Citations:eye-sweet
English citations of eye-sweet
- 1858 March 27, The Builder[1], volume 16, number 790, page 203, column 1:
- Every style of art has had its archaic period, or that in which its first ideas show themselves; its period of rapid advancement, with the object of aim still in view; its period of actual attainment,—that in which the art ceased to improve; its period of over-refinement,—that in which pretty, elegant, and over-elaborated detail was introduced, asperities softened down, the whole made “eye-sweet,” and the suggestions of the hypercritical all attended to, but at the same time the noble sentiment of earlier periods evaporated; and lastly, its period of decline, more or less rapid, but inevitable in its result.
- 1885 May 23, “Ivy Lawns.”, in Scientific American[2], volume 52, number 21, page 328, column 3:
- A writer in the Farmers' Gazette (Dublin) thinks it a wonder that ivy lawns have not hitherto been more generally adopted than they have, especially in soils where lawn grass refuses to grow, and in situations where it cannot properly be mown and kept neat and eye-sweet.
- 1895, G. W. Dickie, quotee, “Scientific Miscellany”, in The Engineering Magazine, Devoted to Industrial Progress[3], volume 9, number 1, page 177, column 1:
- An old foreman with whom I worked when a young man, when asked for instructions in regard to filling in work between two fixed points, was in the habit of saying: “Make it eye-sweet, my son, make it eye-sweet.” I thought at the time that it was simply a habit that the old man had fallen into, but I have learned better since.
- 1899, Eleanor C. Donnelly, Lot Leslie's folks and their queer adventures among the French and Indians[4], page 33:
- There was nothing eye-sweet or pleasing in her looks, but Madame’s tender heart moved her to stoop and pat the forlorn little head, saying softly: “Poor little baby! poor motherless little papoose!”
- 1899, “To Robert Lennox of Disdove. Men's folly in undervaluing Christ—it is He that satisfieth—admiration of Him. (1637)”, in Letters of Samuel Rutherford[5], page 93:
- Oh, for the help of angels’ tongues, to make Christ eye-sweet and amiable to many thousands!
- 1911, John Brown, “Minchmoor”, in Hilaire Belloc, editor, The footpath way: an anthology for walkers[6], page 176:
- Nothing could be more beautiful than the view as we ascended, and got a look of the “eye-sweet” Tweed hills, and their “silver stream.”
- 1913, Lascelles Abercrombie, Deborah: a play in three acts[7], page 36:
- If you stay here for Barnaby, you'll stay / Out of my house forever.—God, my daughter / A boy's wanton! Your fine work, Deborah! / Tis' this has gladdened you, and made you shift / The sorrow you so talk of, and love life; / This is what David died for! An eye-sweet thing! A spice for all the blab-tongues on the river!
- 1914, Amelia Josephine Burr, “To Walter Scott, Melrose”, in In deep places: a book of verse[8]:
- How often has he lingered here alone / In such a golden evensong of spring, / Making the eye-sweet melody of stone / More lovely by his words' accompanying— / Singing for very youth of heart, compelled / By the keen urge of beauty, even as now / Tweed sings along the valley, April-swelled, / While the green slopes flush slowly to the plow.
- 1916, The Sales Service Company, “Make Your Letter Eye-Sweet”, in Selling Your Services[9]:
- (chapter title)
- 1923, Isabel Hornibrook, Pemrose Lorry, radio amateur[10], page 72:
- “Aye! she's ilka body's body, with her bonny, blue-lit face,“ thought the chauffeur catching the beam from those blue eyes and throwing it back. “But the other—our lassie.” He caught his breath. “She's ‘eye-sweet’! An' she's the black o' her parents' eye—meanin' the apple. If hurt—should—come to her.”
- 1949, Warrington Rural District Council, Annual Report on the Work of the Public Health Department for the Year 1949[11], page 17:
- This machine is kept particularly clean and eye-sweet
- 1961, World's end was home[12], page 54:
- The door was held shut with a loop of string; inside was all tidy—what Hoppy calls ‘shipshape, eye-sweet and Bristol fashion,’ with neat shelves set out with tins of food, a bit of a table and a rough bed.
- 1969 April 26, John Ough, “The many things of Spring”, in The War Cry[13], number 4405, page 13, column 3:
- And across the whole wide, varied map of Canada are the rich subtle scents, the eye-sweet sights of growth and resurgence and the harmonious sounds of a new year of life beginning afresh.
- 1998, Barbara Sleeper, Mike Sedam, Our Seattle[14], page 42:
- The chance to put your hands to the oars of an eye-sweet rowboat or the tiller of a traditional wooden catboat.
- 1999, Dónal MacPolin, The Drontheim: forgotten sailing boat of the north Irish coast[16], page 125, column 3:
- In clinker boat-building, where the line of the plank laps or ‘lands’ are there for all to see, the fairness of the lands and the eye-sweet tapering of the planks denotes the work of a master craftsman as distinct from the merely adequate.