Valentina Mihailovna's parents were not rich, but they had managed to educate her at the Smolny Convent, where, although considered a republican, she was always in the foreground and very well treated on account of her excellent behaviour and industriousness.
"Virgin Soil"
Ivan S. Turgenev
They point over to the foreigner, the clean-stepping, braced, self-confident foreigner, good at arms, good at the arts, and eclipsing us in industriousness manual and mental, and some dare to say, in splendour of verse-our supreme accomplishment.
"The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith"
George Meredith
As they came out from Rose Beacon, they told above thirty fisher-boats at sea, testifying the industriousness of this people.
"A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II."
Bulstrode Whitelocke