"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be false modesty, refusal to see things as they were, not to admit that he was the leader of the younger men, and the boys of the Irregulars. And last winter, the usual theological arguments about the proper chronological order of the Sacred Books and the true nature of the Risen One ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... as this Publican": Modesty should have commanded thee to have bit thy tongue as to this. What could the angels think, but that revenge was now in thine heart, and but that thou comest up into the temple, rather to boast of thyself and accuse thy neighbour, than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a convention there at that time, and some of them had been present at one of the sessions. "Really," said I, "ladies, you surprise me; our conventions are not as public as the ballroom where I saw you all dancing last night. As to modesty, it may be a question, in many minds, whether it is less modest to speak words of soberness and truth, plainly dressed on a platform, than gorgeously arrayed, with bare arms and shoulders, to waltz ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... friend; they loaded me with presents, and offered more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is often only a more refined species of pride. But ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... of fabulous natural history. "Descend into thine own conscience and consider with thyself the great difference between staring and stark-blind, wit and wisdom, love and lust; be merry, but with modesty; be sober, but not too sullen; {81} be valiant, but not too venturous." "I see now that, as the fish Scolopidus in the flood Araxes at the waxing of the moon is as white as the driven snow, and at the waning as black as the burnt coal; so Euphues, which at the first increasing of our familiarity ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... towards differentiation. [Footnote: See Havelock Ellis's Man and Woman.] An adult white woman differs far more from a white man than a negress or pigmy woman from her equivalent male. The education, the mental disposition, of a white or Asiatic woman, reeks of sex; her modesty, her decorum is not to ignore sex but to refine and put a point to it; her costume is clamorous with the distinctive elements of her form. The white woman in the materially prosperous nations is more of a sexual specialist than her sister of the poor and austere ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... perseverance might have been; but the worst faults of boyhood have something exciting and even romantic about them—they would not be so alluring if they had not—while the homely virtues of honesty, frankness, modesty, and self-restraint appear too often as a dull and priggish abstention from the more daring and adventurous joys of eager living. If evil were always ugly and goodness were always beautiful at first sight, there would be little of the trouble and havoc ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... supplied with funds," answered the other with modesty. "Here, in England, as elsewhere, any man or woman can be bought—if you pay their price. There is only one section of the wonderful British public who cannot be purchased—the men and women who are in love with ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Lily of the Vale, To me you tell a useful tale: You say, "Be pretty as you will, Yet modesty is lovelier still." ...
— A Little Girl to her Flowers in Verse • Anonymous
... renounced the philosophy of the Church, it was inevitable that their taste, that the form of objects under their control, should change with their religion; for architects had no longer to provide for the love of solitude, of meditation between sombre pillars, of modesty in apartments with the lancet-casement. They were not to study duration and solidity in an age when men were taught to regard the present as their only concern. When nothing but exact knowledge was sought, the undefined sombre arches were to be removed to make way for lines which would ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... said Horace. "You're thinking this is mock modesty on my part. But it's nothing of the sort. I don't know what I've done—but I presume you are all better informed. Because the Corporation wouldn't have given me that very charming casket—you wouldn't all of you be here like this—unless you were under a strong ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... were not sufficient to make them properly known, a translation of them has lately been made into Latin. It is not easy to say whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which these letters are written, the modesty with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes, when they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... been in Scotland, to take his place among that honorable company. For, though he still refused the honor of knighthood, on the ground that he had, as yet, done no deed deserving thereof, he was held to have deserved it again and again, and all the more from his modesty in declining it. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Modesty is a grace which fine-looking young men of large wealth are often taught by some severe experiences, if it is ever learned. Haldane, as yet, had not received such wholesome depletion. His self-approval and assurance, moreover, were quite natural, since his mother and sisters had ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... incident of their childhood days, it seemed to me that I suffered, and yet took pleasure in it. I asked questions; I spoke to Smith of his mother, of his plans and his prospects. I gave him an opportunity to show himself in a favorable light and forced his modesty to reveal ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... on the other side of the hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which interposed a kind of barrier between himself and the ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... Let me give some examples. Not long ago, I went to one of the shrines of education, the Sorbonne in Paris. Two paintings adorn the chapel walls, not of saints or martyrs, nor of apostles or prophets, perhaps I should say of both saints and prophets, Labor and Humilitas, Industry and Modesty. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... delightfully; but the bride was peerless; her Southern beauty literally shone in that white satin dress and veil, and her head was regal with the Crown of orange-blossoms. Another crown she had—true virgin modesty. A low murmur burst from the men the moment they saw her; the old women forgave her beauty on the spot, and the young women almost pardoned it; she was so sweet and womanly, and so ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... sisterly affection there is another feeling, the growth of which I am watching daily. Of course I do not intend to undeceive her until the feeling grows too strong for her. By and by she will be enveloped in a flame which neither will, nor consciousness of duty, nor the modesty of the woman white as a swan, will be able to keep under control. Constantly the thought dwells with me that since I love her most, mine is the higher right. What can there be more logical or more true? The ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... ever uttered or written a word against the Manbo's sexual morality. It is true that sexual matters are discussed with the greatest freedom, but the most venial breaches of morality are punished. The greatest modesty is observed in regard to the exposure of the private parts. Gazing at an undressed woman, for instance, at the bathing place results in a fine. Unseemly insinuations to a woman are visited with a similar punishment, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... speak. I saw so much of woman in Europe that the yashmak, the barku, the seclusion and modesty of the East have become dear to me above all else. Have you forgotten, dear, the restaurants, the theatres, the parks and, Allah! the streets? The half-stripped bodies, the craving for excitement, the wine, the nights ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... Sprague answered with palpably assumed modesty. "My plans, naturally, call for a great deal of research work, a large expenditure of money, a ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... to your expectations was only in your own modesty; the less you had a right—in the common parlance—to expect, the more you wanted, and the more you ought to have looked for. Say that Miss Wyndham's fortune clears a thousand a year of your property, you would never be able to get along on what you'd have. No; I'll tell you what you'll ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... become me to compliment you on it before your venerable face; but permit me to say, that there never was before published in this world so many volumes that contained so much cause for laughing, and so little for blushing; so many jokes, and so little harm. Why, Sir, say even that your modesty, which astonishes me more and more every time I regard you, is calculated, and not a virtue naturally inherent in you, that very fact would argue for the high sense of the public morality among us. We will ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... his vanity much on the ground of being liked by women, for there never yet was man but some woman was pleased with him. Corney was good-looking, and, except with his own people, ready enough to make himself agreeable. Troubled with no modesty and very little false shame, and having a perfect persuasion of the power of his intellect and the felicity of his utterance, he never lost the chance of saying a good thing from the fear of saying a foolish one; neither having said a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Pandarus to bring the two lovers together, who do not stand in need of him, as Cressida requires no seduction, are comic in the extreme. The manner in which this treacherous beauty excites while she refuses, and converts the virgin modesty which she pretends, into a means of seductive allurement, is portrayed in colours extremely elegant, though certainly somewhat voluptuous. Troilus, the pattern of lovers, looks patiently on, while his mistress ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... give him more influence in the Army than that title will give him, unless I should make him General [instead of me]; and I have told you the reasons why I cannot do that." Altogether, the speech, and the modesty with which it was delivered, produced very considerable effect for the moment upon the officers. Whalley, Goffe, Berry, and others are understood to have shown more sympathy with Richard in consequence; there was respect for his firmness among ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... leaves, as broad and green as ever, all the generations of men. Thus, my dear, coquettes of your fascinating sex cover their persons with figgery, fantastically arranged, and call their masquerading, modesty. Cowards fig themselves out fiercely as "salvage men," and make us believe that they are warriors. Fools look very solemnly out from the dusk of the leaves, and we fancy in the gloom that they are sages. And many a man sets a great wreath about ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... Generally speaking, the chief of these were: long hair, and a tendency to make lugubrious remarks beginning with Verily, verily I say unto you. In actual life, too, lots of men did grow their hair long and cultivate the verily-verily habit; hoping that, despite their innate modesty, their fellow-men might not fail to take the hint and pierce the disguise afforded, often by a personal morality you might ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the telescope at home, and had almost given the matter up in despair, when, on the twenty-seventh day of his visit, he was suddenly confronted with the person whom he sought. The first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away from kirk on some pretext of indisposition, which was more truly modesty; the pleasure of beholding Archie seeming too sacred, too vivid for that public place. On the two following, Frank had himself been absent on some of his excursions among the neighbouring families. It was not until the fourth, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the young man whose parents desire that he should espouse my infant. He beholds her. He says: "Great heavens, I adore her! My father, I consent." He is presented to me; we converse. She regards him with the angelic modesty of a young girl, but speaks not. I approve, the parents meet, it is arranged, and Jules is betrothed to my Pelagie. They have not met since; but next week he comes for the marriage, and he will be permitted to address her in my presence. Ah, yes! your customs are not as ours, and ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... back, I can think of no more charming man than Timothy Rearden. He had a most attractive personality, combining rare intelligence and kindly affection with humor and a modesty that left him almost shy. He was scholarly and brilliant, especially in literature and languages. His essays and studies in Greek attracted world-acknowledgment, but at home he was known chiefly as a genial, self-effacing lawyer, not ambitious for a large practice and oblivious ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... has told you that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a patriot. The rest my modesty compels me ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... tobacco, can be expected to endure the privations of war. Smoking, the angry and fuming king protests, had made our manners as rude as those of the fish-wives of Dieppe. Smokers, tossing pipes and puffing smoke over the dinner-table, forgot all cleanliness and modesty. Men now, he says, cannot welcome a friend but straight they must be in hand with tobacco. He that refused a pipe in company was accounted peevish and unsociable. 'Yea,' says the royal coxcomb and pedant, 'the mistress cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... surprised to see her so melancholy. She only cast at him a sorrowful look, expressive of great affliction or great dissatisfaction. He said a few words to her; but finding that he could not get a word from her, attributed it to her modesty, and retired. Nevertheless, he suspected that there was something extraordinary in this silence, and thereupon went immediately to the sultaness's apartment, told her in what a state he had found the princess, and how she had received him. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... smartly-pointed moustache appeared by contrast almost white. With his upright figure, his alert military air, and merry smile, he looked an extremely handsome and desirable lover; and so Mab thought, although she reproved him with orthodox modesty for snatching a kiss unasked. But if men had to request favours of this sort, there would not be much kissing in the world. Moreover, stolen kisses, like stolen fruit, have a piquant flavour of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... at Jim's modesty, though I felt very grateful to him for speaking so well of me, and was about to ask him what Mr Troil said in return, when our host called him out of the room. I was thus left to myself, except when the lady, who Jim had told me was ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... especially if a social acquaintance, is an unnecessary embarrassment. The false modesty that makes physical examination unwelcome to many adults, men as well as women, is easily overcome when the advantages of such examination are understood. It is likewise easy to prove to a teacher that the loss of time required in having the examination is infinitesimal ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... between them strengthened every day. Susan, watching him when Ella's friends gathered about him, watching the honest modesty with which he evaded their empty praises, their attempts at lionizing, could not but thrill to know that HER praise stirred him, that the deprecatory, indifferent air was dropped quickly enough for HER! It was intoxicating to know, as ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... emperor. For war is wont to succeed by reason of careful planning more than by anything else. Now it is necessary that those who gather for deliberation should make their minds entirely free from modesty and from fear. For fear, by paralyzing those who have fallen into it, does not allow the reason to choose the nobler part, and modesty obscures what has been seen to be the better course and leads investigation the opposite way. If, therefore, it seems to you that any purpose ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... conceal from you this new good action he meditated, M. l'Abbe; thus, although his modesty revolts at the mention of it, he must hear me, and you shall know all," ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... things which may arise between this and the end of the Session, but at present the one point upon which all the House of Commons seems to agree is, that we are the best and WISEST Ministers since the days of Lord Burleigh, and we only stand in need of fans to hide our blushes when our modesty is so severely put to the proof by the compliments of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... wild debauch which follows. The festival now "becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes." Usually the Hos are quiet and reserved in manner, decorous and gentle to women. But during this festival "their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... hair lay upon her neck and shoulders in tumbled brown masses, while her breast heaved tumultuously at the sudden, grim sight of him. She stepped back against the wall, her wondrous, deep, gray eyes wide and troubled, the blush of modesty struggling with the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called him to order. As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked him off with cries of "Sit down! Shut up!" His idea of woman's modesty was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home. Miss Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young ministers who had been educated ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Let it brim with dew; Try if you can cry, We will do so, too. When you're summoned, start Like a frightened roe; Flutter, little heart, Colour, come and go! Modesty at marriage tide Well becomes ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... to defend himself by modesty, but he was unable. It was then formally agreed that the feast had been eaten in the grand dining-hall of Doctor's House, after being cooked in the kitchen of Doctor's House, and that they would go comfortably to bed in the chamber ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... question naturally arises, What was there in Great Britain and Ireland before any of their present inhabitants came to inherit them? The answer is, succinctly, Nothing. Or if this be a little too extreme, then let us imitate the modesty of Mr. Gilbert's hero and modify the statement into Hardly anything. In England, as in Northern Europe generally, modern history begins, not with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but with the passing away of the Glacial Epoch. During that great age of universal ice our ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... accident of the night which had so strangely discovered her thoughts. And she added, that though her behaviour to him might not be sufficiently prudent, measured by the custom of her sex, yet that she would prove more true than many whose prudence was dissembling, and their modesty artificial cunning. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... said that I was accounted a hero in this house, I had determined not to hide away my deeds in my leathern scrip. I had had enough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... meantime, and to come to business, how much will the Ex-Chancellor give? Why not advertise, "A prize of —— (we leave it to the Prince to fill up the blank) will be given for the best epitaph"? With characteristic modesty, Prince BISMARCK, as reported, only asks for "a good epitaph." Why shouldn't he have the best that money can buy, and brains sell? Correspondents have already commenced: here are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... latter, I suspect I must have been hasty in my inferences. I apply to you without scruple. There are subjects on which men and women usually talk a great deal, but apart from one another. You, however, are well aware that I am very destitute of what is commonly called modesty. With regard to this, how fine the remark of our present subject: "Courage and modesty are virtues which every sort of society reveres, because they are virtues which cannot be counterfeited; also, they are known by the same hue." When that blush does not come naturally to ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... he to concern himself with fame. It is useless to try and copy some one else's greatness; that is like trying to look like some one else's portrait, even if it be a portrait by Velasquez. Not that modesty is inseparable from greatness; there are abundance of great men who have been childishly and grotesquely vain; but in such cases it has been a greatness of performance, a marvellous faculty, not a greatness of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... quick smile. "He told you?... I am so glad! Yes, yes: I did not in the least want to have all those passengers crowding around me and paying me ridiculous compliments. But false modesty is another thing altogether, and I don't mind telling you I am quite inordinately ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... How could we do otherwise? In society one never puts one's own desires in opposition to those of others. That's what society is for, is what it means, isn't it? Good breeding means unselfishness;" said Helena, then added, with a little flush of modesty: "Not that I am an oracle, but that's what ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... Patty trembling, and my own heart beat fast. The thought which agitated us both was this: 'Was Father Christmas bringing the tree to us?' But very anxiety, and some modesty also, kept us ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... multifarious rush of political and general business, I might say in the well-known words of the Roman poet, which have survived my classic rust "quorum pars magna fui," provided I were allowed to greatly abate, or rather perhaps, in becoming modesty, altogether to delete, the third factor ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... errors of Edward Irving's peculiar creed; but there can be no doubt that he himself was true and faithful till death, and that he preached only what he entirely believed. And what can man do more? If he was wrong, his errors arose from his extreme modesty, his extreme veneration for the subject to ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... Everywhere she could feel Maggie's eyes piercing her. A thousand times an hour she looked up to see whether Maggie were not there in the room watching her. She hated her now with terror that was partly fear for her own safety, partly love and jealousy for Paul, partly outraged modesty and ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... this riotous life is still to be mentioned. If there is any topic requiring delicate treatment, it is surely the question of sexual morality; and now the Count made the great mistake of throwing aside the cloak of modesty and speaking out on sins of the flesh in the plainest possible language. He delivered a series of discourses on moral purity; and in those discourses he used expressions which would hardly be permitted ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... pursued his work, to start the subject of music, and made a remark which, notwithstanding Richard's ignorance, found sufficient way into his mind to make him think over what little experience he had had of sweet sounds, ere he made his reply. When made, it revealed in truth his ignorance, but his modesty as well, and his capacity for understanding—with the result that the gentleman, who was not only a lover of music but a believer in it, said to him in return things which roused in him such a desire to put them to the test for verification or disapproval, that he went ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... he had a heart of the tenderest, and was fascinated by beauty.... He had even obtained a sumptuous English keepsake, and (oh shame!) gloated adoringly over its 'elegantly engraved' representations of the various ravishing Gulnaras and Medoras.... But his innate modesty always kept him in check. In the house he used to work in what had been his father's study, it was also his bedroom, and his bed was the very one in which his father had breathed ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... jealousy of it) to express my sentiments, and lay before you those reasons, that love and I think most substantial ones; what you have hitherto desired of me, oh unreasonable Philander, and what I (out of modesty and honour) denied, I have reason to fear (from the absolute conquest you have made of my heart) that some time or other the charming thief may break in and rob me of; for fame and virtue love begins to laugh ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... as I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her. She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of soul which is the true nobility of birth. When the painter had taken his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which will please you. The original is in ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... they assented indifferently, which injured my egotism. But I was too adroit to show it. I still demurred with mock modesty. Penton would have ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... man himself. I had known him at Oxford—not as one of my immediate set; but we were a sociable college, and I had seen a good deal of him, liking him for his physical energy combined with a certain simplicity and modesty, though, indeed, he had nothing to be conceited about; liked him, in fact, in the way that at that receptive period one likes many men whom one never keeps up with later. We had both gone down in the same year—three years ago now. I had gone to France and Germany for two years to ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... American review. But his spirit is throughout perfectly serene and, in the best sense of the word, scientific, so that he can work out his argument to the end without a trace of squeamishness or false modesty. Where shall we find in our modern discussions of women's employment, equal work for equal pay, and the like, the central point so simply and clearly stated as in the following sentence: 'Then, if we find either the male or the female sex excelling the other in any art or other pursuit, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... how cheerful it is to find that the jury returned a verdict of 'self-defence.' But then Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Dr. Johnson, and David Garrick gave evidence to character, representing Baretti as 'a man of benevolence, sobriety, modesty, and learning.' This trial is an oasis of mercy in a desert of drastic punishment. Borrow carries on his 'trials' to the very year before the date of publication, and the last trial in the book is that of 'Henry Fauntleroy, Esquire,' for forgery. Fauntleroy was a quite respectable ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... passengers—especially the ladies—thought nothing of pilfering one's little comforts. His friend had even hinted at the correct reproduction of his coronet. This marked man of the world had added that the Americans are greatly impressed by a coronet. I know not whether it was scepticism or modesty, but Count Vogelstein had omitted every pictured plea for his rank; there were others of which he might have made use. The precious piece of furniture which on the Atlantic voyage is trusted never to flinch among universal concussions ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... himself, and there was very merry, till he was called to the bride's chamber, and into bed they went. I kissed the bride in bed, and so the curtaines drawne with the greatest gravity that could be, and so good night. But the modesty and gravity of this business was so decent, that it was to me indeed ten times more delightful than if it had been twenty times more merry and jovial. Thus I ended this month with the greatest joy that ever I did any in my life, because I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... although, perhaps, such vanity has not been without example. Hamilton, it is true, says that he acts as Grammont's secretary, and only holds the pen, whilst the Count dictates to him such particulars of his life as were the most singular, and least known. This is said with great modesty, and, as to part of the work, perhaps with great truth: it requires, however, some explanation. Grammont was more than twenty years older than Hamilton; consequently, the earlier part of his life could only have been ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Wherever he may have formed his notions of female loveliness and excellence, he has, in the combination of them in the Second Part of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' presented two characters of such winning modesty and grace, such confiding truth and frankness, such simplicity and artlessness, such cheerfulness and pleasantness, such native good sense and Christian discretion, such sincerity, gentleness, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... modesty, have I?" he said, laughing like a man who was quite sure both of himself and of me. "But my little nun will get over that by and by. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... know One of my sex: no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen Mere that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father. How features are abroad I am skill-less of: but, by my modesty, (The jewel in my dower,) I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of—But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... pent within the city wall, They throng to theatre and hall, Where gesture, look, and words conspire, To stain the mind, the passions fire; Whence sin-polluted streams abound, That whelm the country all around. Ah! Modesty, should you be here, Close up the eye and stop the ear; Oppose your fan, nor peep beneath, And blushing ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... life there is the same matter for astonishment as in Napoleon's; there is the vast disproportion between beginnings and climax, between the relative modesty of early aims and the stupendous magnitude of the climacteric result. One asks how in a few years the impecunious son of the Corsican notary became the world's despot, and how the fashionable young spendthrift lawyer of Rome, dabbling in politics ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... distinguished himself in Mexico, had represented the American army with the Allies in the Crimea, had written a good official report on his observations there, had become manager of a big railroad after leaving the service, and had so impressed people with his ability and modesty on the outbreak of war that his appointment to the chief command in West Virginia was hailed with the utmost satisfaction. Then came the two affairs at Philippi and Rich Mountain, the first of which was planned and carried out by other men, while the second was, if anything, spoiled by ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... what really goes to make a LADY—the end of her aspiration—she had no more idea than the swearing father of whom, while she loved him, as did all his family, she was not a little ashamed. She was an honest girl too in a manner, and had by nature a fair share of modesty; but now her heart was sadly fluttered, for the week that had wrought such a change on her father, had not been without its effect upon her—witness her talking ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Lilly's state of panic. It hurled itself into this and that cul-de-sac, only to dash into a black, a colossal wall of ignorance builded on the sands of false and revolting modesty, and which, as it tottered, threatened to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... replied Militona very quickly, without turning her head and scarcely moving her lips. The words were spoken in a tone at once so imperative and so imploring, that Andres immediately saw it was not the artifice of a young girl begging to be let alone, and hoping to be disobeyed. Neither could modesty dictate the injunction. Nothing he had said called for such rigour, and manolas, the grisettes of Madrid, are not usually—be it said without calumny—of such extreme susceptibility. Real terror, apprehension of a danger ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the modesty of a sceptic—whether the entire phenomena of religion do not favor the conclusion, that man, in this respect, only the traces of an imperfect, truncated creature; that, he is in the predicament of the half-created lion ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... familiarity with the fancies of the reader seem to indicate this. Besides, the reader is kept very much in the background—we are told only that he was young—and this seems to be in keeping with the modesty of the poet as shown elsewhere in the poem. At any rate, we must admit that the reader was a poet, for he indulges in fancies ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Vincent's own words, they were "a community who had no monastery but the houses of the sick, no cells but a lodging of the poorest room, no cloisters but the streets, no grille but the fear of God, and no veil but their own modesty." ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... "in whom there is no guile!" His heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amidst the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... share in the incident, till she should be 'dead, buried, and forgotten.' Her life was prolonged twelve years after the day of her narration, and she has now been dead nearly twenty. The oblivion which in her modesty and humility she courted for herself has only partially fallen on her, with the unfortunate result of inflicting an injustice upon her memory; since such fragments of her story as got abroad at the time, and have been kept alive ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... First division, and at the last was chief of cavalry of the army of the Potomac, the capable successor of Pleasonton and Sheridan, a position for which he was peculiarly fitted by nature, by acquirements, and by experience. Modesty which fitted him like a garment, charming manners, the demeanor of a gentleman, cool but fearless bearing in action, were his distinguishing characteristics. He was a most excellent officer, between whom and Custer there was, it seemed, a great deal of generous rivalry. But, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... none witnessed the performance of her duties. One day misfortune fell upon them. A novice of the cult had the daring to spy upon the goddess while she was occupied in destroying the traces of her rite, and Kali's divine modesty being wounded, she declared that in future she would no longer watch over the earthly safety of her followers, but that they themselves must be responsible for concealing their deeds from the eyes of men. Thus, after having worshipped her ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader. And ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv. For these causes we all know the Bible itself put by the Papist must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of Evangelic preparation, transmitting our ears through ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... quality which was lacking in Terriss, but there was a kind of shy modesty about him which handicapped him when he played Squire Thornhill in "Olivia." "Be more dashing, Alec!" I used to say to him. "Well, I do my best," he said. "At the hotels I chuck all the barmaids under the chin, and pretend I'm a dog of a fellow for the sake ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Penniman!" murmured Catherine, as if this had been a breach of trust. "He is a perfect stranger—we don't know him." There was infinite, modesty in the ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... example. One of the most pathetic letters is that in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should be spent on incense, unguents, and spices for her bier. What a different picture ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... myself to fall an innocent victim to poison ivy—yes, that is true, but at the same time my now famous theory of double stars and my equally famous theory as to the several elements in comets' tails would have been denied to the world. No one man can combine within himself all human genius; in all modesty I declare myself satisfied with ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... through similarly miserable, narrow, low passages, to magnificent palaces and astoundingly beautiful and luxurious courts and gardens. I asked what was the reason of the poor outward appearance of these otherwise luxurious dwellings. Was it modesty,—was ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... forces of the country. In order to insure close cooeperation between the civil administration and the military operations, he was vested with political and executive authority. Bolivar accepted these powers with great modesty, and remarked: ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... the servant turned round, nodding her head and smiling, as if to assure me that I had lost nothing by the forbearance which I had exercised. Margaret neither lingered nor looked back. This last proof of modesty and reserve, so far from discouraging, attracted me to her more powerfully than ever. After a first interview, it was the most becoming virtue she could have shown. All my love for her before, seemed as nothing compared ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... them;" but when he adds, "or praising them," the injunction seems to me of doubtful value. Surely Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that "when thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth. For nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are exhibited in the morals of those who ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the young wife with unaccustomed tenderness. For the Colorado girl had about her a certain modesty that was disarming, an appeal of helplessness Beatrice ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... came to the prairie from a mountain construction camp, where he had not seen a woman for twelve months, he had felt Sadie's charm. Moreover, he imagined that the girl liked him and consciously used her power, although with a certain reserve and modesty. For all that, he fought against his inclination and conquered without much effort. Marriage had not much attraction for him, but if he did marry, he meant to choose a ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... Nobody was more surprised than himself to receive from Lord Grey a spontaneous and unexpected offer of the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland. He was fully aware of the extreme difficulties of the office, which was at that moment perhaps the most important in the Government. With equal modesty and candour he distrusted his own ability to fill it, and he still more distrusted his own want of caution and prudence, which was his weak point. He accepted it, however, to relieve the Government from embarrassment, but he accompanied his acceptance with a declaration ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... a real pleasure in saying that for once this affectionate counsel has done the world a favor and a service. We have read the volume through with great interest, and with a lively impression of the author's good sense and modesty. In great part it is a personal narrative; but Mr. Reed, in recounting the story of the unwearied vigilance and tenderness and dauntless courage with which the corps of the Sanitary Commission discharged their high duties, contrives to present his individual acts as representative of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... of the heart, which vents itself in friendship and benevolence, and were believed to preside over those qualities which constitute grace, modesty, unconscious beauty, gentleness, kindliness, innocent joy, purity of mind and body, and ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... I am well aware that to the minds of many persons nothing bears a greater appearance of presumption than any attempt at reasoning respecting the purposes of the Divine Being; and that in many cases it would be thought more consistent with the modesty of humanity to limit its endeavor to the ascertaining of physical causes than to form conjectures respecting Divine intentions. But I believe this feeling to be false and dangerous. Wisdom can only be demonstrated in its ends, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... this is self-knowledge, modesty, or disinclination, I leave the reader to decide, who, no doubt, will smile at the young man's innocence in imagining that Parisian, or, indeed, any journals distinguish themselves generally by maturity and competence ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the intellect but by the heart. They come before me, and I see them greatly ignorant, strongly prejudiced, capable of the absurdest mis-reasoning; yet their faces shine with the supreme virtues, kindness, sweetness, modesty, generosity. Possessing these qualities, they at the same time understand how to use them; they have ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... position subjected her to. She soon found out that all the men-servants paid their devotions to her shrine, and that even the ancient and portly butler was not indifferent to her charms; but the simplicity and modesty of Gladys kept them all at a respectful distance, and the housekeeper told Miss Gwynne, that 'Reelly, she was quite a pattern in the servants' 'all, and it was a treat to see a young 'oman who knew how to keep the men off—not ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... convinced me that he had been acting a part throughout the whole period of his probation at Limmeridge House. His elaborate delicacy, his ceremonious politeness which harmonised so agreeably with Mr. Gilmore's old-fashioned notions, his modesty with Laura, his candour with me, his moderation with Mr. Fairlie—all these were the artifices of a mean, cunning, and brutal man, who had dropped his disguise when his practised duplicity had gained its end, and had openly shown himself in the library on that very day. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the public part of the company; Wogan stood for the King; and the Marquis of Monti Boulorois for James Sobieski, the bride's father. Bride and bridegroom played their parts bravely and well, one must believe, for the chronicler speaks of their grace and modesty of bearing. Clementina rose at five in the morning, dressed in a robe of white, tied a white ribbon about her hair, and for her only ornament fixed a white collar of pearls about her neck. In this garb she went at once to the church of San Domenico, where ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... will always dance, to the end of time. They danced under Saint Louis, under Henry IV., under Louis XIV., under Napoleon, and why should not they dance now? There is no reason in the world why they should not dance, if in dancing they do not shock public modesty, and offend against public decorum. In the time of Louis XIV. there were public dances at the Moulin de Javelle; in the time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard, and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis XVIII. and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... sentiment and religion of the age in which he lived, and of the ages which followed it: developing itself in correspondence with their development. For Lucretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world; and Virgil, with a modesty that ill became his genius, had affected the fame of an imitator, even whilst he created anew all that he copied; and none among the flock of mock-birds, though their notes were sweet, Apollonius Rhodius, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a beautiful young woman shrunk back with modesty. "There, sir, is the very gal that was made for you. If she had been made to your order, she could not ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... boundless generosity, and a lovingness ever ready to pour itself forth upon any or all human beings who were capable of giving the smallest feeling in return. The rest of her moral characteristics were such as naturally accompany these qualities of mind and heart: the most genuine modesty combined with the loftiest pride; a simplicity and sincerity which were absolute, towards all who were fit to receive them; the utmost scorn of whatever was mean and cowardly, and a burning indignation at everything brutal or ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... will pull open her cunt with her own hands, and let you pull open her arse-hole if you can and like it. I have known a few women of other nations and even of my own as free and easy, but the rule is as I say. This cannot be modesty. I rather imagine it results from a fear that some discharge will show itself, and ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... years before. He knew her to come of respectable people, and to have borne a good character, and to have been universally liked at Battersby. She was then a quick, smart, hard-working girl—and a very pretty one. When at last they met again she was on her best behaviour, in fact, she was modesty and demureness itself. What wonder, then, that his imagination should fail to realise the changes that eight years must have worked? He knew too much against himself, and was too bankrupt in love to be squeamish; if Ellen had been only what he ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... thing called human personality should outlast the decay of what is so much inferior to itself, is therefore not only not inconceivable, but in itself not even improbable. It is a strange sort of modesty—to say the least of it—which would make us think ourselves of less account in the scale of existence or the sight of God than unconscious matter in its cruder and lower stages. One might as sensibly urge that the delicate hairspring of a watch, being ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Kumodini Babu; then after a whispered consultation with Jadu Babu, he said, "I am delighted with Samarendra's modesty and good manners, and have no objection whatever to giving my daughter to him in marriage—provided Prajapati (the Lord of All) causes no hitch". Samarendra thought that his ordeal was over, but he was mistaken. One of Kumodini Babu's friends, who happened ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... than dark closets. Instances can be multiplied where adults of both sexes and children are crowded into one or two rooms, where they cook, eat, and sleep, and where privacy is impossible. Thousands of children grow up unmoral, if not immoral, because their natural sense of modesty and decency has been blunted from childhood. The poorest classes live in cellars that reek with disease germs of the worst kind, and sanitary conditions ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... Anchises' heir! O prompt him still the foe to smite, The fallen to spare! Now Media dreads our Alban steel, Our victories land and ocean o'er; Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel, So proud before. Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty, And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn, Come back to earth; and Plenty, see, With teeming horn. Augur and lord of silver bow, Apollo, darling of the Nine, Who heal'st our frame when languors slow ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red. "What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven's sake spare my modesty such ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... relief of an assurance that Miss Derrick was not at all a proper person to entertain as a guest, on whatever terms. The incident of the railway station proved her to be utterly lacking in self-respect, in feminine modesty, even if her behaviour merited no darker description. Emmeline could now face with confidence the scene from which she had shrunk; not only was it a duty to insist upon Miss Derrick's departure, it would ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... as the third {in order}, after these; fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30] modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud, deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition. The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the lofty ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... more unendurable, her heroism far more noble, than any which in more recent times have been so much pitied and so much applauded; but she was a simple missionary's wife, an American by birth, and she told her tale with an artless modesty—writing only what it became her to write, treating only of matters that became a woman. Her captivity, if so it can be called, was voluntarily endured. She of her own free will shared the sufferings of her husband, taking to herself no credit for anything ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... having a half-holiday by virtue of the festival—and that the earthquake had revived his fears of a catastrophe. The two had procured axes in the woodman's hut and did what they thought was necessary to relieve the situation of the picnickers. But the very modesty of this account of their own performance had the effect of belittling the catastrophe itself, and the picnickers' report of their exceeding peril was received with ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to go on deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but I got over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for me with half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown out tightly, while the bottles ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... formed in his mind became foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he could see that she wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Already she was beginning to repent her modesty. Suppose she had taken her courage into her hands, and had said boldly, "A gold watch," could it possibly have been true that the ambition of a lifetime would have been gratified, as by the stroke of a magician's wand? Really and truly ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... their ages, and that the young persons should have proper officers to be with them, and that the seniors should be with the magistrates; for having them before their eyes would greatly inspire true modesty and ingenuous fear. There ought to be another square [1331b] separate from this for buying and selling, which should be so situated as to be commodious for the reception of goods both by sea and land. As the citizens ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... depend on the extent of our speculative audacity. We have seen wherein its probability consists, but in reasoning upon such a scale we may fitly be cautious and modest in accepting inferences, and our authors, we may be sure, would be the first to recommend such modesty and caution. Even at the dimensions to which our theorizing has here grown, we may for instance discern the possible alternative of a simultaneous or rhythmically successive generation and destruction of vortex-atoms which would go far to modify the conclusion just suggested. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... be placed under the anthropological microscope. He combines, so to speak, the merits of Tintoretto and Meissonier.... That portion of the book which is concerned with totemism (if we may express our own belief at the risk of offending Prof. Frazer's characteristic modesty) is actually 'The Complete History of Totemism, its Practice and its Theory, its Origin and its End.'... Nearly two thousand pages are occupied with an ethnographical survey of totemism, an invaluable compilation. The maps, including that of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... supine, Defying prurient modesty turned she, Displaying in her beauty candidly Wonder of curve and ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... The King posted off to Versailles directly after his mother's death, and has not returned to the Louvre since. He amuses himself by spending millions on building, and making passionate love to Mademoiselle la Valliere, who encourages him by pretending an excessive modesty, and exaggerates every favour by penitential tears. I doubt his attachment to so melancholy a mistress will hardly last a lifetime. She is not beautiful; she has a halting gait; and she is no more virtuous than any other young woman who makes ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... haven't heard you play for two years, nor Constance sing for three. No false modesty shall keep me from ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... as for you (says he) I shall advise you in very few Words: Aspire only to those Virtues that are peculiar to your Sex; follow your natural Modesty, and think it your greatest Commendation not to be talked of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... War,) as private Appetite is the measure of Good, and Evill: and consequently all men agree on this, that Peace is Good, and therefore also the way, or means of Peace, which (as I have shewed before) are Justice, Gratitude, Modesty, Equity, Mercy, & the rest of the Laws of Nature, are good; that is to say, Morall Vertues; and their contrarie Vices, Evill. Now the science of Vertue and Vice, is Morall Philosophie; and therfore the true Doctrine of the Lawes of Nature, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... exalted rank and that of the farmers. The doctor had two daughters, but they were both much older than Philip and had been married to successive assistants while Philip was still a small boy. At school there had been two or three girls of more boldness than modesty whom some of the boys knew; and desperate stories, due in all probability to the masculine imagination, were told of intrigues with them; but Philip had always concealed under a lofty contempt the terror with which they filled him. His imagination and the books he had ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... of that age, may with justice be looked upon as one of the most valuable results which have been attained by British geologists for many years." A very just remark indeed! If only geologists would learn a little modesty from this discovery, which completely turns upside down their old world-building process of grinding down all the upper strata out of the molten granite, and gives us, instead, the baking of the strata into crystalline rocks; a process ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... devote himself to study and to the quiet duties of his profession. Circumstances had forced a different career upon him. He had as a very young man taken up a profession which is not generally supposed to be propitious to retiring modesty; and was ever afterwards plunged into active business, which brought him into rough contact with politicians and men of business of all classes. The result was that he formed a manner calculated to shield himself and keep his interlocutors at a distance. It might be ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... be quite common in similar localities, but its size, its brief periodicity, and inconspicuousness, contribute to make it, at present, one of the rarities of botany. Beneath a kidney-shaped leaf a tiny, solitary, hooded, purple flower shelters with becoming modesty, the art of concealment being so delicately employed that it seems to preserve its virginal purity. There is proof, however, that the flower does possess some "secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed in glycerine the preservative ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of our Lord, but from modesty; from a feeling of awe, of uneasiness, of dread, at the presence of one who was infinitely ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... is largely lack of true gardening. They will never look like homes, never look really human and benign, that is, until they are set in a gardening worthy of them. For a garden which alike in its dignity and in its modesty is worthy of the house around which it is set, is the smile of ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... small rulers are apt to do, but cultivated friendly relations with the people of the Sea Town. Some of the rougher of the women despised the sweet outlandish speech she had brought with her from her native England, and accused her of mim mou'dness, or an affected modesty in the use of words; but not the less was she in their eyes a great lady,—whence indeed came the special pleasure in finding flaws in her—for to them she was the representative of the noble family on whose ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... abandoned their ships or killed their officers to be able to remain in Tahiti and its sister islands, there grew up in England a literature of wanderers, runagates, and beach-combers, of darkish women who knew no reserve or modesty, of treasure-trove, of wrecks and desperate deeds, piracy and blackbirding, which made flame the imagination of the youth of seventy years ago. Tahiti had ever been pictured as a refuge from a ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... mentioning Comte's high opinion of Hume. After mature reflection I am unable to discern my fault. If I had suggested that Comte had borrowed from Hume without acknowledgment; or if, instead of trying to express my own sense of Hume's merits with the modesty which becomes a writer who has no authority in matters of philosophy, I had affirmed that no one had properly appreciated him, Mr. Congreve's remarks would apply: but as I did neither of these things, they appear to me to ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the French Republic; it was thrust upon him against his protestations by an apparently almost unanimous mandate of the French people in an emergency which it was thought that he was the best man to meet. That he met it with modesty and courage was testified without dissent. That he afterward did anything to forfeit the confidence and respect that he then inspired is not true, and nobody believes it true. Yet in his letter of resignation he said, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the range of parent and guardian. The prying type of schoolmaster or schoolmistress only drives the thing deeper, and, at the worst, blunders with a hideous suggestiveness. It is almost an instinct, a part of the natural modesty of the growing young, to hide all that is fermenting in the mind from authoritative older people. It would not be difficult to find a biological reason for that. The growing mind advances slowly, intermittently, with long pauses and sudden panics, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... "By his modesty his readiness, his prudence, and his other virtues he has known how to earn the affections of every one." Unfortunately, there was one important exception, as the cardinal was forced to add: "The damsel, either out of her own contrariness, or because so induced by others, which is easier to believe, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... long intimacy, now that the indulgence of it was so openly sanctioned by him whom she considered as her father, was not checked on her part; indeed, there was no doubt but that it had ripened into love. She showed it in every little way that her maiden modesty did not interfere with, and old Bramble would at times throw out such strong hints of our eventual union as to make me feel very uncomfortable. They neither of them had any idea of my heart having been pre-engaged, and the strangeness of my manner was ascribed by Bramble to my feelings toward ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat |
