"Reticent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the minister's strange looks and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... narrate them in words as fascinating and glowing as yours, yet they are engraved no less vividly on my mind, and, like beautiful genii, accompany me everywhere. Only before others they are bashful and reticent like myself." ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... religion they are far more reticent than the Tarahumares, and it is difficult to get information on this subject. One reason for this is that they are afraid of being laughed at by the Mexicans. They still keep up their dances and secret rites and their ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... eyes in the heaving sun: "Then what has kept, O reticent one, Those lids unlatched - Anything promised ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... over the middle height, aged between fifty and fifty-five, gray hair and short, gray beard, tallies with that given a few days ago by a woman who applied at the —— Street Police Court, alleging that her husband had disappeared in the above neighborhood. The police are extremely reticent, but at the present they have no clue to the authors of the outrage. The body awaits identification at the mortuary, and an ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... your fans. Nothing is pardoned you, least of all a heart." What Levana says of the use and abuse of philology and about the study of history as a preparation for political action is no less significant. Goethe, who had been reticent of praise in regard to the novels, found in Levana "the boldest virtues without ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and precious time wasted in empty boasts, foolish anger, useless reiteration, blatant argument, ignoble mouthings, that I have learned to deem speech a curse, laid on man to weaken and envenom all his under-takings. For over two hundred years I have never spoken myself: you, I hear, are not so reticent. I only speak now because one of you said a beautiful thing that touched me. If we all might but go back to our makers! Ah, yes! if we might! We were made in days when even men were true creatures, and so we, the work of their hands, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... stunned silence that followed this outburst from short-spoken, reticent Olive, there came a new voice; such a sweet, lovely voice with a tender ring that made every one start to welcome ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... happen to know these things? My father was singularly reticent about his past life; ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... but like her sister at the time of its occurrence, she had esteemed it mere child's play. Later, however, as she saw how they clung to each other, she had thought it possible that something might come of it, but as Ethelyn was wholly reticent on that subject, it had never been mentioned between them. When, however, the news of Frank's second engagement came, Aunt Barbara looked over her spectacles straight at the girl, who, for any sign she gave, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... her superiority, for she picks her subjects with the care a general selects his battlefield; F., who is a born pedagogue and seeks to instruct whoever listens to him, whose conversation is a lecture and a monologue; R. O., the reticent, says little but that pertinent and relevant, cynical and shrewd; and R. V., who says little and that with timidity and error. So there are specialists in caution and "common sense," self-controlled, never rash, calculating, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... religious sense of the word is the predominant one; a schismatic is primarily one who produces a split or rent in the church. A heretic differs in doctrine from the religious body with which he is connected; a schismatic differs in doctrine or practise, or in both. A heretic may be reticent, or even silent; a schismatic introduces divisions. A heresiarch is the author of a heresy or the leader of a heretical party, and is thus at once a heretic and a schismatic. With advancing ideas of religious liberty, the odious sense once attached to these ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and processes of our world—a view held by the Mutakallimun as represented by their spokesman al-Basir, but when it comes to explaining his own view of the nature of the divine will, and whether it is identical with God or not, he suddenly becomes reticent, refers us to the writings of Empedocles, and intimates that the matter is involved in mystery, and it is not safe to talk about it too plainly and openly. Evidently Ibn Zaddik was not ready to go all the length of Gabirol's ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... inferiors would have been competent. I do not know whether it was to diffidence and reserve or to the gentleness which shrinks from dispelling illusions that another peculiarity is to be attributed. On religious matters, says his biographer, he was 'absolutely reticent'; he would discuss such topics indeed, but without ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Rosie, so darkly reticent and all that," she said, with a thoughtful smile. "Do you know I sometimes think if I were in great danger—personal danger, you know—he's the sort of man I'd like to have about. He gives me the impression of a great reserve of strength. He is what one might—well, what you would ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... sir? Is it conceivable even that any such cry as we heard could, in this day and generation, ring through such an assemblage, unless it came with ventriloquial power from his own lips? You observed that he turned his back; that his face was hidden from us. Discreet and reticent as we have all been, and careful in our criticisms of so bizarre an event, there still must be many to question the reality of such superstitious fears, and some to ask if such a sound could be without human agency, and a very guilty agency, ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... freer speech now, but in her heart she was saddened by Medenham's duplicity. Six months earlier he and the Earl had dined at the villa she was occupying at San Remo for the winter. She then took a great liking to him on account of his shy and reticent but singularly pleasing manners. She was prepared to laugh at the present escapade when she had discussed it with him that night. Now he had fled, doubtless through fear. That was bad. That looked ugly and mean. Most certainly Peter Vanrenen had acted rightly ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... sentimental effort on the part of Youghal himself. Molly McQuade was known to her neighbours in a minor hunting shire as a hard-riding conventionally unconventional type of young woman, who came naturally into the classification, "a good sort." She was just sufficiently good-looking, sufficiently reticent about her own illnesses, when she had any, and sufficiently appreciative of her neighbours' gardens, children and hunters to be generally popular. Most men liked her, and the percentage of women who disliked her was not inconveniently high. One of these days, it was assumed, she would marry ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... sacrifice because they had the very qualities which, when lost to the community, then it dies in its soul. They were candid with themselves, and questioned our warranty with the same candour, but were modest and reticent; they were kindly to us when they knew we were wooden and wrong, and did our bidding, judging it was evil. In France they subdued their insurgent thoughts—and what that sacrifice meant to them ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... very reticent in his information. What was the use of telling this young man anything; he would not ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... myths. When several Dakota delegations visited Washington he called on them and had little trouble in learning the names of their gentes, their order in the camping circle, &c., provided the interpreters were absent. During his visit to the Omaha, from 1878 to 1880, he did not find them very reticent in furnishing him with such information, though he was generally referred to the principal chief of each gens as the best authority for the names in his own division. But he found it very difficult to induce any of them to admit that the gentes ...
— Osage Traditions • J. Owen Dorsey
... they accost me or otherwise disturb me while I was writing or reading; yet at other times they could be positively impertinent, especially if excited. The islander is very nervous; when he is quiet, he is shy and reticent, but once he is aroused, all his bad instincts run riot, and incredible savageness and cruelty appear. The secret of successful treatment of the natives seems to be to keep them very quiet, and never to let any excitement arise, a point in ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... prominent Loyalists as to the necessity of an extraordinary exercise of authority in some way, both as a point of honor and as a measure of precaution for the future. On this point Hutchinson was as decided as Bernard, though he was reticent as to the precise shape it ought to take. It would not do, he said, to leave the Colonies to the loose principle, espoused by so many, that they were subject to laws that appeared to them equitable, and no other; nor would it do to drive the Colonies to despair; but if nothing were done but to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the same hand in admonition. "My support may not amount to anything. Reserve your gratitude. Marcia is extremely reticent about her own affairs, but, nevertheless, I can give you a crumb of comfort. No matter what every one says, I am sure that she and Wilfred Ames are not engaged and that she does not begin to see as much of him as people think; and I do know"—again her voice was shaken with ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... The police are reticent; but on inquiry at the head office we understand that search is being made in the atlas for Giants' Bay. For the information of our readers, we give a map of the locality of the mysteries, and fancy portraits of the three giants. During the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... inviolable; confidential; esoteric; not to be spoken of; unmentionable. obreptitious^, furtive, stealthy, feline; skulking &c v.; surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly &c (cunning) 702; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up; close, close as wax; taciturn &c 585. Adv. secretly &c adj.; in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners; in the dark &c adj.. januis clausis [Lat.], with closed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and enlarged, and then translated into German, the genial old baron found himself the victim of an unmerciful caricature, and without a rag of concealment. It is consequently not surprising to hear that he became soured and reticent before his death ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... breakfast, the boys had to put up with comments from Jan and Barby. Dr. Miller had refrained from scolding them for foolhardiness, but the girls were not so reticent. The boys bore it stoically, but Rick resolved not to divulge their secret to Barby at any cost. Let her get a shock with the rest of ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... was not exactly the case. To be in love, as an absolute, well-marked, acknowledged fact, is the condition of a woman more frequently and more readily than of a man. Such is not the common theory on the matter, as it is the man's business to speak, and the woman's business to be reticent. And the woman is presumed to have kept her heart free from any load of love, till she may accept the burthen with an assurance that it shall become a joy and a comfort to her. But such presumptions, though they may be very useful for the regulation ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... your name again in my hearing. Mrs. Sutton did hint to me her fear that Mr. Aylett had heard something prejudicial to your character, which had greatly displeased him and shocked Mabel, but even she was unaccountably reticent. Intense as was my anxiety to learn the particulars of the story, and upon what evidence they were induced to believe it, I dared not press my inquiry into what it was plain they intended to guard as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... body screaming in a distracted manner. She was arrested and brought to jail at Medicine Lodge; and was there six months. Being Jail Evangelist I went to see her, sometimes twice a week. When I first saw her she was reticent, and did not seem glad to see me. She was so nice, that I fell in love with her and I asked the ladies of the W. C. T. U. to visit her, but they thought her a hopeless case. She bought a Bible and we would read and pray together and talked about the need of Christ in ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... judgment, he was the superior of Kershaw's fine set of Colonels, having, from nature, those rare qualities that go to make up the successful war commander, being reticent, observant, far-seeing, quick, decided, of iron will, inspiring confidence in his leadership, cheerful, self-possessed, unaffected by danger, and delighting like a game cock in battle. He was singularly truth loving and truth speaking, and you ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... their supposed attributes, nor, except as regards illness and death, as to the nature of, and ground for, the fears which the natives feel concerning them; indeed, this is a subject upon which most natives all over the world are inclined to be reticent, partly or largely from fear. Even as regards the sacred places which these spirits are supposed to haunt, though the natives are not unwilling to pass them, and will mention the fact that they are sacred, they are unwilling ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... vent to his feelings, but they neither grew cool nor dull for the waiting. He detested concealment and secrecy more than most people, but his disinclination to speak of any matter until he was sure of it had given him the reputation of being both reticent and calculating. Giovanni now no longer concealed from himself the fact that he was annoyed by what was passing, but he denied, even in his heart, that he was jealous. To doubt Corona would be to upset the whole fabric of his existence, which ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... guidance of a clear perception of the truth that evokes it, and that it is all used to turn the wheels of life. 'Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.' Better is it that emotion should be reticent and active than that it should be voluble and idle. It is a good servant, but a bad master. A man that trusts to impulse and emotion to further his Christian course, is like a ship in that belt of variable winds that lies near the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand pounds ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... sore over it. In the first place, he had been found out; and although Reuben himself had said nothing to him, respecting his conduct in allowing him to be flogged for the offence which he himself had committed, others had not been so reticent, and he had had a hard time of it in the village. Secondly, he had been severely thrashed by his father, in the presence of the squire; the former laying on the lash with a vigour which satisfied Mr. Ellison, the heartiness of the thrashing being due, ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... Perfect Spirit. Jesus of Nazareth, journeying on foot from city to city, always calm yet always fervent, always steady yet glowing with a white heat of sacred enthusiasm, able to walk and teach all day and afterwards to continue in prayer all night, with unshaken nerves, sedately patient, serenely reticent, perfectly self-controlled, walked the earth, the only man that perfectly glorified God in His body no less than in His spirit. It is worthy of remark, that in choosing His disciples He chose plain men from the laboring classes, who had lived the most obediently ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... gone there; but, her quality being unobtrusive, he had paid her no attention. Furthermore, both Bland and Mrs. Bland, being emphatic in personality and talkative, he had been the more easily led to ignore this reticent girl, whose function was apparently limited to seeing her aunt provided with a shawl, or her uncle with a cigar, at the right opportunities. If he thought of her at all, it was as of the living spirit of the furniture. The tables and chairs ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... his reticent nature was afforded by the young Frenchmen of the same age whom I often met. A very rich and very enthusiastic young man, Marc de Rossieny, was a kind of leader to them; he had 200,000 francs a year, and with this money had founded a weekly publication ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... there are a good many other operations, such as the removal of cancers, tumors, etc. The doctors were quite willing to answer questions, within certain limits; but when I asked them about the composition and properties of their drugs they became reticent at once and said that they were secrets. They do not use chloroform in operations, but they all asserted, and their assertions were corroborated by Mr. Ng Choy, that they possess drugs which throw their patients into ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... so he must have had a shock, and a delightful one. For the taciturnity of Ottawa is a myth. When the Prince entered it on the morning of Thursday, August 28th, it was as silent as a whirlwind bombardment, and as reticent as a cyclone. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... it seemed to Morriston, gave Gifford food for disagreeable reflection. Why, indeed, should Henshaw be hanging about in the grounds of Wynford, and give so unconvincing a reason? What troubled Gifford most was that the man's reticent attitude precluded all hope of his learning anything of his plans which could usefully be imparted to Miss Morriston. Evidently there was nothing to be got out of him; the rather open confidence he had displayed on his first appearance at Branchester had quite disappeared, and if Gifford ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... treated me in that last affair, and I trust I shall be able to do you many more favours—I am deeply in your debt. And, oh, yes, tell your reporter not to overlook the detail of Mr. Markel in his pajamas and dressing gown tied to a tree in his park—Mr. Markel might be inclined to be reticent on that point, and it would be a pity to deprive the public of any—er—'atmosphere' in the story, you know. . . . What? . . . No; I am afraid Mr. Markel's 'phone is—er—out of order. . . . Yes. . . . And, by the way, speaking of 'phones, Mr. Carruthers, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... attentively, "was as good as the best." Looking down the long table after they were seated, he smiled with satisfaction and expanded, a subtle suavity born of being host to distinguished folk unlocking his ordinarily reticent tongue, causing him even to joke with Mrs. Adams, whom he ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... reading physiological language, tones, gestures, bearing, and all those countless signs which make the face and eyes such tell-tales of the soul. They will look into your eyes, and see you think; listen to your voice, and hear you feel. The coy and subtle world of emotion now infinitely timid and reticent, now all gates flung down for the floods to pour is their domain. They are at home in it all, from the rosy fogs of feeling to the twilight borders of intelligence. On the one side, these endowments are a help to friendship. The ardor with which ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... old china or a human being—whatever it might be, it was along the avenue of taste that he gently made his way up to it. His favourite word of commendation was pleasing, and if he ever brought himself to say (and he was not a man who scattered his judgments, rather was he extremely reticent of them) of a man, and still more of a woman, that he or she was unpleasing, you almost shuddered at the fierceness of the condemnation, knowing, as all Locker's intimate friends could not help doing, what the word meant to him. 'Attractive' was another ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... about this period of her life with entire openness. She has, however, written me a letter in which she tells the essential truth, although clothing it with a certain pathetic attempt to conceal the one episode in her life about which, to me, she was perhaps unreasonably reticent. She did not say that she and Gertrude were separated from Terry for a time, but she wanted to convey the impression that she and Terry, from the start, struggled along together, which was essentially, though not literally, true. Continuing her account, from the time the two families cast her ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... confess that Landor very frequently bores me. So do a good many writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser continuously. Even Milton in Landor's hands, in defiance of his known opinions, is made to speak contemptuously of 'The ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... bright glory and its seriously borne responsibilities. It found Marty a trifle less shy and reticent than when he came to Cartwright, and J.W., Jr., a shade more studious. Marty would miss Phi Beta Kappa, but only by the merest fraction; J.W. would rank about number twenty-seven in a graduating class of ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... husband's, who abhorred all such pinchbeck. Their loves were identical. They loved nature—the trees, best of all, and the river, and the birds. They loved the Anglican Church, they loved the British flag, they loved Queen Victoria, they loved beautiful, dead Elizabeth Evans, they loved strange, reticent Mr. Evans. They loved music, pictures and dainty china, with which George Mansion filled his beautiful home. They loved books and animals, but, most of all, these two loved the Indian people, loved their legends, their habits, their customs—loved ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... not doubt that Mr. Carson was in heart thoroughly a religious man. It is the element of religion alone, which, in the midst of such temptations, could form a character of such remarkable purity. He was too reticent to speak of his own feelings and there were but few, if any, of the thoughtless men around him who could ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... will never tell you unless you promise me beforehand to forgive me. I know that is unfair, but it is the only way I can see out of a difficulty that my foolish reticence has led me into. Few people, perhaps, consider me reticent, but in some cases I am afraid I am even deceitful. Won't you make it easy to "'fess" so I may be ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... was approaching the end of my seventeenth year that I began to think of the future more nearly. My father had suffered long—though Mistress Pennyquick and I had known nothing of it, he being so reticent—from a disease which nowadays physicians call angina pectoris, a disease that grips a man by the chest, as 'twere his breastbones are ground together, with breathlessness and exquisite pain. As he grew older, the attacks recurred more ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... charming grace, a kindness, an intelligence, and a devotion to her husband which the Emperor knew and appreciated at its full value; and though Marie Louise was younger, she was colder, and had far less grace of manner. I think she was much attached to her husband; but she was reserved and reticent, and by no means took the place of Josephine with those who had enjoyed the happiness of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... question of the Genesis of Species; the more so, since Mr. Darwin, at one time, disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now not only about to produce a work on man (in which this question must be considered), but he has distinctly announced the extension of the application of his theory to the very phenomena ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... not one orthodox Presbyterian in our family circle. My father, Uncle and Aunt Aitken, Uncle Lauder, and also my Uncle Carnegie, had fallen away from the tenets of Calvinism. At a later day most of them found refuge for a time in the doctrines of Swedenborg. My mother was always reticent upon religious subjects. She never mentioned these to me nor did she attend church, for she had no servant in those early days and did all the housework, including cooking our Sunday dinner. A great reader, always, Channing ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... a sweet letter, I thought, even if it carried little comfort; quiet and reticent like its writer, but with an undertone of sincere affection. I laid it down at length, and, taking the ring from its box, examined it fondly. Though but a copy, it had all the quaintness and feeling of the antique original, and, above all, it was fragrant with the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... as they peacocked across to St. George's Hospital, still laughing, and evidently discussing him. He did not know them, but he was accustomed to being known. His life had never been a cautious one. He was too modern to be very reticent, and he liked to be wicked in the eye of the crowd. Secret wickedness held little charm for him. He preferred to preface his failings with an overture on the orchestra, to draw up the curtain, and to act his drama of life to a crowded audience ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the quiet, reticent novelist, was entirely different from the gay, devil-may-care Maltwood, the accomplished linguist, thorough-going cosmopolitan and constant traveller, the easy-going man of means known in society in ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... people whose choice has been instinctive rather than deliberate, a choice of the blood, not of the brain, they had long ago exhausted the fund of conversation with which they had started. There was nothing to talk about—since Virginia had never learned to talk of herself, and Oliver had grown reticent recently about the subjects that interested him. When the daily anecdotes of the children had been aired between them with an effort at breeziness, nothing remained except the endless discussion of Harry's education. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and an agony of spirit which none can understand but women who have been driven to do the same, was it written. Could she have allowed herself to express her thoughts with passion, it would have been comparatively easy; but it behooved her to be calm, to be very quiet in her words—almost reticent even in the language which she chose, and to abandon her claim not only without a reproach, but almost without an allusion to her love. While Cecilia was away, the letter was written, and re-written and copied; but Mrs. Burton was safe in this, that ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... capital had long since voted Oliver Marston a conspicuous failure. A reticent, reserved man by temperament and habit, and with both temperament and habit confirmed by his long exile on the cattle ranges, he had grown rather less than more talkative after his latest plunge into public life; and even Miss Van Brock confessed ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... have loved to paint Peter's quiet face, with its shy, secret smile, and eyes that were the color of genius. Riverton thought him a homely child, with legs like those of one's grandmother's Chippendale chair, and eyes like a cat's. He was so quiet and reticent that nearly everybody except his mother and Emma Campbell thought him deficient in promise, and some even ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... he was the progressive of Evangelical theology. In his age he stands the proud and reticent conservative, the now silent representative of a departed glory, a departed severity—and, we must admit, of a departed strength—from which the theology of our times has melted away. Like other men in such positions, he has had battles to fight, and he has fought them; enemies to make, and he has ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... about his strong neck, story after story flashed out, clear and dramatic, from his answers. The bunch of houses there on the shore? Yes, that had a history. The people living there were a dark-featured, reticent lot, different from other people hereabouts. It was said that one of the Spanish galleons went ashore there, and the men had been saved and had settled on the spot and married Devonshire women, but their descendants had never ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... There's nothing to deny." He felt secure now that he knew she had been reticent with Tetlow as to ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... at once, there was another prisoner in the adjacent cell, and his name was William Chang, and he was a biologist. He was reticent about the crime he had committed, but quite voluble about the crimes committed by others in the world outside. Much of what he said, about genes and chromosomes and recessive characteristics and mutation, seemed ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... their presumed intention of marrying money; or he might become the sudden spoil of the bow and spear of some red-cheeked lass; or he might walk on as an old bachelor, too cautious to be caught at all. But none believed that he would become the victim of a grand passion for a poor, reticent, high-bred, high-minded specimen of womanhood. Such, however, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... a man apparently about fifty years of age. From what I had read about him, I had expected to see a small, wiry man, weather-beaten and reticent; but found him to be a medium sized, rather stoutish, and quite talkative person instead. His hair was already well-silvered, but his face full and florid. You would scarcely regard him, at first sight, as a very noticeable man, except as having a well knit frame and full, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... much disappointed, and even a little hurt, and for the moment Anna looked grave. At dinnertime she made an effort to recover her spirits, and questioned Malcolm about his new acquaintances at the Wood House; and on this occasion he was less reticent. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... when the principle embodied needed no affirmation. In earlier Acts for granting Colonial Constitutions, the principle was taken for granted, and implied in numerous provisions, but not stated explicitly. The most recent unitary Constitution, that of the Transvaal (Section 47), was even more reticent, though the principle was none the less clear. The point is unimportant, and the words used in the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893 (Clauses 5 and 7 respectively), modified to meet a change of Sovereign, will serve very well: "The Executive power in Ireland (or the Executive Government ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... when once the pregnancy was undoubted, was less reticent of his fucks. My mother at my request used to stimulate him to fuck her just before coming up to me, so that I used to shove my prick into the paternal sperm, sometimes in her cunt, and sometimes in her arse, and eventually ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at first, grew shy and silent—reticent enough to worry her friend into a silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... altogether given up trying to call my Dinkie anything but Dinkie—came home two evenings ago with a discolored eye and a distinct air of silence. Gershom, too, seemed equally reticent. So I set about discreetly third-degreeing Poppsy, who finally acknowledged, with awe in her voice, that Dinkie had been in ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... or settled among them never ceased to wonder at their gayety, their peaceable industry and enterprise, and their domestic affection, which they did not care to dissemble and conceal like their shy and reticent neighbors. It was a daily spectacle, which never lost its strangeness for the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, to see the Frenchman returning from his work greeted by his wife and children with embraces of welcome "at the gate of his door-yard, and in view of all the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the person to be of a quiet and pacific temper, somewhat reticent, but faithful, secret, modest, bountiful, and but a ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... me all about yourself," she suggested. "Really, when I come to think of it, considering the length of our conversations, you have been remarkably reticent. You are the youngest of the family, are you not? How many ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Barbara rarely said that now, for with each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less, until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent, unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual. Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor, while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought to view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the time when, a little toddling thing ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... trains kept Doctor Bob for two days on the scene of his surgical duties, and during those two days Bernald seized every moment of communion with his friend's guest. Winterman, as Wade had said, was reticent as to his personal affairs, or rather as to the practical and material conditions to which the term is generally applied. But it was evident that, in Winterman's case, the usual classification must be reversed, and that the discussion ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... think that any man could call himself Heneage's particular friend," he answered. "He is exceedingly reticent about himself and his doings. He is a man whom none of us ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy. Poor Jim, though generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his companions. It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord. Even his ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... situation was not relieved by the return of Waldon with Edwards. Waldon seemed to realize without knowing just what it was, that something was about to happen. He drove his boat back to the Lucie again in record time. This was Kennedy's turn to be reticent. Whatever it was he was revolving in his mind, he answered in scarcely more than monosyllables whatever questions were ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... she came to herself and realised where she was, and found out from her attendant the circumstances under which she had been brought to the hospital, she was still more reticent. For her first thought related to the annoyance Archie would feel at her detention in a public hospital; her second, to the unmerciful use Madame would make of the circumstance. She could not reason very clearly, but her idea was to find her cousin and gain her protection, and ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... distance lay the little city which had been handed over to us by the French Government for a naval base, one of the ports where our troops and supplies are landed. Those who know provincial France will visualize its narrow streets and reticent shops, its grey-white and ecru houses all more or less of the same design, with long French windows guarded by ornamental balconies of cast iron—a city that has never experienced such a thing as a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... near the middle of the afternoon, when Waukko, who was the leader of the little group, suddenly showed great excitement, which speedily communicated itself to his companions. All three of these scamps were sullen and reticent, frequently riding for hours at a time without exchanging a word, so that this excitement meant something. The three halted simultaneously, and talked loudly and excitedly, so that Fred suspected that some cause for a quarrel had ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... portion of his adventures upon which Bob had been altogether reticent, he sat for a ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... embittered by some cross, for though grim of countenance, rough of speech, cold of manner, a keen observer would have soon discovered traces of a deeper, warmer nature hidden, behind the repellent front he turned upon the world. A true New Englander, thoughtful, acute, reticent, and opinionated; yet earnest withal, intensely patriotic, and often humorous, despite a touch of ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... careful not to give a false impression. Sutton is no palace in miniature, no grandiose expression of the spacious days of Elizabeth, no pompous outcome of Vanbrugh's magnificent mind, no piece of reticent elegance by Adams. Instead, it may well seem to the visiting stranger little more than a fortuitous concourse of mediaeval, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and modern atoms, which time and the country builder, too unlearned to be ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... tells us that until he and his brother saw the letter they had little idea of the extreme poverty and anxiety which their father had experienced during his time in London. Obviously Crabbe himself had been reticent on the subject even with his own family. From the midsummer of 1780, when the "Journal to Mira" comes to an end, to the February or March of the following year, there is a blank in the Biography which the son was unable to fill. At the time the fragment of Diary closes, Crabbe was apparently ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... oaths and often unpardonably coarse; "our dominant friend," Kinglake called him; "odious" is the epithet I have heard commonly bestowed upon him by less affectionate acquaintances. Kinglake was reserved, shy, reticent, with the high breeding, grand manner, quiet urbanity, grata protervitas, of a waning epoch; restraint, concentration, tact of omission, dictating alike his silence and his speech; his well-weighed words "crystallizing into epigrams as they touched ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... one so reticent and retiring, of such hasty temper and brusque manners, would scarcely be attracted to women. But Beethoven, it is said, was very susceptible to the charm of the opposite sex. He was however, most careful and high-souled in all his relations with women. He was frequently ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... you're ekul to tellin' the hull story—how ye kem to be yer and that Seth wasn't lyin' arter all when he blurted it out afore 'em—why I sha'n't hinder ye." The master said no more. And indeed for a day or two nothing transpired to show that Seth was not equally reticent. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... friends might rage, and however her people might wonder and seek to pry into the secret, no satisfaction was given on either side. The abandoned wife never uttered a word of explanation. Houston was equally reticent and self-controlled. In later years he sometimes drank deeply and was loose-tongued; but never, even in his cups, could he be persuaded to say a ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... it was the preachers who talked most about sin and thundered against it from their pulpits, but now for years they have been very reticent about it. Others, however, have not been still. Scientists have made us feel the ancient heritage that must be fought against; novelists have written no great novel that does not swirl around some central sin; the work of the dramatists from ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... forth in living examples in the closing verses of the passage. Note the conduct of the shepherds, as a type of the natural impulse and imperative duty of all possessors of God's truth. Such a story as they had to tell would burn its way to utterance in the most reticent and shyest. But have Christians a less wonderful message to deliver, or a less needful one? If the spectators of the cradle could not be silent, how impossible it ought to be for the witnesses of the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Hunter and Dyer and two staff captains. Hunter, compact and dark and reticent, walks about the empty chamber in full uniform, his bright buttons and sash and sword contrasting with his dark blue uniform, gauntlets upon his hands, crape on his arm and blade, his corded hat in his hands, a paper collar ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... in her face also. It bore the marks of sleeplessness and suffering. Pride still made her eyes reticent and cold, but the old outrageous arrogance ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of Negro personnel to the limit of their ability."[13-50] Brown did not spell out the risk, but a Navy spokesman on Forrestal's staff was (p. 330) not so reticent. "Mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration," Capt. Herbert D. Riley warned, if the Navy were forced to integrate its officers' wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. Such integration ran considerably in advance of the Navy's current and carefully controlled ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... definite facts. To get these first facts is often one's hardest task. Frequently one can acquire the friendly acquaintance of some one in society who likes to have her name appear with the real leaders. Men, too,—even husbands,—often are not so reticent about their immediate social affairs and are glad to give pretty society editors advance tips of coming events. But the best sources are the caterers, the florists, and the hair-dressing parlors. The caterers are engaged weeks in advance. The florists provide ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... reserved friend. He was reticent as usual. All I could get out of him was, 'I never allow a lady to be insulted in my presence, sir.' It was his Queen, not his cloth, that had roused the virility in this ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... man of fifty odd. Naturally reticent, his long voyages in command of merchant vessels had fostered an aloofness and love of solitude, which had later been intensified by a great grief. His stern bearing had repelled his country neighbors in the year he had lived ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... replied D'Arragon curtly. Respecting his own affairs he was reticent, as commanders and other lonely men must always be. They walked side by side on the dusty and trodden ice without further speech. At the steps from the river to Neuer Markt, D'Arragon gave the lame man his hand, and glanced a second time at the fingers which clasped his own. They had ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... like a crocodile, and sheds tears;" but during the parade season the corporal writes little, and articles by the regular staff, upon the height to which cantonment hedges should be allowed to grow, are apt to be dull. For news we depend on Tom. He appears reticent at first, but be patient. Let him put the soap on, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... of course, a sufficient explanation to point to the fact that he could not be in two places at the same time, for Sunday evening is a season of brisk business in the liquor trade. At first he was reticent on the subject of his old convictions, but by degrees he found it possible to achieve the true innkeeper's art, and speak freely in a way which could offend none of his customers. And he believed himself every bit as downright and sincere as he ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the rajah's daughter: but of this the captain said he knew nothing. He spoke English perfectly, was well educated, and had the manners of a young man accustomed to the best society. He conversed freely with every one, but it was observed that he was extremely reticent about himself, never alluding to his past life or his future prospects. Still he seemed perfectly at his ease about them; nor did he speak like a person who had any doubts as to what he should do ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... assistant, Alfonso lay ill of his wounds until August 17, when suddenly be died, to the great astonishment of Rome, which for some time had believed him out of danger. In recording his actual death, Burchard is at once explicit and reticent to an extraordinary degree. "Not dying," he writes, "from the wound he had taken, he was yesterday strangled in his bed at the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Their only son, Gilbert, was a delicate lad, in his fourteenth year, handsome, spirituelle and intellectual to a remarkable degree. He was a real genius, passionately fond of books, art and music; already an accomplished player on both the piano and violin. Yet withal, he was very reticent, sensitive and shy, on account of his small size and deformed body, the result of spinal trouble caused by a ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... is a piece of shrewd common sense. It sets before us two men, one reticent, and the other skilful in worming out designs which he wishes to penetrate. The former is like a deep draw-well; the latter is like a man who lets down a bucket into it, and winds it up full. 'Still waters are deep.' The ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to Selwyn's restlessness; and one day in early spring he had a long conference with Gerald—a most unsatisfactory one. Gerald, for the first time, remained reticent; and when Selwyn, presuming on the cordial understanding between them, pressed him a little, the boy turned sullen; and Selwyn let the matter drop ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... allusion to that interruption and its consequences, for during the breakfast the colonel said nothing in regard to his ward, and the other guests were discreetly reticent. But Mr. Hamlin was not satisfied. He managed to get the colonel's servant, Jim, aside, and extracted from the negro that Colonel Starbottle had taken the child that night to Pyecroft's; that he had had a long interview ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... at the present time and, altho' reticent, the villagers, (when you have gained their confidence), will tell you of their belief in the various whims and of the successful results of ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... abundance of whatever I sought and at the same time have learned by talking with the mountaineers and "curanderos," what uses they make of their plants. The "curanderos" know a great deal concerning these uses, but become very reticent as soon as they are questioned about them. Whether it is dread of ridicule or selfishness or fear that silences them, the fact remains that it is no easy matter to glean any useful facts from them. And yet by tact and friendliness one may elicit much more information ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... attention and to produce striking effects. He had an inveterate habit of telling his most intimate and inner experiences in some sort of fantastic disguise. The very vain man is apt to be either extremely reticent or very communicative. The only secrets which Fenton kept well were those which his vanity guarded. As desire for admiration and attention provoked him to continual revelations, so the fear that the disclosure of ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... menstrual flow. The child is often kept in extreme ignorance of the liability of womanhood occurring to her at a certain age, and, hence, when she observes a flow of blood escaping from a part, the delicacy attached to the locality makes her reticent with regard to inquiry or exposure; she naturally becomes alarmed, and most likely attempts to stanch the flow by bathing or applying cold water to the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... but he spoke no word, for he knew his friend to be extremely reticent in regard to matters of the heart. For some time he had suspected him of what he styled a weakness in that organ. "Now," thought he, ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... that Cupid's shaft pierces most poignantly the breast of middle-age. Not that Mr. Coates was laughed at in Bath for a love-a-lack-a-daisy. On the contrary, his mien, his manner, were as yet so studiously correct, his speech so reticent, that laughter had been unusually inept. The only strange taste evinced by him was his devotion to theatricals. He would hold forth, by the hour, upon the fine conception of such parts as Macbeth, Othello and, especially, Romeo. Many ladies and gentlemen were privileged to hear him ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... usually reticent in his manner with strangers, (but this is readily explained by his imperfect command of English, and his reluctance to expose his deficiency) though voluble to the last degree when he falls ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... him blankly. There were things about Eustace lately that she did not understand. She knew nothing of Bob's maxim about looking at two sides of a question, so she could see no reason for the strange things he sometimes said, and he was far too reticent to have explained. ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... her shy and reticent hours; Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; Publishing fretful seasons when her powers Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, Or when her mordant laughter ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... it is Mr. Sharp who has remarked that Mr. Browning combined impulsiveness of manner with much real reserve. He was habitually reticent where his deeper feelings were concerned; and the impulsiveness and the reticence were both equally rooted in his poetic and human temperament. The one meant the vital force of his emotions, the other their sensibility. In a smaller or more ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... his mind for a space. "I don't know," he said at last. Billy had always been rather reticent about his people. She demanded descriptions. She demanded an account of Billy's furniture, Billy's clothes, Billy's form of exercise. It dawned upon Benham that for some inexplicable reason she was hostile to Billy. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... was driven to accuse her of a great sin against himself, in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this affair;—for, when he came to turn the matter over in his mind, he did believe Tregear's statement as to her encouragement. Then, too, he had been proud of his daughter. He was a man so reticent and undemonstrative in his manner that he had never known how to make confidential friends of his children. In his sons hitherto he had not taken pride. They were gallant, well-grown, handsome boys, with a certain dash of cleverness,—more like their mother than their father; ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... nursing his wife. And amid the many varieties of heart-suffering which people know in this world, that which he tasted these weeks was one of refined bitterness. He came to know just how things were, and just how they had been all along. He knew what Diana's patient or reticent calm covered. He heard sometimes her fond moanings over another name; sometimes her passionate outcries the owner of that name to come and deliver her; sometimes—she revealed that too—even the repulsion with which she regarded himself. "O, not this man!" she said one ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... earth! That was the frank note, the joyous summons of the day; and they could not but jar and seem artificial, these human discussions and pretences, when boon Nature, reticent no more, was singing that full-throated song of hers that thrills and claims control of every fibre. The air was wine; the moist earth-smell, wine; the lark's song, the wafts from the cow-shed at top of the field, the pant and smoke of a distant train,—all were wine,—or ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... evident traits of his character came home to me. It was rather by feeling, by intuition, that he impressed me. I had no measure of my own with which to estimate his mental attainments. I had a kind of awe, of hero-worship in knowing him, which left me reticent in the discussion of any medical matters with him—so I usually stuck in ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... and his medical ability, which was given gratuitously to all. He was said to have been concerned in some of the many South American revolutions, but although we were friendly from this time until his death, he never alluded to such an occurrence. I realised, however, that he was very reticent as to his early life, and the gossip may have ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... lived and written under an Italian sky, are reticent and shy in the foreign schoolroom. But if we transfer ourselves with them to the market and enter their families, then they ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... Bruce's sword, it required two men to lift it. I imagined he drank out of nothing smaller than a river, and picked the carcass of a whole buffalo as easily as a lady does the wing of a quail. Ten years later I made the acquaintance of the foremost frontiersman, and found him a delicate, reticent, under-sized, wiry man, as perfectly the opposite of the type my childish brain had created as ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... say that these are "ipsissima verba," and that I here insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... modulated movements, now of her arms, now of her whole supple body. In her voice, as in her body, there is always a reserve of energy, a dignified self-respect; there is never any self-abandonment. She has sung first in French, now she comes on in an Italian air, and afterwards is not too coyly reticent in taking an encore which is in English, to a piano accompaniment, and when that is over she hastens to bring the accompanist by the hand to her side before the audience, and bows, sweetly and graciously, with a gesture of the whole body, yet again with ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... gone and the crowd, scarce believing, stayed behind and drank to his health. Not a word was said by Rimrock or his friends as to the source of this sudden wealth. For once in his life Rimrock Jones was reticent, but the roll of bills spoke for itself. He came out of Woo Chong's restaurant with a broad grin on his face and looked about for the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... regret that Sir Alan's reply to their applications for particulars of his life and career was of the most meagre nature. Although in common with the majority of other distinguished men, averse to giving publicity to the incidents of his life, he was otherwise than reticent with his friends, and was never happier than when surrounded by them. His house in Gloucester Place was a rendezvous during many years for his companions in arms, and his "Highland cousins" (as he fondly termed them) were always received ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... of the summer of 1887 on the river and its branches prospecting and exploring. He gave me a good deal of information of which I give a summary. He is a native of New Brunswick, Alexander McDonald by name, and has spent some years mining in other places, but was very reticent about what he had made or found. Sixty or seventy miles up the Stewart a large creek enters from the south which he called Rose Bud Creek or River, and thirty or forty miles further up a considerable stream flows from the north-east, which appears to be Beaver River, as marked ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... bar in with a spring" as it was termed. The repairers always spoke of it as "the regular thing to do," but on being asked questions as to how much and under what circumstances the "spring" would be best one way or the other, became somewhat reticent, possibly from fear of being led into some scientific depths from which it might not be easy to extricate themselves. James, however, has been taught differently in the management of this portion of his work; he having found from ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... allowed to find her own occupations and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly met her at the nearest station, a town seven miles away from his house, and seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the child except that she was reticent as to her former life and her adopted father. She was, however, of a very different type from the inhabitants of the village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features were strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She appears to have settled down easily enough ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He was travelling, had given him name as Smith, and was as inquisitive about the country as he was reticent about his business there. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... he had watched her from behind the sarcophagus and the mummies; knew that only his hand could have erected this noble pillar of record; and most fully did she appreciate the delicate feeling which made him so proudly reticent on this subject. He wished no element of gratitude in the love he had endeavored to win, and scorned to take advantage of her devoted affection for her grandfather, by touching her heart with a knowledge of the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... like that of Ulysses or Dante, temporary and incidental, you need n't expect him, on reaching the upper air, to be the prophet, spokesman, and champion of the Order whose bitter johnny-cake he has eaten. You must n't be surprised to find him reticent, not to say mendacious, respecting details which he may regard as humiliating. A sort of Irish pride will probably lead him to represent that he had abundant, though unavailable, resources during the period of his perdition. For one or the other of these reasons—orthographical inability, or ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... wished Peter to be particularly reticent, he told him to hold his tongue. Peter understood, and held it, and finished packing the satchel, ordered the carriage for the eleven o'clock train, and saw his master off, without knowing where he was going, except that his ticket was for ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... says Dr. Matignon, "resides largely in her foot. 'A foot which is not deformed is a dishonor,' says a poet. For the husband the foot is more interesting than the face. Only the husband may see his wife's foot naked. A Chinese woman is as reticent in showing her feet to a man as a European woman her breasts. I have often had to treat Chinese women with ridiculously small feet for wounds and excoriations, the result of tight-bandaging. They exhibited the prudishness of school-girls, blushed, turned their backs to unfasten ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... hideous war on the very day after Lyman Teaford had wed beyond the purple. It was awful, yet somehow fitting. Anything less than a World War would have appeared inconsequent, anti-climactic, to these two so closely concerned in the preliminary catastrophe, and yet so reticent that neither ever knew the other's wound. Wilbur Cowan may have supposed that the entire Penniman family, Winona included, would rejoice that no more forever were they to hear the flute of Lyman Teaford. Certainly Winona never suspected that a mere boy had been desolated by ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... inference and allusion rather than by direct information, while Michael, naturally reticent and feeling that his own uneventful affairs could have no interest for anybody, was less communicative. And, indeed, while shunning the appearance of inquisitiveness, he was far too eager to get hold of his new acquaintance to think of volunteering much himself. Here ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... nearly as reticent to David himself. Once only did she break down for a moment in his presence. It was when he was telling her that the issue of the ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... for the landlords who have been so cruelly robbed and ruined are weak-voiced and reticent compared to the loudly crying advocates for the peasantry. English tourists run over for a fortnight to Ireland, talk to the jarvies, listen to the peasants themselves, forbear to go near any educated or responsible person with knowledge of the facts ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... picture of dismay. He had meanly ignored the note, with the intention of cheating Mrs. Barclay. He had supposed it was lost, yet here, after some years, appeared a man who knew of it. As Mr. Barclay had been reticent about his business affairs, he had never told his wife about having deposited this sum with Squire Davenport, and of this fact the squire ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... for the second time, was a changed man—changed from bad to worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason of advancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on his face, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (for he never sought employment), whatever remuneration he received went its way for something that ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... her poverty touched him. It was a confidence, coming from one so reticent, that was of value. He waited a moment and said, "It's surprising how well we keep our footing here, isn't it? There's hardly any swell, but the ship pitches. I think we ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... those wonderful light brown eyes, glow in the clear delicate cheek, quiver in the voice even when the words were only half adequate to the feeling. She was not what is now called gushing. Oh, no! not in the least! She was too reticent and had too much dignity for anything of the kind. Emily had always been reckoned as our romantic young lady, and teased accordingly, but her ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... early life, but learned only that his father had been "engaged in the express business." He was ably reticent. ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... interrupted by our segundo and the trail foreman riding up to the cow pen. The two had been up the river during the afternoon, looking over the cattle on the range, for as yet we had not commenced gathering. Nancrede was very reticent, discovering a conspicuous lack of words to express his opinion of what cattle Deweese ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... horrible affair," Doctor Norton observed to Mr. Mencke, as she left the room, determined to draw out his reticent companion if that ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... husband of her sorrowful ward whom fear of disappointment still deterred from yielding to his newly-awakened hopes, was a quiet, reticent man, so the first messenger did not know whether he was among the liberated prisoners. But great excitement overpowered Milcah and, when Miriam bade her be patient, she hurried from one playmate to another assailing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... am sure I would have known it. If he raised his voice or used his pen for such purpose, that fact was never brought to my notice and I am satisfied it was never done. My own opinion is that he remained reticent and refused to take sides. The true reason why troops were not sent in compliance with the request of Governor Ames was that, although the President once directed that the requisition be complied with, he ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... scanty literature dealing with Gauguin. I've read Charles Morice and Emil Bernard, but beyond telling us details about the Pont-Aven School and the art and madness of gifted Vincent Van Gogh, both are reticent about Gauguin's pilgrimage to the South Seas. We knew why he went there, now we know what he did while he was there. The conclusion of the book is illuminating. "I returned to Paris two years older than when I left, but ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... friends than ever; but they did not resume their old confidential talks. Erle had grown strangely reticent about his own affairs, and spoke little of his fiancee and his approaching marriage. He knew in his heart that Fay had read him truly, and knew that his warmest affections had been given to Fern, and he had an ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... being a masquerade, from Mr. Piper a courteously grey-haired mandarin in jade-green robes beside Mrs. Piper—lovely Mary Embree that was—in the silks of a Chinese empress, heavy and shining and crusted as the wings of a jeweler's butterfly, her reticent eyes watching the bright broken patterns of the dancing as impassively as if she were viewing men being tortured or invested with honor from the Dragon Throne, to Oliver, a diffident Pierrot who has discovered no even bearably comfortable way of combining ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... recognised wherever he goes," continued Herr Carovius, "and if he lays the purple aside he stands at once in need of reticent ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... greatly attached to him, he knew, but he did not always confide in him; he had a way of being extremely reticent, especially over money matters, and he recalled a little upset they had once had about a time when Stratton was hard pressed to get his rent ready and had raised the money in what he (Guest) had dubbed a disreputable way—that is to say, he had borrowed from "a relative" ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... backer's money when he had none of his own to put with it, meeting dollar for dollar as it was thrown into the crucibles of fate. He stopped at last, a little ashamed of having so completely unbosomed himself, for he was by habit and nature reticent. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... that although you told me some little of the story of yourself and a young lady to whom you were deeply attached, you were very reticent as to the cause of her dementia; and your story ended with her disappearance in Wales. I, for my part, had not the smallest doubt that she had fallen down a precipice and was dead. Everything—especially the fact ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... general who has an implicit belief that our cause is just, and a trust in Providence that he will make the just cause victorious. In General McClellan we had also a general who believed in Providence, and who has always shown great reverence in his writings. General McClellan is reticent. You can, however, tell somewhat of the opinion of the head of the house from his children; and judging from the tone of belief among the General's military family, from that long delay after Antietam, it was pretty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... curious exchange for the robin. When I noticed the absence of the red-breast, whom—like the poor—we have always with us (at the East), I was pleased, in spite of my fondness for him, because, as every one must allow, he is sometimes officious in his attentions, and not at all reticent in expressing his opinions. I did miss his voice in the morning chorus,—the one who lived in the grove was not much of a singer,—but I was glad to know the chewink, who was almost a stranger. His peculiar trilling ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... monkish, and unmanly about all that is called "Christian," especially in its attitude towards resistance and fighting. The great sceptics of the nineteenth century were largely virile. Bradlaugh in an expansive way, Huxley, in a reticent way, were decidedly men. In comparison, it did seem tenable that there was something weak and over patient about Christian counsels. The Gospel paradox about the other cheek, the fact that priests never fought, a hundred ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... closed tighter and tighter on the cigar, which had gone out like the first. He did not look at Claude, but while he watched the wind plough soft, flowery roads in the field, the boy's face was clearly before him, with its expression of reticent pride melting into the desire to please, and the slight stiffness of his shoulders, set in a kind of stubborn loyalty. Claude lay on the sod beside him, rather tired after his walk in the sun, a little melancholy, though he did not ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... breakfast table the next morning Colonel Butler was still reticent and taciturn. He had passed an uncomfortable night and was in no mood for conversation. He did not refer, in any way, to the matters which had been discussed the evening before; and when Pen, with the letter in his pocket, started ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... other five, two were English: Lieutenant Thackeray, a civilly reticent gentleman whose right arm rested in a black silk sling, making a flying trip to visit a married sister in New York; Archer Bartholomew, Esq., solicitor, a red-cheeked, bright-eyed, white-haired, brisk little Cockney, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... possessed one of the cleverest heads in Europe could give a man cause for pride. He was apparently the only individual in the Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose. A purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain. Reticent, often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... wonder that the American bachelor living in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal future removed, and rushes madly into love—and housekeeping! What wonder that I, a long-suffering and patient master, who have been served by the reticent but too imitative Chinaman; who have been "Massa" to the childlike but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of the brotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, and have been proudly disregarded by the American ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
