcrowding our village, these London people took to living in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... things! At least, that is how I regard it. The over-cultivation of physical strength leads to mental callousness and brutality. These are scientific points which require discussion,—not with you,—but with a scientist. Nothing should be overdone. Too much enervation and lack of athleticism leads to moral deterioration certainly,—but so does too much 'sport' as they call it. There is a happy medium to be obtained on both sides, but human beings generally miss it. Prince Humphry, born of a beautiful, introspective, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... dancing will ever be overdone. It is popular, and good dancers for this line of work are not too numerous. So it seems likely to be in ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... at the tips, say the last eight inches, which is accomplished by rounding the back slightly and reducing the width at this point. This gives an active recoil, or as it is described, "whip ended." This can be overdone, especially in hunting-bows, where a little more solidity and safety are preferable to a ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... was exquisite: the omelette overdone, the sausages too greasy, and the bread so hard that he had to cut it into fingers for Christine lest she should hurt her wrist. They emptied two bottles of wine, and began a third, becoming so gay and noisy that they ended by feeling bewildered in the long room, where they partook of the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... to attractiveness is order and division, simply and sensibly managed. Nothing is much more repellent, at least to modern hearers, than an excess of arrangement; headings and subdivisions overdone. But nothing is more helpful to attention than a simple, natural, luminous division, present in the preacher's mind, announced to the audience, and faithfully carried out. Remember this, among many other things, in the choosing ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... very poor: his debts, with his legacies, which are trifling, amount to fifty thousand pounds. His estate, a nominal eight thousand a-year, much mortgaged. In short, his fondness for Houghton has endangered Houghton. If he had not so overdone it, he -might have left such an estate to his family as might have secured the glory of the place for many years: another such debt must expose it to sale. If he had lived, his unbounded generosity and contempt of money would have run ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... child by Madame W...t.n's husband, at twenty a second. Madame found out the father, and kicked Sarah out. Mr. W...t.n then kicked Madame out, and went to live with Sarah, rows ensued, other companies of "Poses plastiques" came into competition, the thing got overdone, he could not get his living; he knew a trade, but was I expect too lazy to work at it; so Sarah took to letting herself out as model, and that being poor pay, to letting out her cunt to get their bread; she had just began it ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... know—only you shouted a lot. You're overdone, aren't you? Been working too hard I expect." Then he added, slowly, "You were ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... dear. What a time those little squares of lace must take. I am like yourself in respect of religion; in the first place, I think that nothing should be overdone. Have you ever-I have never spoken to any one on the subject, but I see your ideas are so in accordance ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... this mortifying alternative rather than suffer himself to be torn into beefsteaks. It may be, however, that in this instance our Nimrod has suddenly discovered that it is about dinner-time, and is hurrying back to camp lest the beef should be overdone. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... manifest improvements of John Broadwood's wrest-plank and John Geib's "grasshopper." After the beginning of this century, the square piano became much enlarged and improved by Collard and Broadwood, in London, and by Petzold, in Paris. It was overdone in the attempt to gain undue power for it, and, about twenty years ago, sank in the competition, with the later cottage pianoforte, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... myself out of odd pieces of wool.' And that's not the worst! Mrs Hudson would paint bulrushes on cream-pots, and forget-me-nots on tambourines, and come round bristling with importance. 'I always find fancy work is overdone at sales, so I thought a little of my hand- painting would be acceptable! No one needs more than a dozen cosies, but every one is glad of an extra tambourine!' ... It's easy to talk, my dear, but what could you do when it came to the point? There's nothing ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Chayne, without the least emotion in his voice. But he walked with uneven steps. At times he staggered like one overdone and very tired. But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that he had his friend's ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... he overdone it, though!" cried Jemmy. "Well! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain Gran and a certain ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... entered to say that Miss Nellie begged to be excused from coming down to dinner, as she felt too ill. Then Robert entered to ask should he serve dinner or wait until Mr. Holmes came in. "Wait!" said Bayard, bluntly. But five minutes passed; the dinner would be overdone; so Robert slipped out in search of the truant, and Miller saw him going over to Bedlam. But the upper gallery was empty; Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest had disappeared; the adjutant came striding up from the guard-house, and together the ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... too common error of overstocking with sheep when the price of wool is high. Sheep Husbandry has been a very profitable branch of business for the farmers of this State; but like every other business it may be overdone, and is liable to fluctuations and changes. Sheep must be well fed and cared for in order to produce heavy fleeces; and there is certainly a limit to the number which may profitably be kept upon any farm; and it not unfrequently happens that a flock of fifty sheep on a small farm, will yield ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... Oh, and poor Mr. Ridokanaki! You'll refuse him to-night, I suppose! What fun it must be to be a pretty girl going about refusing people in conservatories—like a short story in a magazine! I've forgotten how I did it. In a year, darling? Quite. I say, have I overdone the dix-huitieme business? Do I look like a fancy ball? Pass me a hairpin, dear. No, don't. I suppose you know that Chetwode has never seen this dress! What do you think of that? One would think we ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... and content by disparaging the present and actual. It is the voice which says No, like Mephistopheles. No, you have not succeeded; no, your work is not good; no, you are not happy; no, you shall not find rest—all that you see and all that you do is insufficient, insignificant, overdone, badly done, imperfect. The thirst for the ideal is like the goad of Siva, which only quickens life to hasten death. Incurable longing that it is, it lies at the root both of individual suffering and of the progress of the race. It destroys happiness in the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... carefully in his wallet. There was nothing more to be done here apparently. As we passed down the corridor we could hear a man apparently raving in good English and bad French. It proved to be Millefleur—or Miller—and his raving was as overdone as that of a third-rate actor. Madame was trying to ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... been said in preceding pages about Puget Sound that it would seem the subject might be somewhat overdone. But it still remains to be said that justice can never be done to the scenic glories of this beautiful inland sea. The views from different points, and from almost every point on the Sound, are of sublime grandeur. On the east are the Cascade Mountains, ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... pudding he had baked one, for a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime. It was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone. The bet was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... stairs. To this, of course, I had no objection, but was rather pleased to see it. Time, however, which proves all things, showed my cook to be rather too literary in her inclinations. I often found her reading, when it was but reasonable for me to expect that she would be working; and overdone or burnt dishes occasionally marked the degree in which her mind was absorbed in her literary pleasures, which I discovered in time, were not of the highest order-such books as the "Mysteries of Paris" furnishing the aliment ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... tempter advanced, but entertained the seamen with a lively and graphic account of the running down of the Skylark, and entered into minute particulars—chiefly of a comical nature—with such recklessness that the cause of Mr Jones bade fair to resemble many a roast which is totally ruined by being overdone. Jones gave him a salutary check, however, on being landed next day at a certain town on the Kentish coast, so that when Billy was taken before the authorities, his statements were brought somewhat more into accord with ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... was talking rapidly in French—with rather overdone eagerness—to Mrs. Perrault. She took no notice of her fellow-voyager as she lightly stepped exactly in the centre of the canoe, and sank down on the rug in front of him, with the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to that somewhat treacherous ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... which I was admitted, and these were no doubt the very splendors of Karlee's establishment. If he had been a rich Anglicized baboo, he would have had a profusion of hot, tawdry chairs, and a vulgar-gorgeous cramming of gilt-edged tables, sweaty red sofas, coarse pictures in overdone frames, Bowery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... larger the loaves the slower must be the baking, otherwise they will be overdone on the outside ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... made a short run of about 1/2 mile, and then after a short halt to cool, a long non-stop for quite 3 miles. The Barrier, five geographical miles from Cape Armitage, now looked very close, but Lashly had overdone matters a bit, run out of lubricant and got his engine too hot. The next run yielded a little over a mile, and he was forced to stop within a few hundred yards of the snow slope leading to the Barrier and wait for more lubricant, as well as for the heat balance in ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... to have a foreign accent. Ironical, and gifted with a certain clownish humor, they had not much natural wit: but they were clever enough, and they manufactured their goods in imitation of Paris. If the stone was not always of the first water, and if the setting was always strange and overdone, at least it shone in artificial light, and that was all it was meant to do. They were intelligent, keen, though short-sighted observers—their eyes had been dulled by centuries of the life of the counting-house—turning ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Menecy, by Germain Pillon, who died in 1590. In this the failings mentioned above will be readily recognized, and also in another example, namely, that of a carved oak door from the church of St. Maclou, Rouen, by Jean Goujon, in which the work is very fine, but somewhat overdone with enrichment. This cast ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... emperors, almost from the beginning, threw themselves into such hands; and the mischief increased every day till the decline and final ruin of the empire. It is therefore of very great importance (provided the thing is not overdone) to contrive such an establishment as must, almost whether a prince will or not, bring into daily and hourly offices about his person a great number of his first nobility; and it is rather an useful prejudice that gives them a pride in such a servitude. Though ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Mary declined an invitation to take a run to the village. She seemed overdone with ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... I had overdone it. However I decided to know the worst. The worst that the machine could tell me was twenty-stone-seven. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... time. My work upon the Hall estate, and my exercise with Roger, had kept my body in good condition: yet to run for four miles or more at a stretch with the mind in a ferment would tax any man, and by the time I came in sight of the turnpike I was fairly overdone, dripping with sweat—'twas a sunny day in July—and trembling ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... England I shall take from Mr. Daniel Jones' dictionary,[16] the authority of which cannot, I think, be disputed. It is true that it represents a pronunciation so bad that its slovenliness is likely to be thought overdone, but there is no more exaggeration than any economical system of phonetic spelling is bound to show. It is indeed a strong and proper objection to all such simplifications that they are unable to exhibit the finer distinctions; but this must not ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... and the unfortunate baby was roaring and kicking, he called down to me, "Will you come and drink some chocolate to King Herod's memory?" Mr. Maxwell, who has four children, did not behave much better; and it was a great exertion to me, by overdone courtesy and desperate attempts at conversation, to keep the mother as far as possible from hearing ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... vale. The maxim "multum in parvo" may be an admirable one for an author whose book will lie in the reader's hand the while he has time to grasp the full significance of every well-filled sentence. By a public speaker, however, packing may easily be overdone; and here is one of the dangers of the written sermon as compared with one in which the preacher, having gathered together his knowledge and his thought upon a matter, leaves the choice of words to the hour ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... tall, well made, with a high-bred if somewhat dissipated face, an air of blase indifference a little overdone, and an accent which he had brought back with him from Oxford, and which he was anxious not to lose. Indeed, the bare thought of the possibility of his dropping into the flat, semi-nasal of his native land filled ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Street, and his bootmaker at the corner of that street and Piccadilly. He was particular in the article of gloves, and the getting up of his shirts was a matter not lightly thought of in the Ullathorne laundry. On the occasion of the present visit he had rather overdone his usual efforts, and caused some little uneasiness to his sister, who had not hitherto received very cordially the proposition for a lengthened visit ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... wind. Inquiries had been made in every by-way that could be thought of, until at last the wise and learned men has asserted, as we have been already told, that "love, the life-giver, could alone give new life to a father;" and in saying this, they had overdone it, and said more than they understood themselves. They repeated it, and wrote it down as a recipe, "Love is a life-giver." But how could such a recipe be prepared—that was a difficulty they could not overcome. At last it was decided that help could ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... companion, who had known how to make himself very pleasant to him. Here was the clear, cold corrective, which the fever of his present life demanded. Without it, he would have felt alternately suffocated and exhausted by an existence, at once so gaudy and overdone, and yet so intolerably empty; in which people, even at their best, seemed only to be brooding, like the wise emperor himself, over a world's disillusion. For with all the severity of Cornelius, there was such a breeze of hopefulness—freshness and hopefulness, as of new ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... and breast of a boiled fowl are the favorite portions. It is important that the fowl be cooked just right. If underdone, the joints will not separate readily; and if overdone they will fall apart so quickly that carving is impossible. Unless the knife be very sharp, and the work done carefully, the skin of the breast will come off with the ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... his work in life, a boating-man will stick to it. His favourite sport is not expensive, and nothing can possibly be less luxurious. He is often a reading man, though it may be doubted whether "he who runs may read" as a rule. Running is, perhaps, a little overdone, and Strangers' cups are, or lately were, given with injudicious generosity. To the artist's eye, however, few sights in modern life are more graceful than the University quarter-of-a-mile race. Nowhere else, perhaps, do you see figures so full of ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... hut for a few minutes, she turned to her guest, and curtly bade him watch the cakes, to see that they did not get overdone. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... thunder don't you have a light?" said the visitor, with a loud freedom carefully calculated to give the effect of old and privileged comradeship. But the laugh of hearty good fellowship which followed his next remark was a trifle overdone "Ain't afraid of bombs, are you? Don't you know that ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... must confess we felt that the training was rather overdone. We had to put in many hours daily, and the march to the training ground at Yvrencheux and back, some six miles in all, was to say the least of it somewhat tedious. We were besides, most unfortunate with regard to weather, which was very unpleasant most of ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... these was Mother Capoulade, whose head lay sideways on her curled arms, and from whose throat there issued a resonant and melodious snore. Most of the faces that La Boulaye could see were horribly livid and bedewed with sweat, and again it came into his mind to wonder whether he had overdone things, and they would wake no more. On the other hand, an even greater fear beset him, that the drug might have been insufficient. By way of testing it, he caught one fellow who lay across his ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... our league could probably do something in the interests of sculpture. It is apparent to any fair-minded person that sculpture has been very much overdone in this country. It seems to us there should be a law against perpetuating any of our great men in marble or bronze or stone or amalgam fillings until after he has been dead a couple of hundred years, and by that time a fresh crop ought to be coming on and probably we shall have lost ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the Rev. Dr. Aaron Burr, the godly president of Princeton; by his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards; or by at least 1,394 of the other members of the family of Mr. Edwards. There is no purpose to give him saintly enthronement, but it may not be amiss to suggest that the abuse of him has been overdone. ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... what it is, and I'll try what I can do. But you won't think I'm so bad as I seem, and 'll forgive me? I know what you think of me, and that's what mortifies me; you think I'm an overdone specimen of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... people give generously for the erection and maintenance of luxurious church buildings and for the sustenance of men appointed to the idolatrous service of Rome. I saw bishops and priests grow rich until they possessed the choicest real estate. I thought then that Paul's admonitions were overdone. I thought he should have requested the people to curtail their contributions. I saw how the generosity of the people of the Church was encouraging covetousness on the part of the clergy. I know ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... rang again. Presently Lady Cynthia and Sir Timothy appeared upon the bridge and crossed the lawn. They were walking a little apart. Lady Cynthia was looking down at some roses which she had gathered. Sir Timothy's unconcern seemed a trifle overdone. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... consuming great quantities of half-cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... "It was quite simple; and not one of us had the stomach-ache. That fear of the cats is very much overdone. They can do nothing, so long as you eat them while ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... proved to be its benefactors; for that which is persecuted, grows. To them its present popularity is due, the cheapening of its Degrees, the invasion of its Lodges, that are no longer Sanctuaries, by the multitude; its pomp and pageantry and overdone display. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... eminently wholesome and natural. Early to bed, he slept like an infant and was up with the dawn. Always with something to do, and with a thousand little things that enticed but did not clamor, he was himself never overdone. Nevertheless, there were times when both he and Dede were not above confessing tiredness at bedtime after seventy or ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... highly respectable opinion that character-mongering is much overdone nowadays. After all, what does it matter—that Fanny Elmer was all sentiment and sensation, and Mrs. Durrant hard as iron? that Clara, owing (so the character-mongers said) largely to her mother's influence, never yet had the chance to do anything off her own bat, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... far as Poodles was concerned, I could not accuse myself of obstinacy in refusing to apologize. On the whole, I was satisfied with myself, though willing to acknowledge that in some things I had rather overdone the matter. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... herself up in her room and was seen by no one. It was a wretched night for everybody; and when next morning Mrs Rimbolt, sitting down to breakfast, was met with the news that neither Master Percy nor Miss Raby wanted breakfast, she began to feel that the affair was being overdone. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... what their trade was; whether they did their washing at home, and burned tallow or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-fond of Gruyere cheese—the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formidable cheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun with mice, and used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither; and bought violets, or pinks, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... trained you into my own style of playing: I never could get Jupp entirely into it; he is too fond of noise and flourishes. It has struck me that perhaps Mr. Galloway might spare you: his office is not overdone with work, and I would ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... failing among official personages. He ordered everybody about except the Lord Mayor, and him he seemed to push about as though he were wheeling him in a legal Bath-chair. His Lordship was indeed a great invalid in respect to matters of law; I think he had overdone it, if I may use the expression; his study must have been tremendous to have acquired a knowledge of the laws of England in so short a time. But being somewhat feeble, and in his modesty much misdoubting his own judgment, he did nothing and said nothing, except it was ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... of this transept was put up in 1894, in memory of Wm. Philip Price, M.P. This window is too full of detail, and the canopy work is overdone. The ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... the antique vigour of Villehardouin. Joinville is something of a gossip, and though he evidently writes with a definite literary purpose, is not master of very great argumentative powers. But for this same reason he abounds in anecdote, and in the personal detail which, though it may easily be overdone, is undoubtedly now and then precious for the purpose of enabling us to conjure up the things and men of old time more fully and correctly. And there is a Pepysian garrulity as well as a Pepysian shrewdness about Joinville; so ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... understand you at last," retorted Stanton. "You have been smitten yourself, and this is your strategy to conceal the fact. The trouble is that you have overdone the matter, and revealed your transfixed heart long before I should have suspected the wound. Had you not better commence on the picture soon, for this matter may disable you ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... it!" cried Mr. Worden, hurrying into the passage, in quest of his hat and cloak. "It is no more than just that you should have your own, and the supper will be either eaten, or overdone, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Duke's assurance of support to Melbourne exasperated his own people to the greatest degree, produced a sulky article in the 'Times,' and the usual complaints at White's and the Carlton of the Duke's being in his dotage, and so forth. Even some of his real admirers thought he 'had overdone it,' and whilst at Brooks's they did not quite know what to make of it, at the Carlton they were in the same doubt how to interpret Melbourne's cautious ambiguities. Both, however, were clear enough: Melbourne meant to say he would 'go no further,' ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... She'll git a meal o' cold pork 'n' greens, cold string beans, gingerbread, 'n' custard pie on t' the table; then she'll stan' in the front door an' holler: 'Hurry up, Ossian! it's struck twelve more 'n two minutes ago, 'n' everything 's gittin' overdone!'" ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... artists also lent their aid, their designs ranging from the shepherdesses of Watteau to copies of Chinese and Japanese scenes. Flowers, cupids, garlands, landscapes—never was such a diversity of decoration attempted as during the reigns of Louis XIV and XV. As a result the output became very overdone and ornate. Fortunately for art, Louis XVI had better taste. Instead of continuing this garish type of design he procured a collection of Greek vases to serve as models for his workmen, and as a result the product came back ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... his head, with closed eyes, 'you forget my caracter. Why, the house is full iv faymales. My darlin' Mrs. Nutther, I—I couldn't enthertain sich an idaya; and, besides,' said he, with sudden energy, recollecting that the goose might be overdone, 'there's a religious duty, my dear Ma'am—the holy sacrament waitin'—a pair to be married; but Pat Moran will keep them quiet till mornin,' and I'll be down myself to see you then. So my sarvice to you, Mrs. Nutther, and God bless ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... weight was exactly two hundred, and her countenance a strange medley of the light-heartedness of her race, and the habitual and necessary severity of a cook. She often protested that she was weighed down by "responserbility;" the whole of the discredit of overdone beef, or under-done fish, together with those which attach themselves to heavy bread, lead-like buckwheat-cakes, and a hundred other similar cases, belonging exclusively to her office. She had been twice married, the last connection having been ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... as he read his little unsuccessful circumstances vanished and the wonder of life returned to him, the routine of reluctant getting up, opening shop, pretending to dust it with zest, breakfasting with a shop egg underdone or overdone or a herring raw or charred, and coffee made Miriam's way and full of little particles, the return to the shop, the morning paper, the standing, standing at the door saying "How do!" to passers-by, or getting a bit of gossip or watching unusual visitors, all these ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... respect to disposition, intellectual culture and study that conversation between us had become almost impossible. One of them suspected something, and said to me: "I have always thought that you were being overdone in the way of study." A habit which I had acquired of reciting the psalms in Hebrew from a small manuscript of my own which I used as a breviary, surprised them very much. They were half inclined to ask me if I was a ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Dryden, Warburton and Doctor Johnson used collectively or individually the following expressions in describing the work of the author of "Hamlet": conceit, overreach, word-play, extravagance, overdone, absurdity, obscurity, puerility, bombast, idiocy, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... enter upon the next stage to which I introduce him; the subjects I suggest for his consideration rouse his curiosity, because they are fine in themselves, because they are quite new to him, and because he is able to understand them. Your young people, on the other hand, are weary and overdone with your stupid lessons, your long sermons, and your tedious catechisms; why should they not refuse to devote their minds to what has made them sad, to the burdensome precepts which have been continually piled upon them, to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... sitting on the mint beside the well-house, weaving herself a wreath of buttercups. Felicity was sipping from the cup of clouded blue with an overdone air of unconcern. Each was acutely and miserably conscious of the other's presence, and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other was less than nothing to her. Felicity could not succeed. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... quieted him down and got him home at last; and when he'd got home he was that dismal and depressed from the reaction that he sat in his armchair all day and did nothing but grumble and burst into tears, for, you see, he'd overdone it, and it was bound to tell upon him. But after that all his natural pluck and determination got hold of him again, and if he wasn't mad to have that dance that they had ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... spoiled already. The fowls werena much to begin with. It needs sense and discretion to market, as well as to do most things, and folk that winna come home at the right hour, must content themselves with things overdone, or else in the ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... pretty things to an acquaintance, and omit them to a friend, "because she knows us, and we need not be ceremonious." But ceremony is not half such a bad thing as this age seems to think; it may be overdone, but so may its opposite. Why should we not give our friend the pleasure of this or that acknowledgment of her powers, which a stranger would give her, but which she would value far more from us, even though she "knows ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... responded the other, impatiently. "College professors, delicate ladies, children not yet in their teens, have committed homicide, why not this handsome gentleman in the wool business? Or if you won't have murder—and I agree that blood is rather tiresome, it has been overdone so much—bring a woman into the case. Let us have a betrayal, a wronged virgin, and ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... about it, whatever it was," said Mrs. Belmont, laying her hand soothingly upon his as the camels closed together. "It is no wonder that you are overdone. You have thought and worked for all of us so long. We shall halt presently, and a few hours' sleep will ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... one of his smooth little side-moves—his or Mrs. Honoria's. He didn't want Evan to get in too deep in the righteousness puddle, and he took that way of letting him get a peek at the real thing. It was overdone, though; horribly overdone. Confound it all! I wish Mr. McVickar would loosen up a little more with me! If he'd tell me a few of the things I ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
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