"Taciturn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... company, himself, and even his acute preoccupation and his general lack of the habit of pondering the impression he produced did not prevent him from reflecting that his companions must be puzzled to see how poor Bellegarde came to take such a fancy to this taciturn Yankee that he must needs have him at his death-bed. After breakfast he strolled forth alone into the village and looked at the fountain, the geese, the open barn doors, the brown, bent old women, showing their hugely darned ...
— The American • Henry James
... during which he was completely taciturn, he said: "I reckon maybe this hyeh lonesome country ain't been healthy for Em'ly to live in. It ain't for some humans. Them old trappers in the mountains gets skewed in the haid mighty often, an' talks out loud when nobody's nigher ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... very intimate with the taciturn speaker could have perceived any evidence of interest in that imperturbable character. But Nicol Brinn took his cheroot between his fingers, quickly placed a cone of ash in a little silver tray (the work of Benvenuto ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... disguises, although not to the motives that impelled the plotters. She centered her thoughts on the old, white-locked pianist, who silently listened to all the parties and was tolerated even when the piano was closed; he was taciturn, always blandly smiling and bent in a servile bow. Nevertheless, this was the principal of the conspirators and even the viscount-baron treated him with some deference as representing ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... it his worst enemy, he will slay his foal to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three days, will set him fairly on his way;—and then, by another law as sacred, kill him if he can. In words too, as in action. They are not a loquacious people, taciturn rather; but eloquent, gifted when they do speak. An earnest truthful kind of men. They are, as we know, of Jewish kindred: but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Dick was taciturn, and old Hiram, when I tried to engage him in conversation, cut me off with the remark that I would need my breath on the morrow. This somewhat offended me. So I made my bed and rolled into it. Not till I had lain ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... Birnie, who was taciturn and impenetrable as ever, walked a little before as guide. They arrived, at length, at a serrurier's shop, placed in an alley near the Porte St. Denis. The serrurier himself, a tall, begrimed, blackbearded man, was taking the shutters from his shop as they approached. He and Birnie ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... refugees from the zone of dancing activities was of more than ordinarily striking appearance. When he stood he towered and even when he sat, as now, morosely lounging and taciturn, he bulked large and wore a countenance of such strength and determination as suited his giant body. In spite of his great physique he carried no superfluous flesh, but tapered to the waist and, notwithstanding his present ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Coleman put himself on the same basis with the students, he could cope with them easily, but he did not want the wild pack after him when Marjory could see the chase. And so be rea- soned that his best attitude was to be one of rather taciturn serenity. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... a teacher in the north of France, enjoyed an excellent reputation throughout the whole country. He was a person of intelligence, quiet, very religious, a little taciturn; he had married in the district of Boislinot, where he exercised his profession. He had had three children, who had died of consumption, one after the other. From this time he seemed to bestow upon the youngsters confided to his care all the tenderness of his heart. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himself from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster and station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... appearances, they obscurely copy into their immense sheets an inch or two of complaints, from some snarling West India paper, that the emancipated are lazy and won't work. But they make no parade. They are more taciturn ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of the thing had evidently struck even the usually taciturn and phlegmatic driver into his ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... could have presented a greater contrast to his late violence or the habitual taciturn reserve of his manner. Like a man elated beyond measure by an unexpected happiness, he overflowed with good-will, amiability, and attentions. He embraced the officers like brothers, almost with tears in his eyes. The released prisoners were presented each with a ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... His two strong, taciturn brothers, with their wives and children, his father Pyrrhus, his wife and their youngest child, a daughter, Dione, a few dogs, cats, and chickens, composed the population of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his companion. Lumbe rejoined them at the footbridge which led across the meadows into the Heredith estate, and they proceeded on their way in silence. Sergeant Lumbe's brain—such as it was—was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently; Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the outcome of his investigations of the moat-house murder, that ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... even this excuse for the omission cannot be made, for a stipulation was imposed by Mr. Girard in his will, that no minister of any denomination should ever enter its walls, even as a visitor, though this, we understand is not carried out. For the first time in America we met here with a most taciturn official, and could learn much less than we wished of the manner in ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... Hicks, Jr.'s, dread of dogs, of all sizes, shapes, pedigrees, and breeds, was well known to old Bannister; hence, the Heavy-weights now jeered him unmercifully. Old "Bildad," as the taciturn recluse was called, who lived like a hermit and owned a rich farm, did own a massive bulldog, and a sight of his cruel jaws was a "No Trespass" sign. With great forethought, when cherries began to ripen, the farmer had brought Caesar Napoleon to ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... with trifling offences were commonly kept. They had company, for there were some twenty manacled and fettered prisoners here, of both sexes and of varying ages,—an obscene and noisy gang. The King chafed bitterly over the stupendous indignity thus put upon his royalty, but Hendon was moody and taciturn. He was pretty thoroughly bewildered; he had come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting to find everybody wild with joy over his return; and instead had got the cold shoulder and a jail. The promise and the fulfilment differed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... boy! Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift; Praises and presents came, and nourishing food—till at last, among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but looked on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... endurance. She sings naturally, this woman, when she is alone, vague songs, sort of fugues of savages, very simple, which seem to have neither beginning nor end, but in the company of others she is almost taciturn, replying by gestures, by signs, accomplishing her task with a passive regularity. She scarcely knows the lighter shades of sentiments and expressions. She laughs or she weeps. No smiling. When she laughs, it is with a large display of the solid white teeth ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... fire that night Sanderson was moody and taciturn. He had stretched out on his blanket and lay listening to the men until one by one they ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... these scenes of tears and violence, he had withdrawn to the palace of Thebes, alone, taciturn, and sombre; and there, instead of remaining seated on his throne in the solemn attitude of the gods and of kings, who, being almighty, neither move nor make a gesture, he walked feverishly up and down through the vast ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... an index to his character, for though he appeared so stern and taciturn yet at heart he was, I saw, a very humorous, easy-going man, a true Tuscan who showed his white teeth when he laughed, gesticulated violently, and spoke English with a refined ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... corn, and to feel the blazing heat of dog-days, when not a breath stirs as the languid shepherd leads his flock to the banks of the stream. The sunny pastures of Calabria lie spread before us, we see the yellow Tiber at flood, the rushing Anio, the deep eddyings of Liris' taciturn stream, the secluded valleys of the Apennines, the leaves flying before the wind at the coming of winter, the snow-covered uplands of the Alban hills, the mead sparkling with hoar-frost at the approach ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... as we carry along with us our atmosphere of hearty good will and enthusiasm we know no defeat. The man who is gloomy, taciturn and lives in a world of doubt seldom achieves more than a bare living. There have been a few who have groaned their way through to a competence but in proportion to that overwhelming number of souls who carry cheer through life they ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... horse, declaring that he could, on foot, cover a greater distance in less time than any horse on the island, which Ridge was able to credit after a short experience with his ebony guide. Besides, being a big man and a very strong one, Dionysio was a silent man, as taciturn as an Indian, and never ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... thing needful" (Negroes); and that they themselves had surreptitiously aided in the procurement of Negroes for the colony. The supporters of the colonists grew less powerful as the struggle went forward. The most active grew taciturn and conservative. The advocates of Negro labor became bolder, and more acrimonious in debate; and at length the champions of exclusive white labor shrank into silence, appalled at the desperation of then opponents. The Rev. Martin Bolzius, one of the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... carried this character, with his discharge-sheet, back to Polpier, where his old friends and neighbours—who had known him as a brisk upstanding lad, sociable enough, though maybe a trifle shy— edged away from the taciturn man who returned to them. Nor did it help his popularity that he attended neither Church nor Chapel: for Polpier is a deeply religious place, in ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... paper has never been my forte. My life had been a thing of outward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... one's feelings from expression, or one's affairs from communication to others. Reserve may be the retreat of shyness, or, on the other hand, the contemptuous withdrawal of pride and haughtiness. Compare ABASH; PRIDE; TACITURN. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... counterfeit heartiness, and they drank together. Their talk centered on the Concho. Gradually they drew away from the group at the bar. Finally Corliss mentioned his brother. Fadeaway at once became taciturn. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... doubt whatever that the man whose name is in every mouth did the work; but because our personal impressions of him do not correspond with our conceptions of a powerful man, we abate or withdraw our admiration, and attribute his success to lucky accident. This blear-eyed, taciturn, timid man, whose knowledge of many things is manifestly imperfect, whose inaptitude for many things is apparent, can HE be the creator of such glorious works? Can HE be the large and patient thinker, the delicate humourist, the impassioned poet? Nature seems ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... have two reasons for calling Brederode the Taciturn," said Robert. "He has a way to keep still about things which other people discuss. Sometimes it makes men angry, but especially the ladies. Brederode does not care what others think; he descends from the great ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... however alluring, and continued on his way without a pause. But now, as he had not yet settled down to genuine hard work, he felt justified in turning aside and looking into the matter. The fact that the chauffeur, who seemed to be a taciturn man, lacking the conversational graces, manifestly objected to an audience, deterred him not at all. One cannot have everything in this world, and the Kid and his attendant thick-necks were content to watch the process of mending the tire, without demanding the additional joy of sparkling small ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... these! The wealth of hedged fields—-the lush green grass, white with hoar frost at daybreak—the groups of mild-eyed cows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of sea air, sunshine and Norman country spreading its richness down to the very edge of the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... he may at least snatch crumbs of intellectual comfort if his near companions, tho talkative, are not conversationalists of the highest order; the loquacious guest should be put next to the usually taciturn, provided he is one who can be roused to conversation when thrown with talkable people. Otherwise one of the hosts should devote himself to the business of promoting talk with the uncommunicative but no less interesting person. A wise hostess ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... brings us to the night before the wedding. The lovers are alone, and, for lovers, extremely taciturn—for their thoughts are doubtless far into the bright future, o'er which no cloud is floating. The countenance of Ursula beams with happiness, yet her manner is somewhat abstracted—she is evidently agitated. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... attention. Before his death Lazarus had always been cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke. It was because of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as deprived ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... out, for she lay warped in to one of the wharves, and Ken went aboard and leaned at the rail beside a square man in a black jersey, who chewed tobacco and squinted observantly at the dock. From this person, at first inclined to be taciturn, Ken learned that the Celestine was sailing the next night, bound for Rio de Janeiro, "and mebbe further." Rio de Janeiro! And here she lay quietly at the slimy wharf, beyond which the gray northern town rose in ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... are unusually terse and taciturn. They know their business better than to talk when they should be up and doing; and accordingly, with them, it is just ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Carlyle lived much with his own fancies, and owed little to any system. He is clearly thinking of his own youth in his account of Dr. Francia: "Jose must have been a loose-made tawny creature, much given to taciturn reflection, probably to crying humours, with fits of vehement ill nature—subject to the terriblest fits of hypochondria." His explosion in Sartor, "It is my painful duty to say that out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universities," ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... first at being sent into dinner with him, but she found him disappointingly taciturn. In truth, he had acquired Oriental habits and views with regard to women. If a foolish Occidental custom demanded that they should sit at meat with the lords of creation, he, Maxwell Davison, would not pretend to acquiesce in it. Mildred, to whom it was unthinkable ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... (introduced to Presley as Julian Lambert) with Presley's cousin Beatrice, one of the twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Cedarquist; his brother Stephen, whose hair was straight as an Indian's, but of a pallid straw color, with Beatrice's sister; Gerard himself, taciturn, bearded, rotund, loud of breath, escorted Mrs. Cedarquist. Besides these, there were one or two other couples, whose names Presley ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... never manifest. This subsidiary—let's call him Jay{2}—would embody all the characteristics which you repress. He would be gregarious, where you are retiring and studious; adventurous where you are cautious; talkative while you are taciturn; he would perhaps enjoy action for its own sake, while you exercise faithfully in the gymnasium only for your health's sake; and he might even remember the trailmen ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... light drizzle came on, and the streets became deserted. The hotel was a wretched one and the meal furnished us was in character with it. We were waited on by a sour, taciturn old man who bore a dirty towel on his arm, as a sort of badge of office, I presume. He nodded or shook his head as the case might demand, but not a word could I extract from him. At the close of our meal, which we dallied over, ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... found his guest taciturn, had himself become genial, and now remarked as he entered: "How do you find the punch? ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... years he would vanish from the settlements away into the vast plains of the Dacotah, or into the huge wilderness of the north-west, and then at last some day would walk back into Sault La Marie, or any other outpost of civilisation, a little leaner, a little browner, and as taciturn as ever. Indians from the furthest corners of the continent knew him as they knew their own sachem. He could raise tribes and bring a thousand painted cannibals to the help of the French who spoke a tongue ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... elation as he rode once more over the soil of his native state. He beheld again many of the officers whom he had seen at Donelson, and also he spoke to General Buell, who although as taciturn and somber as ever, ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of the evening we were both taciturn and distant towards each other. In vain Mrs. Ashleigh kindly sought to break down our mutual reserve. I felt that I had the right to be resentful, and I clung to that right the more because Lilian made no attempt at reconciliation. This, too, was wholly unlike herself, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unconsciously mingling with the thoughts of others, so far, at least, as to apprise them of the general character and drift of those thoughts, now, in his turn, wondered why his wife, as well as son, should all at once become so unsocial and taciturn. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... it was pure accident! If so, it would be only because Elsie was there, influencing him against his old friends—poor, bitter, stricken Elsie. Eugenie's lips quivered. There flitted before her the image of the girl of eighteen—muse of laughter and delight. And she recalled the taciturn woman whom she had seen on her sofa the night before, speaking coldly, in dry, sharp sentences, to her husband, her cousin, her ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hysteria is that reported by Gadelius.[24] The patient was a tailor, 32 years old, who had always been rather taciturn and slow. A year before admission he began to have ideas of persecution and to shun people. Then he developed a stereotyped response, "It is nice weather," whenever he was addressed. A month before admission inactivity set in. He would sit immobile in his chair ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... the whole man was faded. As one trait disappeared, no other trait sprung up to take its place. His senses dwindled too. He was less keen of sight; was deaf sometimes; took little notice of what passed before him; and would be profoundly taciturn for days together. The process of this alteration was so easy that almost as soon as it began to be observed it was complete. But Mr Pecksniff saw it first, and having Anthony Chuzzlewit fresh in his recollection, saw in his brother Martin the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... paraphrase; and by these and other processes within a week my digestive silence had passed through a dozen removes, and was incurring the just execration of a whole sex. I began to see that my old college motto—Quod taciturn velis nemini dixeris—which had always seemed to me to err, if at all, on the side of excess, fell short of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... always taciturn, was now painfully silent. His brain, always quick and clear to comprehend a problem in Legendre, now seemed beclouded and sluggish. At length, embarrassed by the oppressive silence, Lizzie endeavored to arouse her ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... was a big broad-shouldered man, with a heavy forbidding countenance, and a taciturn habit by no means calculated to secure him a large circle of friends. His daughter and only child was afraid of him; his wife had been afraid of him in her time, and had faded slowly out of a life that had been very joyless, unawares, hiding her illness from him to the last, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... garden and round the house, almost brusquely. A Spanish bayonet pricked her in the arm, and she made a monosyllabic exclamation in which there was more anger than pain. Usually so gay and chattersome, she seemed now a petulant and taciturn creature. ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... eye shut and the other fixed on the luff of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and praying to his God. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and Nas Ta Bega did not put in an appearance. He observed that the three strange Indians, whom he took for Piutes, kept to themselves, and, so far as he knew, had no intercourse with any one at the camp. This would not have seemed unusual, considering the taciturn habit of Indians, had he not remembered seeing Willetts speak to the trio. What had he to do with them? Shefford was considering the situation with vague doubts when, to his relief, the three strangers rode off into the twilight. Then he went ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery none had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries—if such had ever been ventured upon—had met with much encouragement on the part of "auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... peopled; at pains to avoid the larger towns, he sought by choice the loneliest paths that looped its quiet hills; such as passed the time of day with him were few and for the most part peasants, a dull, dour lot, taciturn to a degree that pleased him well. So that he soon forgot to be forever alert for the crack of an ambushed pistol or the pattering footfalls of an assassin with ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... the termination of its voyage. On the broad expanse of ocean, or, in nautical phrase, with plenty of sea-room, if his bark is in good condition, he fears little or nothing, but when his vessel approaches its goal, visions of disaster arise before him, and he becomes anxious, thoughtful, and taciturn. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... supper, while most of the Strangers slept around them. Those who were awake recognized them, shook hands and said a few words. They were a taciturn lot. After supper Carstairs and Wharton dropped upon the grass and were soon sound asleep. Scott was inclined to be wakeful and he walked along the edge of the glade, looking anxiously at the ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... would not?—against the theory that he was engaged that night, and she had been in a fair way to convince him that he was not really engaged that night—except morally to her, since he had accosted her—when the quarrel had supervened and it had dawned on her that he had been in the taciturn and cautious stage of ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... seashores are great observers of Nature, and her many and varied phenomena. He who deems the Indian dull, stolid and unimpressionable, simply because in the presence of the White Race he is reserved and taciturn, little knows the observing and reflecting power hidden behind so self-restrained a demeanor. Wherever natural objects, therefore, are of a peculiar, striking, unusual, unique, or superior character, it is reasonable ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... arrives, enveloped in a vast cloak, and accompanied by her two nephews, whom Percival Bines recognises for the solemn and taciturn young men he had met in Shepler's party ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... benumbed, indifferent; reckless, even. The nerves give out, and will-power seems to halt on indecision; but decision is the life of the fast train. None of our conductors stood the hopeless fight like Sankey. He was patient, taciturn, untiring; and in a conflict with the elements, ferocious. All the fighting blood of his ancestors seemed to course again in that struggle with the winter king. I can see him yet, on bitter days, standing alongside the track in a heavy pea-jacket and ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... hour this morning. He was taciturn at first, but later he talked freely. He is very much afraid of his father, and he weeps when his father scolds him. This makes the father angrier and he calls Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie. This jeer wounds the boy deeply. He is afraid ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... think a man of such a taciturn, secretive disposition, would have been likely readily to adopt the methods and copy the work of another maker. As has been shown by the reproductions of bows I have given so far, there has been apparent a converging tendency to the modern design of head all through. The Tourte head is ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... fundamental, cardinal quality of my adventure remained prominent in my being, and it gave me countenance among these taciturn, musing workgirls, who were always at grips with the realities of life. 'Ah,' I thought, 'you little know what I know! I may appear a butterfly, but I have learnt the secret meaning of existence. I am above you, ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... apart, but often meeting on the trail which Bob had taken, with grunts of mutual surprise. These suppressed feelings, never made known by word or gesture, at last must have found vicarious outlet in the taciturn dog, who so far forgot his usual discretion as to once or twice seat himself on the water's edge and indulge in a fit of howling. It had been a custom of Jim's on certain days to retire to some secluded ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... and Buntingford had been able to verify it in all essential particulars by the evidence of the old bonne, who had lived with Anna in Paris before her flight, and had been present at the child's birth. The old woman was very taciturn, and apparently hostile to Buntingford, whom she perfectly remembered; ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... there we have honest Hutchins: taciturn, a little touchy perhaps, grown grey in the service of the company, and manifesting quite a bulldog-like devotion to his ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... to the taciturn butcher on their way to Glenford, but she smiled a good deal to herself. For years it had been the desire of her life to go to live in the toll-gate—not with any idea of ousting Captain Asher—oh, no, by no means. Old Mr. Port could not live much longer, ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... smoke bathed, drowned them, and they seemed to sink into a somnolent and sad inebriety, in that taciturn and morose intoxication peculiar to men who ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... times; his critics have described him as a most artful, astute, and unscrupulous politician. The truth doubtless lies between the two extremes. Adroit, ingenious and wary, skillful to plan and strong to execute, cautious in judgment and vigorous in action, taciturn and mysterious as a rule and yet singularly open and frank on occasions, resting on the old traditions yet leading in new pathways, surprising in the force of his blows and yet leaving a sense of reserved ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... dawn. No certain sign of it, however, could she perceive on the circle of the horizon, though all around there showed the whitened eaves of the roof of gloomy clouds. Her companions, too, casting jealous glances at each other in the obscurity, had become more mutually taciturn; and the wind, that during the previous part of their flight had risen, as if to be in keeping with the current violence, had now fallen to a calm; and, proceeding thus, she continued to tell the terrors of her situation, as they alternately glided through the gloom of the clearing, or ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... their head, had shown their backs; at Jargeau, sheltered by the good walls of a fortified town, they had suffered themselves to be taken; at Patay they had fled as fast as their legs would carry them, fled before a girl. This was hard to be borne, and these taciturn English were forever pondering over the disgrace. They had been afraid of a girl, and it was not very certain but that, chained as she was, they felt fear of her still, though, seemingly, not of her, but of the devil, whose agent she was. At least, they endeavored both to believe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... for Newfoundland, but certainly for some part of the coast of America. Yet everybody at the police office saw and knew that England was my object. They connived, nevertheless, at the accomplishment of my wishes, with significant though taciturn consciousness. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... few minutes they were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Anna adorning herself, thinks with pleasure, how much she will be looked at and envied by her companions. She fain would show herself at once and begs Heiling to visit a public festival with her. But Heiling by nature serious and almost taciturn, refuses her request. Anna pouts, but she soon forgets her grief, when she sees the curious signs of erudition in her lover's room. Looking over the magic book, the leaves begin to turn by themselves, quicker and quicker, the strange signs seem to grow, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... exchanged a few civil words on his journey, the spring weather, the state of the war, like two taciturn people who force their speeches; then he became Leslie's property, sat down beside her, watched her arranging her flowers, helped her a little, and spoke now and then in answer to her questions, and that ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... leaving her to a duller phase of madness. That she was mad no one doubted. How long she might have been walking in the misleading paths of wild fancy, whether her insane vagaries had been the cause or the result of her husband's churlishness, no one knew. The husband was a taciturn man, and appeared to sulk under the scrutiny of the neighbourhood. The more charitable ascribed his demeanour to sorrow. The punishment his wife had meted out for the blow he struck her had, ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... bitter to him then. There were so many little things he did not know, and he saw himself, as he thought the girl must see him—uncouth, which it was impossible for him to be, crude of thought, over-vehement or taciturn in speech, a barbarian. The misgivings had troubled him before, but they were very forceful now, and at last he was glad when Mrs. Forel ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... after this. Theo had gone back to her work with a sigh, and Miss Pamela was stitching industriously. She was never idle, and always taciturn, and on this occasion her mind was fully occupied. She was thinking of Lady Throckmorton's ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... eager, loving eyes could possibly have recognised the newcomers. It is not unlikely that the remaining passengers mistook them for tramps. The rivals, morbidly suspicious of each other, taciturn to the point of unfriendliness, had indeed chartered a locomotive—not jointly by intention, but because of provoking necessity. There was but one engine to be had. It is safe to say that while they travelled ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... indifferently on the sofa, with the air of one perfectly resigned to the boredom of life. Something is said by my learned friend who is to write for the new periodical, or perhaps it is the young editor of the new periodical who speaks, or (if that were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of impromptu elaboration. Perhaps it is only a stupid book ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... in an animation and volubility so unlike the taciturn Culbertson that many of his ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... the flattering homage a slow, taciturn nature often pays a quick, vivacious one. It was only when problems concerning the factory were touched upon that his tongue lost its stiffness. Under an unswerving loyalty to his employers was growing a discontent with certain existing conditions. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... flattered his mother's vanity, but Joseph won no compliments. Philippe sparkled with the clever sayings and lively answers that lead parents to believe their boys will turn out remarkable men; Joseph was taciturn, and a dreamer. The mother hoped great things of Philippe, and expected nothing ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... been found by the various search parties of lumber men who had been sent out to cover the surrounding territory. So far as possible the search had been conducted with the utmost secrecy. He had not divulged Tom's name. As the camp was in an out of the way place, peopled by a taciturn set of men who asked few questions, it was not likely that any news would travel farther than ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... out of the town, and in a very beautiful country. After proceeding some distance on the high-road, we turned off, and were presently in one of those mazes of lanes for which England is famous; the stranger at first seemed inclined to be taciturn; a few observations, however, which I made appeared to rouse him, and he soon exhibited not only considerable powers of conversation, but stores of information which surprised me. So pleased did I become with my new acquaintance ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... return from the seaside, 'Arry's term of imprisonment came to an end. He went to his mother's house, and Richard first saw him there. Punishment had had its usual effect; 'Arry was obstinately taciturn, conscious of his degradation, inwardly at war ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... by the contents of this missive. Indeed, it so completely broke a chain of deep theological speculation that he deserted his study for the street. Here he met an officer of the church, a man somewhat advanced in years, whom he had come to regard as rather reserved and taciturn in disposition. But in his perplexity he exhibited Mrs. Arnot's ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... taciturn humor that nothing could overcome; he respected it scrupulously. I did not reply to his questions and he dropped the subject; he was satisfied that I had forgotten my mistress. Nevertheless, I went to the chase and appeared at the table ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... efforts to draw his taciturn housekeeper out did not succeed very well. She had that unsocial failing of reserved natures, silence habitually; and her reserve was always at its worst in the presence of the Captain's brilliant daughter. That youthful beauty fixed her blue eyes ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... fidgeting in and out of his house-door, climbing the little eminence in the field, and coming down disappointed in a state of fretful impatience. His quiet, taciturn wife was a little put out by Sylvia's non-appearance too; but she showed her anxiety by being shorter than usual in her replies to his perpetual wonders as to where the lass could have been tarrying, and by knitting ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell |
