"Recluse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grove. At the summit of a deeply shaded hill I found "Rydal Mount" cottage. I was shown, at once, into the sitting-room, where I found him with his wife, who sat sewing beside him. The old man rose and received me graciously. By his appearance I was somewhat startled. Instead of a grave recluse in scholastic black, whom I expected to see, I found an affable and lovable old man dressed in the roughest coat of blue with metal buttons, and checked trousers, more like a New York farmer than an English poet. His nose was very large, his forehead a lofty dome of thought, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom, Or hover o'er the yawning tomb, Or climb the Andes' clifted side, Or by the Nile's coy source abide, Or starting from your half-year's sleep From Hecla view the thawing deep, Or, at the purple dawn of day, Tadmor's marble wastes survey, You, recluse, again I woo, And ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... spent in labor and in prayer, and their one frugal daily meal was eaten in silence. While other religious orders had their splendid abbeys amid large communities, the Cistercians humbly asked grants of land in the most solitary places, where the recluse could meditate without interruption by his fellow-men, amid desolate moors and in the uncultivated gorges of inaccessible mountains. In such a barren district Walter l'Espee, who had fought at Northallerton, founded Rievaulx Abbey. It was "a solitary place ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,—sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the sieur de Lenide, stimulated by similar suggestions, had conceived a great wish to meet the marquise; for, having got M. de Nocheres who no doubt regretted her prolonged retreat—to entrust him with a commission for his granddaughter, he came to the convent parlour and asked for the fair recluse. She, although she had never seen him, recognised him at the first glance; for having never seen so handsome a cavalier as he who now presented himself before her, she thought this could be no other than the Marquis de Ganges, of whom people had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... spent. I shall be ever absorbing the things great men have written; with such experience I will charge my mind to the full. Nor will I try to give anything in return. Once, in the delusion that Art, loving the recluse, would make his life happy, I wrote a little for a yellow quarterly and had that succes de fiasco which is always given to a young writer of talent. But the stress of creation soon overwhelmed me. Only Art with a capital H gives any consolations to her henchmen. And I, who crave no knighthood, shall ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Land; and, the offer having been joyfully accepted, seven vessels, with children on board, sailed from Marseilles. But the voyage was not prosperous. At the end of two days, when the ships were off the isle of St. Peter, near the rock of the Recluse, a tempest arose, and the wind blew so violently that two of them went down with all on board. The five others, however, weathered the storm, and reached Bugia and Alexandria. And now the young Crusaders discovered to their consternation how they had been deceived ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... household at either. Accordingly, he staid principally in furnished lodgings. Of all our ministers, he had the least occasion for an outfit, and I suppose spent almost nothing on that article. He was of a disposition, too, to restrain himself within any limits of expense whatever, and it suited his recluse turn, which is, to avoid society. Should he judge of what others should do, by what he did, it would be an improper criterion. He was in Europe as a voyageur only, and it was while the salary was five hundred guineas more than ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... manner. With astonishing suddenness he could raise insurmountable barriers; and people, not of his order, who occasionally presumed on his simplicity of life and habits, found themselves put distinctly ill at ease by a quiet, curious look in his eye. No man was ever more the recluse and at the same time the man of the world. He had had his bitter little comedy of life, but it was different from that of his brother Frank. It was buried very deep; not one of his family knew of it: Edward Lambert, and one or two others who ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have been long enough before the recluse young Blounts would have encountered the gay little belle, had it not been that they were of necessity obliged to pass through the toll-gate, and sometimes forced to stop there. From some of her friends Nelly heard what a secluded life the two brothers ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... own MS., and is published for the first time. Every reader of 'The Recluse' and 'The Excursion' and the 'Lines on the French Revolution, as it appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement'—to specify only these—is aware that, in common with SOUTHEY and the greater COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled 'The Recluse;' as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... South, checked by General Nathaniel Greene—when South Carolina was being overrun by Cornwallis, and Virginia itself was invaded by expeditions from New York under Philips and Arnold. As Jefferson had no military abilities, indeed, was a recluse rather than a man of action, the administration of his native Province, while able and efficient, was lacking in the notable incident which the then crisis of affairs would naturally call forth. Even his own Virginia homestead was at this time raided by the English cavalry ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... they represented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle,—nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those days, and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... trait and ignored or subordinated others, bring him before us at some moment of decision or in some strange, perhaps hostile, environment. Or the author may take some character quite out of the ordinary: the village miser, the recluse, or a person with a peculiar mental or moral twist. But, whatever his choice, it is not enough that the character be actually drawn from real life. Indeed, such fidelity to what literally exists may be a hinderance to the writer. The original character may have done strange things and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... seems," replied Arthur. "Perhaps his father, the scientific recluse, had accumulated some money, and the boy came to America to get rid of it. He will be extravagant and wasteful for awhile, and then go back to his island with the idea that he has ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... if they were the same with us. If I associate not with these people,— with mankind,— with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed through the kingdom, there would be no need for me to change its state [1].' About the same time he had an encounter with another recluse, who was known as 'The madman of Ch'u.' He passed by the carriage of Confucius, singing out, 'O phoenix, O phoenix, how is your virtue degenerated! As to the past, reproof is useless, but the future may be provided against. Give up, give up your vain pursuit.' Confucius alighted ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... of any that have recently appeared, and may be placed without hesitation in the class of letters that have a high intrinsic merit independently of the writer's extraneous reputation; for FitzGerald was a recluse with a tinge of misanthropy, nearly unknown to the outer world, except by one exquisite paraphrase of a Persian poem, and his popularity rests almost entirely upon his published correspondence. Of these letters, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... letter from Jude, containing the information that he had again consulted his cousin, who took more and more warmly to the idea of tuition; and that she had agreed to come. It did not occur for a moment to the schoolmaster and recluse that Jude's ardour in promoting the arrangement arose from any other feelings towards Sue than the instinct of co-operation common among ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... seemed as if the estate were possessed by a devil,—a foul and melancholy fiend,—who resented the attempted possession of others by subjecting them to himself. One had turned from quiet and sober habits to reckless dissipation; another had turned from the usual gayety of life to recluse habits, and both, apparently, by the same influence; at least, so it appeared to Redclyffe, as he insulated their story from all other circumstances, and looked at them by one light. He even thought that he felt a similar influence ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... disaster which threatened him and his family. The philosopher Euphranor, an elderly member of the Museum, had reached him through the garden gate, and, spite of Philotas's warning sign, told him what was occurring. But Didymus knew the old philosopher, who, a recluse from the world like himself, was devoting the remainder of his life and strength to the pursuit of science. So he only shook his head incredulously, pushed back the thin locks of grey hair which hung down on his cheeks over the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... when a boy, made occasional visits to Hamilton, in the West of Scotland, where the descendants of his Covenanting ancestors still lived. One of them was an old bachelor—a recluse sort of man; and yet he had the Nasmyth love of cats. Being of pious pedigree and habits, he always ended the day by a long and audible prayer. My father and his companions used to go to the door of his ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the "boys" had said, "the Prince" was sure to break the spell, that fettered the life of the beautiful recluse. He had been on his way to her father, to seek his permission for himself and his fellow students to pass through his grounds, when all at once a new experience presented itself and he found himself talking all sorts of nice nonsense, to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... to whom nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of masters (him ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some revenge? Thereafter she often watched the renegade's window, from which, no matter how late the hour, shone a glimmering ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... gallant for a huntsman, sir," the girl replied with a smile; "but for your own sake I must urge you to go away at once. I live here with my father—a confirmed recluse who detests the sight of human beings; were he to discover me talking to one I should get into sad trouble, and with regard to you I could not say ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... mentioned—a species of uninspired Thoreau. His name was Benjamin Lear. So far as his craziness went, he might have been a lineal descendant of that ancient king of Britain who figures on Shakespeare's page. Family dissensions made a recluse of King Lear; but in the case of Benjamin there were no mitigating circumstances. He had no family to trouble him, and his realm remained undivided. He owned an excellent farm on the south side of Sagamore Creek, a little to the west of the bridge, ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... its favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... interesting description comes abruptly to an end, the rest of the letter being lost. On account of failing health and increased bodily languor, Miss Ferrier latterly lived a very retired life, seeing few but very intimate friends, and, as she said, "We are more recluse than ever, as our little circle is yearly contracting, and my eyes are more and more averse to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of some foreign land, who had founded a cathedral church on purpose to receive so precious a relic. A long list is given of the valuable gifts this Abbot made to the monastery and church. During his time lived the hermits Roger and Sigur, and the recluse Christina, whose story has been ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... England, but, indeed, to any spot further afield than Interlaken. All of his six-and-twenty years that he could recollect had been passed in a chalet on the Scheidegg above Grindelwald, his only companion an elderly recluse who had deliberately cut himself off from communion with his fellows. The trouble which had driven Mr. Strange, an author at one time of some mark, into this seclusion, was now as completely forgotten as his name. Even David knew ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... strange crimes for which there is no apparent explanation, consequently the strongest weapon the investigator has, that of motive, was absent. As far as could be gathered the dead professor had not an enemy in the world. He was a semi-recluse, with nothing about him to tempt the burglar; yet he had been brutally done to death in his own laboratory, and the murderer had made good his escape without leaving anything likely to prove helpful ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... answered the recluse. "Your young eyes will wax heavy with these midnight vigils. You must sleep, my boy, and to-morrow I will communicate my plans ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the man of the island slowly. "After I knew I was ruined, I fled down here, where I was raised, and became a recluse on that island. It was cowardly of me, I know, but from now on I am going to lead a ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired in holy hermits' weed, And skilled in blandishment, That they the hermit may beguile With every art and amorous wile Whose use they know so well, And by their witcheries seduce The unsuspecting young recluse To leave his father's cell. Then when the boy with willing feet Shall wander from his calm retreat And in that city stand, The troubles of the king shall end, And streams of blessed rain descend Upon the thirsty land. Thus shall the holy Rishyasring ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the Night-Inspector, with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a monastery on top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. With the same air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from his books to bestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, 'Ah! we know all about YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and to inform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend them immediately. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... year as a recluse, and he was now forty-nine. His life in solitude was hard—not on account of the fasts and the prayers (they were no hardship to him) but on account of an inner conflict he had not at all anticipated. The sources of that conflict were ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... paid, and so good-bye. But it is needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained—a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, 'I think ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in me, for those forces that had rebelled at the crude presentations of Bromstead, at the secrecies and suppressions of my youth, at the dull unrealities of City Merchants, at the conventions and timidities of the Pinky Dinkys, at the philosophical recluse of Trinity and the phrases and tradition-worship of my political associates. None of these things were half alive, and I wanted life to be intensely alive and awake. I wanted thought like an edge of steel and desire like a flame. The real work before ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... How could a lovely, talented, warm-hearted girl, with the hot blood of Spanish passion coursing through her veins, resist the admiration, the flattery, and the embraces of the gay young cavaliers of the Court? She merely followed the vogue, she was no recluse; and when, in 1575, she was enrolled as a "Soul" in the Accademia degli Elevati, she assumed the name of "Ardente"—a true ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... ignoble had it not been naive. The recluse of Kremenetz, passionately devoted to his people but wanting in political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight against the bigotry of the Jewish masses, in the childish conviction that the Russian authorities ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... he was silent, and seemed lost in revery. The pure, ever-present breeze of Mackinac played in his long silvery hair, and his bright eyes roved along the wall of the old house; he had a broad forehead, noble features, and commanding presence, and as he sat there, recluse as he was,—aged, alone, without a history, with scarcely a name or a place in the world,—he looked, in the power of his native-born dignity, worthy of a ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... real hermitage I'd chuse, Nor wish to live from all the world recluse; But with a friend sometimes unbend the soul, In social converse, o'er the sprightly bowl. With cheerful W——, serene and wisely gay, I'd often pass the dancing hours away; He skill'd alike to profit and to please, Politely talks with unaffected ease; Sage ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... comes an English officer, who is readily recognized as that Lord Howe who met his death at Ticonderoga. As a most natural sequence, even amid the hostile demonstrations of both French and Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl find time to make most deliciously sweet love, and the son of the recluse has already lost his heart to the daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden whose warrior-father has surrounded her with all the comforts of a ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... my heart is full of anxieties for her—I know the risk she runs. But I did not feel them much for myself. I grew into the knowledge of my unhappiness as I grew in knowledge of what might have been; but the recluse life of a French girl prevents her from expecting much from marriage but an increase of consequence. With us it is a step from tutelage to liberty—from nonentity to importance. It cannot be quite so much so in England; but, from the greater prevalence of celibacy, it has even more ECLAT ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Gloaming was naturally glum, So she married young Grouch, the recluse; For she says when she's sad, she just looks at his face— Then she can't help but laugh ...
— Why They Married • James Montgomery Flagg
... imagine the desolation, the sombre surroundings, the risks to be run every hour—every second—and you will understand that those two English gentlemen had something in them passing self-interest, passing all that the world has to offer. Ferrier never dreamed of becoming a nautical recluse; he was too full of the joy of life for that: but he had a purpose, and he went right at his mark like a bullet from a rifle. Once that evening he went on deck and tried to peer through the wall of trembling ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a thing that never could be safely asserted of the author ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... whom she allowed to fade into the background with too scant recognition of their services; and when she had got Amy thoroughly warmed and rehabilitated she turned her thought toward Cope. Here, certainly, was a young scholastic recluse who had an admirable faculty for getting into the public eye. If one section of Churchton society had talked about his performance at her dinner, all sections of it would now be discussing his new performance on the high seas. Suddenly she was struck with the notion ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... than in poetry. There is a good vein of invention in his book, which proposes something, though nothing is concluded. We must wait for the second part, which he has promised: perhaps, on his amendment, he may obtain that entire pardon which is now denied him; in the mean time, neighbor, keep him a recluse in ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was drawing them into the house, giving them neighborly welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their confusion and interrupted ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... instruction in that institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew, applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber, he devoted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... a graveyard gate, what do you want?" demanded Cap'n Sproul, running eye of great disfavor over Mr. Gammon and his faithful attendant. He had heard various reports concerning this widower recluse of Purgatory, and was ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... from his dark melancholy and wild deeds, hastened to lower the drawbridge. Greetings were exchanged in silence, and in silence did Sintram enter, and those joyless gates closed with a crash behind the future recluse. ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the first chest of the cargo of Useful Knowledge destined for the fortunate Maldives had been digested by the recluse Popanilla; for a recluse he had now become. Great students are rather dull companions. Our Fantasian friend, during his first studies, was as moody, absent, and querulous as are most men of genius ...
— English Satires • Various
... now, but he will be. I could not believe it myself at first, for I know that he is a perfect recluse. But I have just asked Lady Meltoun, and there is no doubt about it. It seems that they came across him in a lonely part of Spain, and he saved the life of Lady Meltoun's only child—a little boy. It is quite a romantic story. He promised to come and seem them directly he returned ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me a delicious dream. I guessed that the gallant cardinal was curious to see Armelline, but I was not afraid as I knew he was a constant lover. Besides I felt sure that if he took an interest in the fair recluse he would be certain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... commonplace. They know that if they can boast a knighthood or a baronetcy or a Privy Councillorship, they will taste day by day and every day that respect, that confidence from all about them that no one but a trained recluse despises. And life will abound in opportunities. "Oh, well!" they will say. Such things give them influence, consideration, power ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... a bread-and-butter engagement. My uncle was notoriously inadequate in all practical affairs; he was a scholar and something of a recluse and the most charming gentleman I ever saw, but a child in worldly matters,—a child! ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... to further every wish of her intoxicated imagination, she determined to spare no exertion to secure the support of her own family, which, when agreeing in one point, was the most powerful of any in the kingdom. Her father, the Earl of Strathearn, was now a misanthrope recluse in the Orkneys; she therefore did not calculate on his assistance, but she resolved on requesting Wallace to put the names of her cousins, Athol and Badenoch, into the exchange of prisoners, for by their ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "A recluse? What's his hobby: butterflies, stones, stamps, or coins?—No, girl; I don't mean that. I'm a little heavy to-night. Do you recollect the night you donned a suit of mine, bundled your hair under a felt hat, and visited the studios? What a romp! Not a soul ever found out who you were; and if I ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... had abdicated his empire to become the servant of Heaven. Still, it must be allowed that his gigantic size, the length of his unshaven locks and beard, and the fire of a deep-set and wild eye were rather attributes of a soldier than of a recluse. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... she became a mother, she had placed round her child's. It had even happened, that being, while pregnant, abandoned by all the world, and constantly occupied in contemplating the image of this benevolent recluse, her offspring had contracted some resemblance to this revered object. She therefore bestowed upon him the name of Paul, giving him for his patron a saint who had passed his life far from mankind by whom he had been first deceived and then forsaken. Virginia, on receiving this little present from ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... approved the projects of vengeance entertained by the latter, but thought that the honour of the family was sufficiently cleared by what was evidently a flight. Paolo was disappointed and puzzled by the manner of the unfortunate recluse. Instead of bursting out into furious denunciations, he became as pale as ashes, and then hiding his face in his hands, wept aloud. His agony continued for more than an hour; after which he raised his head, and exhibited a serene brow to the astonished servitor. 'Let us return to Santa ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... had plainly come to change our day travel into night travel, for freezing was resumed each night after the sun was set, and the surface grew hard again. So at this cabin we lay all the next day, with an interesting recluse of these parts who knows many passages of Shakespeare by heart, and who drew us a chart of our course to the next habitation, marking every bend to be followed and the place where the river must be crossed. But there is always difficulty in ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the wholesale severity and multiplied details of horror, which came to be incorporated with the doctrine of hell, is to be found in the gloomy theories of certain philosophers whose relentless speculations were tinged and moulded by their own recluse misanthropy and the prevailing superstitions of their time. Out of the old asceticism of the East the false spiritualism which regarded matter as the source of evil and this life as a penance arose the dogma of metempsychosis. The consequence of this theory, rigidly carried out, created ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of course, to get him under restraint before he could stain his hands with blood, but the matter was full of difficulty. He is a recluse in his habits, and would not see any medical man. Besides, it was necessary for our purpose that the medical man should convince himself of his insanity; and he is sane as you or I, save on these very rare occasions. But, fortunately, before he has these attacks he always shows certain ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is for the living gold; Him I desire who dwells recluse, And not his image worn and old, Day-servant of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sharply as the angry old man pushed it to and let fall the bar. O'Iwa looked into the dark recess with pained and startled eyes. So much of a recluse she was learning that Iemon had long been the talk of the ward. She turned, and slowly took her way back to Samoncho[u]. Here the reaction came. Strong was the inclination to laugh and weep; too strong for self-control. In alarm she ran to take ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... site of the present enormous edifice. It was torn down in 1812. Here for nearly a quarter of a century the tall form, and face pale and meagre from intense thinking, appeared each Sabbath before a people among whom his recluse habits rendered him almost a stranger. Here, having rested upon the desk, upon the elbow of his left arm, whose hand held a tiny book of closely written MS., he read with stooping form and low tones those solemn arguments and tremendous appeals which now thrill us ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind." (Lev. 11:21, 22.) At the present time locusts are used as food by many oriental peoples, though usually by the poorer classes only. Of the passage referring to locusts as part of the Baptist's food while he lived as a recluse in the desert, Farrar (Life of Christ, p. 97, note,) says: "The fancy that it means the pods of the so-called locust tree (carob) is a mistake. Locusts are sold as articles of food in regular shops for the purpose at Medina; they are plunged into salt boiling ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... overtakes the obscure professional scholar in this country: either he shrinks to the dimensions of a true villager and deserts the vastness of his library; or he repudiates the village and becomes a cosmopolitan recluse—lonely toiler among his books. Few possess the breadth and equipoise which will enable them to pass from day to day along mental paths, which have the Forum of Augustus or the Groves of the Academy at one end and the babbling square of a modern town at the other; remaining equally at home ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... owed to his stay at Ceuta beyond the general suggestion and encouragement to take up a life-profession of discovery, it was at any rate put into practice on his second and last return (1418). From that time to the end of his life he became a recluse from the Court life of Lisbon, though he soon gathered round himself a rival ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... their forelegs ran back after the holy man and called out his name. He heard my loud shouts and awaited me forthright; and, as soon as I approached him I said, "When I had quitted thee a thought came into my mind; to wit, that thou art a recluse who keepest thyself aloof from earthly things, pure in heart and busied only with orison and devotion Now care of all these camels will cause thee only toil and moil and trouble and waste of precious time: 'twere better then to give them back and not run the risk of these discomforts and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... story. The queer death of a recluse in his library is the main theme. There is absolutely no clue, and the mystery is doubled by the fact that, although the room is shot up and in the greatest disorder, both windows and door are found locked on the inside—the man dead in a pool of his own blood. The ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... kin of blood! Thy life of use And patient trust is more than mine; And wiser than the gray recluse This ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... night of horrors has to his shocked and shrinking fancy still been ever present; there still it broods—settled, perpetual and alone! Ah! Rosabelle! the petulancies of misfortune claim our pity, not resentment. My dear uncle is a recluse, but not a misanthrope; he rejects the society of mankind, yet is he solicitous for their happiness; and while his own heart breaks in silence under a weight of undivided sorrows, does he not seek incessantly to alleviate the burthen of his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... chastisement, of dark complexion and red eyes, stands in an attitude of readiness (to grapple with every offender) and the king is of righteous vision, the subjects never forget themselves. The Brahmacharin and the house-holder, the recluse in the forest and the religious mendicant, all these walk in their respective ways through fear of chastisement alone. He that is without any fear, O king, never performs a sacrifice. He that is without fear ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the street, the monotonous drone of his bagpipe was reproduced in most comical imitation; and anon there was a gush of bird-songs, as if a whole aviary were in the vicinity. Indeed, no half-hour passed without audible indication that the little recluse was in ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the child of George's uncle, who was a recluse living at Tunbridge. He was a scholar and a pedant, and concerned himself but little about his only child, whose fortune was ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... hypocrites. Some of us feign for one matter, and some for other. I wis somewhat thereabout, child; for ere I came hither was I maid unto the Lady Julian [a fictitious person], recluse of Tamworth Priory. By our dear Lady her girdle! saw ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... with appetencies just, Produce a formative prolific dust; With apt propensities, the Styles recluse Secrete a formative prolific juice; These in the pericarp erewhile arrive, Rush to each other, and embrace alive. —Form'd by new powers progressive parts succeed, Join in one whole, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... stood before him. 3. The old man kept Tsze-lu to pass the night in his house, killed a fowl, prepared millet, and feasted him. He also introduced to him his two sons. 4. Next day, Tsze-lu went on his way, and reported his adventure. The Master said, 'He is a recluse,' and sent Tsze-lu back to see him again, but when he got to the place, the old man was gone. 5. Tsze-lu then said to the family, 'Not to ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... already introduced many corruptions in religion; yet the piety of early Christians, as well as new converts, was so great, and particularly of princes, as well as noblemen and other wealthy persons, that they built many religious houses, for those who were inclined to live in a recluse or solitary manner, endowing those monasteries with land. It is true, we read of monks some ages before, who dwelt in caves and cells, in desert places. But, when public edifices were erected and endowed, they began gradually to degenerate into idleness, ignorance, avarice, ambition, and luxury, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... and cheerfulness it wakes up within us, to see all nature beaming in brightness and sunshine, father," added Alice, blushing beneath the stern look of the recluse. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... neighbors' affairs, and when private life will soon be a thing of the past, so bold and so intrusive are the eyes of the press,—that modern Argus. Nevertheless, it is a truth which rests on the authority of the first six Christian centuries, during which no recluse ever returned to social life. Few are the moral wounds that solitude will ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... sat down to write to my dear recluse, intending at first to write only a few lines, as she had requested me; but my time was too short to write so little. My letter was a screed of four pages, and very likely it said less than her note of one short page. I told her her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him Kathrien, whom he had adopted at my suggestion (made at a time when he seemed to be getting morose and verging on becoming a recluse) that he needed a child in the house; Frederik, his nephew and heir; James Hartmann, his secretary, and Willem, the son of Anne Marie, the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... mound over the skeleton. Jack, therefore, with his axe, cut down the other door-post, which, when it was done, brought the whole hut in ruins to the ground, and thus formed a grave to the bones of the poor recluse and his dog. Then we left the spot, having brought away the iron pot, the pistol, and the old axe, as they might be of ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... those times will explain the causes of their imprisonment. Margaret was strangled by order of her husband. Blanche, after seven years' captivity, was transferred to the convent of Maubuisson, near Pontoise, where she continued a recluse till her death—In 1331, David Bruce, compelled to flee from the superior power of the third Edward, found an asylum in Chateau Gaillard; and here, for a time, maintained the pageantry of a court.—Twenty-four years subsequently, when Charles the Bad, king of ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... differently from the manner in which the individuals, of whom the mass may be composed, would look at them when alone. In books, too, man must be studied, but more especially face to face, in constant, earnest observation. The preacher must get out and about. A recluse he cannot afford to be. Pale-faced piety cultivated in the cloister may be admirably adapted for Sunday exhibition, but is apt to prove rather ineffective when brought into active service in week-day tasks. Wisdom waits to be gathered in ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... been busy," said the professor. "I opened those letters, Wigan. Of course Zena's first question on her arrival was why Mr. Parrish had not opened them. Her second question was: Why did he live the life of a recluse in Gray's Inn? How would you answer ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... sheltering myself behind the Prelate's authority, to avoid doing that which I proclaim my readiness, though not my willingness, to do, I can only say, that you are the first who has doubted the faith of Hugo de Lacy."—And while the proud Baron thus addressed a female and a recluse, he could not prevent his eye from sparkling, and his ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... dignity annex herself to the group. For one short, ecstatic moment, she held her breath; then she vented her feelings by plunging headlong into the next wave and swimming off as fast as she could. Instead of making his bow and then beating the decorous retreat of an eccentric recluse, Mr. Gifford Barrett, the composer of the Alan Breck Overture, had deposited his tall form in his rose-colored bathing suit on ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... away again to wander through the wood, but the Warden restrains him, and soothes him, and speaks comfortably to him; and at last Angelo makes his request that he may have a certain cave in the woods for his dwelling and be enclosed there as a recluse to await the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... the host. "Yes; I'm afraid I became a bit of a recluse latterly. I had to take such confounded care of myself. Well, I didn't want to go out of the world before I could help it, and I was enjoying the quiet here after the strenuous years in Africa—Africa South, East, West. What years they were!" He sighed. "Only the luck ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the horseman at length, in a low deep tone, "you have chosen to shut yourself up in a narrow cell, like a recluse, for more than two months, denying yourself all sort of enjoyment, practising severest abstinence, and passing your whole time in useless prayer—ay, useless, for if you were to pray from now till doomsday—come when it will, a thousand years hence, or to-morrow—it will not save you. When you ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Siam, bred in a family pervaded with religious and propagandist ideas, and having led a half-recluse life, Phillida Callender did not seem to Mrs. Hilbrough just the sort of person to entertain a man of ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... about him, because he lived like the rest of the world. But that two men should come into a strange country, and partake of none of the country diversions, seek no acquaintance, and live entirely recluse, is something so inexplicable as to puzzle the wisest heads, even that of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... Indeed, the Baron's power over this innocent girl was curiously like enchantment, or mesmeric influence. It was so masterful that the sexual element was almost eliminated. It was that of Prospero over the gentle Ariel. And yet it was probably only that of the cosmopolite over the recluse, of the experienced man over the ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... quest he found himself again opposed by his London friends. Unable to secure a new Alice in Wonderland for his child readers, he determined to give them Kate Greenaway. But here he had selected another recluse. Everybody discouraged him. The artist never saw visitors, he was told, and she particularly shunned editors and publishers. Her own publishers confessed that Miss Greenaway was inaccessible to them. "We conduct all our business with ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... the world moved on, and with it that small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of the recluse. ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... attacked the monarchy. The day following the authorities freed him on the ground that he was demoralizing the prisoners. Time has dealt lightly with him, and no one can read of his latter days—his brilliancy all eclipsed—a recluse except for his love and companionship for children—unmoved. In his day he was a power and in no small degree did he contribute to the living monument of great ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... me he was quite uneasy at the recluse life led by the queen and the princesses, and that he was anxious to prevail with them to take a little air, which must be absolutely necessary to their health. He was projecting a scheme for this purpose, which required the assistance of the Duke ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Suddhodana All those long years among the Sakya Lords Lacking the speech and presence of his Son; Sorrowful sate the sweet Yasodhara All those long years, knowing no joy of life, Widowed of him her living Liege and Prince. And ever, on the news of some recluse Seen far away by pasturing camel-men Or traders threading devious paths for gain, Messengers from the King had gone and come Bringing account of many a holy sage Lonely and lost to home; but nought of him The crown of white Kapilavastu's ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... Irish. The most renowned of these dates from 1067, when Marianus Scotus ("Marianus the Irishman"), with his companions, John and Candidus, left his native land and arrived in Bavaria. These holy men were welcomed at Ratisbon by the Bishop Otto; and on the advice of Murcherat, an Irish recluse, took up their residence near St. Peter's church at the outskirts of the city. Novices flocked from Ireland to join them and a monastery was erected to receive the community. In a short time this had to be replaced by ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... religious schools, interest had been independently and strongly awakened in the minds of theologians and philosophical thinkers, in regard to the idea, history, and relations to society of the Christian Church. In Ireland, a recluse, who was the centre of a small knot of earnest friends, a man of deep piety and great freedom and originality of mind, Mr. Alexander Knox, had been led, partly, it may be, by his intimacy with John Wesley, to think out for himself the character and true ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... see that was only a variation of the traditional hermit's cave, a modern hole in a marble cliff. This tall, high-shouldered man with his spade-shaped beard and ragged smoking jacket, the cotton wool oozing from the quilting and the pockets burst at the corners, had recluse written all over him. He walked over the half dozen rugs that lay between the door and his encampment behind the table and left me forlorn, twiddling my hat and pulling at my coat, somewhere in outer darkness. He was nervous, yet anxious to show he was at ease. I had disturbed him. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more securely to deceive your hearers, and to secure your children, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... colored birds frequent the tangled underbrush of ravines and mountain sides where they lead the life of a recluse. They nest at low elevations in the densest thickets, making them of twigs, strips of bark, grasses and feathers, compactly woven together and located in bushes from one to four feet from the ground. They lay from three to five plain, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... 'large leisure in noble mornings, opened by prayer or by readings of Plato, or whatsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse.' Yet he could not wholly escape the recluse's malady. He confesses that he sometimes craves 'that stimulation which every capricious, languid, and languescent study needs.' Carlyle's potent concentration stirs his envy. The work of the garden and the orchard he found very fascinating, eating up days and weeks; 'nay, a brave scholar ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... his life, was a matter of personal choice. More and more, as he grew older, he avoided every action on his part, and on the part of his family, that might tend to keep his name and writings before the public. A few friends felt at liberty to visit the recluse, and were kindly welcomed, but he himself sought no one. His favorite companions were his grandchildren, with whom he delighted to pass his time, and his devoted wife, who was a constant assistant ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... were huge, because he was so thin; his temples were sunk, his beard scanty, the hair on his head long.... By his face it was impossible to tell his class: gentleman, merchant, or peasant; judging by his appearance and long hair he looked almost like a recluse, a lay-brother, but when he spoke—he was not at all like a monk. He was losing strength through his cough and his illness and the suffocating heat, and he breathed heavily and was always moving his dry lips. Noticing ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... hat, tan gloves with big welts on the back and stout, low-heeled Oxfords. This was the young woman who had come five thousand miles to improve her health! This was the child of the Orient, and in the Orient, woman is a hothouse flower. This was the timid young recluse to whom the soft-spoken diplomats were to carry a few roses ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... wife's approval; and the next morning our disconsolate hero was on his way to the "hermit" of the cave. The holy recluse had been long famed through that region for his kindness and attention to the wants of those who sought help and counsel; and Michael thought no harm could come of it, even though he might be unable to circumvent the designs ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Unconscious that a day and night had passed. I cannot reason with such earnestness— I dare not chide such deep and tender love, But much I fear his reason's overthrow Or that he may become like that recluse He shuddered at, and not a mighty king With power to crush the wrong and aid the right. How can we turn his mind from such sad thoughts To life's full joys, the duties of a king, And his great destiny ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... has not studied human nature so superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends you—so his card reads—'charged with an explanation of his unavoidable absence.' ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... usual forms of social intercourse, we formed a strong contrast to each other. I always required the stimulants of companionship and applause. Perdita was all-sufficient to herself. Notwithstanding my lawless habits, my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life was spent among tangible realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my enemies, since by exciting me they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me; Perdita almost disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary moods. All my feelings, even of exultation ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen |
