"Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reluctant assent being wrung from him by Sir Joseph Sheldon, that a house should be pulled down, as suggested by Leonard, preparations were instantly made for putting the design into execution. The house selected was about four doors from the top of Fish-street-hill, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... difficult line of advance, or when losing it, England is regarded with a searching gaze that might seem governed by the fabulous fascination of the rattlesnake. Does she ascend on her proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause. Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... vice, and incitements to goodness and sense, delivered in the name of one Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain. [1] The new paper ran but for seventy-two numbers; perhaps for all the wit and learning, the fire and zest of its columns, the public were reluctant to buy their own lashings. But it may be doubted whether, except in the pages of his three great novels, Henry Fielding ever revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal 'lucubrations.' Here, the active ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... necessary for him to assert his position. It is only some hapless stranger ignorant of his standing that will occasionally provoke him to a display of those fighting qualities he grows more and more reluctant to employ. Even with such he is comparatively merciful; stern, but never brutal. Usually all that is necessary is for him to look at them steadfastly for a few moments in a peculiar way. This seems to convince them that, after all, discretion is the better part, and slowly and ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... returned to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... seemed to be reluctant to permit the escape of a word, so firmly were they pressed together during the intervals between his slowly spoken words. His slight figure, "too thin to cast a shadow," in the vigorous terms of the young freshman, was irritating in the extreme, and ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... heavy purple shadow indicated the deep basin through which ran the ill-famed Suburra, and the "Wicked-Street", so named from the tradition, that therein Tullia compelled her trembling charioteer to lash his reluctant steeds over the yet warm body of her murdered father. And beyond this again the lofty ridge of the Quirinal mount stood out in fair relief with all its gorgeous load of palaces and columns; and the great temple of the city's founder, the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of her life. Men's lust is a necessity to her very existence. Starving nations do not so eagerly await the coming of the food-laden ships which will keep them alive as the prostitute watches for the rising of the male desire. The dismay when it is reluctant to quicken is as sincere as it is disquieting to acknowledge. In the final result the woman may be the victim, but at the start she is the controller of the assault. She directs a continuous attack; her relation to men is comparable ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... it," said she, with her most decided nod, "by affinity. There is more affinity between you and brutes. It is the sons of God who find the daughters of men fair. We draw angels from the skies;—even your jealous, reluctant sex has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... and the floor fluttered with anxious labelled committeemen dashing to and fro. There was nothing for them to do, but they were nervous. By half-past eight the first arrivals could be seen hesitating at the outer door, as though reluctant to make a plunge; herded finally to the right and left of men's and women's dressing-rooms. After a long, chattering interval, encouraged by the slow accumulation of numbers, a little group debouched on the main, floor. Its members all talked and laughed ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... even to a comparatively late period in his professional career, was afflicted with the usual bashfulness about having his work published. We well remember the solicitations, the refusals, the renewed appeals, and, finally, the reluctant and conditional assent to have a single gelatine print from one of his perspectives published. This was the drawing, we think, of the Woburn Library, and was accompanied by a plan. Finding that he had suffered no severe injury ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... reluctant. "It's awfully good of you," he said. "I couldn't think of troubling you when you've come so far on a pleasure excursion. But I am ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... (as she seems to have been known in those days) a different fate was reserved. Her red lips, saucy eyes, and opulent figure were too seductive a spoil to part with, General Sheremetief decided, and she was left behind, a by no means reluctant hostage. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... his knee, alike proclaimed him to be English; yet as he gazed upon the noble face, and looked into the clear depths of the calm and fearless eyes, Wendot felt no hostility towards the representative of the hostile race, but rather a sort of reluctant admiration. ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... all the tears had been shed and the sobs had ceased, all the flowers strewn and the reluctant feet had left the silent city, I went over behind the tall cedars into a corner and knelt beside Martha Ensley, who had flung herself down across the new-made grave that held all that was left of Jacob ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Reluctant as he was to leave Peter Rolls, which meant leaving "his girl," a change of position offered the only hope of obtaining her in the end. And despite every discouragement from his Lygia, Ursus did secretly cherish this hope. As she no longer lived in Toyland when he ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her. These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding Witham, in substance and not in shadow. It is also quite possible that he had not entirely given up the notion of going ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... of rock specimens, she was hungrily watched and waited on by the new inhabitants of that ancient portage—Mushrat, whose destinies were soon to be so splendid, and whose skies were to be rocked and rent by the thunders of men struggling with reluctant ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Lambton, and wished to revisit her old friends there; and as Pemberley—Mr. Darcy's seat—was only five miles off, and was a show-place, the Gardiners determined to see it, though their niece was reluctant to accompany them until she had learned that its owner was not at home. As they were being shown over the place, Elizabeth could not help reflecting that she might have been mistress of it, and she listened with surprise as the old housekeeper ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... other fellow than Mr. Lloyd George, and he has mastered a dodge of at such moments sinking his voice to a wheedling pitch calculated to coax the most suspicious and recalcitrant of listeners into reluctant concurrence. M. Mantoux would reproduce that smile to admiration, and his tones when translating Mr. Lloyd George's seductive blandishments into French were enough to cajole ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... is tabooed in the front room of the house. The "damp dignity" of the best-room has been well described: "Musty smells, stiffness, angles, absence of sunlight. What is there to talk about in a room dark as the Domdaniel, except where one crack in a reluctant shutter reveals a stand of wax flowers under glass, and a dimly descried hostess who evidently waits only your departure to ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... The brave fellow was reluctant to remain inactive; but he had been, for some time, seriously unwell, having been laid up for a time with a severe attack of dysentery; and was really unfit for any continued exertion, although he had made light of his ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... for the shocks he had given her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the feelings of his little sister, he became exceedingly agitated and was unable to proceed. Clarendon, who had finished reading his papers, came to the side of the boat where we were sitting, and told me that he was going to turn in, and that it was quite time for me to be asleep too. I was very reluctant to go, but when brother was out of hearing, Dick said,—"It is as well. I find I have not self-command enough to go over the sad story of my own folly. If you will give me a pencil and some paper, to-morrow I will write such ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... the Gadfly placed himself in the required position, only turning his head to glance up for a moment at the red and yellow splendour of the sunrise. He had repeated the request that his eyes might not be bandaged, and his defiant face had wrung from the colonel a reluctant consent. They had both forgotten what they ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... and the treat was ravished from their longing lips. Scarlet with shame and anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times, and as each doomed couple, looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from her reluctant hands, a shout from the street completed the anguish of the girls, for it told them that their feast was being exulted over by the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. This—this was too much. All flashed indignant or appealing glances at the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... between the banished Duke and the Usurper, or between Orlando and Oliver. There is not even the conflict, if so it can be called, which nominally brings so many hundreds of plays under the Brunetiere canon—the conflict between an eager lover and a more or less reluctant maid. Or take, again, Ibsen's Ghosts—in what valid sense can it be said that that tragedy shows us will struggling against obstacles? Oswald, doubtless, wishes to live, and his mother desires that he should live; but this mere will for life cannot be the differentia ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... family, where each individual atom goes off by itself and absolutely refuses to unite even temporarily with any other atom. The nitrogen atoms will pair off with each other and stick together, but they are reluctant to associate with other elements and when they do the combination is likely to break up any moment. You all know people like that, good enough when by themselves but sure to break up any club, church or society they get into. Now, the value of nitrogen in warfare ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy caught her ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... it, and the two sat and looked off across the darkened water and at the pale, reluctant stars, beholding, for that night at least, the passionate inner sense of the universe. They ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... thus made constituting a kind of advance guard, through which an Indian enemy would have to penetrate, before they could reach the interior, others were less reluctant to occupy the country between them and the Alleghany mountains. Accordingly various establishments were soon made in it by adventurers from different parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and those places in which settlements had been previously effected, received considerable accessions ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... grass beneath and the sky above" for a more settled, more confining, and more materially remunerative way of life. Some of the old-time cowboys were little more adaptable to change than the Plains Indians; few were less reluctant to plow or work in houses. Heaven in their dreams was a range better watered than the one they knew, with grass never stricken by drought, plenty of fat cattle, the best horses and comrades of their experience, more of women than they ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... property to Ovin, her steward, and retired to Ely for the purpose of religious meditation, for which it was well adapted, as being surrounded by fens and waters it was difficult of access. She was again solicited to enter the marriage state, and, although for some time reluctant, she was induced by her uncle Ethelwold, then king of East Anglia, to give her hand to Egfrid, son of Oswy, king of Northumberland, and she afterwards became queen by the accession of her husband to his father's ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... charged Flora, during his absence, to inquire for a female servant, to accompany them to Canada, and take care of the baby during the voyage. Flora was very reluctant to obey this command, though she knew that it was entirely on her account that the request was made. Her health was still very bad, and her kind husband was anxious to spare her any additional fatigue and trouble. She much doubted, however, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... general feeling, but men were reluctant to acknowledge so disappointing a conclusion, and the preparations for departure were slow and lingering. They had not fairly begun before Mr. Kilshaw's entrance abruptly checked them. Instantly he became ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... enable its friends to make head against it, the repeal of the embargo was absolutely necessary. I expressed a just sense of the merit of this information, and of the importance of the disclosure to the safety and even the salvation of our country: and however reluctant I was to abandon the measure (a measure which persevered in a little longer, we had subsequent and satisfactory assurance would have effected its object completely), from that moment, and influenced by that information, I saw the necessity of abandoning it, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the great—surely a most barbarous and unwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... shorter one of the stairway on the cliff, up which Fayette had once forced the reluctant Pepita, but around by the sloping wagon track and into the lower rooms of the great building. Already the lad knew most of these by the descriptions his sister had given him, but no description could equal the facts. As she had done, so he experienced that thrill ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the 'Sunbeam;' our ensigns were duly dipped, we steamed away on our respective courses, and in less than an hour we were out of sight of each other. It is a sudden change for the 'Monkshaven' men, who were all very reluctant to leave the yacht. Many of them broke down at the last moment, particularly when it came to saying good-bye to Tom and me, at the gangway of the steamer. They had seemed thoroughly to appreciate any kindnesses they received while with us, and were anxious to show their ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... formidable. He knows that our kinship with him must always prevent us from summoning the law to protect us against his persecutions; and though he cannot injure us as seriously as he flatters himself, he can at least cause us a thousand annoyances, which I am reluctant to face. Throw him gold and let him take himself off. But do not leave me again, Bernard; you see you have become absolutely necessary to me; brood no more over the wrong you pretend to have ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... unsuspicious to question or understand the forms essential to legality. One stormy night we were driven across the country to a railway station, hurried aboard the train, and next morning reached the town of V——. At the parsonage you know so well we found Mr. Hargrove, who appeared very reluctant to accede to our wishes. I was only fifteen, a simple-hearted child, and Cuthbert, though well grown, was too youthful to assume the duties of the position for which he presented himself as candidate. The faithful, prudent pastor expostulated, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the day when the seven pirates were hanged at Port Royal Point. I had never seen a hanging, and a man who hadn't was rare in those days. I wanted to keep out of the way, but it was impossible to get a boatman to row me off to the Lion. They were all dying to see the show, and, half curious, half reluctant, I let myself drift ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the Bulgarian people are somewhat under a cloud, and are not standing too high in the opinion of the civilised world. Yet, to give an honest record of my observations of them, I shall have to praise them very highly in some respects. Whilst it would be going too far to say that the praise is reluctant, it is true that it has been in a way forced from me, for I went to Bulgaria with the prejudice against the Bulgarians that I have indicated. And—to make this explanation complete—I may add that I came ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... at this sudden explosion of the doctor's rhetoric; but I should have remembered, that he was under the double inspiration of new-born love and reluctant rhyme. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox Brothers, still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... sir," said I, grateful for even this semi-reluctant concession, being afraid he might refuse; and then, squeezing gingerly through the port and carefully lowering myself down by a rope which Tim Rooney hitched round the captain's bunk, I landed on the bottom boards of the boat that old Ching Wang ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... by an excellent authority that the Constitution was "extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people." The truth of the statement is very quickly recognized by even the most surface student of American politics. The struggle which began in 1774-5 was the direct outcome of the spirit of independence. Rather than submit to a degrading ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the Alexandrian remains, he will scarcely leave her, or Myrtilus either. Probably she will take both hunting with her, for, though a kind, fair-minded woman, she loves the chase, and as both have finished their work, they probably will not be reluctant to go ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Camp turned from the clerk's desk, rather relieved to find that Hambleton had not yet made his appearance. Aleck had an errand on his mind, and he reflected that Jim was apt to be impetuous and reluctant to await another man's convenience; at least, Jim wouldn't perceive that another man's convenience needed to be waited for; and Aleck had no mind to announce this errand from the housetops. It was not a business that pertained, directly, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... his resignation, which had been accepted, and the administration of affairs entrusted to Sir John Colborne, in whose judgment and abilities government felt the highest confidence. They had declared to that officer that, though they were reluctant to resort to means of extreme severity, yet, nevertheless, if he found it necessary to proclaim martial law in the province, they would take upon themselves the responsibility. Accounts of open disturbance had been recently received; and there was reason to believe that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fertile brain upon which it was cast. It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole—leaving out of account the special question of the solution of cubic equations—must have gained enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction with Ferrari, an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... infant's tongue Reluctant information hung, Till, from a belt of woods full grown, Arose immense thy turrets brown, Majestic RAGLAND! Harvests wave Where thund'ring hosts their watch-word gave, When cavaliers, with downcast eye, Struck the last flag of loyalty[1]: [Footnote 1: This castle, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... minutes Wolf went on banging with his board and demanding his rights; then at last the weary President threatened to summon the dread order-maker. But both his manner and his words were reluctant. Evidently it grieved him to have to resort to this dire extremity. He said to Wolf, 'If this goes on, I shall feel obliged to summon the Ordner, and beg him to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heard spoken against her faith, by men who have an Inquisition which excommunicates those who ask to leave their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgatorius on which this article may possibly have the honor of figuring,—and, far worse than these, the reluctant, pharisaical confession, that it might perhaps be possible that one who so believed should be accepted of the Creator,—and then recall the sweet peace and love that show through all her looks, the price of untold sacrifices and labors,—and again recollect how thousands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... have concluded and was always starting up afresh, as if in reluctant response to spectral clapping. He called upon the repatries never to forget the crimes that had been wrought against them—to spread abroad the fire of their indignation, the story of their ravished womanhood and broken families all over France. They watched ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... declaring to Miss Melvyn that she had no other choice left her but either to resolve to marry Mr Morgan or to be exposed to shame in being publicly disclaimed by her parents, who would no longer suffer her to remain in their house, led Sir Charles out of the room; and he, though reluctant, dared ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... high: From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies. The monarch of the day I might behold, And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold, But I reluctant leave the pleasing views, Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse; Winter austere forbids me to aspire, And northern tempests damp the rising fire; They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, Cease then, my song, ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... lad,' said James Wyley, smiling a slow, reluctant smile, as Stephen drew near to them with his cap in his hand. 'So you buried your father yesterday, I hear. Poor fellow! there was not a better collier at ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form, or time, or fashion in which the question came up is utterly immaterial, and you interpose ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... if left behind, to turn his coat again and assist us in a break for liberty. If so, he was defeated by the perspicacious Tony, who observed that when he found a pal that suited him as well as Washtubs he liked to keep him under his own eye. With a spade over his reluctant shoulder, and many a dubious backward glance, Mr. Tubbs followed the file ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... These now appeared for a moment as though they meditated resistance, but the irresistible dash of the sailors seemed to change their minds, for they submitted without striking a blow, though many of them were very reluctant to give up ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists, laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the flesh that yielded so ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... might the wife of years than a lover of her he had won so lately. Their hopes were the same and their lives, and she dwelt longest upon the sketched plans for the future of these. It brought him closer to her than anything else—put her secret and reluctant imaginations of evil, and Rosa's daring insinuations, out of sight and recollection. She read slowly, and with frequent pauses, that she might take in the exquisite flavor of this and that phrase of endearment; set before herself in beauty and distinctness the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... and until I do I'd make you miserable, dear," I whispered back as I drew myself out of his reluctant arms and went ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the new expedition, was wild to go, but his parents, remembering the great danger of the journey to the salt licks, were reluctant with their ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he and your father aren't friends. They have had some trouble. For that reason he was very reluctant ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... like a man!' Still reluctant, but it was brought out at last: 'Cousin Hugh told us about the poor sick Irish children that have no potatoes. May I give it to him to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... directly with this demurrer, let me deal with it indirectly, by pointing out that the lack of recognized evidence may be accounted for without assuming that there is not plenty of it. Inattention and reluctant attention lead to the ignoring of facts which really exist in abundance; as is well illustrated in the case of pre-historic implements. Biassed by the current belief that no traces of man were to be found on the Earth's ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... speaking quite in the style of Meg Merrilees, and very grandiloquently. "And happiness will be yours. By this and this I bless you, my precious lady," making several mystical signs, she turned away, forcing the reluctant ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... not hear to that. She said they must be fair even to a college, and Mr. Luddington would want them to look the place over thoroughly while they were there. So after breakfast the two reluctant young people went with ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... A.M. from New York, where I had gone at the suggestion of Mr. Floyd to engage Mr. G.B. Lamar, President of the Bank of the Republic, to make an offer to the Secretary for such a number of muskets as we might require. The Secretary at War was reluctant to dispose of them to me, preferring the intermediate agency. Mr. Lamar has consented to act accordingly, and to-day the Secretary has written to the commanding officer [at] Watervliet Arsenal to deliver five or ten thousand muskets ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... usual, exasperated by a religious feud. The King found the Church in a singular state. A short time before the commencement of the civil war, his father had given a reluctant assent to a bill, strongly supported by Falkland, which deprived the Bishops of their seats in the House of Lords: but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 12, Chanzy, after suggesting a fresh attempt to recover La Tuilerie, which was prevented by the demoralisation of the troops, was compelled to give a reluctant assent to Jaureguiberry's proposals of retreat. At the same time, he wished the retreat to be carried out slowly and methodically, and informed Gambetta that he intended to withdraw in the direction of Aleneon (Orne) and Pre-en-Pail (Mayenne). This meant moving into Normandy, and Gambetta pointed ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... young fellow's retreating form with reluctant admiration. "He moves like a trained athlete and he hasn't got a bad face," he admitted. "I pray he does not prove ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to them, slowly, with reluctant footsteps. He had the appearance of a man bent upon a ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon any marked or decisive path of individual and separate action. The greater number prefer to be nothings in this way, though they cannot escape the universal grinding mill,—they must be used for some purpose in the end, be they never so reluctant. Therefore, we, who study the latent powers of man, judge it wiser to meet and accept our destiny rather than fall back in the race and allow destiny to overtake US and whip us into place with rods of sharp experience. If ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... The presence and the power of this law are felt wherever the light of reason shines. They are felt in the uneasiness and conscious degradation of the slave, and in the shame and remorse which the master betrays in his reluctant and desperate efforts to defend himself. This law it is which has armed human nature against the oppressor. Wherever it is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... out of the pot That had held the pencil-stew, And held it in the air while five Reluctant ...
— Merry Words for Merry Children • A. Hoatson
... to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into the other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laughed a trifle stridently, and looked about him ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... "The second period of a human being's life is that of his reluctant attendance at school" with Shakespeare's picture of the schoolboy in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... in a book entitled The Guardian's Instruction, a Mr. Stephen Penton gave the world a pleasing and lifelike little narrative—superior, in my opinion, to anything in Verdant Green— telling us how a reluctant father was persuaded to send his son to Oxford; what doubts, misgivings, hesitations he had, and how they were overcome. I take the story to be fictitious. It is written in the first person, professedly by the hesitating ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... year. After we hulled all of these walnuts we had a mess of hulls on hand, and our farmers were a little reluctant to come and get them. We tried to talk them into using them for fertilizer. They are kind of like some of the boys, they have got to be shown. They have to see somebody else do it before they ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... and the deuce is in it, if a little susceptibility will not put forth, now she receives my address; especially if I can manage it so as to be allowed to live under one roof with her. What though the sensibility be at first faint and reluctant, like the appearance of an early spring-flower in frosty winter, which seems afraid of being nipt by an easterly blast! That ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the lions approaching. They were advancing slowly, turning occasionally to look back as if reluctant to quit the shelter of the hills; and Malchus could hardly resist a start of uneasiness as one of them suddenly gave vent to a deep, threatening roar, so menacing and terrible that the very leaves of the trees seemed to quiver in the light of the moon under its vibrations. The ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the horse by its forelock, and was walking in a sidewise fashion, with his back toward Dora. The horse, a rough-looking creature, seemed reluctant to approach the barn, and its leader frequently spoke to it encouragingly, and patted its ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the French ministry, the instructions of M. de Rochambeau prescribed to him to attach great importance to the station of Rhode Island, and to endeavour to make it the basis for his other operations. He was therefore reluctant to quit it in order to march upon New York. M. de Ternay, at the same time, considered it as impossible to enter with his ships of war into the harbour of that town, and contented himself with promising a blockade; he did not, besides, possess that naval ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... came down from the desert to the Nile out of the flat, heated air of the plain to the divine freshness by the water. Here, in the cool, golden light, they paused slow and reluctant ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... and sacred for gold. After his time there was no improvement; the Church degenerated into an instrument for the exploitation of money. Vast sums were collected in Italy; vast sums were drawn under all manner of pretenses from surrounding and reluctant countries. Of these the most nefarious was the sale of indulgences for the perpetration of sin. Italian religion had become the art ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... were ordered to knock off, and to get their breakfasts. This appeared to arouse Wallace, who had been chatting, quite agreeably to himself, with Rose, and seemed reluctant to depart, but who now became sensible that he was neglecting his duty. He called away his boat's crew, and took a civil leave of the passengers; after which he went over the side. The gig was some little distance from the Swash, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... thought he hadn't heard them. Then, as though reluctant to tear himself away, the Blue Doctor sighed, snapped off the reader, and turned ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... matter how shy and procrastinating they may be—or reluctant, for that matter—are doomed to have love affairs thrust upon them, as you will perceive if you follow the course of this ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... she spoke to him with an increasing, almost unnatural gayety. He had a new appreciation of what her charm must have been when she was a girl. The rooms were full of memories to her; many of the articles that she caressed with her fingers, and lingered over with reluctant eyes, connected themselves with days and nights of revelry and the joy of living; also with prides and ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... embers in the fire- place created a dull glow, showing the Doctor and Scip, booted and spurred, standing in the center of the room. Softly Cummings approached the picture, his finger found the spring through the canvas and, pressing it hard, the frame swung slowly forward as if reluctant to give up its ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... work again. And reluctant, and yet obviously fascinated by his French, like a bird by a snake, Mademoiselle led up the narrow stairs and into a sizeable room, clean as a pin and as naked. On the threshold Madame washed her hands ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... Allan," said Sir Percival. "And say you to my friends Launcelot and Gawaine should they prove reluctant that they will favor their comrade, Sir Percival, if they would make haste and hurry their return. Stop not to pick quarrel nor to heed any call, urgent though it may seem. Prove my true page ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... don't say I have and I don't say I haven't," he says; "but here I be, standing with reluctant feet at the parting of the ways. And who knows what might happen? I know I've had some darned close shaves from doing a whole lot ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the New England man more simple than the man of Old England. Hawthorne, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to admit that the English were a "franker and simpler people, from peer to peasant," than we are; and that they had not yet wandered so far from that "healthful and primitive simplicity in which man was created" ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... inside. Here, stuff them into your pockets! And help me break these other boards away. My! but they're rotten!" Cynthia helped, secretly very reluctant and fearful of consequences, and they soon had the little window free of obstructions. Joyce poked in her ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... and steal quietly out of the room. Then the sun got too high up in the heavens to watch little runaway orphan girls. Nobody saw her steal through the deserted playroom, down the clean bare steps, which she had helped to wear away, and out through the yard to the coal-shed. Here she got the reluctant Tommy into his clothes, and tied on his little round straw hat, ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... just when you did," he said. "I was just about to let this man go because of his services in showing us where the parade ground was. I know now why he was so reluctant to do it." "He did it to save his own skin," answered Tom. "He's a coward as well as a murderer. He's been responsible for other executions that have taken place here in the last few days. He's been one of the bloodiest of the lot, and whenever he saw one ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall |
