"Self-reliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the muscles. Skipping is exceedingly good exercise for a girl, every part of the body being put into action by it Horse exercise is splendid for a girl; it improves the figure amazingly—it is most exhilarating and amusing; moreover, it gives her courage and makes her self-reliant Croquet develops and improves the muscles of the arms, beautifies the complexion, strengthens the back, and throws out the chest. Croquet is for girls and women what cricket is for boys and men—a glorious game. Croquet has improved both the health and the happiness of womankind more than ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... have an America living within and for herself alone, but we would have her self-reliant, independent, and ever nobler, stronger, and richer. Believing in our higher standards, reared through constitutional liberty and maintained opportunity, we invite the world to the same heights. But pride in things wrought is no reflex of a completed task. Common welfare ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... were trained for business; awake, self-reliant, self-respecting, expecting to have to get things done, all done, yet she seemed indestructibly gentle, indestructibly good and believing, and just a ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the one; and cupidity, born of envy, blunts the moral perceptions of the other, then indeed is that nation delivered over to the world, the flesh and the devil. When all alike are poor, contentment reigns. The son grows up a useful, self-reliant man, the daughter an industrious, virtuous woman. From this class comes nearly every benefactor of mankind. It has ever been the great repository of morality, the balance- wheel of society, the brain and brawn ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... in silence by the margin of the sea. The mind of each was busy with the same thought. Each was aware of that, and for some time neither seemed able to break the silence. The timid girl recovered her courage before the self-reliant man! ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... and centre; our people would have been vitalized by education instead of so ignorant that no commoner but one ever wrote a book; they would have built and flourished and extended; and in place of a poor and helpless people they would have been rich, powerful, and self-reliant, like the Bostonians; Bigot and his nest of horse-leeches would never have sucked our blood and left ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... and then their children and children's children, change and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities and all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant, self-centred, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier days succeeds the hard materialism of an industrialism even more intense and absorbing than that of the older nations; although these themselves ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... little girl of his, mother. She told me some of the greatest yarns about what she did in an organization called the Girl Scouts. It certainly is interesting and a wonderful thing for girls. Teaches them all sorts of things, you know. Why, that child was more self-reliant than lots of the grown girls I know. You must be sure to have Rosanna join it, mother. She needs it, I feel sure. I scarcely know Rosanna, but her letters always had about as much originality as a sheet ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... was, perhaps, neither as tall nor as heavy as the stranger; but in spite of a certain boyish look on his smooth-shaven, deeply-bronzed face, he bore himself with the unmistakable air of a matured and self-reliant man. Every nerve and fiber of him seemed alive with that vital energy which is the true beauty ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... of these has been the persistent demand for political rights, and the question naturally arises, "Why do these continue to be denied? Educated, property-owning, self-reliant and public-spirited, why are women still refused a voice in the Government? Citizens in the fullest sense of the word, why are they deprived of the suffrage in a country whose institutions rest upon ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... other man grinned, then straightened up, and, shading his eyes from the sun with his hat, looked off into the distance. He was younger than his partner, whose hair was grizzled to a badger gray, but no less determined and self-reliant in appearance. He did not look his thirty years, while the other man ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... no wine until they are crushed, trampled, bereft of bloom, of rounded symmetry, of beautiful color; but the Lord of the Vineyard is entitled to His own. I was a very proud, self-reliant girl, impatient of poverty, daringly ambitious; and what I deemed a cruel fate, threw me into the vat, to be trodden under foot. It may be, that when the ferment ends, and time mellows all, the purple wine of my bruised and broken life may be accounted worthy the seal of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and identified with them. The main features of his character were, in my apprehension, fearlessness, kindliness, a decision that sometimes made him seem somewhat arbitrary, and condensation or concentration. He was wonderfully self-reliant. These moral qualities, guiding an artistic temperament as exquisite as was ever bestowed on man, made him what he was, the greatest inventor of abstract beauty, both in form and colour, that this age, perhaps that the world, has seen. They would also account for some peculiarities that ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... on deck and I called him to us. He was a clean-cut seamanly fellow of about thirty. His blue eyes were frank and self-reliant. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... just such country lads as this—strong, self-reliant, religious—who, when poverty has projected them out of her granite mountains upon granite pavements, each as hard and bleak as the other, by massive determination have conquered a ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... mantel-shelf, and the green hemlock branches masking for the summer the fireplace below. Over all the blue room and the landscape without was a sense of home, of order and familiar sweetness. It struck to the soul of a too lonely and too self-reliant man. Suddenly, without warning, tears were in his eyes. Raising his uninjured arm, he brushed them away, settled his bandaged head upon the pillows, and stared at the clock. The half-shut door of a small adjoining room opened very slowly and softly, and Joab ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... thinking sometimes that she is a little wasted. Life must now and then be dreary for her." Tallente seemed for a moment to be looking through the walls of the room. "We are all made differently. Lady Jane is very self-reliant and Devonshire is one of those counties which have a ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... many girls her age in some things. She was self-reliant and used to observing for herself, and she had a rich fund of warm and ready sympathy that was essentially practical. She saw that the mother of these lively, untidy children was very young, hardly more than a girl, and worn-out and ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... guard at all. If one fantastic vagabond could protect eight armed Christians and a pack of Arab servants from all harm, surely that detachment could protect themselves. He shook his head doubtfully. Then I said, just think of how it looks—think of how it would read, to self-reliant Americans, that we went sneaking through this deserted wilderness under the protection of this masquerading Arab, who would break his neck getting out of the country if a man that was a man ever started after him. It was a mean, low, degrading ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seat—hugging a sore-footed dog whose rawhide boots had worn through—a long-legged, barefoot girl who had walked twelve hundred miles since spring, trudged Jed Wingate, now grown from a tousled boy into a lean, self-reliant young man. His long whip was used in baseless threatenings now, for any driver must spare cattle such as these, gaunt and hollow-eyed. Tobacco protuberant in cheek, his feet half bare, his trousers ragged and fringed to the knee, his sleeves rolled up over brown ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... leads to the altar a delicate, beautiful, blooming bride, whose bent head and blushing cheek, and modest mien and dependent air, contrast pleasantly with the gladsome firm countenance, stalwart frame, and self-reliant aspect of ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... no weakling or he would never have set out to shape his own course as he was now doing. He was a man of considerable purpose, self-reliant and reasonable, with sufficient easy good-nature to be compatible with strength. He liked his own experiences too, though he never scorned the experiences of another. Slum had sized him up pretty shrewdly when he said "he'll bob out on top like a ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... on the present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... very self-reliant; when once he believed himself to be in the right it was almost impossible to persuade him to the contrary. But, at the same time, he was cautious in the extreme, and would well consider his position before ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... books too much," he thought. "It's the trouble with young women nowadays." On the other hand, for himself, he had lost sight of the current of present knowledges,—he was aware of that, finding how few topics in common there were between them; but it troubled the self-reliant old fellow but little. Since he left Yale, where he and this girl's uncle, Doctor Bowdler, had been chums together, he had lived in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, and many of the rough ways of speaking and acting of the people had clung to him, as their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... there looking at it. She had always had her way with the father—why should she doubt her power over the son? Supremely maternal as she was, the sheltering instinct had extended even to the man she loved. He had been outwardly strong and self-confident, assured, self-reliant, even severe with others, but behind the bold exterior, as always to the eyes of the beloved woman, had been a little, shrinking, helpless child, craving the comfort of a woman's hand—the sanctuary ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... so long. No tenderness for his own child appears. He is engrossed in BUSINESS, and she in PLEASURE. Avarice is the gentlemanly passion of his later years. "Royal days of every pleasure" for the brilliant woman; she, ambitious and self-reliant, lives only for ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... murmur of voices, the faces watching me showing their increasing excitement and eagerness. Our little talk had served to arouse their confidence in my leadership, and with gleaming weapons in their hands they became self-reliant volunteers. Once turned loose my greatest difficulty might be to restrain them, rather than urge them on. Revenge for past wrongs was in each heart, and they welcomed a ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... they can, Temple," he said. "They saved the day for me. I'm beginning to think they are a pretty self-reliant lot. If you can see your way to doing so, take them along. The trip ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... gun!" said Mrs. Gammit, appearing suddenly, a self-reliant figure, at the open door of the barn where Joe Barron sat mending his harness. She wore a short cotton homespun petticoat and a dingy waist; while a limp pink cotton sunbonnet, pushed far ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the main deck, it was easy to determine, even before I came within sound of their tongues, that they were British—Australians, that is to say, for they one and all bore the well-marked characteristics of that sturdy, independent, self-reliant race. Gurney at once took it upon himself to perform the ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... met for the transaction of business, and very eager was the public ear for the words that should fall from the lips of the new premier. He informed the house, with brevity and clearness, of the circumstances which placed him in the situation he then held; and bespoke in energetic, self-reliant, and courteous terms, the confidence of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... How youthful and self-reliant her voice sounded! The sweet, girlish contralto jarred painfully upon at least two of our tense, waiting group. And Belle ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... much over sixteen, but Wade Norton looked the older of the two, although his companion was fully as tall and strong. Standing together, they made a good "specimen pair" of vigorous, bright-eyed, self-reliant youngsters. ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... girls said it was wonderful, but that anyway, the Boy Scouts was started before the Camp-Fire Girls was, and so they had had more time to learn things. I heard one lady say it was splendid how scouts got to be self-reliant, on account ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... had flown whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back to the security of the ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... keen, hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,—the mouth of good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled presently the peculiarly hard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... may lift the Negro to that point where he feels himself, and where we feel him to be, a man—taught to labor, protected in the enjoyment of the fruits of his labor, without which the strongest arm grows palsied, trained in a strong, self-reliant Christian manhood, holding the reins firmly on the neck of all passion—a man. And that we will do; and the very greatness of the problem, I believe, is our redemption. It was the greatness of the crisis that thrilled the Nation's heart when ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... not back, to the Golden Age, and is the prophet of science and evolution. If we compare his Titan with similar characters in Faust and Cain, we shall find this interesting difference,—that while Goethe's Titan is cultured and self-reliant, and Byron's stoic and hopeless, Shelley's hero is patient under torture, seeing help and hope beyond his suffering. And he marries Love that the earth may be peopled with superior beings who shall substitute brotherly love for the present laws and conventions of society. Such is his philosophy; ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... equal footing of reality with the consciousness of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion, the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering love for others. To some extent this is taking away with the left hand what has been so generously given with the right. Morality has been ceremoniously extruded from the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... making a truce, which in time was lengthened into a treaty. But it was a mighty battle while it lasted; a fight of the Titans with the gods; man opposed to nature; the material to the immaterial—self-reliant, well-husbanded, carefully-applied strength matched ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... "It makes a boy manly and self-reliant. He may turn out a bit rough, but it's rough diamond. Sir John, pray don't you think from what I say that I'm one of those carneying, flattering sort of chaps who ought to be kicked all round the world for the sneaks they are. What I say is quite honest. That's a fine lad of yours: he's ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... principles of the Reformed religion attracted him; he studied the Scriptures in their original languages, and the writings of the fathers and schoolmen. Unhappily his perverse and self-reliant spirit led him into grievous errors with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. In vain the gentle Reformer Oecolampadius at Basle reasoned with him. He must needs disseminate his opinions in a book entitled De Trinitatis Erroribus, which ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... colonies. The wilderness forced self-government upon the settlers. Clearing the forests, subduing the Indians, and conquering animal foes was stern work, which weeded out the indolent and inefficient, and rewarded the capable and self-reliant. Pioneer conditions did not encourage a cringing or submissive spirit, but fostered independence and individualism. The spirit of equality tended to become a dominant feature of American life, for despite the existence of social classes, the great majority of the population had to rely for ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... only one side of Curtis's self-reliant nature which analyzed, and criticised, and weighed matters with such judicial calm. There was another which brought a hard glint into his eyes, and caused a hand which gripped the molded back of a lightly-built chair to exert a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... are fundamentally democratic because they are fundamentally self-reliant. Each demands to know why he should do a thing before he does it. This is, I think, the great link between two peoples in many ways very different; and they who ardently desire abiding friendship between ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... that word. They are men, aren't they? They are stanch friends and good enemies. They are true to their own laws and to their conceptions of right and wrong. And they are strong and self-reliant ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... mercy to which they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! Children are left you. Your good sister (God bless her!) is by your side. You have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant and stedfast. Something is gone that never in this world can be replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... can turn tail to a biting wind the while she ploughs to the eyes in snow and roots out a very satisfactory living for herself breeds calves that will in time do likewise and grow fat and strong in the doing. He is a sturdy, self-reliant little rascal, is ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Horace is logical, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. He sees no happy future after this life, is conscious of no providence watching over him, is involved in no obligation to the beings of an eternal world. He looks this world and the next, gods and men, directly in the face, and ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... to me, Hildegarde," said her cousin, Colonel Mostyn. "I will pilot him safely through the rocks and deep waters; nothing makes a man as self-reliant as feeling that he ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... them, and was soon after going with them from post to post, to see that the men were well supplied with ammunition; and I could not help noticing that in spite of all they had gone through, they looked rested and self-reliant; quite ready in fact for a fresh encounter ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... years. And yet the huge fabric is strengthened by no buttress, has needed no repair. This lightness of structure, combined with such prodigious durability, produces the strongest sense of science and self-reliant power in the men who designed it. None but Romans could have built such a monument, and have set it in such a place—a wilderness of rock and rolling hill, scantily covered with low brushwood, and browsed over by a few sheep—for such a purpose, too, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... this truthful picture of Irish home life is Mrs. Martin—an exceedingly interesting character—-a, steadfast, self-reliant woman who through the exercise of common sense averts a domestic tragedy and brings harmony into a troubled household. No less an unusual creation, however, is James—"Mrs. Martin's Man." Intolerant, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... for all I knew of Carleon Anthony was his unexciting but fascinating verse. Marlow assured me that the Fyne marriage was perfectly successful and even happy, in an earnest, unplayful fashion, being blessed besides by three healthy, active, self-reliant children, all girls. They were all pedestrians too. Even the youngest would wander away for miles if not restrained. Mrs Fyne had a ruddy out-of-doors complexion and wore blouses with a starched front like a man's shirt, a stand-up collar and a long necktie. Marlow ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... their country's call, and had never encountered the perils of war or seen a hostile shot fired in their lives. But the high spirit of courage and patriotism which animated the hearts of all, rendered them self-reliant and determined to do their utmost in performing their sacred duty to their ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... simply the energies that tended towards this particular type that were set free during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Every sort of feminine energy was set free. And it was not merely the self-reliant, independence-seeking women who were discontented. The ladies who specialised in feminine arts and graces and mysteries were also dissatisfied. They found they were not important enough. The former type found itself insufficiently respected, and the latter type found itself insufficiently adored. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... self-reliant, patient, temperate, and utterly unselfish. He made all manner of sacrifices during his efforts in the cause of charity. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of his missions on behalf of the poor. In his journey of fifty days in 1854, he went from Orthez—the country of Gaston Phoebus—to ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... You see, there are women. It will be rather painful. If you would—" He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in so big and self-reliant a man. "Just your moral support, you know. ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... left, Miss Leslie renewed her pleasantries, hoping that Andrew would ask her to go down and dance. She was terribly afraid of the great folk, poor little soul, but she felt that this strong self-reliant young man would protect her. Andrew excused himself in a few moments, however, and went down-stairs. He had bought the right to be in the same room with those people, ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... she wanted the sun, it was her part to open blinds and draw back curtains; clearly if she wanted mental light, it was her part to use the means that God had placed at her disposal. Thus much she realized. But not being a self-reliant girl, it resulted in her saying to Eurie Mitchell when she slipped in the next evening ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... stood alone. He was unlike other men, a fact which probably caused him little regret. Self-reliant, aggressive, of will indomitable, he was a political storm centre during his entire public career. His friends were devoted to him, and he was never forgotten by his enemies. Whoever was brought into close contact with him, usually carried away an impression ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... eyes, and thin locks, and wrinkled cheeks, and a bowed frame. The difference between the two is but the symbol of the profounder differences that separate the two selves, which yet are the one self—the impetuous, self-reliant, self-willed, hopeful, buoyant youth, and the weary, feeble, broken, old man. And that is what you will come to, if you live, as sure as I am speaking to you, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... of his great life, an experience which almost broke him. More than once the thought of Vittoria filled him with sudden dread. In her he had seen God and the world in one. The powerful effect of this on so self-reliant a character, a man who had been unable to find much sympathy with patrons and friends, to whom women had meant nothing, may easily be imagined. All at once he had found a centre, and more than that—a solution of all the discords of life, of the eternal ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... tell or to hear some new thing," were astonished and delighted to find that a fresh sensation, a new pleasure, was in reserve for them in the uprising of an author, capable of depicting with accurate and Titanic power the strong, self-reliant, racy, and individual characters which were not, after all, extinct species, but lingered still in existence in the North. They thought that there was some exaggeration mixed with the peculiar force of delineation. Those nearer to the spot, where the scene of the story was apparently laid, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... precious fruits in the increased power of observation and the counterpoise it offered to hasty generalizations, as well as in the confidence which learnt to reject untenable fictions, whether produced by luxuriant imagination or by a priori speculations, on the similar ground of self-reliant sense-perception."(3) ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... under all this tumult and confusion of tongues. The newspapers and politicians fret and fume and shout and denounce; but the great mass, the nineteen or twenty millions, work away in the fields and workshops, saying little, thinking much, hardy, earnest, self-reliant, very tolerant, very indulgent, very shrewd, but ready whenever the government needs it, with musket, or purse, or vote, as the case may be, laughing and cheering occasionally at public meetings, but when you meet them individually on the highroad or in their own houses, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... father and mother were obliged to journey the greater part of this distance on horseback, alternately carrying their infant child upon a pillow before them. I only advert to these incidents as they illustrate the self-reliant character of the man, and the brave, confiding trust of his wife. The little boy they carried upon the pillow, then their only ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... for honest men, and so forth, and so forth,—it was evident that he was always on the winning side merely from the fact that he played more sagaciously and coolly than the rest of us. And now it seemed that this self-reliant, careful player had been stripped not only of his money but of his effects, which marks the lowest depths of loss ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... Ames indulged the girl against her better judgment lest an unpleasant explosion of wrath should occur and shake her nervous system to its foundation. So Eunice grew up, an uncurbed, untamed, self-willed and self-reliant girl, making up her quarrels as fast as she picked them and winning friends everywhere in spite of ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... and my judgment turned to Wauna. She was endeared to me by long and gentle association. She was self-reliant and courageous, and possessed a strong will. Who, of all my Mizora acquaintances, was so well adapted to the ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... and Mrs. Gordon read Mr. Grant's letter at Kuryong, the train deposited at Tarrong a self-reliant young lady of about twenty, accompanied by nearly a truck-full of luggage—solid leather portmanteaux, canvas-covered bags, iron boxes, and so on—which produced a great sensation among the rustics. She was handsome enough to be called a beauty, and everything about her spoke of exuberant health ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... inquire, his family was induced to remove from Kelso to London. The position they occupied we have not learned; but young Hume is remembered as being a quick, intelligent, and most affectionate boy, eager, industrious, self-reliant, and with an occasional dash of independence that made him both feared and loved. He might have been persuaded to adopt almost any view, but an attempt at coercion only excited a spirit of antagonism. To use an old and familiar phrase, "he might break, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Never were the schools better in their entire range in different States, the studies more exacting, the purpose on the part of students for mastery in their work more resolute. Never was there manifested a more self-reliant spirit. The people are having a hard time just now; many are poorer than ever before, but the negroes are gaining, inch by inch. There are millions in schools and unreached millions yet who could not read a word in the New Testament if they had one; but the gain is seen in many ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 3, March, 1895 • Various
... those who had hitherto been his guardians, and he had committed an act of grave insubordination in leaving England without their permission. The priest to whom he had reported himself on his arrival in London, had already complained to Father Cristoforo of the young man's self-reliant spirit, and a further letter had given some account of "very unsatisfactory proceedings" on Dino's part—of a refusal to tell where he had been or what he had been doing, and, finally, of his sudden ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the Grain Growers' Guide was a highly specialized journal for the Western farmer, aiming frankly at educating him to be the owner of his land, his produce, his self-respect and his franchise; to make him self-thinking and self-reliant and to defend him from ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the skirmish line of his march of civilization to wrest a continent from the wilderness. As trappers, hunters, and guides; as fishermen and slayers of whale and seal; as the light horseman, quick, brave, self-sustaining, and self-reliant, the Indian was capable of valuable services to a people who offered him but two alternatives—extinction, or a dull, plodding, vegetative, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... have known this for so long a time that I am accustomed to contemplate it with equanimity. Before our decision was made, I was timid and irresolute; but since the die is cast, I am bold and self-reliant, for I know that I will either conquer ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... which teaches us to be self-reliant and resourceful. A crow, whose throat was parched and dry with thirst, saw a pitcher in the distance. In great joy he flew to it, but found that it held only a little water, and even that was too near the bottom to be reached, for all his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of one of their offices in Spain. At any rate, he asked if you spoke Spanish well....So I can easily afford to increase your allowance to one hundred and fifty a month. More, if you should ask for it, but you are so proud and self-reliant I can do absolutely nothing with you, dear boy. I quite understand your unwillingness to accept more than you actually need from me. It is splendid, and I am very proud of you....This girl you wrote me about, is she so very rich?...Your ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... that he was likely to be sought after, and disposed to sulk if he wasn't. His plea for sympathy on the score that his life of idleness was a bore, which he made the day they went sleighing, only provoked her derision, and as she was disposed to judge all men by the standard of her self-reliant brother, he came near awakening contempt on her part. It was not until the last evening of his visit that she discovered her mistake and realized that he had more depth of character than she had thought. It is likely the ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor, the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind. It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the few ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... any stream of ideas from books, and that source was the superior intellect of his wife. Hardly could he make up his mind on any practical matter, unassisted by her thinking and advice. Doubly dependent, he was not the man to cope with the daring, self-reliant, versatile Aaron Burr. But once in his stronghold, bulwarked by standard editions, and, as it were, in the arsenal of established science, the philosopher rose to his best. He fairly glowed with learning's soft fire, while exhibiting his telescope, microscope, electrical ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... life before you, away from friends, among all sorts of characters,—some good, it may be, many bad or indifferent, but no one probably on whom you may rely. You will be placed in difficult, often in dangerous situations, when you'll have only yourself, or Him who orders all things, to trust to. Be self-reliant; ever strive to do your duty; and don't be after troubling yourself about the consequences. You will be engaged in scenes of warfare and bloodshed. I have taken part in many such, and I know their horrors. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... every cry of any of his children he ran to take away the trouble, or free them from the hardness, or make all things easy and pleasant for them. Such a course would keep us always children, untrained, undisciplined. Only in burden-bearing and in enduring can we learn to be self-reliant and strong. Jesus himself was trained on the battlefield, and in life's actual experiences of trial. He learned obedience by the things that he suffered. It was by meeting temptation and by being victorious in it that he became Master of the world, able ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... revenge; and Roger, as he lay with his rifle ready, smiled because Annette was out of Garman's power. Wherever she was, he felt she was safe. He pictured her as she had faced Garman fearlessly two nights before—straight, strong, self-reliant—and was confident that her absence was of her own doing, and that whatever the circumstances she was free of the influence of her aunt, of her father, of the drugging magnetism of Garman, and in control of her ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... fun, therefore, when Mrs. Rayner finally appeared, over the supposed affliction of the big Irishwoman at the prospect of parting with her patroness. Miss Travers saw with singular sensations that both the captain and her usually self-reliant sister were annoyed and embarrassed by the topic and strove to change it; but Foster's propensity for mimicry and his ability to imitate Mrs. Clancy's combined brogue and sniffle proved too much for their efforts. Kate was in a royally bad temper by the time the youngsters left the house, and when ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... as was feasible. He showed his ingenuity in the personal interviews which he had with the chieftains; and the ascendancy which he won by his character was marked. Perhaps his qualities were such as could be more easily appreciated by orientals than by his own countrymen, for he was impetuous, self-reliant, and autocratic in no common degree. He was only one of a number of great Englishmen of this century whose direct personal contact with Eastern princes was worth scores of diplomatic letters and paper constitutions. Such men were Henry Lawrence, John Nicholson, and Charles ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... that they were the eyes of a bad bold man, but you had not to look twice at them to see they belonged to a man courageous in the African manner, full of energy and resource, keenly intelligent and self-reliant, and all that ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... himself obliged from necessity to allow his son to embrace the maritime profession, for which he had an ardent longing, and to serve as cabin-boy on board a coasting vessel which traded with Holland. Industrious, active, self-reliant, and saving, the young Francis Drake had soon acquired all the theoretical knowledge needed for the direction of a vessel. When he had realized a small sum, which was increased by the sale of a vessel bequeathed ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... it astonishing that New France never became self-reliant. From first to last her natural growth was throttled, either by the greed of the fur companies or by the mistaken paternalism of the Bourbons. The Company of One Hundred Associates, which Richelieu founded in 1624, was no improvement on the previous ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... are rather disposed to be self-reliant, and we may, therefore, safely predict that, when we take hold, in real earnest, of the business of grape culture, either under glass or in the open air, we shall do it with our customary determination and energy, and that success will just as surely follow as it has in other cases where imported ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... reaction, bowed to the maternal bosom, feeling once more her own helplessness, receiving no help from her mother's sympathy, which was merely superficial. Her only hope of release lay in the strong, bright, self-reliant, humorous people she had just left, those to whom her grandfather and his "band" were less than shadows. They alone could save her from the despairing madness which she felt creeping upon her like a beast ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... child. "Elizabeth—Elizabeth!" but there was no response; only a sleepy bird stirred in the shrubbery. In spite of his great intimacy with the Kestons and his very real friendship, Malcolm did not confide in either of them. He was undemonstrative and self-reliant by nature, and, as he said himself afterwards, "There are some things that a man ought to keep to himself." But neither Amias nor Verity expected any ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy" and the strong, self-reliant man whose fame had filled two continents, Gadshill Place was an immediate link. Everyone knows the story which Dickens tells of a vision of his former self meeting him on ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... commence now. If she would be wise, she must not frolic away her early life. If she would not feel the hand of oppression in age, she must lay now the foundation of a noble independence which will make her self-reliant, energetic, calm, and persistent in the pursuit of life's great aim. Not only is a pure character needed, chastity of thought and feeling, but one of energy. It is grand to be pure of heart; it is glorious ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... the germ of the present British penal system, was premature. The government in this dilemma steered a middle course and resolved to adhere to transportation, but under a greatly modified and it was hoped much improved form. The colony of Van Diemen's Land, younger and less self-reliant than its neighbour, had also endured convict immigration but had made no protest. It was resolved to direct the whole stream of deportation upon Van Diemen's Land, which was thus constituted one vast colonial prison. The main principle of the new system ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... to Bramah, "Perhaps if I can make that as good as new by six o'clock to-night, it will satisfy your foreman that I am entitled to rank as a tradesman and take my place among your men, even though I have not served a seven years' apprenticeship." There was so much self-reliant ability in the proposal, which was moreover so reasonable, that it was at once acceded to. Off went Maudslay's coat, up went his shirt sleeves, and to work he set with a will upon the old bench. The vice-jaws were re-steeled ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and passive nature now developed an entirely new energy; this dreamer, this pale, silent brother of the emperor, was now suddenly transformed into a bold, self-reliant man of action, who had fixed his gaze on a noble aim, and was ready to devote all the powers of his being to its attainment. As King of Holland, he desired, above all, to be beloved by his subjects, and to be able to contribute ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... age, we regard many of the deeds of our western pioneer as aggressive, barbarous, and unworthy of civilized men. But there is no truly noble heart that will not swell in admiration of the devotion and disinterestedness of Benjamin Logan, the self-reliant energy of Boone and Whetzel, and the steady firmness and consummate military skill of George Rogers Clarke. The people of this country need records of the lives of such men, and we have attempted to present ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... quality of her. He had thought of her before as a wild young creature full of pride and scorn and anger, but with a fine barbaric loyalty that might yet redeem her from her faults. He had never met a young woman so hard, so self-reliant. She had asked no odds because of her sex. Now all this harshness had melted. No strange child could have been more shy and gentle. She had put herself into his hands and seemed to trust him utterly. His casual opinions were accepted by her ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... quite as well in the plain Presbit household as she would have done in the home of the ambitious Caroline. The tasks early put upon her, instead of hardening and imbittering her, had made her self-reliant, helpful, and strong, with a grace like that acquired by girls who carry burdens on their heads. For it is thus that labors cheerfully performed, and trials borne with good-will and lightness of heart, give a power and a charm ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... sponson until she may go out in a canoe. Let her see by your actions that you want to be her friend, and then she won't suspect you of saying unkind things about her. Put yourself in her place. She feels just as strange among you strong, self-reliant, outdoor-loving girls as you would among her friends. You know a great deal that she does not, and she undoubtedly knows a great deal that you do not. She has been abroad several times, and spent a whole year in school in France, while her father was there on business. She paints china beautifully, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... have figured in other volumes of the Series are again presented, though others are introduced. The hero is as straightforward, resolute, and self-reliant as ever. His yacht adventures consist of various excursions on the St. Johns River, from its mouth to a point above the head of ordinary navigation, with a run across to Indian River, on the sea-coast, ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... past, the Cross begins to bend.'" Cuba is indeed a land of enchantment, where nature is beautiful and bountiful, and where mere existence is a luxury, but it requires the infusion of a sterner, a more self-reliant, self-denying and enterprising race to test its capabilities and to astonish the world with ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... were nothing, but the tone was a great deal; there was a kind of quiet intelligence in it. Fleda looked up, and something in the clear steady self-reliant eye she met wrought an instant change in her feeling. She met it a moment, and then looked at her work again ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... quite so gigantic a man as his captain, he was nearly so, and, being a bold, self-reliant fellow, he felt persuaded in his own mind that he could thrash him, if need were. In fact, Jo was convinced that there was no living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death, with more or less ease, by means of his fists alone. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... sent off to Rosario to bring back some more wood, from which to make the framework of the house. Hubert this time accompanied them, as Mr. Hardy wished the boys to become as self-reliant as possible. He was also to hire three ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... hack-author, a travelling portrait-painter, or an usher at a school—had once whispered to me: low down as you are in dark, miry ways, you are on the path which leads upward to high places in the sunshine afar-off; you are not working to scrape together wealth for another man; you are independent, self-reliant, labouring in your own cause—the daring ambition which had once counselled thus, sank dead within me at last. The strong, stern spirit was beaten by spirits stronger and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... many smaller ones, before he was seventeen, young Olaf Haraldson was a remarkable boy, even in the days when all boys aimed to be battle-tried heroes. Toughened in frame and fibre by his five years of sea-roving, he had become strong and self-reliant, a man in action though but ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... own, and turn an obstinate negative to the temptations that lie thick about him, he will never come to any good at all, either in this life or in the next. The basis of all excellence is a wholesome disregard of externals, and the cultivation of a strong self-reliant and self-centred, because God-trusting and Christ-centred, will. And I tell you, especially you young men and women, if you want to do or be anything worth doing or being, you must try to get your natures hardened into being 'steadfast, unmovable.' There is only ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... come of age, and is becoming conscious of its strength and its possibilities. Its writers to-day are, as a rule, self-reliant and hopeful. They have faith in their own country; they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry in the grand manner, and that ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... She smiled easily, and her teeth were white and even. Her hand he noticed was as strong as steel and brown as leather. Her neck rose from her shoulders like that of an acrobat, and she walked with the sense of security which comes from self-reliant strength. ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... individual, is dependent in a measure on its physical environment. The prosperity of the family on the farm and the daily activities of its members wait often upon the quality of climate and soil and the temper of the weather. The rocky hillsides of mountain lands like Switzerland breed a hardy, self-reliant people, who make the most of small opportunities for agriculture. A well-watered, rolling country pours its riches into the lap of the husbandman; in such surroundings he is likely to be more cheerful but less gritty than the Scottish ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... simple, sincere, humble, devout, earnest, fervent, passionate, and over-conscientious young unbelievers like myself had to be very strong and brave and self-reliant (which I was not), and very much in love with what they conceived to be the naked Truth (a figure of doubtful personal attractions at first sight), to tread the ways of life with that unvarying cheerfulness, confidence, and serenity which the believer claims as his ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... of her campfires bury proud cities. But, like all tyrants, she yields to force and gives the more, the more she is beaten. She may starve or freeze the poet, the scholar, the scientist; all the same, she has in store food, fuel and shelter, which the skillful, self-reliant woodsman can wring from her savage hand with ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... Against real character, passionate, determined, and organized, they are less availing than children's catapults. English domination feeds and thrives on weak character. When every Nationalist makes his or her character strong and self-reliant and beautiful, English domination will die from sheer lack of sustenance. If you are weak of will or base in your character, you are as valuable a support to the English garrison in Ireland as though you hated the Irish language and imported all your clothes from Yorkshire. ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... reader how to protect himself against the elements, what to do and what to avoid, and above all to become self-reliant ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... preservation she had struggled so hard and wrought so ceaselessly, grow to manhood and womanhood. In prosperity, as in adversity, she was ever good, kind, courageous, and "affable to the congregation of the Lord." She was always, self-reliant, and equal to the most trying emergencies; and yet, at all times, she had a deep and abiding faith in God, and firmly relied on the mercy and goodness of Him to whom she prayed so ardently and confidently ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... Russian intercourse. They have adopted almost universally the religion, customs, and habits of their conquerors, and their own language, which is a very curious one, is already falling into disuse. It would be easy to describe their character by negatives. They are not independent, self-reliant, or of a combative disposition like the northern Chukchis and Koraks; they are not avaricious or dishonest, except where those traits are the results of Russian education; they are not suspicious or distrustful, but rather the contrary; and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... in many ways if he had but little need of a razor. Seeing other boys so seldom and being thrown so much with men had made him rather old for his years and more than ordinarily capable and self-reliant. He loved horses and was clever in managing them, breaking in many a colt that had tried the patience and courage of his elders. But his day dream for the past twelve months had been college. He had confided all his hopes and fears to Chicken Little. The love between the two was ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... who makes the acquaintance of our forester will fail to admire him; but he is far too self-reliant and warlike ever to be taken for ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... looked them over and saw what a lot of keen, fearless, and self-reliant men I was among, I was very proud to think that I was one ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... the principal characters in Geoffry Hamlyn recall scene after scene in their idyllic life to which it refreshes the mind to return. There is Major Buckley, a hero of Waterloo, gigantic in stature, refined, calmly courageous—a fitting leader of the settlement; Mrs. Buckley, high-bred, stately, self-reliant, a model English matron; Tom Troubridge, the big, merry Devonian, grown with prosperity weighty and didactic in his speech, and thinking of turning his attention to politics; Miss Thornton, the dignified, sweet old maid, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... eighteen or nineteen, who had the beautifully formed bust, the slender waist, and the noble carriage that even young Hungarian girls frequently have. Perhaps the face, with its intellectual forehead and the proud and firmly cut mouth, was a trifle too calm and self-reliant for a young girl: but all the softness of expression that was wanted, all the gentle and gracious timidity that we associate with maidenhood, lay in the large, and dark, and lustrous eyes. When, by accident, she turned aside, and he saw the outline of that clear, olive-complexioned ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... approval. His nature did not readily accept progress beyond that to which he had been bred up; and in border lands like these, an unfavourable medium made much difference to the clearness of the sight. Clement's contempt for what had satisfied his father annoyed him: and his mind was self-reliant, his soul accustomed to find its requirements met by the system around him, and his character averse to intermeddling, so that it was against the grain with him that spiritual guidance should be sought outside the family, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with your grub supply, your cooking-utensils, your personal effects, your rifle and your fishing-tackle, you should be able to go anywhere that man and horses can go, entirely self-reliant, independent of the towns. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... was to prepare an integral American force which should be able to take the offensive in every respect. Accordingly, the development of a self-reliant infantry by thorough drill in the use of the rifle and in the tactics of open warfare was always uppermost. The plan of training after arrival in France allowed a division one month for acclimatization and instruction ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... lead of Islam, and thought and even invented for itself. In another chapter we have seen something of the lasting and penetrating influence of Greek and Moslem and Hindu tradition upon the Western thought, which has conquered by absorbing all its rivals; we must not forget that some original self-reliant work in geographical theory not less than in practical exploration is absolutely needed to explain the very fact of Prince Henry and his life—a student's life, far more even than a statesman's. And after all, the invention of instruments, the drawing of maps and globes, the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... being then used for some more useful purpose than having its tympanum tortured by Wagnerian discordant sounds. Our ancestors might not have been a very handsome set, nor, judging from the Neanderthal skull, could they have had a very winning physiognomy, but they were a very hardy and self-reliant set of men. Nature—always careful that nothing should interfere with the procreative functions—had provided him with a sheath or prepuce, wherein he carried his procreative organ safely out of harm's way, in wild steeple-chases ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... found no consolation beyond this, that they had stood, with leal hearts and true, beside the man who had found Ireland broken, maimed and dispirited and who had lifted her to the proud position of conscious strength and self-reliant nationhood. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... will sap the self-reliance of the working classes. It is very easy for rich people to preach the virtues of self-reliance to the poor. It is also very foolish, because, as a matter of fact, the wealthy, so far from being self-reliant, are dependent on the constant attention of scores, and sometimes even hundreds, of persons who are employed in waiting upon them and ministering to their wants. I think you will agree with me, on the other hand—knowing what you do of the life of this city ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... He will be true to "the colour"; this is his final answer, even if your arguments overcome for the time being. And you cannot help liking the man for his straightforward, self-reliant nature; he is acting up to the standard he has set himself ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... suppose so, but your having to do for yourself has made you a stronger, more self-reliant fellow than ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... heard that many a girl delicately reared was now employed as book-keeper, typewriter, and stenographer, in offices all over the land, and here was one, plainly—even poorly—clad, yet proud, independent, self-reliant, and in every word and look and act, no matter how humble her lot, as unmistakably a "lady" as his own sister. He wanted to stay, wanted to impress upon her his appreciation of the service she had done him, wanted to persuade her to accept ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... be not the words of Dante, what is internal evidence worth? The indomitably self-reliant man, loyal first of all to his most unpopular convictions (his very host, Guido, being a Guelph), puts his Ghibellinism (jura monarchiae) in the front. The man whose whole life, like that of selected souls always, had been a war ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... and emigrate to New Zealand. Wilfrid, a strong, self-reliant lad, is the mainstay of the household. The odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasantest ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... as you have been, crawling miserably about in the sloughs of poverty. Because I have seen the weaknesses of human nature and know that they exist in me—yes, and in you, for all your standing there so strong and arrogant and self-reliant. It is easy to talk of misery when one does not understand it. It is easy to be the martyr of an hour or a day. But to drag into a sordid and squalid martyrdom the woman one loves—well, the man does not live who would do it, if he knew what I know, had seen what I ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... sure that if I told my father and mother of my promise to take care of her, they would make the way easy for me. So when the Professor had kissed the child and lowered her to the floor, I put out my hand and took hers in a self-reliant grasp. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... and blooming Western beauty, I see that she is both a blonde and a brunette. She has all the dreamy, languid grace of the South combined with the verve and force of the North. She is dark and she is fair, with blushing cheeks and dewy lips, sound-hearted, strong, lofty, self-reliant, a true queen of the woods, more stately than Diana, and more vigorous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... wrong? Could she honestly assure herself that Ralph was stronger, more self-reliant, more able to stand alone without the stimulus of constant support and encouragement? Instinctively Darsie's hand went up to touch the little golden brooch which fastened the lace collar of her blouse. If the anchor ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of labor in poultry work must be self-reliant labor and the only test for such efficiency is number of chicks reared and the weight of the egg basket. Even this will not be a complete test unless from the income be subtracted ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... one who pours her sorrows into the lover's ear—yes! I say they prefer such a one to a noble woman who bravely faces misery with proud resignation, who refuses the favors of those she despises, and calm, strong, self-reliant, waters with ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... citizen. And unless he changes as a citizen, he will not change as a fighter. To me the citizen and soldier are synonymous. A good citizen makes a good soldier, and vice versa. Let the American citizen remain as free-loving and self-reliant as he is now, and he will make one of the best soldiers in the world. Let him lose that freedom loving spirit, and he will ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... companion of princes like Petrarch. Equality of servitude goes far to democratize a nation, and common hatred of the tyrant leads to the combination of all classes against him. Thence follows the fermentation of arrogant and self-reliant passions in the breasts of the lowest as well as the highest.[1] The rapid mutations of government teach men to care for themselves and to depend upon themselves alone in the battle of the world; while the necessity of craft and policy in ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... to close her window, at last threw herself, fully dressed, upon her bed. Her anxiety and fatigue had stupefied her and benumbed her faculties. What could ail her, thus to shiver and burn alternately, she who was always so calm and self-reliant, moving with so light a step that those about her were unconscious of her existence? Finally she sank into a fitful, broken slumber that brought with it no repose, in which was present still that persistent ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... four hardy mariners, who were familiar with the Chinese seas. John Bunsby, himself, a man of forty-five or thereabouts, vigorous, sunburnt, with a sprightly expression of the eye, and energetic and self-reliant countenance, would have inspired ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... to study one of his lessons, which he missed this morning. It is high time you were learning to be more self-reliant. I will tell you just how ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... or any other of his subordinates. With views so different, a speedy quarrel was inevitable. Beaujeu is represented as a man full of conceit, of narrow mind, and very irritable. La Salle was reserved, self-reliant, keeping his own counsel. Scarcely had the two men met, before they found themselves in antagonism. Before the vessels sailed, Beaujeu wrote to the ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... looked it over for the hundredth time. He recompared the signatures which he had forged with their originals. Consciously a villain, he regarded himself still as a man who was struggling for his rights. But something of his old, self-reliant courage was gone. He recognized the fact that there was one thing in the world more powerful than himself. The law was against him. Single-handed, he could meet men; but the great power which embodied the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... older than her years, and during the period of time over which we have passed so briefly she had matured both in mind and body, until now at the age of twelve she was a self-reliant little woman on whom her mother wholly depended for comfort and counsel. Very rapidly was Mrs. Kennedy passing from the world, and as she felt the approach of death she leaned more and more upon her daughter, talking to her often of the future and commending Louis to her care, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... "it's a matter of principle with me, Parson Ranson. I think we colored people ought to be more self-reliant, more self-serving. We ought to lead our own lives instead of being mere echoes of white thought." He made a swift gesture, moved by this passion of his life. "I don't mean racial equality. To my ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... feat of his, for they made the officer commanding the two hundred moral supports a C.B. But Grey, it is needless to say, by thus trumping the trick of his opponent the General, did not improve his own relations with the Home authorities. He did, however, furnish another strong reason for a self-reliant policy. Ultimately, though gradually, the Imperial troops were withdrawn, and the colonists carried on the war with their own men, as well as ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... The enterprising, self-reliant, independent spirit which is often to be found among those peasants manifests itself occasionally in amusing forms among the young generation. Often in this part of the country I have encountered boys who recalled young America rather ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... congregation, and certainly twice that number of men from the temperance lyceum of the Catholic church in question. They were all men of the very type I most wished to see on the force—men of strong physique and resolute temper, sober, self-respecting, self-reliant, with a strong wish to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... as Wallie at the appearance of the person who stepped from the elevator and walked to the desk briskly. She was young and good looking and wore suitable clothes that fitted her; also, while not aggressive, she had a self-reliant manner which proclaimed the fact that she was accustomed to looking after her own interests. While she was as far removed as possible from the person Mr. Penrose had expected to see, still she was the "female" who had "sassed" him as he had not been "sassed" since ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... to the ground and disappeared within doors, where some sort of an argument evidently waged warm and furious for a time, judging from the sound of voices heard in the garden. Finally Peace put in appearance again; not the jaunty, self-reliant young lady who had interviewed the tramp a few moments before, but a very sober-faced, dejected-looking child, who twisted her dress into knots with nervous fingers, and at length stammered in embarrassed tones, "Gail says you can have ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Finn. We unprotected females in these days are so self-reliant that our natural protectors fall off from us, finding themselves to be no longer wanted. Now with you,—what can ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... difficulties, and in a marvellously short space of time since the attainment, barely twenty years ago, of the elementary conditions of social peace, they have gone so far as they have gone towards the creation of a self-reliant, independently thinking, united Ireland. The whole weight of Imperial authority has been thrown into the scale against them. Whatever the mood and policy of British upholders of the Union, whether sympathetic ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... paler than it had been for some time and an occasional nervous tremor shook her body. She found herself mentally comparing two men, one, mean and contemptible, with no apparent aim in life but the satisfaction of self; the other, self-reliant, noble, and working for an honest wage. She knew that one was a miserable cad, while the other ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... her echoless silence that she conceived a strong repugnance for all their tribe, in which she naturally included Grace when she appeared. She had decided the girl to be particularly forth-putting, from something prompt and self-reliant in her manner that day; and she viewed with tacit disgust her son's toleration of a handsome young woman who had taken up a man's profession. They were not people who gossiped together, or confided in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... alone in a new country, with the beauty of the autumn all gone, and the rigors of a New England winter already beginning to show themselves, made Marion, self-reliant as she usually was, not a little timid as she saw the tall academy building lost behind the hills, between which the cars were bearing her on to New Hampshire. A homesick feeling took possession of her, and a dread that she might find Kate Underwood's tableaux a reality ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... Gustav Ribsam and his wife, and it was the creed which the children drew in with their breath, as may be said; it was such a grand faith that caused Nick to develop into a sturdy, self-reliant, brave lad, who expected to take his own part in the battle of life without asking odds from ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... abode he preferred; his fame grew slowly and solidly. He became a great personage; he was treated with immense deference and respect. He neither claimed nor desired sympathy; he was as strong and self-reliant as the old yeomen of the hills, of whom he indeed was one; his vocation was poetry, just as their vocation was agriculture; and this vocation he pursued in as business-like and intent a spirit as ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... defiantly. "I say it to myself every day. Once when she was ill, and was given back to me in all the precious helplessness of babyhood, there was such a strange sweetness in it, I thought the charm might remain; but it vanished when she could run about once more. And she is such a healthy, self-reliant little thing," added Laura, glancing toward the bed with a momentary look of motherly pride that seemed strangely out of place amid these self-denunciations. "I wish her to be so," she added. "The best service I can do for her is to teach her to stand alone. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... movement of a perfectly formed figure; and as she drew nearer he kept asking himself (as if the question were necessary) whether he would be able to take away a keen mental photograph of those fine features—the clear and placid forehead, the strongly marked eyebrows, the calm, self-reliant eyes, the proud and yet not unsympathetic lines of the mouth. She came nearer; a smile lit up her face; and there was a kind of radiance there, he thought. He had leaped down from the wagonette: he went forward to meet her; her hand ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... coddle the boy, and his mother, absorbed in her household duties and the care of a numerous family, gave him only such attention as was necessary to keep him in good health. Young Ulysses was, therefore, left to his own devices almost as soon as he could toddle, and he quickly became self-reliant to a degree that alarmed the neighbors. Indeed, some of them rushed into the house one morning shouting that the boy was out in the barn swinging himself on the farm horses' tails and in momentary danger of being kicked to pieces; but Mrs. Grant received the announcement with perfect ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill |
