"Acquiescent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger—ye'll mind Dirk Hatteraick, Deacon? I dare say ye may have dealt wi' him—(the Deacon gave a sort of acquiescent nod and humph). He was a daring chield, and he fought his ship till she blew up like peelings of ingans; and Frank Kennedy he had been the first man to board, and he was flung like a quarter of a mile off, and fell into the water below the rock at Warroch Point, that they ca' the Gauger's ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... things, when the dreams and hopes, and expectations vague and sweet, which make so large a part in girlish happiness, give place to graver and more earnest thoughts of life and duty, to a juster estimate of what life has to give, and an acquiescent acceptance of the lot which she has not chosen, but which has come to her in it. It is not very often that so desirable a state of mind and heart comes to girls of four-and-twenty. It certainly had not come to Elizabeth. However, it gave her pleasure—and a little ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... private family and their friends, with the other the fates of England and Europe; the fortunes of Marlborough and of Swift on their way from dictatorship, in each case, to dotage and death; the big wars and the notable literary triumphs as well as the hopeless passions or acquiescent losses. It is thus an instance—and the greatest—of that revival of the historical novel which was taking place, and in which the novel of Scott(1)—simpler, though not so very simple as is sometimes thought—is being dashed with a far heavier dose of the novel-element as opposed to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... neurasthenia. As for himself he fancied that he had not for years felt better than he felt at that moment. He was aware of the most delicious sensation of sharing a perfect nocturnal solitude with his wife. He drew her towards him until her acquiescent head lay against his waistcoat. He held her body in his arms, and came deliberately to the conclusion that to be alive ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... but thoroughly informed as to the great obstacles lying in the path which the duke hoped to travel. Naturally, the king was quite willing to rest assured that ruin was inevitable. If his rival were disposed to wreck himself rashly on German shoals, the king was equally disposed to be an acquiescent onlooker and to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... entirely acquiescent. He had no personal taste for the continued round of functions, but he had accepted it as part of ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... with the rusty handcuffs and handed them to me as if she were conscious and acquiescent in what I did. Not a feature moved, only her eyes shone with inner excitement, in a way I had seen before, while I clasped one link about ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... of course, but there were other things dominant in him now, far more urgent. He was not so much in love with Gloria as mad for her. Unless he could have her near him again, kiss her, hold her close and acquiescent, he wanted nothing more from life. By her three minutes of utter unwavering indifference the girl had lifted herself from a high but somehow casual position in his mind, to be instead his complete preoccupation. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... spiked, while our foe was armed to the teeth with ballots, backed by money and controlled by vice, bigotry and tyranny. But the leading men of the State had long been known to favor the amendment; the respectable press had become mildly, and in a few cases earnestly acquiescent; no opposition could be raised at any of our public meetings, and we felt measurably sure of a victory until near election time, when we discovered to our dismay that most of the leading politicians upon whom we had relied for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... appearance tranquil and acquiescent under its bitter chastisement. The outward aspect is calm and peaceful. The gates are thrown open, and the merchants and traders are returning to the pursuits of traffic; the gentry and nobles are engaged in refitting and re-embellishing their rifled palaces; and the common people ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. At this time thousands of gulls made their appearance in the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the Duke of Orleans his ambassadors come asking your hand in marriage, you do show them a pleasant and acquiescent countenance.' ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... face, which had, as it happened, more than once somewhat displeased her, and a certain languidness of expression, with which she had also grown almost impatient. This man, she had decided, was too readily acquiescent. ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... With an acquiescent gesture, John Ryder tapped the table with his gavel and rose to address his fellow directors. Instantly the room was silent again as the tomb. One might have heard a pin drop, so intense was the attention. All eyes were fixed on the chairman. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... logical, and although it was obvious that Thorn alone could save him from disaster, knowing what Grace must pay hurt him more than he had thought. Yet she must pay; he could find no other plan. Now he was acquiescent but not resigned, and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... extraordinary way of putting things," remarked Mrs. Portheris to her nephew. "Very extraordinary. But I am glad to hear that you agree with me," and she looked as if she did not understand momma's acquiescent smile. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... poultice, and put it on, covered Ermine well, made up the fire, and took her seat on the form, just outside the screen, while Ermine tried to sleep. But sleep was coy, and would not visit the girl's eyes. Her state of mind was strangely quiescent and acquiescent in all that was done to her or for her. Perhaps extreme weakness had a share in this; but she felt as if sorrow and mourning were as far from her as was active, tumultuous joy. Calm thankfulness and satisfaction with God's will seemed to be ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... Cruickshanks left the room with some indistinct mutterings; but whether negative or acquiescent, Edward could not well distinguish. The hostess, a civil, quiet, laborious drudge, came to take his orders for dinner, but declined to make answer on the subject of the horse and guide; for the Salique law, it seems, extended to the stables of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... her, as she did so, a vivid realization of the emptiness and aimlessness of his life. He looked handsomer than ever; he looked stately and formal and impressive; but he looked old—though he was only forty-five—he looked old and ineffectual and acquiescent. The fighting strength, such as it was, had gone out of him, and the stamp of failure was on him, from his high, pale, intellectual forehead, where the fine brown hair had retreated to the crown of his head, to his narrow features, and his relaxed slender limbs, with their slow and indolent ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... more. Am I not irrepressible? I send you a rhymed fancy. If it has any significance you will, I know, give it place; if not, not. I will be sincerely acquiescent. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... heroic spirits, must have seemed the prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons; and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined; while the enemy's troops consisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training, familiarized with victory, and commanded ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... two hours Nancy returned, the two clerks and the manager accompanying her. The store people were slightly flushed, Nancy herself sullenly acquiescent. For the first time in her life she had had the opportunity to buy enough clothes of her own, and yet she hadn't been allowed to choose what she really wanted. Gently but inexorably they had rejected the garments Nancy selected, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and she was my—wife—and when I was given a parish and had introduced her to my people, they loved her for the white gentleness which seemed purity, and for acquiescent amiability which seemed—goodness. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... could be nowhere else half so sweet as in that wild and lovely place. She began to imagine a bliss so divine, that it would have been strange if she had not begun to desire it, and it was with a half reluctant, half-acquiescent thrill that she suffered him to touch upon what was first in ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... overt breach, we fall apart, Tacitly sunder—neither you nor I Conscious of one intelligible Why, And both, from severance, winning equal smart. So, with resigned and acquiescent heart, Whene'er your name on some chance lip may lie, I seem to see an alien shade pass by, A spirit wherein I ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... filled with apprehensions, saw, in her desire of connecting herself yet more closely with the most bigoted royal family of Europe, a confirmation of their worst forebodings; and the tyranny of the Tudors had not yet so entirely crushed the spirit of Englishmen as to render them tamely acquiescent in the prospect of their country's becoming a province to Spain, subject to the sway of that detested people whose rapacity, and violence, and unexampled cruelty, had filled both hemispheres ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... supremacy. Following Henry Adams' argument Russell, on May 9, brought to the attention of France a proposal for a joint request on the American belligerents to respect the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris, and received an acquiescent reply. After some further exchanges of proposed terms of instructions to the British and French Ministers at Washington, Russell, on May 18, sent a despatch to Lyons with instructions for his action. On this same day Russell, in his first interview with Adams, "before these despatches ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... with McBane's tone. His remark was not acquiescent, though couched in terms of assent. There was a sneering savagery about it, too, that left Delamere uneasy. He was, in a measure, in McBane's power. He could not pay the thousand dollars, unless it fell from heaven, or he could win it from some one else. He would ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the Commonwealth, though he had quietly submitted to whatever was required of him. He had been member of Parliament for the county of Hants, and had been placed at the head of the list of his father's attempt at a House of Lords, and he allowed greatness to be thrust on him in a quiet acquiescent way. He dismissed the fictitious parliament that his father had summoned, and then offended the strict and godly of the army by promoting soldiers of whom they disapproved. "Here is Dick Ingoldsby," he said; "he can neither ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... goes into the Highlands with a mind naturally acquiescent, and a credulity eager for wonders, may come back with an opinion very different from mine; for the inhabitants knowing the ignorance of all strangers in their language and antiquities, perhaps are not very scrupulous adherents to truth; ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... not remain acquiescent. I will promenade upon my profluence to Sixth Avenue, and purchase the ceruleous ribbon immediately," said G.F.F.F.S., putting ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with the dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful; it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability of a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked long at that picture, and could not ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... set aside from modern use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul does not altogether weld its ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... the thanah; so that shows that he couldn't really object to sport; and I hope you don't mean to cast disrespect upon the memory of your own poor father!'. All of which profound moral and religious observations Ernest, as in duty bound, received with the most respectful and acquiescent silence. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... good use of my time, that in two more, he spoke to me of his friendship for Dawton, and his wish for a dukedom. These motives it was easy enough to unite, and at last he promised me that his answer to my principal should be as acquiescent as I could desire; the morning after this promise commenced ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... after dinner a stroll in the gardens, and you can manage to walk a little with me." She stopped again, returned, said, "It was very kind of you to think of me at Sacramento," held out her hand, allowed it to remain for an instant, cool but acquiescent, in his warmer grasp, and with the same odd youthfulness of movement and gesture slipped out of ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... an acquiescent grimace. His face was strongly darkened by exposure to the frost and the glare of the snow; his hands were scarred, with several ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... classrooms are mine no more; the campus is a departed glory; I shall no longer sing the 'Alma Mater' with you when the chimes ring at ten. The whole challenge of the city is missing. Nothing opposes me, there is no task for me to do. I must be supine, acquiescent, smiling, non-essential. I am like a runner who has trained for a race, and, ready for the speeding, finds that no race is on. But I've no business to be surprised. I knew it would be like this, didn't I? the one thing is to make and keep mummy happy. She needs ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... son," said the Bishop, at once gently acquiescent; for Symon of Worcester invariably yielded a point which had been misunderstood. For over-rating a mind with which he conversed, this was ever his self-imposed penance. "Your great strength would be fully equal to lifting ladies over pitfalls. Which recalls to my mind a scene in this ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... fishy eye glistened. "You can depend upon me," he answered, with an acquiescent nod. I judged that he did not often get the chance of earning some eighty rupees ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... diminished steamers, and the white glory of full-rigged ships. It was the autumn of the southern country, and the dreamy spell of the declining days fell softly upon the material tissues of nature, as well as on the acquiescent ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... an age of rebels in letters as in life. Of course, acquiescent writers have existed as well, just as in the Ark (to keep up the illustration) vegetarians stood side by side with carnivors, and hoofs were intermixed with claws. The great majority have, as usual, supported traditional order, have eulogised the past or present, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Custard in far from respectful fashion, dropping him, an astonished, but entirely acquiescent heap, ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... Kehl. She would have carried Ethel with her, but that the poor Baronet with cries and moans insisted on retaining his nurse, and Ethel's grandmother was left to undertake this mission by herself, the girl remaining behind acquiescent, not unwilling, owning openly a great regard and esteem for Kew, and the wrong which she had done him, feeling secretly a sentiment which she had best smother. She had received a letter from that other person, and answered it with her mother's cognisance, but about this ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had pleased her once: it gave her a curious little thrill of acquiescent loyalty; but now it simply hurt, and the instinct of resentment rose in her. What right had he to own her, she asked herself, when it only made other women scornful of her? She lifted her head and faced him. What he saw in her ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... surprise would have roused all his loyalty to the dead, all the old stubborn bitterness, and he would have frozen up against her. But this acquiescent murmur made him long ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to make the same discovery. Quite oblivious of the curious crowd on the station platform, she had intercepted his attempt to lead to the motor car and had ranged the brothers side by side. Tom had been laughingly acquiescent, but his younger brother was ill at ease, too conscious of the many eyes of his townspeople. He knew only the old Puritan way. Family displays were for the privacy of the family, not for the public. He was glad she had not attempted to kiss him. It was remarkable she had ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... filled. I thought I had never seen a creature more gentle, delicate, yielding, acquiescent, and fair. She was not beautiful, but she had grace and distinction of movement. She was a Parisienne. She had won my sympathy. We met in a moment when my heart needed the companionship of a woman's heart, and I was drawn to her by one of those sudden ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... most reprehensible means to secure that end. To elect a professed Tory would have been an impossibility, so the person fixed upon to oppose him was one whom the author of "Middlemarch" might have had in her eye when she described Sir James Chettam as "a man of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions and uncertain vote."[258] His name was Edward William Thomson, and he professed to be a moderate Reformer. His moderation was acceptable to a considerable proportion of the electors, many of whom were tired of Mackenzie. ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... as he lay back in his chair, his hands behind his head, his expression was rather hostile than acquiescent. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... practised colleagues heard the detail of the Bravo with politic coolness. The effect of all factitious systems is to render the feelings subservient to expediency. Convention and fiction take place of passion and truth, and like the Mussulman with his doctrine of predestination, there is no one more acquiescent in defeat, than he who has obtained an advantage in the face of nature and justice; his resignation being, in common, as perfect as his previous arrogance was insupportable. The two old senators perceived at once that Don Camillo and his fair companion ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and women friends had joined the Woman Suffrage movement and were determined that the new Liberal Government should not shirk the issue; an issue on which many members of Parliament had been returned as acquiescent in the principle. On that account they had received the whole-hearted support of many, women owing allegiance to the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... rack-rented tenant of a Connemara hillside, has never crushed out the native feeling of a right to the soil, the native resistance to an alien system. The south-east, I assert, has been brutalised into acquiescent serfdom by a long course of feudalism; the west and north still retain ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... living, since poor Pascal Pelletier's death, in complete seclusion. Little wonder then that a hush fell on Dominic crossing the threshold, since so doing he passed from the world of healthy action to that of acquiescent sickness, from vigorous hoarse-voiced realities to the intangible sadness of unrelated dreams! The effect was one of rather haunting melancholy; and it was characteristic of the lad that he did not resent it, though rejoicing ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... few minutes—the square began to fill again with the first groups of women, children, and old men who had escorted the departing conscripts a little way on their march to Lorient. Back they came, the maids of Paradise silent, tearful, pitifully acquiescent; the women of Bannalec, Faouet, Rosporden, Quimperle chattering excitedly about the scene they had witnessed. The square began to fill; lanterns were lighted around the fountain; the two big lamps with their brass reflectors in front of the mayor's house illuminated the pavement and the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... subject. During the conversation, however, she continued to rinse one of her aprons, and wring it dry very carefully, and drop it back into the water, like a machine slightly out of gear, which goes on repeating some process ineffectually. The two friends read in her silence an omen of acquiescent conviction, and congratulated each other upon it with furtive nods and winks. Mick went off to the bog in high feather, believing that the interview had been a great success, and that his mother was, as Paddy put it, "comin' round to the notion gradual, like an ould ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The men of L100,000 a year—not numerous, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but influential—have been as meekly acquiescent as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government which is conducting ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... in Serviss an uneasiness. To him she was a lamb venturing among wolves. "She should not expose herself to the coarse comment, the seeking eyes of these fellows," he indignantly commented, blaming the acquiescent mother and the absent-minded step-father. "This childlike trust is charming, but it ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... happened. Tudor made his blunder. Never divining Joan's fluttering wildness, her blind hatred of restraint and compulsion, her abhorrence of mastery by another, and mistaking the warmth and enthusiasm in her eyes (aroused by his latest tale) for something tender and acquiescent, he drew her to him, laid a forcible detaining arm about her waist, and misapprehended her frantic revolt for an exhibition of maidenly reluctance. It occurred on the veranda, after breakfast, and Sheldon, ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... they whispered kindly to him 'Come! Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb, He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various |
