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Privacy   /prˈaɪvəsi/   Listen
Privacy

noun
(pl. privacies)
1.
The quality of being secluded from the presence or view of others.  Synonyms: privateness, seclusion.
2.
The condition of being concealed or hidden.  Synonyms: concealment, privateness, secrecy.



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"Privacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... in silence for some moments after this, hand in hand, as their custom was in hours of privacy, while the thoughts of each pursued the same subject—Pixie's opening life and their ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... To myself talking, When as I ruminate On my untoward fate, Scarcely seem I Alone sufficiently, Black thoughts continually Crowding my privacy; They come unbidden, Like foes at a wedding, Thrusting their faces In better guests' places, Peevish and malecontent, Clownish, impertinent, Dashing the merriment: So in like fashions Dim cogitations Follow ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... disturbed about there being no room for Grace when she came back to Highland, and one would have been fitted up had there been an extra cent in the family exchequer. Grace didn't mind, or if she did, she made light of her sacrifice; but her sisters felt that they ought to help her to privacy. ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... necessary evil. So far as possible it should not hamper our movements and should not deprive our bodies of light and air. Since it is necessary to wear clothing, I would strongly emphasize the importance of taking air baths at frequent intervals. When spending the evening in the privacy of your own room, studying or writing letters, you have a good opportunity to enjoy an air bath during the entire evening. And furthermore, when at home you should lay aside your coat and use no more bodily covering than is necessary. ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... or stairway. The little inner court, where the well is, may have been wider in those days, but it must always have been a cool, secluded place, where the women could wrangle and tear one another's hair in decent privacy. In the days when everything went to the gutter, it was a wise precaution to have as few windows as possible looking outward. In old Rome, as in Trastevere, there must have been an air of mystery about all dwelling-houses, as there is everywhere in the East. In those days, far more than now, the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... according to the rule of the Court, lay in bed for six weeks—at least she was bound to lie there whenever she was not in entire privacy. The room and bed were hung with black, but a white covering was over her, and she was fully dressed in the black and white weeds of royal widowhood. The light of day was excluded, and hosts of wax ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cried, "what brings thee here? Why am I disturbed in my moments of privacy? What can induce thee to commit ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... at the least movement or effort. Masses of white, feathery vapors floated low in the sky above the sea, concealing the flanks of the mountains, but leaving their summits clear. And these vapors, hanging like veils with tattered edges, created a strange privacy upon the sea, an atmosphere of eternal mysteries. As the boat went out from the shore, urged by the powerful arms of Salvatore, its occupants were silent. The merriment and the ardor of the night, the passion of cards and of desire, were gone, as if they had been sucked up ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... said, without hesitation. I didn't know how that man would behave if he were aware that I was staying under the same roof. He was half mad. He might want to talk all night, try crazily to invade my privacy. How could I tell? Moreover, I wasn't so sure that I would remain in the house. I had some notion of going out again and walking up and down the street of the Consuls till daylight. "No, an absent friend ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... talked on through the measures of a cotillion, and the dancers, warm and wearied, were beginning to fill the entrance hall below. Our poor excuse for privacy would be gone in a minute or ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... undecided. How about it if he deferred his decision until the stage was leaving? Mr. Cleggett consulted his bookings and was of the opinion that his chances would not be good; and Carrington hastily paid down his money. Later in the privacy of his own room he remarked meditatively, viewing his reflection in the mirror that hung above the chimneypiece, "I reckon you're plain crazy!" and seemed to free himself from all further responsibility for his own acts ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... to Cry out "Dan!" but his life-long habit of repression checked him. He felt he had no right to intrude on the privacy which the boy guarded so jealously. But Uncle Darcy's son! Off here in a foreign land, bowed down with remorse and homesickness! How he must have been tortured with all that talk of the old town and ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... far as the changed conditions permitted, he did not allow his official duties to interfere with his family life. "One of the most wearing things about being President," a President once said to me, "is the incessant publicity of it. For four years you have not a moment to yourself, not a moment of privacy." And yet Roosevelt, masterful in so many other things, was masterful in this also. Nothing interfered with the seclusion of the family breakfast. There were no guests, only Mrs. Roosevelt and the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... and the public institutions, indeed, by authorizing the privacy of women, set a high value on the sanctity of the marriage vow. But in Athens, imagination, sentiment, luxury, the taste in arts and pleasures, was opposite to the laws. The courtezans, therefore may be said to have come ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... obvious. The evident and grateful interest with which the night before he had heard the detective's stories of crimes and criminals had changed now to annoyance at the very sight of him. As a raconteur, Mr. Hastings was quite the thing; as protector of the Sloane family's privacy and seclusion, he was a nuisance. Such was the impression ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... eyes, monsieur!" exclaimed the lady. "But I have grown accustomed to having my privacy examined over-curiously during the few days I have spent on your hospitable shores. Mais pardon—my purpose in coming to the Inn at the Red Oak this morning was but to request that my name be conveyed to Monsieur the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... to a very pardonable desire on Jack's part to keep him in ignorance as to the real state of his finances. "He is probably living in some cheap hovel," he thought, "and he is too proud to wish me to know it. But he needn't be afraid of my intruding upon his privacy until he himself opens his door to me." Unfortunately for both, Harry was not destined to carry out this amiable intention. A hostile fate led him to encroach upon his friend's territory when ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... through at Easter. So Jim and I made a special trip down to hear it, and, my dear! The hall was packed, the women went simply crazy over him, and he's really quite poetical looking, long hair and all that. And Sally—-I saw her at the hotel the next morning, and such a manner! Protecting the privacy of the genius, don't you know, and seeing reporters, and answering requests for autographs, and declining invitations, here, there, and everywhere! I think she has more fun than Keith does! He's quite helpless without ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... but then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... had been no change in Lillibridge's. The floor of the main room was bare and clean, and, in the middle, a round black stove radiated comfort on cold days. Along one side of the room ran three stalls, in which were placed tables for such patrons as might desire partial privacy. On the spick and span counter were set forth various condiments and plates of crackers. A card, tacked up on the wall, tempted the appetite with its list ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... quietness, fresh air, and a little privacy, none of which seems to be obtainable at Sebastian. While the question of terms is no consideration, I recognize that I must make ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... standing wide open, and wondered to behold it thus, as Miss Mary was accustomed to bar and bolt it close, for fear of thieves and housebreakers. But, fatigued and sleepy, she passed on, and soon forgot her surprise after gaining the privacy of her own apartment. Early in the morning she was roused from slumber by a furious knocking on her door. She sprang up and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... camping-ground they had not long to look; A sheltered place, from underbrush quite free, Was known to all as a most charming nook, Where they might rest and eat in privacy. On choice of this they every one agree; Then place the baskets-laden with good things— And now their voices, in sweet melody, Present pure praises to the King of Kings: A truly pleasant ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... of the Under World, for that 'love' which could command those of the Upper World. What she may have dreamt we know not; but her dream must have been broken when the Dutch explorer entered her sculptured cavern, and his follower violated the sacred privacy of her tomb by his rude outrage in ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy that put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose "Please do not disturb" was her only means ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam

... Jason's Argo, though in Greece They say, it brought the Golden Fleece. The skilful Pilot steered it so, Hither and thither, too and fro. Through all the Seas of Poverty, Whether they far or near do lie, And fraught it so with all the wealth Of wit and learning, not by stealth, Or privacy, but perchance got That this whole lower World could not Richer Commodities, or more Afford to add unto his store. To Heaven then with an intent Of new Discoveries, he went And left his Vessel here to rest, Till his return shall make it blest. The Bill of Lading he that looks To know, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... library, where he found his father turning the last leaves of a story in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He was a white-moustached old gentleman, who had never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy of his own library. He knocked the glasses off as his son came in and looked up at him with lazy fondness, rubbing the two red marks that they always leave on the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... his arms, and Helbeck almost believes the great renunciation is to follow. "His heart beat with a happiness he had never known before." But he was never farther from the truth. "It would be a crime—a crime to marry him," the heart-broken girl sobbed, when she reached the privacy of her own room. ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... Phips, he says: "In fine, the country was in a dreadful ferment, and wise men foresaw a long train of dismal and bloody consequences. Hereupon they first advised, that the afflicted might be kept asunder, in the closest privacy; and one particular person (whom I have cause to know), in pursuance of this advice, offered himself singly to provide accommodations for any six of them, that so the success of more than ordinary ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... her name upon the title of a book—submits so much of his or her being and character to the general criticism. It is crime to make public use of private conversation; it is crime, under most circumstances, to disclose the secret of an anonymous authorship; it is crime in all cases to invade any privacy, or comment on any purely personal matter, that has not by the interested party been offered for the world's examination. If any one publish a work of pure art, it is entirely inexcusable to suggest any illustrations of it from his life or condition, unless by his own express ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... trouble caused by such worthless employees. Consequently, Peggy was wise beyond her years to the gravity of intemperance and had expressed herself pretty emphatically when Blue was discussed within the privacy of Middies' Haven, for what was told there was sacred. That was an unwritten law. And all this led to a ridiculous situation one day in the middle of November, for comedy and tragedy usually travel side by side ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... whither they had come from Bruges to meet her. They soon afterwards joined the Pretender's court at Avignon; but, finding the mode of life there little to their taste, shortly after returned to Italy, where they lived in great privacy. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... indispensable to purity of body and of morals than a private sleeping room and single bed for each student. Such an arrangement would protect the youth from the reception of much evil, and would allow an opportunity for privacy which every young man or youth needs for his spiritual as well as physical benefit. Not the least benefit of the latter class is the opportunity for a thorough cleansing of the whole body every morning, which is almost as indispensable to purity ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... gentleman. Flowers had been his hobby; so that now he could have had no work which would have more suited him than this guardianship of the roses. For himself he desired no better thing than to spend what remained of his life in this sunlit privacy and communion with ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... progressive, government. Only those who experienced the abuses under the old methods of conducting elections can realize the value of the provision for the uniform ballot and a quiet ballot box, adopted in 1869. There had been no secrecy or privacy, and peddlers of rival tickets fought for patronage to the box's mouth. One served as an election officer at the risk of sanity if not of life. In the "fighting Seventh" ward I once counted ballots for thirty-six consecutive hours, and as I remember ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... house had borne command among his people, but here it seems, each groom is more absolute in his humours than the lord; how is't? do I clothe and feed a pampered herd, but to increase my torments? when I would muse in privacy, must I be baited still, and stunned with crowds and clamours? knave! drive the rabble from my gate, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... or walking down to the spring to drink, the domestic fowls moving about,—there is a touch of sweet, homely life in these things that the winter sun enhances and brings out. Every sign of life is welcome at this season. I love to hear dogs bark, hens cackle, and boys shout; one has no privacy with nature now, and does not wish to seek her in nooks and hidden ways. She is not at home if he goes there; her house is shut up and her hearth cold; only the sun and sky, and perchance the waters, wear the old look, and to-day ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... unwelcome news, the faults of servants, contempt, ingratitude of friends, malice of enemies, calumnies, our own failings, lowness of spirits, the struggle in overcoming our corruptions;—bearing all these with patience and resignation to the will of God. Do all this as unto God, with the greatest privacy. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... the most painful suspension of our rules. On these very rare occasions, when we have been honored with the presence of the fair sex, it has been our invariable custom not only to leave them in the undisturbed possession of their property, but even of their privacy as well. It is with deep regret that on this occasion we are obliged to make an exception. For in the present instance, the lady, out of the gentleness of her heart and the politeness of her sex, has burdened herself not only ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... Our privacy has not been without its advantages. It has enabled us to visit all the visible objects without the incumbrance of engagements, and given me leisure to note and to comment on things that might otherwise have been overlooked. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... civilized man are alike obsessed with the idea of meeting and possessing one peculiar intimate person, one special exclusive lover who is their very own, and a third person of either sex cannot be associated with that couple without an intolerable sense of privacy and confidence and possession destroyed. It is difficult to imagine a second wife in a home who would not be and feel herself to be a rather excluded and inferior person. But that does not abolish the possibility that ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... Carroll's cabin it is nobody's business to follow him. A man has a right to some privacy of room and of mind, and if the Southerner's struggle with himself was severe, at least it was of brief duration. Within half an hour, he was knocking at ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... recorded, that, "wherever he had been, in the smallest place equally with the largest, he had been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon him by the nature of his avocation there" (as a public reader), "and the state of ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... archbishop of Canterbury, born in Chichester; became in succession bishop of Worcester and bishop of London, and attended Charles I. in prison and on the scaffold; lived in privacy till the Restoration, four months after which he was made archbishop, and died about two ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... a headache, and is bathing her brow with cologne in the privacy of her little boudoir parlor, but readily consents to ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... occupied three rooms, but they really lived in one room, the others being too filled with beds to be habitable except at night. The kitchen, the one living-room, was uncomfortably crowded at meal times. At no time was there any privacy. It was impossible for Annie to receive her girl friends in her home. Every bit of her social life had to be lived ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... the CROWN. As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand that I dismiss ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... had accomplished—accomplished, furthermore, without placing himself under obligations of any sort to the opposite sex. He left no trail of broken hearts in his wake. If some of the younger sisters of the big sisters took the liberty of falling in love with him secretly and in the privacy of their chambers, that was no fault of his, and did neither them nor him ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... heavenly objects, and firing the breast with incessant ardour in the pursuit of them, advances the character to a dignity otherwise unattainable. How much humble piety has bloomed in the by-paths of life far from the crowded highway of the world, amidst the recesses of privacy! How often has the beauty of holiness adorned the most misshapen, or otherwise unattractive exterior! How many great and pious individuals have occupied the vale of poverty, the objects of divine approbation ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... posts between which black painted chains hung in loops; the apparent intention was to create the illusion of a village-green. Tabs entered instantly into the spirit of the game—the littleness and childishness of the attempt at quaintness. He liked the bijou privacy of the Court, its greenness and tidiness, and the absurdity of the narrow windows which glinted at him like spectacles. But there was something ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... was a small relief, and temporary. Until the next day they were hopeful, and the physical discomfort of staying in that crude little cabin with a lot of ungrammatical, roughly clad men, and of having no maid to serve her and not even the comfort of privacy, loomed large in the mind of Mrs. Singleton Corey. Never before in her life had she drunk coffee with condensed cream in it, or eaten burned bread with stale butter, and boiled beans and bacon. Never ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... might be, especially if it should remove all pretexts for a war with Great Britain, should be rejected; and, even before its arrival, preparations for opposition were made. In the course of a few days after Washington received it, and had submitted it, under the seal of strict privacy, to Mr. Randolph, the secretary of state, sufficient information concerning it leaked out to awaken public distrust, and yet not enough was known for the formation of any definite opinion concerning it. But instantly the opposition press commenced ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... west verandah that old Nelson meant, the one which was the living-room of the house, and had split-rattan screens of the very finest quality. The east verandah, sacred to his own privacy, puffing out of cheeks, and other signs of perplexed thinking, was fitted with stout blinds of sailcloth. The north verandah was not a verandah at all, really. It was more like a long balcony. It did not communicate with the other two, and could only be approached by a passage inside the house. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... 285.] The Rousseau-like nudity of the poet's soul is sometimes put forward as a plea that the public should close its eyes to possible shortcomings. Yet, as a matter of fact, it is precisely in the lack of privacy characterizing the poet's life that his enemies find their justification for concerning themselves with his morality. Since by flaunting his personality in his verse he propagates his faults among his admirers, the public is surely justified ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... accordingly gave orders to unsaddle, and communicated our intentions to the khan. At first he strongly urged us not to put our plan into execution, declaring that the cave was the domicile of the evil one, and that no stranger who had presumed to intrude upon the privacy of the awful inhabitant had ever returned to tell of what he had seen. It will easily be imagined that these warnings only made us more determined upon visiting the spot. At length, finding our resolution immovable, the kh[a]n, much ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... was, and only malignant gossip increased in volume, so that Captain Koenig at last resolved to give the commander of the regiment a hint of affairs in a spirit of strict privacy. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new and a singular virtue in the aerial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet song;—but aerial only,—not ethereal; and lowly in its privacy ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... Mr. Knollys and Colonel Stanley Clarke. The place was known as the Moulin Rouge Restaurant, soon to disappear in the rebuilding of the Avenue d'Antin. It is said to have been kept open for some days beyond the date originally fixed, to furnish a dejeuner worthy of these guests. In spite of the privacy observed, Rumour was busy, and Punch of November 12th appeared with an amusing "Monologue du Garcon," giving at great length the supposed conversation and the menu of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... the corridor window entirely; the shade seemed to be too short; but it was late, the corridor dark, all the curtains in the car closed tightly over the berths, and his privacy was not likely to be disturbed. And when the conductor had taken both tickets and the porter had brought him a bottle of mineral water and gone away, he settled ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... comfort and play with her, she soon forgot her soaring ambition. Willie, however, did not forget it. If Agnes wished to enjoy the privacy of the leaves up in the height of the trees, why shouldn't she? At least, why shouldn't she if he could help her to it. Certainly he couldn't change her arms into wings, or cover her with feathers, or make her bones hollow so that the air might get all through her, even ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... stream than this, for a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth—nowhere indeed except to lave the interior regions of a poet's imagination.... It comes flowing softly through the midmost privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if river and wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and the clustering foliage...." While Hawthorne was ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... with the reciting of eulogies and encomiums of kings and other great men. The son begotten by a Vaisya upon a woman of the Brahmana order comes to be regarded as a Vaidehaka. The duties assigned to him are the charge of bars and bolts for protecting the privacy of women of respectable households. Such sons have no cleansing rites laid down for them.[299] If a Sudra unites with a woman belonging to the foremost of the four orders, the son that is begotten is called a Chandala. Endued with a fierce disposition, he must live in the outskirts of cities ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... his fraise and ruffles, or in arranging the folds of his broidered mantle. The snow-white slippers, with the sky-blue roses, the silken hose and braided doublet, seemed better fitted for the parade of the courtly saloon than the privacy of the closet. The hand he extended to the Count was like that of a youthful beauty, rather than of one who had once wielded sword with the bravest. Every finger was adorned with a costly jewel, which flashed and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... make a bit of change in him," Barbara Finn said to her friend Mary, up in some bedroom privacy before the tea-drinking ceremonies ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... umbrella- and fan-bearers. The prescriptions of court etiquette were such as to convince his subjects and persuade himself that he was sprung from a nobler race than that of any of his magnates, and that he was outside the pale of ordinary humanity. The greater part of his time was passed in privacy, where he was attended only by the eunuchs appointed to receive his orders; and these orders, once issued, were irrevocable, as was also the king's word, however much he might desire to recall a promise once made. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... If the people who wander in the garden do not like the song, the garden is mine as well as theirs; they need not listen, or they can scare the bird with ugly gestures out of his bush if they will. I have never been able to sympathise with that jealous sense of privacy about one's thoughts, that is so strong in some people. I like to be able to be alone and to have my little stronghold; but that is because the presence of conventional and unsympathetic people bores and tires me. But in a book it is different. One is not intruded ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... but make the Association quite early decide that the one thing above all others needed was a new building with suites of rooms, where families could have the comforts and privacy of homes, which with a large kitchen, bakery, dining rooms, parlors, etc., would make a "unitary dwelling"; approximating to an apartment house of more modern days in many of its details, and improving on it as regards unitary cooking, dining ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... eyes and arranged her dress, tossing the reliquary and its broken chain on the table. Some new guests; and the inn was none too large. She would have the landlord flayed if he dared to intrude on the privacy which she had commanded. Nay, she would summon her people that instant and set off for home, for her company was strong enough to give security in ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... creeping under a great shadow stippled with yellow lights, of grating and pounding against a ship's ladder, of an officer in rubber boots running down to her assistance, of more blinking lights, and then of the quiet and grateful privacy of her own cabin, smelling of ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... was he who saved her. To him I owe her life." Pan Tarkowski, not desiring to display too much weakness, answered only, setting his teeth, "Yes! The boy acquitted himself bravely," but when he retired to the privacy of his cabin he wept from happiness. At last the hour arrived when the children fell into the embraces of their fathers. Mr. Rawlinson seized his recovered little treasure in his arms and Pan Tarkowski ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... nerve tension in a peevishness which was the last quality one in his difficult position should have shown. An autocratic official amid little rough, dissatisfied communities of hard-headed pioneers was a king with no divinity to hedge him round. Without pomp, almost without privacy, everything he said or did became the property of local gossips. A ruler so placed must have natural dignity, and requires self-command above all things. That was just the quality Captain Fitzroy had not. It was said that the blood of a Stuart king ran in his veins; and, indeed, there seemed ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... on one of which half dozed a black body-servant of the commander-in-chief. Two officers in the dining-room, drawn close by the chimney-corner, chatted in undertones, as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room was open, and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. The swinging light in the hall partly illuminated it, or rather glanced gloomily from the black polished furniture, the lustreless chairs, the quaint cabinet, the silent spinet, the skeleton-legged centre-table, and finally upon the motionless figure ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... to write her letter to Bernard in the privacy of her own room, and Bessie, in radiant spirits, had gone off to dress for evening service, where she was to go escorted by Franky and Emily. Deleah was left ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... "Genji-mono-gatari," and other works. In her diary it is written that on the last night of the fifth year of the period Kanko (A.D. 1008), in order that she might appear to advantage on New Year's Day, she retired to the privacy of her own apartment, and repaired the deficiencies of her personal appearance by re-blackening her teeth, and otherwise adorning herself. Allusion is also made to the custom in the "Yeiga-mono-gatari," an ancient ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... floor to ceiling, stood at one side of the door, to keep off some of the draught and to give some little privacy to those who used the kitchen. Mona dried her hands and slipped gratefully into the chair that stood between the screen and the end ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... first coming to school I had been tempted in my horror at the utter want of privacy to go to bed without prayer; waiting till the rest were all laid down and asleep and the lights out, and then slipping out of bed with great care not to make a noise, and watching that no whisper of my lips should be loud ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... spite of all this there is a truth that must be spoken. I feel a thousand times better and stronger than when I came. And yesterday, exercising in the privacy of my room, I discovered that there are once more calves upon my legs. This is truth, too. I have no one to talk to but your letters. So don't stint me. Stint me with money if you can (here I defy you), but for the love of Heaven keep me posted. If you will promise to ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... He had given Mary the key then, and had asked her to fetch the bottle of brandy from one of the long divisions where it stood beside a big ledger. The little gentleman had hesitated to give trouble in asking to have it locked again, though that it should be open offended his ideas of privacy. Now he looked at it, and then let his eyes rest upon the nephew of the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... his disciples in Galilee, his kingdom was still hidden. A few fishermen, and here and there a ruler, had discovered the precious deposit, and had drawn from it enough to enrich themselves for ever; but to the multitude it was still unknown. Under the form of a man—under the privacy and poverty of a Nazarene, was the fulness of the Godhead hid that day from the wise and prudent of the world. The light was near them, and yet they did not see; the riches of divine grace were brought to their door, and yet they continued ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... language and praise him, he will swear by Zeus that he rejoices at it, and is himself under obligations to the man, and believes in him. And if you talk of the necessity of changing your mode of life, of retiring from public life to a life of privacy and ease, he says, "We ought long ago to have got rid of uproar[377] and envy." But if you think of returning again to public life, he chimes in, "Your sentiments do you honour: retirement from business is pleasant, but inglorious and mean." ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... a smell from these stables. The ornaments of the place consisted of hymn-books, spelling-books, and a china statue of Napoleon in a light green waistcoat and a sky-blue coat. There was not even a fly in the room to intrude on us in our privacy; there were no cocks and hens in the yard to cackle on us in our privacy; nobody walked past the outer passage, or made any noise in any part of the house, to startle us in our privacy; and a steady rain was falling propitiously to keep us in our privacy. ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... the conditions he could wish. Situated in a solitary street, it had the completest privacy. The architect who built it had introduced no innovations or pretentiousness, had built a Gothic church, and introduced no ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion. Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall, she told herself that ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... beginning. The veteran Cartwright, Bentham's senior by eight years, tried in 1821 to persuade him to come out as one of a committee of 'Guardians of Constitutional Reform,' elected at a public meeting.[331] Bentham wisely refused to be drawn from his privacy. He left it to his friends to agitate, while he returned to labour in his study. The demand for legislation which had sprung up in so many parts of the world encouraged Bentham to undertake the last ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... after the toil of the day. His wife came to chat with him. The doorway was too small for two, so she stood up. Their babes sprawled before them. And here was the spike line, less than a score of feet away—neither privacy for the workman, nor privacy for the pauper. About our feet played the children of the neighbourhood. To them our presence was nothing unusual. We were not an intrusion. We were as natural and ordinary as the brick walls ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... and even the illusion of privacy, although there were TV pickups in the walls, placed so that no movement in either room would go unnoticed. The switch which cut off the soft white light from the glow plates did not cut off the infrared radiation which enabled his hosts to watch him while he ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett

... back with pleasure to these quiet weeks spent under your father's roof. They have given me the only chance I have had in years for undisturbed writing on the History that will stand for my life work. I must confess that I dread my return home. The noise and confusion, the constant invasion of my privacy, the demands upon my time, appal me. Very few realize the magnitude of my work, and the necessity it lays upon me for isolating myself. You have been singularly sympathetic ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... gaily-striped tent, smiling broadly, and with a playful shake of the head at the laughing nymphs around, he invaded the privacy of Mother Jael. With a sigh of relief at having accomplished his purpose, Cargrim let fall the flap which he had held up for the bishop's entry, and turned away, rubbing his hands. His aim was attained. It now remained to be seen what would come of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... genially at the dazed Bavarian, who was regarding the sudden invasion of his privacy as if it was a bad dream; and having shot him in the stomach, passed breezily on round the traverse, followed by his ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... was waking within her. The pure air, the caressing warmth, the enchanted stillness and privacy of this domain touched her soul and body like the hands of a saint with ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... privacy of Adela's own room, something was said about George Bertram. "I am sure he does not know it yet," ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... minister? Wishing to maintain his personal purity, he allows that great relation to come to confusion. A superior man takes office, and performs the righteous duties belonging to it. As to the failure of right principles to make progress, he is aware of that.' CHAP. VIII. 1. The men who have retired to privacy from the world have been Po-i, Shu-ch'i, Yu-chung, I-yi, Chu-chang, Hui of Liu-hsia, and Shao-lien. 2. The Master said, 'Refusing to surrender their wills, or to submit to any taint in their persons;— such, I think, were Po-i and Shu-ch'i. 3. 'It may be ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... demands of the divine Word. But it rarely happens that any unhallowed imaginations in which they have indulged awaken emotions of genuine sorrow. Now the thoughts are the guests we entertain—the company we receive into the innermost privacy of our bosoms. And just as a man is censurable who voluntarily and habitually consorts with corrupting company, so is he to be condemned ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... are thus free, and a great many of them are kept open all day long every day in the week. It is found that many earnest and devout souls, homeless perhaps, or dwellers in hotels or boarding-houses where there is little or no privacy, as well as others, gladly avail themselves of this privilege of the Open Church and find comfort in it. A society for the promotion of Free and Open Churches has been organized for many years with ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... of the long-passed earthquake, even still more indicative of the terrible character of the struggle through which at this time he passed. We have seen how keenly he felt the suspicious intrusions upon his privacy which haunted his last years in the Church of England. But in "Loss and Gain" there is a yet more expressive exhibition of the extremity of that suffering. He denies as "utterly untrue" the common belief that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew their meetings in the privacy of his ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... fathers, Mothers, children, kindred, friends, and servants, are invited, by the promise of large rewards, to disclose what passes in the privacy of our homes, before an expressly ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... our privacy in Silverquay," said the rector, smiling. "Almost all the large houses are tucked snugly away out of sight—hidden by trees or ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... an accident—a chance surmise which perhaps he himself did not credit—which he could not believe—made it no easier for her. For the first time in his life he had said something which left her unresponsive, with a sense of bruised delicacy and of privacy invaded. A tinge of fear of him crept in, too. She did not misconstrue what he had said under privilege of a jest, but after what had once passed between them she had not considered that love, even in the abstract, might serve as a mocking text for ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... in her bedroom, locked out the injured Lesbia, who had plans of her own which she wished to pursue in privacy, put on a thick jacket and a pair of mittens to keep herself warm, and set to work bravely. It is rather hard to make bricks without straw, and her supply of materials, mostly purloined from Beatrice's piece-box, was ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... now, of the enforced privacy in which they lived. For instance, no Roman lady of today will ever show herself at a window that looks on the street, except during Carnival, and in most houses something of the old arrangement of rooms is still preserved, whereby the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... still, and in its privacy, following Benda's demonstrative welcome, I expected some confidential revelations. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... to lie in his bunk all night, his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. In privacy he could walk around, ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon



Words linked to "Privacy" :   confidentiality, reclusiveness, isolation, hiddenness, bosom, hiding, covertness



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