"Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noble about this face," said Mrs. Undercliff, ignoring the interruption, "and yet something simple. I think him more likely to be a cat's-paw than a felon." Having delivered this with a certain modest dignity, she laid the profile on the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the middle classes belonging to the Church of England. All the plain and simple fashions of their forefathers they are either about to abandon, or have already done so. Look at the most part of their chapels—no longer modest brick edifices, situated in quiet and retired streets, but lunatic- looking erections, in what the simpletons call the modern Gothic taste, of Portland stone, with a cross upon the top, and the site generally the most conspicuous that can be found. And look at the manner in which they educate their ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... was gone the tears came into Susan's eyes, but she was bitterly indignant with him for making a scene about her, which a really modest girl hates. On her reaching the parlor Mr. Meadows was gone, too, and that incensed her still more against William. "Mr. Meadows is affronted, no doubt," said she, "and of course he would not come here to be talked of; ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... beautiful Ossianic one-act opera Uthal. The direct results of his teaching at the conservatoire were the steady, though not as yet unhealthy, decline of French opera into a lighter style, under the amiable and modest Boieldieu and the irresponsible and witty Auber; for, as we have seen, Cherubini was quite incapable of making his ideals intelligible by any means more personal than his music; and the crude grammatical rules which he mistook ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Sydney, though a man of variegated experience and a bit of a "hard case," was still passing honest, and a gentleman; and he soon found that he stood but little chance in Luderitzbucht. His modest capital, which he had hoped to increase in this new Diamondopolis, had vanished within a few weeks of his arrival, swallowed up by shares in diamond-fields that existed only in the vivid imagination of the swindling "company-promoters" or so-called "prospectors," who infested the place; ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:—I suppose it was a matter of necessity, calling on some of us from other States to speak for you to-night, for we have learned from the history of Priscilla and John Alden, that a New Englander may be too modest to speak for himself. [Laughter.] But this modesty, like some of the greater blessings of the war, has been more or less ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Thus did the modest son slip away from the angry up-braiding; But in the tone he had taken at first, the father continued: "That comes not out of a man which he has not in him; and hardly Shall the joy ever be mine of seeing my dearest wish granted: That my son may not as his father ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... named James Dore, who keeps a public-house in Bridge Street, Newcastlewest—I can vouch for his beer—also held a small farm of forty-nine acres from the Earl of Devon, for which he paid the modest rent of L11 10s. per annum—the land maintaining sixteen cows and calves, which, on the usual local computation of L10 profit on each cow, would leave a gain of L148 10s.—not a bad investment, as Irish farming goes. So it was considered, and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... his reproof. At all times his conversation was apt to reveal that sudden changes of mental phase took place within him apparently without conscious volition. He now exclaimed with more modest mien, "It is, no doubt, by the will of the Lord that you are come, for I stood in sore need of comfort, for the revelation of the truth is a trial hard to endure, and at times ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... was directed at Herbert Lyddiard, and Amy felt it; but her thoughts were at this moment occupied by another subject of absorbing interest. 'No,' she returned with modest dignity; 'I have at present no desire to alter my condition, but I have for years been intent upon bettering yours. I may be presumptuous in supposing it possible that any effort of mine could do so; but I was resolved to make the trial, and this ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... is the eagle and lamb of temporal and spiritual idealism that form the "head" of this coin, the craftsman and anvil but the modest ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... whom else than himself, Ben Abdi, should the Major turn for counsel and assistance? The little Goorkha preferred, however, that it should be thus; that Agar Sahib should say nothing, merely allowing him to stand silent three paces behind. He was a modest little man, this Goorkha, and knew the limit of his own capabilities, which knowledge, by the way, is not always to be found in the hearts of some of us boasting a fairer skin. He knew that for hard fighting, snugly concealed behind a rock at two hundred yards, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... morning peers out, from her crimson repose, On proud Prairie Queen and the modest Moss-rose; And vesper reclines—when the dewdrop is shed On the heart of the pink—in its odorous bed; But Flora has stolen the rainbow and sky, To sprinkle the flowers with ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... less compliment; Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell, For wenches, taking up their wives i' the Mall; And a brisk bout, which each of them did want, Made by mistake of mistress and gallant. Our modest author thought it was enough To cut you off a sample of the stuff: He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not, For you were all for driving on the plot: You sighed when I came in to break the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... garden; for instance a cruet-stand, a basket of cutlery, and a triangular dish of the kind in which the correct confine cheese. They have not strayed here, they live here; indeed this is among other things the dining- room of a modest little house in Brompton made beautiful, or nearly so, by a girl, who has a soul above food and conceals its accessories as far as possible from view, in drawers, even in the waste-paper basket. Not a dish, not a spoon, not a fork, is hand-painted, a sufficient ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... secretary, and one of the king's personal attendants, who was, no doubt, in his confidence, and two other influential men, one of whom, Ahikam, is known as Jeremiah's staunch friend, would make some stir in 'the second quarter,' on their way to the modest house of the keeper of the wardrobe. The weight and number of the deputation did honour to the prophetess, as well as showed the king's anxiety as to the matter in hand. Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both living at this time, and we do not know why Huldah ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as I may call 'ee," says Tony in his modest way, and not so loud that Unity could overhear, "I see a young woman alooking out of window, who I think may accost me. The fact is, Milly, she had a notion that I was wishing to marry her, and since ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Christ did not succeed, modest as His aims were. Is not, then, an appeal to this noblest of all minds calculated to discourage rather than to encourage us in the pursuit of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... President. It conversation he drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be appointed to the Supreme Bench. Just before leaving Wade said he meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's retirement. Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their administration. He went direct to the White House, and at the door found the President going for a drive in his phaeton. He was invited to go along, and at once availed himself of the opportunity. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... company, my dear? Do you mean Lucy Bargrove's? I wish all our fashionable acquaintance were only half so modest and so well-informed. She is a sweet girl, and an ornament ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... and so followed her to victory. City after city surrendered to her, battle after battle was won under her leadership, until Charles was indeed crowned at Rheims; but, through the influence of her English enemies, the brave and modest maid was condemned as a sorceress and burned ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... modest, Chevalier," replied the vicomte. "I learn that you have entered the bouts, my poet. I tried to interest D'Herouville, but he declined. He goes about like a moping owl, watching ever for a returning ship which he ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... much of the little hill upon which the Temple was set. We read of the 'hill of the Lord's house' being 'exalted above the tops of the mountains.' We read of it being a high hill, 'as the hill of Bashan.' And though to the eye of sense it is a very modest elevation, to the eye of faith it was symbolical of much. Jeremiah felt it to be a material type, both of the elevation and of the stable duration of the God whom he would commend to Israel's and to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... unworthy. He missed the artfulness which had been so winning. He had jealousies no longer to keep his passion quick, for he could not doubt her devotion. There was nothing to lack in Suzette, and that was a fault. She had become modest, docile, truthful, grave. A noble man might have appreciated her the better. Ralph Flare was a representative ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... particular moral emphasis, bespeaking the mournful cogitations of her spirit. On leaving the church, somebody whispered to the minister, that surely Mrs. Glibbans had heard some sore news; upon which that meek, mild, and modest good soul hastened towards her, and inquired, with more than his usual kindness, How she was? Her answer was brief and mysterious; and she shook her head in such a manner that showed him all was not right. "Have you heard lately of your friends the Pringles?" said he, in his sedate manner—"when ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... implied by the practice of external criticism does or does not justify "all the fuss made over those who possess it." On this question, obviously devoid of importance, a controversy was held between M. Brunetiere, who recommended scholars to be modest, and M. Boucherie, who insisted on their reasons for being proud, in the pages of the Revue des langues romanes, 1880, vols. i ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... meek, as humble. He sat and kept silence,[195] knowing, as the prophet says, that silence is the ornament of righteousness.[196] He sat as one that perseveres, he was silent as one that is modest, except that by that silence of his he was speaking, with holy David, in the ears of God: I am a youth and despised, yet do not I forget thy precepts.[197] And for a time he sat alone, because he ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... seldom graceful in the Occidental sense, she is at least in all her ways incomparably graceful: her every motion, gesture, or expression being, in its own Oriental manner, a perfect thing,—an act performed, or a look conferred, in the most easy, the most graceful, the most modest way possible. By ancient custom, she is not permitted to display her grace in the street: she must walk in a particular shrinking manner, turning her feet inward as she patters along upon her wooden sandals. ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Kent's wife might have to forego; nay, things which Elinor Brentwood might presently have to forego. For she compelled herself to front the fact of the diminished patrimony squarely. So long as the modest Western Pacific dividends were forthcoming, they could live comfortably and without pinching. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... entitled surely to a pleasure-trip, and when that's over we can return the ship to the owners—if so disposed. You'll join us in that, Grummidge, won't you? And we'll make you skipper—or first mate, if you're too modest to take command." This sally was received with a subdued laugh, and with marks of such decided approval, that Grummidge was carried with the current—at all events, he held his tongue ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... returned to the tower crestfallen, and never again slipped into the cell of the dead Thael; but when he was eighteen years old a modest inheritance was left him, and he bought materials for dissolving metals and distilling the juice of plants. He gave out that his aim was to learn the art of healing; for that great purpose he read great books which treated of ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... spring, leaving the house to crusty Hannah and the great spider, in a carryall, being the only excursion involving a night's absence that either of the two children remembered from the house by the graveyard, as at nightfall they saw the modest pine-built edifice, with its cupola and bell, where Ned was to be initiated into the schoolboy. The Doctor, remembering perhaps days spent in some gray, stately, legendary great school of England, instinct with ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cheek, and the look in his eyes more serious, and infinitely older, the look of one who had borne much and seen more. The reporters found it difficult to get a story from the returned hero. He seemed to shun the limelight and to be almost unduly modest and retiring, which was of itself, had they but known it, a transformation sufficiently marvelous to have warranted ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... inseparable) and with words far more eloquent than the following, he sings "This honor is greater than I deserve but duty calls me—(what, not stated)... If elected, I shall be your servant" ... (for, it is told, that he believes in modesty,—that he has even boasted that he is the most modest man in the country)... Thus he has the right to shout, "First, last and forever I am for the people. I am against all bosses. I have no sympathy for politicians. I am for strict economy, liberal improvements and justice! I am also for the—ten commandments" (his ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... legislation from the Apostles. Women were to pray with their heads veiled "for the man is not of the woman, but the woman for the man."[225] Jewels, precious metal, and costly garments were unbecoming the modest woman.[226] ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... fruitless. The pretty daughter with the downcast eyes was there too; but her very admiration of the gift, so genuine and unrestrained, proved, if testimony indeed were necessary, that she was not his unknown benefactor: admirer, he would have said; but Ferdinand was in love, and modest. All agreed no one, to their knowledge, had been there; and so Ferdinand, cherishing his beautiful gift, was fain to quit his new friends in ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Parade—a suggestive mouthful. But then the Parade is such a modest little affair. The town itself is flung down a steep hill, at the mouth of a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Philisterlike, contracting thoughts? I, however, emancipated as my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my inward light, advance boldly in a transport peculiarly my own, the bright before me, and the dark behind!'—Do you not see a resemblance? O, they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling ray of light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of even ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... quiet homely ways. Modest and mild Were the fair daughters born to them in those fair ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your "Watchman," seem to me much ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... gave every evidence of the desire to be modest in their demands. They did not even enter the village—nor seek to do so until the place of the camp had been decided upon. Even Jose was not allowed to precede the others in search of kindred. He and his wife ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... are to be seen on every side. A youth no sooner gets through "the Schools," and graduates in Arts, than he inquires for a Curacy. During the three months, perhaps six, of interval, he makes himself sufficiently acquainted with the Alphabet of Divinity to enable him to satisfy the very modest requirements of the Bishop's examination; after which he finds himself at once actively engaged in the Bishopric of souls and the profession of Theology. It is probable that the realities of the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Thomas, abating the zeal of his party, and the mistaken opinion of his cause, was the fittest man amongst them to undertake the charge. He was a complete general, strict in his discipline, wary in conduct, fearless in action, unwearied in the fatigue of the war, and withal, of a modest, noble, generous disposition. We all apprehended danger from him, and heartily wished him of our own side; and the king was so sensible, though he would not discover it, that when an account was brought him of the choice they had made, he replied, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... my writing as you call it, until after I've dined at seven o'clock and given myself time to digest my modest dinner," answered ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... soldier, and no politician; honest, strict on duty, and genial and kind off duty. He is brave as a man can be in battle. A true and loving husband, a kind father, and the truest kind of a friend. A thorough sportsman, temperate, modest, and as careful of the wellfare of the humblest enlisted man as of his chief of staff." Capt. Constant Williams, in a private letter to the author, under date of December 23, 1888, says: "I wish to bear testimony of the noble bearing of ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... XIV. Can modest and prudent Christians think, that the Opinion of the General Councils, Primitive Fathers, and so many wise and good Men in the several Ages of the Church, who have condemned the going to Plays as unlawful, and as a renouncing ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... Julian," Frank said laughing, as he looked at the great pile of trunks in the post-house, "one would think that you were carrying the whole contents of a household. Those modest tin cases comprise my share ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... besides the scandalous prices, which bore no reasonable relation to the cost of production, had to pay the government luxury tax of 10 per cent, over and above. A well-known press correspondent, who entertained seven friends to a simple dinner in a modest restaurant, was charged 500 francs, 90 francs being set down for one chicken, and 28 for three cocktails. The maitre d'hotel, in response to the pressman's expostulations, assured him that these charges left the proprietor hardly any profit. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dependent on wind and weather to enable us to make any accurate estimate of the time our voyage would occupy, especially as regards those latitudes in which the winds are variable. The estimate for the whole voyage was based on an average speed of four knots, and at this very modest rate, as it may seem, we ought to arrive at the lce Barrier about the middle of January, 1911. As will be seen later, this was realized with remarkable exactness. For reaching Madeira we had allowed a month as a reasonable time. We did a good deal better than this, as we were ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... days, when from the high foaming crest of Solway to the smoothly polished breast of Loch Katrine, not a river nor a lake but has swelled with the life's tide of religious freedom. From the bonnie highland heather of her lofty summits to the modest gowan on the lea, not a flower but has blushed with the martyr's blood. But, beloved, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. What holy, loving lessons does God teach us by the history of the true Church, and a thoroughly consecrated ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... Hence, since the Bible is subject to interpretation, the demands of the reason are paramount where they do not admit of doubt. On the other hand, where the traditional dogma of Judaism is clear and outspoken, it is incumbent upon man to be modest and not to claim the infallibility of direct revelation for the limited powers of logical inference ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... into the room. He was dressed as a country swain, came in with modest, diffident air, and for a while stood watching Chester curiously from the opposite side of the apartment, then crossing over, he stood before him, hat in ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... number of soldiers, which the treaty of Stanz allowed them; and the Cantons still kept twice as many votes as the cities, although the latter, yea even sometimes one of them performed as much as all the former put together. This produced arrogance among those who, in the beginning, were modest. They were the governors of the common bailiwicks; they acted often without consulting the cities. They have strengthened themselves in our times by the admission of a fifth canton. They ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... had seen the princess, his heart could not withstand those inclinations so charming an object always inspires. She was the most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red; in a word, all the features of her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore surprising that Aladdin, who had never before seen such ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... another to Warsaw, on its way to meet the czar at St Petersburg; another to Pesth, whence it will be carried through the scenes of the late Hungarian war; another to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; others from Central Germany southward to the Swiss highlands, which bar further progress; and a very modest little group ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender, instead of me,—the innocent sufferer. It would be ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... had a four days' job on his hands. Then he called Jim Green, and Softy Meadows, and finally in despair called the only one left. John Knox,—nice orthodox name, my dear. John Knox would do it for the modest sum of five dollars, and not a—well, I'll spare you the details, but he wouldn't do it for a cent less. Nesbitt raved, and Nesbitt swore, but John Knox, while he may not be a pillar in the church, certainly stood like ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... to fondle the missing (gastric) links that would litter the Christmas table! The "greater number" could not of course go far from the Diamond City. But Modder River was near. There were the time-honoured annual excursions to that modest watering-place and now famous battlefield to excite the imagination, where "shells" could be gathered of more historic value than the "common" ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... and while Hope pictures to us a flattering scene of future bliss, let us deny its pencil those colours which are too bright to be lasting.—When hearts deserving happiness would unite their fortunes, Virtue would crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless flowers; but ill-judging Passion will force the gaudier rose into the wreath, whose thorn offends them when its ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... the power, and perhaps the opportunity, have failed us for proceeding in the manner of La Place and of Say, we cannot refuse to believe that the form which we have adopted has, also, its modest utility. It appears to us especially well suited to the wants of the age, to the hurried moments which it can consecrate ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... already spoken, and Ramphis knew it, but he did not tell Radames. Together they spoke of Radames's loyal wish to serve his people, either as a great general or as a soldier. He was too modest to think that Isis would choose him, out of all the worthy men of the army, to lead the hosts of Egypt. His desire to do valorous deeds was inspired by his love for a slave girl, who attended the Princess ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... those who seek, as the essentials of art, imaginative boldness and sincerity; understand what is meant by adversaries who maintain that, after all, Tintoretto was but an inspired Gustave Dore. Between that quiet canvas of the Presentation, so modest in its cool greys and subdued gold, and the tumult of flying, ruining, ascending figures in the Judgment, what an interval there is! How strangely the white lamb-like maiden, kneeling beside her lamb in the picture of S. Agnes, contrasts with the dusky gorgeousness of the Hebrew women ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... is one virtue which I have striven to implant more than any other in your breasts," he continued, "it is the cultivation of a modest and becoming reserve in your intercourse with ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... insupportable. Yet this very vanity was, I think, of some advantage; it hindered me from falling into such things as cause the ruin of families. I would not do anything which in the eye of the world, might render me culpable. As I was modest at church and had not been used to go abroad without my mother, as the reputation of our house was great, I passed ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... affable and modest; but the more she was thankful in her heart to Heaven for having placed her on the first throne in Europe, the more unwilling she was to be reminded of her elevation. This sentiment induced her to insist on the observation of all the forms of respect due to royal birth; whereas in other princes ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... my arms towards them, before even I could pronounce their charming name—a name fit for the Prince in some French fairy-tale; colonists, perhaps, in some far distant century from Asia, but naturalised now for ever in the village, well satisfied with their modest horizon, rejoicing in the sunshine and the water's edge, faithful to their little glimpse of the railway-station; yet keeping, none the less, as do some of our old paintings, in their plebeian simplicity, a poetic scintillation ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... not talk much, but he kept close watch of matters, and knew, as nearly as he could, all the facts that were needed to make up his mind, so that he had a good deal of weight with other members, and yet was very modest. When he first took his seat in the House, the Speaker was directed to thank him, in the name of the people, for his great services as an officer. This the Speaker did in glowing terms, quite unexpectedly ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... then when I take one up and hold it in my hand, I look at it before putting my tongue to it and think what a two-cent stamp believes. It has come to be for me like a little modest seal for my country—like a flag or a symbol. A two-cent stamp is the signature of the nation, the tiny stupendous Magna Charta of the rights ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... are you?" she asked with a slightly southern accent in her voice, delicate and entrancing. Her head gave a little modest toss, her fine white teeth caught her lower lip with a little quirk of humour; for she could see that he was a gentleman, and that she was safe from anything that might ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... loved where he might enjoy their fragrant society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... physicians who had been summoned proved futile; the lady was at the point of death; at last, in sheer despair, they summoned a midwife of great repute among the peasantry, but whose practice did not include the gentry. From the first treatment of this woman, who appeared modest and diffident to a degree, the pains ceased as if by enchantment; the patient fell into an indefinable calm languor, and after some hours was delivered of a beautiful infant; but after this was attacked by a violent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... our return home, washed the soot and dirt from our hands and faces, and while we were thus employed a modest rap was heard at the door, and who should enter but Mr. Steel Spring, looking as important, defiant, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... they were intended as a cloak to cover the essentially revolutionary designs of the shrewd New Englanders. "We have too much reason to suspect that independence is aimed at," Mr. Low warned the Congress; and Mr. Galloway could see that while the Massachusetts men were in "behavior very modest, yet they are not so much so as not to throw out hints, which like straws and feathers show from which point in the compass the wind comes." In the early days of the Congress, if we are to believe Mr. Hutchinson, this cold north ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... modest to answer. I'll answer for him. About an hour ago, we met an old wolf on the road. He was half starved and begged for help. Having nothing to give him, what do you think my friend did out of the kindness of his heart? With his teeth, he bit off the paw of his front foot and threw it at ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... Ophelia's modest Replies, the few Words she uses, and the virtuous Caution she gives her Brother, after his Advice to her, are inimitably charming. This I have observed in general in our Author's Plays, that almost all his young Women (who are designed as good Characters) are made to ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... near the gate of Bethlehem by which he had often driven his sheep in his younger days. At once, three of his men, without telling him what they were going to do, forced a passage through the Philistine lines and brought him the water for which he longed. Touched by the act, but always modest, David refused to allow men to risk their lives simply for his gratification and poured out the water as a sacrifice to God, according to the religious ceremony of that time, for it was as good as blood, David said, and the three men who brought ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were her company. He then ushered ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Hindenburg" yields some unimportant but interesting by-products. The railroad Napoleon, as all the world knows, lives and works in a palace, but this palace doesn't overawe one who has beaten professionally at the closed portals of Fifth Avenue. It would be considered a modest country residence in Westchester County or on Long Island. Light in color and four stories high, including garret, it looks very much like those memorials which soap kings and sundry millionaires put up to themselves in their lifetime—the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... who are worthy of love; nor to those who will enjoy the bloom of your youth, but to those who will share their possessions with you in age; nor to those who, having succeeded, will glory in their success to others, but to those who will be modest and tell no tales; nor to those who care about you for a moment only, but to those who will continue your friends through life; nor to those who, when their passion is over, will pick a quarrel with you, but rather to those who, when ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... happens within one storage cell, let us look into the early history of the storage battery, and see what a modest beginning the modern heavy duty battery had. Between 1850 and 1860 a man named Plante began his work on the storage battery. His original cell consisted of two plates of metallic lead immersed in dilute sulphuric acid. The acid ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... drawn up and down according to the tide, so that bathers might enter the water from them directly. There, as in most British towns, women bathed at one part of the beach, men at the other, and all in the most decorous and modest of costumes. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... strikingly parallel to that of seventy years before, when the president of Harvard College announced his acceptance of Baptist principles. The day after the Yale commencement in September, 1722, a modest and respectful paper was presented to the trustees of the college, signed by Rector Timothy Cutler and Tutor Brown (who constituted the entire faculty of the college) and by five pastors of good standing in the Connecticut churches. Two other pastors of note were named as assenting to the paper, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... station at Hampton, a young man, leaning on the shoulder of a servant, whom he addressed as Watkins, stepped from the platform into a hack, and requested to be driven to "The Pines." On arriving at the gate of a modest farm-house, a few miles from the station, the young man descended with difficulty from the carriage, and, casting a hasty glance across the road, seemed much impressed by some peculiarity in the landscape. Again leaning on the shoulder of the person Watkins, he walked to ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... approaching to regret. I requested them to dance, and they consented. I know nothing more graceful than these dances of the country, which have all the originality which nature gives to the fine arts; a certain modest voluptuousness was remarkable in them; the Indian bayaderes should have something analogous to that mixture of indolence and vivacity which forms the charm of the Russian dance. This indolence and vivacity are indicative of reverie and passion, two elements of character ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... of the Convention had been surveying him with a modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... college dinner he visited the booksellers' shops, where he was sure not to be disturbed by the gossip of dons, young and old. After supper he would smoke his pipe and drink his pot of ale in a tavern. It was while he took this modest refreshment, before old age came upon him, that Antony once fell in, and fell out, with Dick Peers. This Dick was one of the men employed by Dr. Fell, the Dean of Ch. Ch., to translate Wood's History and Antiquities of the University ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... existence in the community was an irresistible demonstration of Christianity and a tower of strength to every good cause. Yet he had not gained this position of influence by brilliant talents or great achievements or the pushing of ambition; for he was singularly modest, and would have been the last to credit himself with half the good he did. The whole mystery lay in this, that he had lived in the town for forty years a blameless life, and was known by everybody to be a godly and a prayerful man. The prime ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... that le moindre petit diner coute les yeux de la tete. Poor Bobbie Lacklands had a tragic experience yesterday. He said he quite unthinkingly dropped into that most recherche of eating places, Fouquet's, for a snack. With only a modest balance at the bank he ordered a sardine. Then he called for a filet mignon and half-a-pint of vin rouge—he was always a reckless spendthrift sort of boy, you know. A cup of cafe noir and an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... where, hitherto, nothing but naked rock had been seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious grasses. As for the town itself, it was certainly no great matter; containing about twenty dwellings, and otherwise being of very modest pretensions. Those who dwelt there were principally such mechanics as found it convenient to be at the centre of the settlement, some half a dozen persons employed about the warehouses of the merchants, a few officials of the government, and the families of those ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... articles that have been written on the Airedale have come from the pen of Mr. Buckley, and therefore but modest reference is made to the man who has worked so whole-heartedly, so well, and so successfully in the interests of the breed he loves. It would be ungenerous and unfair in any article on the Airedale, written by anyone but Mr. Buckley, if conspicuous ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland (and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879 a modest volume of "novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, a perspicacity, ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... first lived around as best I could until the command was quartered, and then, requesting a detail of wagons from the quartermaster, I went out some thirty miles to get poles to build a more comfortable habitation for myself. In a few days enough poles for the construction of a modest residence were secured and brought in, and then the building of my house began. First, the poles were cut the proper length, planted in a trench around four sides of a square of very small proportions, and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... excited cries accompanied the contest. Here and there along the shores we saw little huts of fishermen, with nets hung out to dry, or groups of men seining or dropping dip-nets; upon many slopes were little terrace garden spots, where modest crops were cultivated; here and there were mats lately finished or heaps of fresh-cut rushes for their fabrication. Five hours of good paddling brought us to Santa Fe de la Laguna, just opposite the far more famous Tzintzuntzan, and but a little distance from the much ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... one till Dr Vigfusson noticed them less than twenty years ago. But the fact seems to be so; and nothing could better prove the rarity of that comparative study of literature to which this series aims at being a modest ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... lived out of the profits of a linendraper's shop in Bishopsgate Street (there she was a little right, and a little wrong—M. is a gentleman tobacconist); in short, she multiplied demands upon him till my friend, who is neither over-modest nor nervous, declared he quite shuddered. After laying as bare to her curiosity as an anatomy he trembled to think what she would ask next. My pursuits, inclinations, aversions, attachments (some, my dear friends, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... leaves the highways of literature, and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing to bear ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... long years had been friendly with Labarta, kept trying to direct him with his practical spirit, like the boy who guides a blind man. A modest income inherited from his parents was enough for the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that represented enormous fees. The voluminous documents would become covered with dust on his table and Don Esteban would ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... contempt. Next day Ferdinand made his royal entry. The populace went mad with delight, and displayed a passionate devotion which augured ill for the schemes of Prince Joachim of Berg. A less egoistic man would have seen that a national uprising was imminent. But Murat was neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a knot which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... personates my husband, Phocion, at a certain part of the play where we have to embrace, thought fit to clasp me so energetically in his arms that he threw me down, and fell down himself. I fell seated, with all my draperies in most modest order, which was very fortunate, but certainly I never was more frightened or confused. However, I soon recovered my presence of mind, and helped my better half on with his part, for he was quite aghast, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... government, for not assisting by arms revolution in Ireland,—that is, a revolution of a portion of the Irish who followed certain leaders,—they were equally abusive of the people of Rome for daring, against the will of the pope, to assert any measure of civil or religious liberty, however modest. Impudent threats were made of sending an Irish army to the pope's assistance, at the very time that the persons so vaunting were afraid of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... by the various American manufacturing plants, and said it would have been impossible for the French to succeed as they had without this help. He urged the shipping of steel on contracts with all possible dispatch. General Gosselin is an important personage, quiet and modest. I was told he had already been of great service to ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... their cordial acquiescence by shaking us also by the hand. Hurrying through the villagers our new friend led us with triumphant strides and a vivacious air towards his cottage, and calling forth his wife, bade her salute us, which she did with that modest and simple demeanour common to her countrywomen. Gratified that he had so far conduced, as he imagined, to our comfort, the Norwegian would insist on our entering his house; and conducting us, by a steep and narrow stair, to an upper room, the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... She accompanies him, in hopes that a change of climate may assist her feeble health, and also, that she may procure a more valuable education for her son, and safer from seduction, in America than in France. I think it impossible to find a better woman, more amiable, more modest, more simple in her manners, dress, and way of thinking. She will deserve the friendship of Mrs. Jay, and the way to obtain hers, is to receive her and treat her without the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: "You two brave fellows that I had been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... beyond the modest 'fiver' which a man would be thought unsociable if he did not risk on the horse that carries the country's colours. But he is very 'thick' with the racing-people on the Downs, and supplies the stable with oats, which is, I believe, not an ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... clad than the girls, who have an eye to queer combinations of colors, and the revelation of the lines that distinguish the female form without flagrant disclosure. There is much Philippine dressing that may under all the surroundings be called modest, and the prevalent expression of the Filipino is that of fixed but bewildered grief. The males are rather careless, and display unstinted the drawings of legs, that are copper-colored and more uniform in tint than symmetry. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... The modest enquirer therefore, without pretending to put himself on an equality with these illustrious men, may be forgiven, when he permits himself to suggest a few doubts, and presumes to examine the grounds ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... etc. These things must in time be attended with bad Consequences, and cannot fail of bringing the whole of their works in disrepute.* (* Cook had good reason for writing thus, and being himself scrupulously honest and careful, he felt this scamped work to be a disgrace to seamen.) If he is so modest as to say, Such and such parts, or the whole of his plan is defective, the Publishers or Vendures will have it left out, because they say it hurts the sale of the work; so that between the one and the other we can hardly tell when we are possessed of a good Sea Chart until we ourselves ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... modest about his achievement. Said he: "When in October you go to a tree and give it a jar, and the fruit rains down all about you, it is not you that ripened and sent down the fruit; the whole summer has been doing that. It was my good fortune to be there when it was needed that some one should ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... mother," cried Lenore; "he was a stranger—a handsome, modest youth, on his way to the capital. He has neither father nor mother, and that made me so ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... nothing serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!'—'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken air; 'you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.'—This modest epigram increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation. 'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she said; 'you snatch away all my illusions; ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... may be allowed to think that Major Rose is almost too reticent and modest as regards the ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... well worthy of life, if such could find sustenance among his fellows and win a mate for himself somewhere in this world. But he, for all his hideousness and unseemly mien, is not the vampire; the blood-sucking bat has won a mantle of deceit from the hands of Nature—a garb that gives him a modest and not unpleasing appearance, and makes it a difficult matter to distinguish him from his guileless ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... up-river boat is modest and retiring. He likes to keep on the shady side, underneath the trees, and to do most of his travelling early in the morning or late at night, when there are not many people about on the river to look ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... least necessary, in order to put herself in accord with French traditions, to relegate her daughters to the middle distance. They occupied a considerable part of the foreground, in the prettiest, most modest, ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... Florence Burton. In those old days he had never seen Florence, and had hardly thought seriously of what qualities a man really wants in a wife. As he walked up and down the hill of Stratton Street, with the kiss of the dear, modest, affectionate girl still warm upon his lips, he told himself that a marriage with such a one as Julia Brabazon would have been altogether fatal to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... of a great nation upon him, he yet pondered upon the childhood teaching of home. First, he speaks of his grandfather Verus, who, by his example, taught him not to be prone to anger; then of his father, the Emperor Antoninus Pius, from whom he learned to be modest and manly; then of his mother, whose name was Domitia Calvilla. Let us read some of his own words about her, dwelling particularly upon a few of them. He writes: "As for my mother, she taught me to have regard for ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... ton; for engines and auxiliary machinery, ten to fifteen krone per ton of materials used; for boilers and pipes, six to ten krone per ton of material. The total amount to be paid out yearly was limited to the modest figure of ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... be restored, and her improving health showed that her happiness was complete. Although she never was charged with having resorted to a stratagem, our guide, who had been with her a long while, and who represented her as a modest, virtuous, and interesting girl, had always considered her insanity as assumed, with a view to work upon the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... amusing themselves with admiring the modest simplicity of the old gentleman's bill of fare when Denton, the house-steward, ran in, and, staring wildly around, exclaimed: 'Thank goodness everybody is here!' then, darting forward to an open door which looked upon the lawn, he shut and locked it, and slammed down the sashes with ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... comprehensive axiom, but simply on the knowledge of a number of particular fortunes and of their owners. Such a road towards truth is highly unromantic. The student of particular phenomena is unable to pose as the champion of the race. But the method has the modest advantage of resting not on a priori definitions, but on inductions from actual experience; hence of being ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... young Hart went to live with Asabel Abel, to whom he was apprenticed for the purpose of learning the business of cabinet making. When the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he set up in business on his own account, at first opening his modest store and workshop on the site of the present Birch House, and subsequently, after five or six years of business, removing his location to the opposite side of the street, on the spot now occupied ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... son, I have no doubts and no fears." On the occasion of his funeral there was a general outpouring of people from the town and vicinity for many miles, who sincerely mourned the departure of their friend. The State was represented by the Governor and seven members of his official family. On the modest monument that marks his last resting place is inscribed his name and the date of his birth and death. On the base the legend runs: "I have fought a good fight; ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... and safe and pleasant and altogether delightful it seemed after that dark underground tunnel! The carpet lay on the floor, looking as calm as though it had never been for an excursion in its life. On the mantelpiece stood the Phoenix, waiting with an air of modest yet sterling worth for the thanks of ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... determination,—"one good thing is, I have begun to have an effect on my father. He does not like her any more. He was distinctly bored at the prospect of her visit this time. He did not resent it at all when I called her an upholstered old lady. I really think," she added, with modest justice, "that I am rather good at poisoning people's minds against their undesirable friends." She paused, debating how long it would take her to separate Mathilde from the Wayne boy; and recalling that this was no topic for an invalid, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... or moral, that was doing at the Hydriots—of which, by-the-by, as first inventor, the company had contrived, at Harold's suggestion, to make him a shareholder to an extent that would cover all his modest needs, I could not think how he would bear ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Very modest, sir, and timid. She seems to have a secret sorrow, for I have often seen her eyes fill when she thought no one was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of a like nature, common in story-books to youths on their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and pretty, appeared. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... remarks to the bishop who, it seems, does not relish so much salt. The former acted so that the bishop demanded from the royal Audiencia that they should send that friar to Espana. It is to be noticed that this good religious is so devout that his friars, on account of his modest behavior, call him "the Theatin" [i.e., "the Jesuit"]; but seeing himself accused on such a ground, he was furiously angry, going so far as to tell the bishop that everything was going to destruction since bishops so ignorant as his illustrious Lordship were appointed, etc. The royal Audiencia made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various |
