"Reluctance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which discontent takes in this country is not of a healthy kind; for, the Natives of India consider that the only occupation worthy of an educated man is that of a writership in some office, and especially in a Government office. The village schoolboy goes back to the plow with the greatest reluctance; and the town schoolboy carries the same discontent and inefficiency into his father's workshop. Sometimes these ex-students positively refuse at first to work; and more than once parents have openly expressed their regret that they ever allowed their sons to be ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... visit, but I think she always knew I would never leave her. Sometime, she said, she should like me to go, but not until she was laid away. 'And how small I have grown this last winter. Look at my wrists. It canna be long now.' No, I never thought of going, was never absent for a day from her without reluctance, and never walked so quickly as when I was going back. In the meantime that happened which put an end for ever to my scheme of travel. I shall never go up the Road of Loving Hearts now, on 'a wonderful clear ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... mistaking of the marks of reluctance and procrastination for impetuous, horror-striking, fiendishness!—Of such importance is it to understand the germ of a character. But the interval taken by Hamlet's speech is truly awful! ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... and freight-carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether. This action the Government of the United States contemplates with the greatest reluctance, but feels constrained to take in behalf of humanity and the rights ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... time was anything hinted in reference to the original reluctance to have the Terrans visit the Nucleus. All possible courtesy was shown them now, and Cameron dared not mention the invitations to stay home. He felt the situation was as penetrable as a thick wall of sponge rubber backed by a ten-foot foundation ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... change in our life at Altoona, after my mother and brother arrived, was that, instead of continuing to live exclusively by ourselves, it was considered necessary that we should have a servant. It was with the greatest reluctance my mother could be brought to admit a stranger into the family circle. She had been everything and had done everything for her two boys. This was her life, and she resented with all a strong woman's jealousy the introduction of a stranger ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... facilitate the development of new food processing systems and agricultural products, and encourage new information and communication technology. The 2001 privatization policy should continue in telecommunications, water, electricity, and agriculture in spite of initial government reluctance. The Paris Club and bilateral creditors have eased the external debt situation, while pressing for more rapid structural reforms. Benin continues to be hurt by Nigerian trade protection that bans imports of a growing list ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... for departure with great equanimity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia's presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. Sedley's hand, when he presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thinks himself ready to act when he is not; as appears from his hesitancy and reluctance when the moment for action arrives. If, however, this unexpected recoil of his nature does not induce him to change his purpose altogether, he knows but too well how to supply the defect in training for sin. If we could look into his heart, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of the police gong, twelve times repeated, brought them back to the iron facts of life. With a murmur of reluctance they rose; and Lenox escorted his wife to ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Republic,' through these November and December weeks, till the Church woodwork was burnt out, and the business otherwise completed, he will feel sufficiently what an adoring Republic it was, and without reluctance quit ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... called upon by his friend, a Commissioner of Scotland Yard, to help in elucidating the mysterious events behind the death of the late Governor of Bombay. With much hesitation and reluctance, having just got married, he accepts the mission. But it sends him walking into many dangers, and it is only with much trouble that ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Note—It Is with great reluctance that I now come to my cousin's account of deplorable opinions he held, at that period of his life, on the most important subject that can ever engross the mind of man. I have left out much, but I feel that in suppressing it altogether, I should rob his sad ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... various disasters, Ursicinus, who was the governor of Nisibis, an officer to whom the command of the emperor had particularly attached me as a servant, was summoned from that city, and in spite of his reluctance, and of the opposition which he made to the clamorous bands of flatterers, was forced to investigate the origin of the pernicious strife which had arisen. He was indeed a soldier of great skill in war, and an approved leader ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... know who the fellow is," Symes demurred. In reality his reluctance was largely due to a secret resentment that Van Lennop had seemed to withstand so easily the influence of his genial personality. Their acquaintance never had passed the nodding stage and the fact had piqued Symes more than he cared ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the "doctrinaires" of their new and ephemeral cabinet. But in order to show himself pure of all bribery he refused to take advantage of certain profitable enterprises which were started by means of his paper,—he! who had no reluctance in compromising friends or in behaving with little decency to mechanics under certain circumstances. Such meannesses, the result of vanity and of ambition, are found in many lives like his. The mantle must be splendid before the eyes of the world, and we ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... last look up and down the street, and then went into the house with much reluctance. After locking the front door the girls went into the dining room and Jane lighted the lamp. Esther had taken off her shoes and thrown them on the floor, as was her custom, when it suddenly occurred to her that there was butter-milk in the cellar, and the same instant she made up her ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... Cragg was the next witness called, and she testified with a marked reluctance, that only served to give additional weight to her statement, to the sinful intimacy between the deceased viscount and the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... British government sent out to Canada three governors, with various instructions. Whatever the wording of these instructions was, they always fell short of Durham's recommendations, and always expressed a certain reluctance to entrusting the government of Canada unreservedly to representatives ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... putting soft paper in the sleeves of Gheta's ball dress, and Lavinia, finding an unexpected reluctance to proceed with what she had come to say, watched the ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the great indignation of their heathen countrymen, and the great annoyance of the English colonists, to whom they were a constant menace. When Denonville attacked the Senecas, they had joined him; but of late they had shown reluctance to fight their heathen kinsmen, with whom the French even suspected them of collusion. Against the English, however, they willingly took up the hatchet. The French of the party were for the most part coureurs de bois. As the sea is the sailor's element, so the forest ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... I felt no reluctance whatever to visit M. Zorzi, for he possessed an excellent cook and a charming wife. He knew that I did not care for Chiari as an author, and M. Zorzi had in his pay people who, without pity, rhyme, or reason, hissed all the compositions ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to have been not unnaturally interpreted by many contemporaries as the reluctance of an ex-Prime Minister to take a subordinate position, and some records of this impression have found their way into history. We have Lady John's assurance that "this never for one moment weighed with ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... said Mr Barnacle, 'to any member of the—Public,' mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, 'to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the proper branch ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... reminded of no joke by the present dilemma, and remained very solemn, as Jack enlarged on the glories of the proposed campaign. How all Acredale would applaud the intrepidity of its townsmen snatching glory from peril! Barney consented to leave him with reluctance, suggesting that the "ould nagur" could ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the voice of opposition was stilled. The public had changed its attitude to him, but he himself was unchanged. He had the same readiness to gather up new knowledge, and to get into friendly touch with every kind of man, the same reluctance to talk about himself. Only the yearning towards the unseen was growing stronger. The poet Whittier, who met him at Boston, found him unwilling to talk about his own books or even about the new cities which he was visiting, but longing for counsel from his brother poet on the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... to face his rage, and few had ever worsted him in a "deal." No wonder Perault, who had experienced both the fury of his rage and the unscrupulousness of his trading methods, approached him with reluctance. But, though Perault had suffered at the hands of the big Irishman, the chief cause of his hatred was not personal. He knew, what many others in the community suspected, that for years Carroll had systematically robbed and had ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... and the scandal and bad consequences to society at large, it is a long way to go round to show that lying is impossible to God. He in whose dominion are all the rights and claims of man, is not to be restrained by the mere reluctance of His creatures to be deceived, or by the general bad effects of a lie upon the edifice of human credit. As Master He might impose this annoyance upon the individual, these bad consequences upon society: or ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... which concern us not were shaken by every blast, we should have no available force for things which concern us deeply. If eloquence did not sometimes make us yawn, we should be besotted by oratory. And if we did not approach new acquaintances, new authors, and new points of view with life-saving reluctance, we should never feel that vital regard which, being strong enough to break down our barriers, is strong enough to hold us ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... time. The nearest relation and almost the only friend I possess, has been in London for a week, and leaves it tomorrow with me for her own residence. I return immediately; but we meet so seldom, and are so minuted when we meet at all, that I give up all engagements till now, without reluctance. On my return, I must see you to console myself for my past disappointment. I should feel highly honoured in Mr. B.'s permission to make his acquaintance, and there you are in my debt; for it is a promise of last summer which I still ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the continued possession of all the literary qualities which had made the success of his earlier works. Their faults are literally the faults of youth: the brilliancy of the rhetoric, the heat of the invective, the violence of the partisanship, the reluctance to admit the existence of any grievances in France to justify the popular onslaught on the monarchy, the noblesse, and the Church. His one explanation of the crisis and its attendant horrors was the instigation ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... all. But the shack filled with his disapproval of her reluctance to free him from his promise. She remembered one time when she had come home from school in a pelting rain that had changed, suddenly, to hail. There had seemed no escape from the hard, little balls ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... fears are too great, your anxieties exaggerate the indigence of our condition. Though we are prisoners, yet even the misfortunes of a prison have their compensations. The activity of the immaterial mind, will not indeed submit long without reluctance to confinement and restraint. But we have not yet experienced lassitude and disgust." "Alas, Edwin, how strange and foreign are thoughts like these! Whither do they tend? What would you ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... reminded her gaily. "So you could. Quite a different matter." She took my compliment sweetly, but she said with smiling reluctance, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... tears, and obeyed the hint, after submitting, with no very great reluctance, to a mighty hug from Alfred, who would have given vent to his delight in a great flow of words had not his brother been present and waiting for him. There was little time for talking when Louis returned to his dormitory; ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... reluctance that Mivart consented to use Sinfi as the recipient of the seizure, because of her belief that it was the result of a curse. However, he at last consented, and ordered two couches to be placed side by side with a large magnet between them. Then Miss Wynne was laid on one ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... them into tiny books with card-board covers to protect the pictures and stories so soon to be pasted on their pages. Everyone had a task of her own, and the dinner-bell rang before anyone had tired of this new play. Indeed, it was with actual reluctance that Peace surrendered her shears and saw her cluttered table cleared away for ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... sense of touch: always preceding himself and tray (with something of an angling air about it), by some seconds: and always lingering after he and the tray had disappeared, like Macbeth's leg when accompanying him off the stage with reluctance to ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... women, with the husbands laughing up their sleeves at the turn of affairs. "My wife never could see the humor in the situation," said one of these husbands to Bok, when he met him years later. Bok capitulated, and then apparently with great reluctance, only when the club sent him an official withdrawal of the protest and an apology for "its ill-considered action." It was years after that one of the members of the club, upon meeting Bok, said to him: "Your action did not increase the club's love ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... Napoleon, determined to empty their overburdened souls to him. This gallant person emphasizes the fact that he dislikes "the power to which he (Napoleon) had risen," yet he cannot help confessing (evidently with reluctance) that there is something in him which seems to speak that he is born to command. "We went into his apartment to expostulate warmly with him, and not to depart until our complaints were removed. But by his manner ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... European country, with the exception of what was still, in a manner of speaking, Russia; and if that country had but retained its homogeneity, it would soon by sheer numbers have swamped the rest of Europe. Fortunately, perhaps, it did not remain homogeneous. An incurable reluctance to make food for cannon and impose further burdens on selves already weighted to the ground by taxes, developed in the peoples of each Central and Western land; and in the years from 1920 to 1930 ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... every quarter, "so many of them, that it was often impossible to stop more than one out of half-a-dozen. The ground immediately in front of the shooters became strewn with dead and dying.... It was curious to behold the evident reluctance with which the hares left their retreat, and then their perplexity at finding themselves so beset without. Many actually made for the canal, and swam like dogs across a piece of water nearly a hundred yards wide, shaking themselves upon landing, and making off without any apparent ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... Alexander the Great advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... embarrassment, understood the reluctance of her avowal, and sympathized with it. An angry light flashed beneath his shaggy eyelashes, but he suppressed his thoughts. He could not help remarking, however, "With the Intendant at Beaumanoir! I could have wished Le Gardeur in better company! No good can come of his intimacy with Bigot; Amelie, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... once more sound and well. "There," said the Lord, "those signs will do in Egypt. When you evince them nobody will doubt you." Still hesitant, Moses objected that he was very slow of speech. So he frankly desired the Lord to send someone else. No wonder the Lord grew angry at this persistent reluctance; nevertheless he restrained himself, and informed Moses that his brother Aaron, who was a good speaker, should accompany him. The prudent prophet seems to have been at length satisfied. At any rate he made no further objection, but after a little further conversation with the Lord, who ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... somewhat tempered, however, by the reluctance of North Carolina and Rhode Island to come under "the new roof." Had the convention which met on the 21st of July in North Carolina reached a vote, it would probably have defeated the Constitution, but it was doubtless restrained by the action of New York and adjourned without ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... occasional visits, of brief duration, to Valladolid and Leon, where Isabella alternately held her court. He was now, however, summoned to attend the sovereigns, on a visit to Ferdinand's paternal dominions, an office which would cause his absence for a much longer interval. He obeyed with extreme reluctance—nor did Marie feel the separation less. There was, in some measure, a feeling of security in his presence, which, whenever he was absent, gave place to fearful tremblings as to what might transpire to shake her faith in her, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... Free State's rule in violation of that Act." The debate, on May 20th, 1903, was opened by Mr. Herbert Samuel. Sir Charles, following him, was in turn supported by Sir John Gorst, an old ally in such causes. Mr. Balfour, in face of a unanimous House, accepted, not without reluctance, the motion which asked him to consult the co-signatories of the Berlin Act, and thus committed Great Britain to a diplomatic re-opening of the case. Inquiry necessarily followed, and with the publication of our Consul's report ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... was a battle between the desire to escape and the reluctance she felt in exposing her captors to danger. In the end she admitted to herself that she would not have Philip Quentin seized by the officers: she would give them all an equal chance to escape, he with the others. Her heart softened when ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... are to justify themselves for an irregularity which men do not commit in appearing there; and woman, when she feels the impulse of genius like a command of Heaven within her, should be aware that she is relinquishing a part of the loveliness of her sex, and obey the inward voice with sorrowing reluctance, like the Arabian maid who bewailed the gift of prophecy. Hinting thus imperfectly at sentiments which may be developed on a future occasion, we proceed to consider the celebrated subject of ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thousand horse should serve in the Provinces at the Queen's expense; and that the cities of Flushing and Brill should be placed in her Majesty's hands until the entire reimbursement of the debt thus incurred by the States. Elizabeth also—at last overcoming her reluctance—agreed that the force necessary to garrison these towns should form an additional contingent, instead of being deducted from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... steps and crossed to the doors. To her delight, they opened readily to a turn of the knob. She stood for a trifle, hesitant, peering into the hallway now dark with evening shadow; then curiosity overbore her reluctance. There was nothing to fear; the voice of Mrs. Clover singing over her dishpan in the kitchen came clearly through the ground-floor corridor, advertising plainly her preoccupation. And Eleanor wanted desperately to know what it was that the ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... "The banner of Love I swing and I sing—and cherish good hope!" "That," considers Kothner, without a gleam, "comes under the head of secular subject. And now, Master Beckmesser, pray shut yourself in!" With a thin pose of reluctance, Beckmesser takes his way toward the curtained cabinet. "A sour office—and to-day especially. The chalk, I surmise, will be troublesomely in requisition. Know, Sir Knight, Sixtus Beckmesser is the Marker. Here in the cabinet he attends ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... distance of the sun from observations of transits of Venus with the accuracy which modern science requires. It seems therefore likely that the final determination of the sun's distance will be obtained in quite a different manner. This will be explained in Chapter XI., and hence we feel the less reluctance in passing any from the consideration of the transit of Venus as ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... and actresses do get their chance now and again to appear in an Ibsen part, in spite of the reluctance of the regular managers to risk the production of Ibsen's plays in their theaters. This reluctance is not caused solely by an inability to appreciate his real merits; it is magnified by a healthy distrust for ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... succeeded, when at Rome in 1782 or 1783, in obtaining an interview with Charles Edward; and, being alone with him for some time, studiously led the conversation to his enterprise in Scotland, and to the occurrences which succeeded the failure of that attempt. The Prince manifested some reluctance to enter upon these topics, appearing at the same time to undergo so much mental suffering, that his guest regretted the freedom he had used in calling up the remembrance of his misfortunes. At length, however, the Prince seemed to shake off the load which oppressed ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... mind a very long time. I had ever been shy and diffident in the presence of strangers, and the idea of entering a large school a stranger to both teacher and pupils, was very unpleasant to me. But when I found it to be my mother's wish that I should go, I endeavoured to overcome my reluctance, and assisted my mother in her preparations for entering me as a pupil at the beginning ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed. Still more precise ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... more than anything else, combined to undermine her vital energies. Hence it was that although her complaint was a simple miscarriage, it had really, after all, been the outcome of loss of vigour. After a month symptoms of emissions of blood began also to show themselves. And notwithstanding her reluctance to utter what she felt every one, at the sight of her sallow and emaciated face, readily concluded that she was not nursing herself as well ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... manner had its effect. With obvious reluctance the fellow served me some biscuits and some not ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... his old curiosity to see again that which had so stirred him asleep. Well, here she was before him—part of her at least; for her soul, which he had helped her to win, was fighting to escape. The sounds of the duel, the shuddering reluctance of the indrawn breath, the moan that told of its enlargement, these things, and the motionless open eyes which seemed to say, Look! Body and soul are fighting, and we can only watch! turned him helpless, as we ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the fish in the unrivaled fishing pool proved just as agreeable as they had on that first day, and provided many delicious suppers for the young people. The only thing that served to mar their pleasure was the continued reluctance of the mysterious cave to come to light—it was as though the earth had opened ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... hers. No two hands ever conveyed so many and such swift messages as theirs, in the single moment when they touched each other. The other women of the village crowded around, and he was obliged, though with evident reluctance, to relate ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... you are as squeamishly affected about taking a Cup of Strong-Waters as a Lady before Company. I vow, Polly, I shall take it monstrously ill if you refuse me.—Brandy and Men (though Women love them ever so well) are always taken by us with some Reluctance—unless 'tis in private. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... or defending fortified places, he also believed. It was only his experience. The campaigns of Shane O'Neill, a bold but ill-balanced warrior, were full of such attacks, but one potent cause for Irish reluctance to make sieges a strong point of their strategy was that the strongest fortresses were on the sea. An inexhaustible, powerful enemy who held the sea was not in the end to be denied on sea or land, but the Irish in stubborn despair ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... a thing of naught, those from whom it is hard-won render it priceless. But, sirs, you are all too eager, I could scatter you baubles by the hour and leave you still desiring. But if ever I wooed reluctance to receive at last my solitary favor, I should know ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... work and office routine he had an unconquerable aversion; and his physical powers, had they remained at their best, must have proved quite unequal to the workshop training necessary to the practical engineer. Accordingly in 1871 it was agreed, not without natural reluctance on his father's part, that he should give up the hereditary vocation and read for the bar: literature, on which his heart was set, and in which his early attempts had been encouraged, being held to be by itself no profession, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reluctance we pick up our luggage, pay our very moderate bill, and leave this dear little village. Whatever else fades out of our minds as time goes on I am sure the picture of those gay children ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... borrowing; and to this the doctor resorted with considerable reluctance. From a gentleman who had always shown an interest in him, he obtained five dollars. Within an hour after the receipt of the letter, he was on his way to the city. The more he pondered the matter, the more likely did it seem to him that his first conclusion ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... for a quarter of an hour (during which time I listened to a recital of its wonderful curative properties), I was compelled to restore it to its owner, which I could not help doing with a certain degree of reluctance.... My request that he would give me a piece of his stone (though it were no larger than a coriander seed), he somewhat brusquely refused, adding, in a milder tone, that he could not give it me for all the wealth I possessed, and that not on account of its ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... conditions of life. At any rate, in my ignorance of hypnotism I fear that the effort to give the normal instinct might lead to marriage without the assurance that the normal instinct would be stable. I write, therefore, to explain my present condition and crave your counsel. It is with the greatest reluctance that I reveal the closely guarded secret of my life. I have no other abnormality, and have not hitherto betrayed my abnormal instinct. I have never made any person the victim of passion: moral and religious feelings ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... forehead, the locksmith, who had all this time been ravaging among the eatables, kept them there so long, at the same time raising the vessel slowly in the air, that at length Toby stood on his head upon his nose, when he smacked his lips, and set him on the table again with fond reluctance. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... a peremptory order to the Colonial governments for their apprehension. Endicott, to whom it was transmitted, could do no less than appear to interest himself to execute it; and this he might do with the less reluctance, because, under the circumstances, there was small likelihood that his exertions would be effectual. Two young English merchants, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, received from him a commission to prosecute the search in Massachusetts, and were also furnished with letters of recommendation ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... geometry, calculus, trigonometry, and the rest, filled him with misgivings for the future. 'Every day I read, I am more and more thoroughly convinced of my incapacity for the subject.' 'My work continued and my reluctance to exertion increased with it.' For the Sunday before the examination, this is the entry, and a characteristic and remarkable one it is:—'Teaching in the school morning and evening. Saunders preached well on "Ye cannot serve God ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... you where you want to be, of course," agreed the boatbuilder, though he spoke with some reluctance, for he realized that some great mystery ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... go, but Dick agreed with reluctance. He felt jaded and depressed, for the double strain he had borne was beginning to tell. His work, carried on in scorching heat, demanded continuous effort, and when it stopped at night he had private troubles to grapple with. Though he had been half-prepared for Clare's refusal, it ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... illiberality or covetousness. For a man may be said to be illiberal or covetous through a defect in giving. If he gives but little he is said to be "sparing"; if nothing, he is "tightfisted": if he gives with great reluctance, he is said to be kyminopristes ("skinflint"), a cumin-seller, as it were, because he makes a great fuss about things of little value. Sometimes a man is said to be illiberal or covetous, through an excess in receiving, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... victim. As he passed, a close observer might have noted that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on to his neighbor. But not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his terror or his reluctance. On the contrary, as Tu-Kila-Kila passed along the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud without one tremor in their voices, "We are all your meat. Choose which one you ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... they had seen a liberty pole raised upon which the people with the greatest difficulty had been dissuaded from hoisting a flag with six stripes—emblematic of the six counties represented in the committee. The flag was made, but set aside for the fifteen stripes with reluctance. This is Findley's recollection, but Brackenridge says that it was a flag of seven stars for the four western counties, Bedford, and the two counties of Virginia. This, he adds, was the first and only manifestation among any class of a desire to separate from the Union. But ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... baron showed the same cold, half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile, which had been the prelude to his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling gloomily under their dark brows, evinced rather the secret pleasure which they expected from the approaching scene than any reluctance to be its agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace, over which he was presently to be stretched, and, seeing no chance of his tormentor's relenting, his resolution ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... down, grave and graceful. But he held the brim of his hat all the while. He looked at Ogden and me, and then back at his employer. There was reluctance in his eye. I wondered if his employer could be going to make him tell his own exploits in the presence of us outsiders; and there came into my memory the Bengal tiger at a trained-animal show ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... meant to play in this scene of apotheosis. Painted with the same hues as those of the steed, they were doubtless sacrificed at the death of their master, in order that they might share his fortunes and accompany him into the unseen world; their affection for him, and the reluctance with which they parted from him, being indicated by the cat putting its paw upon his shoulder as if to pull him back, and the dog barking furiously at the heels of the horse. But all this is merely conjectural. And yet I caught such a glimpse of the general significance ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... dined well, who respected Beethoven no more than Oscar Straus, and who demanded only one boon—not to be bored. They had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately attired, and they dropped cigarettes with reluctance in the foyer, and they entered adventurously with marked courage, well aware that they had come to something queer and dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a musical comedy, and, while hoping optimistically for the best, determined to march boldly out again in the event of the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... dear boy!" she said. "Now help me out, please. We have arrived." We found four stalls reserved for us near the front at the music hall; and, after settling a slight preliminary difficulty, owing to Mr. Moss' reluctance to parting with his hat, we sat down to enjoy the performance. Mr. Moss seemed a little disappointed, too, that his bright and snappy order for drinks to the powdered official who showed us to our places ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that sort impossible. However, she would willingly meet death, if she could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I absolutely refused to leave her, and taking her by the hand, I led her on; she complied with great reluctance, and not without many reproaches to herself for retarding ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... this part of the affair which he would rather have imparted to Marcia after seeing it with her father's eyes, or possibly, if her father viewed it favorably, have had him tell her. The old man noticed his reluctance. "Hadn't you better go into the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... in Galilee. Joseph thought that Pilate's authority should be extended. But how can that be done? Dan inquired, and being embarrassed for an answer, Joseph pressed Dan to confide in him, a thing which Dan showed no wish to do; but at last his reluctance was overcome, and shyly he admitted that his despondency had nothing to do with Antipas nor with a casual drop in the order from Damascus, but with a prophet that was troubling the neighbourhood. A very dangerous prophet, too, is this one; but I am afraid, Joseph, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... I, seeing some reluctance on Fitz.'s part to take the wager, and getting emboldened in consequence, "let the judgment be pronounced over a couple of dozen of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... little Daniel to the gate of the Lions' Den, I shook hands cordially with everybody, Paolo last of all. He placed his fingers with haughty reluctance in my ostentatiously proffered palm, but I held the four chilly, fish-like things (chilly only for me) long enough to mutter, sotto voce: "I want a word with you on a matter of importance. I'll walk up and down the road ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... the old worn leather wallet with a strap around it—and slowly, (gee! how s-l-o-w-l-y),—after much fumbling, during which you were never sure whether you were going to get it or not ... the penny would come forth and be placed (with seeming reluctance) in the grimy, dirty boy-hand. And usually, just as you reached the door on your hurried way to the nearest candy-shop, she would scare you almost stiff by calling ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... hand and departed. Hillyard turned from him towards his sleeping-car, but though his chief anxiety was dispelled, his reluctance to go was not. And he looked at the long, brightly-lit train which was to carry him from this busy and high-hearted city with a desire that it would start before its time, and leave him a derelict upon the platform. He could not bend his thoughts to the work ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... after some moments of reluctance, Aunt Louisa, still knitting a sock, was induced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... spun; and I have finished off in the orthodox form with a wedding, which seems to be the inevitable and only correct way in which a story can be brought to a symmetrical conclusion. Nothing remains but to say Farewell, which, believe me, I do with reluctance, sincerely hoping that an opportunity may yet occur for us to renew ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... is your happy life left on the outside of the prison, whilst constancy, dignity, wisdom, and the other virtues, are surrendered up to the executioner, and bear punishment and pain without reluctance? ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... your Honour, with reluctance, that I am about to trouble you with a letter, and that, because on applying to the receiver Utenbogaert, (to whom I have entrusted the management of my money matters,) as to how the treasurer Volberger acquits himself ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... tardiness on the part of General Martin—were everywhere declaring in our favour; but being unsupported, were fined, imprisoned, and subjected to corporal punishment by the Viceroy. Rendered cautious by this, they naturally distrusted the force idling away its time at Pisco, manifesting reluctance to bring forward the requisite supplies, upon which they were treated, by order of General San Martin, with military rigour; being thus harassed, the Peruvians began to look upon the Chilenos as oppressors in common with the Spaniards, to the no small danger ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... style has nothing obsolete, we can occasionally trace a reluctance to abandon an old word or idiom; the consequence, doubtless of his latter studies in ancient poetry. In other respects, nothing can be more elegant than the diction of the praises heaped upon his patrons, for which he might himself plead the apology ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the Captain's cabin. He was forcing himself toward the moment when he must board the Vulture. His resolve was held back by his mounting anxiety as to how best to carry out what would be necessary, and a strong natural reluctance to ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... reluctance—"because I am no longer your equal. The gipsy's low-born daughter is no mate for Sir Luke Rookwood. Love cannot blind me, dear Luke. It cannot make me other than I am; it cannot exalt me in my own esteem, nor in that of the world, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... principal female raising her terrified infant, and the two chief combatants, are inimitable. I was informed, by good authority, that the court of Russia had offered 7000l. sterling for it, an unexampled price for any modern painting! but that David, who is very rich, felt a reluctance in parting with it, to the emperor, on account of the climate of ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... upstairs—an old woman who shook her head violently as she plodded slowly up the marble steps; Correy; a man with a packet of books under his arm (the same who had been studying coins in Section II); a young couple whose movements showed such a marked reluctance that more than one eye followed them as they went hesitatingly up, clinging together with interlocking hands and stopping now on one step and now on another to stare at each other in visible consternation; and a boy of fourteen who grinned from ear to ear as he bounded gayly up three steps ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... ties knitted or handkerchiefs initialled by certain fingers; without repeating scandal, one might say by various fingers. For while the ultimate import of these matters was not denied in Elgin, there was a general feeling against giving too much meaning to them, probably originating in a reluctance among heads of families to add to their responsibilities. These early spring indications were belittled and laughed at; so much so that the young people them selves hardly took them seriously, but regarded them as a form of amusement ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in place of the other. This she thought she ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... the time that Blackstone was delivering his lectures at Oxford, which have since given him an enduring and world-wide fame as a commentator on the laws of England. This elegant defender and apologist for English laws and customs, in his commentaries, admits, seemingly with reluctance and regret, that there then existed on the statute-books of England no less than one hundred and sixty capital offences. At that time the number of capital offences in Massachusetts was less than one-tenth this number, if we exclude those made so by the acts relating to military offenders in actual ...
— The Trial and Execution, for Petit Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman • Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.
... was standing and went through my list, identifying each article as I came to it, and making him confirm the price. When we had finished, I insisted upon him checking my figures. He did so with some show of reluctance. The total, seemingly, was ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... remember the driver of the fiacre? I wanted to give him a LOUIS, and Duc d'Ayen said, 'You will be known;' so that I gave him a crown." He was going to tell the whole story. Madame made a sign to him to be silent, which he obeyed, not without considerable reluctance. She afterwards told me that at the time of the fetes given on occasion of the Dauphin's marriage, the King came to see her at her mother's house in a hackney-coach. The coachman would not go on, and the King would have given him a LOUIS. "The police will hear of it, if you do," said the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... a strong reluctance to stay in such a place, and therefore began to plan an escape; he made one attempt, which was unsuccessful. He then laid a plot with two other notorious offenders. Each of these three had been branded with those letters which ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... a good deal of apparent reluctance, he took the long, bony hand in his, and probably, would have instantly dropped it again, had not Mrs Keswick given him a most hearty clutch, and a ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... who has done so much for Gaelic literature as Mr Campbell, and, just in proportion to my sense of the greatness of his services, is my reluctance to put myself, even for a moment, in opposition to him. But his opinion on the Ossianic question, expressed in his letter, constrains me ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... instigations, induced the ambassadors to urge the Grand Khan for permission to convey the princess by sea to the gulf of Persia, and that the Christians might accompany them, as being best experienced in maritime affairs. Cublai Khan consented with great reluctance, and a splendid fleet was fitted out and victualed for two years, consisting of fourteen ships of four masts, some of which had crews of ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... (and in fact all German observers, such as infantry and cavalry patrols) make it a principle to avoid, if possible, any combat; this is, of course, interpreted as cowardice by the Allies, who seem eager for a fight on any terms. There is a distinct reluctance among aviators for engaging in aerial duels. As one French aviator said to me: "You are both killed and that does no one any good." This reluctance is fairly universal, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... preliminary proceedings sounded a note of antagonism between the Chief Justice and the Administration which was to recur again and yet again in the months following. Only a few weeks earlier at Washington, Marshall had, though with some apparent reluctance, ordered the release of Bollmann and Swartwout, two of Burr's tools, from the custody of the Federal authorities. Alluding in his present opinion to his reason for his earlier action, he wrote: "More than five weeks have elapsed since the opinion of the Supreme ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin |
