"Unobtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before seen Mary dressed in this style. On the contrary, she generally wore dark or unobtrusive colors. Decked as she now was in pure white, she had the appearance of a bride. It was, of course, by her father's request; but what did it mean? Did he intend by this to make it known that Mary was betrothed, and would soon be wedded? Such thoughts as these agitated Geronimo as the young girl ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... anything,—much more than he knew he ought to do,—to relieve himself from the storm which he feared was coming. It was so hard that the pleasant waters of his little stream should be disturbed and muddied by rough hands; that his quiet paths should be made a battlefield; that the unobtrusive corner of the world which had been allotted to him, as though by Providence, should be invaded and desecrated, and all within it ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and not too loud, a stringed orchestra sent up a pleasing hum. Waiters, with brass buttons on their full dress coats, went from group to group, silent, unobtrusive, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... blue-eyed, of Grecian features; slim, though well enough for inches, and had hitherto (as the commonalty have it) "enjoyed" weak health: he was gentle and affectionate in heart, pure and religious in mind, studious and unobtrusive in habits. It was a wonder to see the strange diversity between those own twin-brothers, born within the same hour, and, it is superfluous to add, of the same parents; brought up in all outward things alike, and who had shared equally in all that might be called advantage or disadvantage, of circumstance ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... special importance occurred during the years 1859 and 1860 in Minnesota. The state continued to grow in population and wealth at an extraordinary pace, but in a quiet and unobtrusive way. The politics of the nation had been for some time much disturbed between the North and the South, on the question of slavery, and threats of secession from the Union made by the slave-holding states. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... obliged to admit to herself that Roger had very little of the appearance and manner of an uncouth countryman. There was a subtle, half-conscious homage for her mother in his every look and word, and for herself a politeness almost as distant and unobtrusive as her own. Once, when a sigh escaped her as she was busy about the room, she looked apprehensively at him, and, as she feared, encountered a glance from which nothing could escape. She now felt that her assumed cheerfulness deceived him so little that, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... one other, the fourth and last of the male members of our humble dwelling, to whom let me also present you. This is a young gentleman of a very meek and unobtrusive disposition. He never raises his voice to a high pitch, or makes a noise when performing any little job that requires skill. It would seem as if his good parents were inspired in bestowing a name upon him. They called him Lifter. We have slightly varied the name, took a small grammatical ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... dumb I shrink once more within my shell, Where unobtrusive pleasures dwell; True, I shall here by Fortune be forgot Her favors with my verse agree not well; To importune the gods beseems ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... there are the colors of Heligoland. In case the unforgettable fact should escape the tourist, the government have worked the colors into the ingenious and pretty island postage-stamp, and many of our German friends wear bathing-pants of the same unobtrusive tints. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... not unmixed with a sudden dumb disappointment. He was preparing to go out according to his wont immediately after breakfast; for Lisa had unconsciously hit the mark when she compared him to a cat. He had the regular and self-contained habits of that unobtrusive friend. He buttoned his rough coat slowly, and looked round the kitchen with eyes dimly wistful. He was very old and ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... placed in bed in a hospital. On the train the men were looked after by the priests, splendid fellows who never seemed tired of doing all they could for the soldiers. One found the Belgian priest everywhere—in the trenches, in the hospitals, and in the trains—unobtrusive, always cheerful, always ready to help. From the brave Archbishop Mercier to the humblest village cure, regardless of their comfort and careless of their lives, they have stood by their people in the hour of their trial. May their honour be great in ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... is the easiest of all addresses to find, but the hardest of all addresses to remember. He who is, like myself, so constituted as necessarily to lose any piece of paper he has particular reason to preserve, will find himself wishing the place were called 'Pine Crest' or 'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. But his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of the vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real impression. His first feeling that his head is turning round is due to something ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Oliver felt that so far things had slid along as well as could be expected. Elinor's manners in the first place and her genuine liking for him in the second had come to his help as he knew they would—she was too concerned now with trying to comfort him in small unobtrusive ways to be on her guard herself about her own troubles. All he had to do, he knew, was to sit there and look ostentatiously brokenhearted to have the conversation move in just the directions he wished and that, though it made him feel shameless was not exactly difficult—all ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... themselves, into a deeper and sadder seclusion than that naturally imposed by their housekeeping and their historic withdrawment from the bustling businesses of the world. In that silent retirement, in thousands of instances, a tragedy not less severe than unobtrusive is enacted, the tragedy of the lonely and breaking heart. An obscure mist of sighs exhales out of the solitude of women in the nineteenth century. The proportionate number of examples of virtuous love, completing itself in marriage, will probably diminish, and the relative ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... reference to the particular period, or even to authoritative portraits of individual characters of the play. The passions, sentiments, actions, and sufferings of human beings, she argued, were the main concern of a fine drama, not the clothes they wore. I think she even preferred an unobtrusive indifference to a pedantic accuracy, which, she said, few people appreciated, and which, if anything, rather took the attention from the acting than added to its effect, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... The renowned University on which his genius had already begun to impress a peculiar character, still plainly discernible after the lapse of a hundred and sixty years, had sent him to the Convention; and he sate there, in his modest greatness, the unobtrusive but unflinching friend of civil ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pretty game went on. Something in Sara's heritage made him a finished man of the world, while Jim was still an awkward boy. While Jim's affection manifested itself in silent watchfulness, in unobtrusive, secret little acts of thoughtfulness and care, Saradokis was announcing Pen as the Duchess to all their friends and openly singing his joy in ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... visitor of the Bell's, Miss Hart, proved herself a most unobtrusive and retiring person. She was strangely reserved, no doubt, and would reveal none of the secret which she had dimly alluded to on the night of her arrival to Mrs. Bell, but she was chatty and pleasant enough to the girls when quite alone with them. She put them up to many ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... turbulence, and crime. A Government, to command the obedience of the people by its firmness, and their confidence by a marked consideration for their feelings and welfare; a gentry, united with them as their leaders, protectors, and friends; and a Church, winning them to a purer faith by the unobtrusive display of benefits and excellences: all these blessings might have been its own. But by fatal mismanagement, the gentry, those of them who remained, were viewed as the garrison of a conquered country by the multitude, who ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... nevertheless started, and fixed upon the face under the turban a stare of feverish interest. Brigit and the unobtrusive lady with the slanting eyes both showed such symptoms of surprise as must too late have warned Fenton that he had missed his footing, skating ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... profound influence in the development of one's philosophy of life. As a matter of educational procedure insuring that young people will learn to interpret life, especially those aspects that the larger sex-education touches so definitely, there appears to be no more natural and unobtrusive way of approach than that offered by the study of literature. I am convinced that many teachers of literature may be efficient workers in the cause of the larger sex-education, supplementing the ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... ruse of the Star of the West and the deceptions practiced upon the Confederate Commissioners in Washington? He says we were "expressly notified" that nothing more "would on that occasion be attempted"—the words in italics themselves constituting a very significant though unobtrusive and innocent-looking limitation. But we had been just as expressly notified, long before, that the garrison would be withdrawn. It would be as easy to violate the one pledge as it had been ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the falcons knew we would not molest them; the pigeons seemed to think we could not. All was peaceful, and the peasants who sat with us under the cedars on the borders of the park were friendly and unobtrusive. Long after sundown we reached, far from the regular stage, a lonely pair of houses, at one of which we found uncomfortable accommodation. Fire had to be kindled in the room in a hollow in the ground; there was no ventilation, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... once an unobtrusive unit in the army. He could lie for hours and bask in the sunshine with the patient content of the Mexican peon. He could eat frijoles and tortillas week in and week out, offering no complaint at the monotony of his diet. He ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... thus frequent, how very general must be the smaller, and inconspicuous injuries! To one case where positive illness is traceable to over-application, there are probably at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating—cases where there is frequent derangement of the functions, attributed to this or that special cause, or to constitutional delicacy; cases where there is retardation and premature arrest of bodily growth; cases where a latent tendency to consumption is brought ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... of those public servants whose quiet, unobtrusive manner covers a strong character and a great efficiency, was sitting at his table talking to Harold Clancey. They ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... nuisance in a world made for people of five-feet-nine-and-a-half. But he has one advantage over the small man. He does not have to ask for notice. The result is that while the little man often seems vain and pushful, the giant usually is very tame, and modest, and unobtrusive. The little man wants to be seen: the giant wants not ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the index of an unblemished life. In person Nicoll was rather above the middle height, with a slight stoop. His countenance, which was of a sanguine complexion, was thoughtful and pleasing; his eyes were of a deep blue, and his hair dark brown. In society he was modest and unobtrusive, but was firm and uncompromising in the maintenance of his opinions. His political views were founded on the belief that the industrial classes had suffered oppression from the aristocracy. The solace of his hours of leisure were the songs and music ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... till ten next morning. Mary Ellen superintended our baths. We were in a state to behold, she said, and she was apprehensive lest Mrs. Handsomebody should observe my swollen nose, for the big boy's fist had somewhat enlarged that unobtrusive feature. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... traversed the vast foyer to a niche which housed a private elevator. He entered the lift, deserting it on the ninth floor, where he entered an unobtrusive door and joined a group which consisted of the New State's well guarded ...
— The Clean and Wholesome Land • Ralph Sholto
... of the vital truth with which it is inspired; but he perhaps too much tainted it with traditional interpretation and patristical logic. A student's life is always interesting; like a rippling stream, its unobtrusive gentle course is ever pleasing to watch, and the book-worms seems to find in it the counterpart of his own existence. Who can read the life and letters of the eloquent Cicero, or the benevolent Pliny, without the deepest interest; or mark their anxious solicitude after ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... for a long time as that of the first celebrity in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give the palm to Duerer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive colours, but still he used colours; while Duerer,—admirable as he is, too, in other respects,—what can he not express with a single colour—that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he reproduces not merely ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... awaiting him at the railing which divided the lawyers from the lawed, lawing, and, in some cases, outlawed. She was so unobtrusive in her rusty black dress, which looked as if it were made of storm-streaked umbrellas, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... some of the most successful, such as the "Bee," the "Busy-Body," and the "Lady's Magazine." His essays, though characterized by his delightful style, his pure, benevolent morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did not produce equal effect at first with more garish writings of infinitely less value; they did not "strike," as it is termed; but they had that rare and enduring merit which rises in estimation on every perusal. They gradually stole ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the more he discovers himself, the farther he removes himself from the personage of his creation. The quickening spell which hangs over the dramas of Moliere is this close attention to nature, wherein he greatly resembles our Shakspeare, for all springs from its source. His unobtrusive genius never occurs to us in following up his characters, and a whole scene leaves on our mind ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... do so," laughingly remarked the professor, rising from his seat and approaching one of the walls of the apartment, whilst the baronet and the lieutenant stared in dismay at their own watch-faces. The German began to manipulate a couple of tiny knobs which occupied unobtrusive positions in the base of one of the pilasters, and the sunlight gradually deepened into a rich orange hue, then changed to a soft pearly grey, which gradually deepened into a dim delicious twilight in which little was visible save the pictured glass in the skylight above; then it gradually ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... grounds. Thus did he lead his adversaries on, almost like Socrates, only to ultimately overwhelm them in a more hopeless rout. All this in Rome too, in the heart of the Catholic world. Had he been worldly-wise, he would certainly have kept silent and unobtrusive till he had leave to go away again. But he felt like an apostle of the new doctrines, whose mission it was to proclaim them even in this centre of the ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... the towering head-dress that evokes not admiration but execration from the people seated behind her. No woman need risk annoying others in order to be attractive herself; there are numerous styles that are both unobtrusive and becoming. Moreover, the woman in good society has ample opportunity to exhibit her elaborate ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... bulk is uncompromisingly practical and utilitarian; these rows on rows of windows, regularly spaced, and all of the same size, suggest the equality and monotony of obscure, laborious lives; the upspringing shafts of the vertical piers stand for their hopes and aspirations, and the unobtrusive, delicate ornament which covers the whole with a garment of fresh beauty is like the very texture of their dreams. The building is able to speak thus powerfully to the imagination because its creator is a poet and prophet of democracy. In ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... started to climb up onto his head, as expected. It seemed to disconcert Kellogg, also as expected. He decided to teach Baby to thumb his nose when given some unobtrusive signal. ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... judgment and modesty aided him in avoiding the repellent methods of Murphy. He did not wait for emergencies to arise, but considering them in advance as possible contingencies, he exercised an unobtrusive but masterful authority when the necessity for action came. He played an honest game of diplomacy. What others did with Machiavellian intrigue or a cynical indifference to ways and means, he accomplished with the cards on the table ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of the poems in A Shropshire Lad illustrates better than any theory how poetry may assume the attire of reality, and yet in speech of the simplest, become in spirit the sheer quality of loveliness. For, in these unobtrusive pages, there is nothing shunned which makes the spectacle of life parade its dark and painful, its ironic and cynical burdens, as well as those images with happy and exquisite aspects. With a broader and deeper background of experience and environment, which by ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... this nice butterfly and this callous husband, who never intended, but for the War, to come back from his big-game shooting, and who took no pains to arrange suitable guidance (there was a lawyer vaguely mentioned but he seems to have been singularly unobtrusive) for the obviously incompetent spouse whom he professes still to love? I am afraid it will not do. The one real point of weakness in the presentation was that Mr. EADIE could not modulate from the key of agreeable flippancy in which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... regulate dress in India; in fact, they dressed in so many different ways that a man could wear what he pleased without being stared at. Skag hated to be stared at above all things. You are beginning to get a picture of him now—unobtrusive, silent, strong in understanding, swift, actually in pain as the point of many eyes, altogether interested in ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... the factories, he turned east and presently out of Jefferson Street into Elm. He paused at a two-story brick house painted brown, with a small but brilliant and tasteful garden in front and down either side. To the right of the door was an unobtrusive black-and-gold sign bearing the words "Ferdinand Schulze, M.D." He rang, was admitted by a pretty, plump, Saxon-blond young woman—the doctor's younger daughter and housekeeper. She looked freshly clean and wholesome—and ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... too was looking at him with the same strange interest as the medium. Mrs. Stapleton, he noticed, was just folding up, in an unobtrusive manner, several sheets of paper that he had ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a man in the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... idiot of the laughter and derision his babble excites? O, 'tis woman's thrice-beautiful right to relieve and succor the care-worn and distressed, wherever on this goodly earth they fall within the circle of her sphere and influence! To give sweet, unobtrusive charities to the children of want! By gentle words of sympathy and hope, to raise and cheer the drooping souls of her erring sisters; and in dim-lighted rooms, where restless disease tosses on couches of pain and agony, 'tis hers to move with noiseless ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Preparing the children, with Helen's help; preparing herself, in the quiet of her "House of Gods"—a tiny room above the studio—in much the same spirit as she had prepared for the great consecration of marriage, with vigil and meditation and unobtrusive fasting—noted by Nevil, though he said ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... race: the nose and chin too prominent and too firmly shaped; the well-opened gray eyes full of spirit and dignity, but wanting in tenderness and mobility of expression. Her manner had all the charm which fine breeding can confer—exquisitely polite, easily cordial; showing that perfect yet unobtrusive confidence in herself which (in England) seems to be the natural outgrowth of pre-eminent social rank. If you had accepted her for what she was, on the surface, you would have said, Here is the model of a noble woman who is perfectly free from ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... individuality gets magnified in this parochial atmosphere, where everything lacks perspective, and nothing is trivial. Johnny Tilton does not appear to have had much individuality to start with; it was only after his head was cracked that he showed any shrewdness whatever. That happened early in his unobtrusive boyhood. He had frequently watched the hens flying out of the loft window in his father's stable, which stood in the rear of the Old Bell Tavern. It occurred to Johnny, one day, that though he might not be as bright as other ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... On Neville's death the office fell into abeyance for nearly twenty years, during which time the great seal was entrusted to seven successive keepers. Like his grandfather, Henry wished to rule in person with the help of faithful but unobtrusive subordinates. This system, which was essentially that of the French monarchy, presupposed for success the constant personal supervision of an industrious and strong-willed king. Henry III was never a strenuous worker, and his character ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... necessary to introduce him more specifically. He was a man of singular purity, devotedness, and learning. If he had no opportunity of attesting the sincerity of his faith by undergoing stripes and bondage for the Church of his adoption, he developed in its fulness that unobtrusive self-devotion, not inferior to martyrdom, which dedicates to obscure duties the talent and energy that, in the hands of the selfish and ambitious, would be the sure apparatus of wealth and station. He had no doubt risen to an office of dignity in his own Church—he was a bishop. But ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... few days passed uneventfully away, and Graham's armor was almost proof against even the penetration of Grace. He did not assume any mask of gayety. He seemed to be merely his old self, with a subtle difference, and a very unobtrusive air of decision in all his movements. He was with his friend a great deal; and she heard them talking over their old life with much apparent zest. He was as good company for the major as ever, and when a whist played so good a game ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... high-class houses of accommodation, "private hotels" on the Continent, chiefly frequented by English and American roues—Praed kept an eye on her career, and occasionally rendered her, with some cynicism, unobtrusive friendly services in disentangling her affairs when complications threatened. He was an art student in those days of the 'seventies, possessed of about four hundred a year, beginning to go through the aesthetic phase, and not decided whether ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... existence of those social relations, without which, their isolated position involved all the unpleasantness of a voluntary banishment. This had ever been to her a source of regret, and she had on several occasions, although in the most delicate and unobtrusive manner, hinted at the fact; but the man who doated upon her, and to whom, in all other respects, her desire was law, evinced so much inflexibility in all that appertained to military etiquette, that she had never ventured to ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Italian poetry, their total for five years came to eighty-six marks and thirty-five pfennigs! And Schott calmly added that he had not expected so good a result. So it was Wolf's friends, and especially Hugo Faisst, who not only saved him from misery by their unobtrusive and often secret generosity, but spared him the horror of ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... The real cowboys, unobtrusive in their overalls and flannel shirts, teetered around on their high-heeled tight boots and gazed open-mouthed at the flamboyance of the Fred Harvey imitations. Varied and unique remarks accompanied the scrutiny. Pretty soon they began to ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... has an essential influence in producing the effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected gleam from the polish of the furniture. This warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moonbeams, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sympathy between the haughty, imperious Josephine and her mild, unobtrusive sister. Their natures were too dissimilar to admit of it; and yet Sophia loved the other, and at the same time feared her—she was so cold, so distant, so formal, so reserved. Josephine, on her part, viewed her sister as a mere ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Plattner has undertaken an elaborate mystification, on the strength of his heart's displacement. Photographs may be faked, and left-handedness imitated. But the character of the man does not lend itself to any such theory. He is quiet, practical, unobtrusive, and thoroughly sane, from the Nordau standpoint. He likes beer, and smokes moderately, takes walking exercise daily, and has a healthily high estimate of the value of his teaching. He has a good but untrained tenor voice, and takes a pleasure ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... beauty of the landscape, in which, as often elsewhere, the golden radiance of the setting sun is seen battling with masses of azure cloud, has not been exceeded by Titian himself. With all the daring yet perfectly unobtrusive and unconscious realism of certain details, the conception is one of the loftiest, one of the most penetrating in its very simplicity, of Venetian art at its apogee. The divine mansuetude, the human and brotherly sympathy of the Christ, have not been ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... were sisters; that was visible at a glance. Both were pretty, almost beautiful—and there was an air of simplicity about their dress, a quiet and unobtrusive dignity in their manners, which at once announced them to be real ladies. Even the tones of their voices were polished, a circumstance that I think one is a little apt to notice in New York. I discovered, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... sixth century the monasteries, such as they were, necessarily kept themselves very quiet and unobtrusive. They were situated usually in out-of-the-way corners, solitudes apart from civilisation, or, at least, apart from the busy haunts of men. In the eighth century there is a marked difference. The Capitular of Aix-la-Chapelle, of 789, required that minor schools should be attached to ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... for hours. Probably he had never been of a very expansive nature, and prison discipline had strengthened an inborn reticence to a reserve of iron. He was not a disconcerting companion, because he was absolutely unobtrusive, but with all the good-will in the world Babbacombe found it well-nigh impossible to treat him with that ease of manner which came to him so spontaneously in his ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... to remain seated in a comfortable arm-chair by the fireside, holding a book which he scarcely looked at, and watching the long rolls of smoke from his pipe. He disliked new acquaintances; nevertheless, the friends to whom Hermann introduced him found in him a quiet, unobtrusive, and well-informed companion. He pleased everybody. There was something strange and yet attractive in his person; there was a "charm" about him, people said. Hermann felt the attraction without being able to define in what it consisted. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... lived; he was a devout Quaker, like so many of the townspeople, but unfortunately was color-blind; he appeared on one occasion in a scarlet waistcoat, and when taken to task declared it seemed to him a very quiet, unobtrusive color, just like his own coat. Several fine parks grace the suburbs of Manchester, and King Cotton has made this thriving community the second city in England, while for miles along the beautifully shaded roads that lead into the suburbs the opulent merchants ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... you. You will laugh," whispered the two young men, as they passed through the room and took up an unobtrusive position behind the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire—a large, well-made, smooth-faced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... question of who will ultimately marry whom. But by sedulously dwelling on the non-essentials of life, she contrives to remind the reader of its vast essentials. By talking to us skilfully about the many things that do not matter, she suggests to us, inversely and with unobtrusive irony, the few things that really do. Her very message, therefore, is immediately dependent upon her faultless art. If she had done her work less well, the result would have been non-significant ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... you in that way, did he? There are the horses, there is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting Cock. I think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive way." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... household, who were intimately acquainted with his private life. Nor does a man easily begin an ambitious course of deception at the age of forty; having lived till that time as a quiet, peaceful, and unobtrusive citizen,[390] what was he to gain by this career? Long years passed before he could make more than a handful of converts. During these weary years he was the object of contumely and hatred to the ruling tribe in Mecca. His life was hardly safe from them. Nothing could be more hopeless than his ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lamp-black and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual,—that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood,—things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never repeated, which ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... play began, she took her station in the wings—silent, unobtrusive, eager to keep out of everybody's way, eager not to miss a word of the play. The man over her head, busy with his lights; the one or two shirt-sleeved, elderly men who invariably stood dispassionately watching the performance; the stage-hands; ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... gentle spirit came down from heaven to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce and vindictive nature was softened by the same griefs which had once irritated it. When the course of years had made the features of the unobtrusive mourner familiar in the settlement, she became a subject of not deep but general interest—a being on whom the otherwise superfluous sympathies of all might be bestowed. Every one spoke of her with that degree of pity which ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... see the smoke coming through the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... men of the noblest dispositions are apt to consider themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them. Our pastor lent us this little sum of money at a time when it was of the utmost value to us; but it was done in a way so hearty, and so unobtrusive, as to add immeasurably to the obligation. Indeed, I sometimes think that a pecuniary favor which is granted grudgingly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... managing to stare with unobtrusive delight at the girl while she talked. "The frost will soon be coming now, you know; so I want to live among them as much as I can while ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... good by going; and it was not till the year 1653, that renouncing an inheritance, and giving all she had to the poor, she embarked for the savage scene of her labors. To this day, in crowded school-rooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor, and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... towards the Sheridan, he came face to face with Margaret Hilditch, issuing from the doors of one of the great steamship companies. For a moment he almost failed to recognise her. She reminded him more of the woman of the tea-shop. Her costume, neat and correct though it was, was studiously unobtrusive. Her motoring veil, too, was obviously worn to assist her ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... south-west from the village of Chalfont St. Peter, and after a sharp curve brings the visitor to the Meeting House, a very plain and unobtrusive structure, dating from about the end of the seventeenth century. In the secluded burying-ground surrounded and overhung by great trees lies William Penn. Five of his children also rest among these quiet surroundings; and here are buried two well-known Quaker ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... is not the first woman, nor is she at all liable to be the last, to undertake the task of championing a man against the verdict of his associates, and the story is simple enough. With his sad, subdued manner, his air of patient suffering, and his unobtrusive but unerring attentions, Mr. Hollins had succeeded in making a deep impression while they were abroad. Not that her heart was involved; she protests against that; but her sympathy, her pity, was aroused. He had never inflicted his confidences upon her, but ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... brace of serviceable pistols and a couple of stout sword-canes. We will be prepared for the worst. Of course you will sleep here, and hereafter always take up your abode in whatever place I may be. As you return, you must find, in some quiet street, an unobtrusive tailor—he must not have a shop—bring him with you. I must put you in livery, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... in no perceptible way changed. Maurice Gordon saw no difference. She had never been an hilarious person. Now she went about her household, her kindnesses, and unobtrusive good works with a quieter mien; but, when occasion or social duty demanded, she seemed perhaps a little readier than before to talk of indifferent topics, to laugh at indifferent wit. Those who have ears to hear and eyes ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... in beauty and fervour at every sentence. The feelings that had decided his lot gave energy to his discourse, and repressed as they had been by reserve and diffidence, now flowed forth, and gave earnestness to natural gifts of eloquence of the highest order. After his quiet, unobtrusive beginning, there was the more wonder to find how he seemed to raise up the audience with him, in breathless attention, as to a strain of sweet music, carrying them without thought of the scene, or of the speaker, to the lovely isles, and the inhabitants of noble promise, but withering ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... believed that if a person had done wrong, he would be conscious of it; and that if he were found out he would at least try to appear penitent. But in this case my theory did not seem to be working; for my former chum, whom I remembered as a quiet, unobtrusive fellow, met my startled glance with a twinkle of suppressed humor. I confess that such a blow to my theory filled me ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... disposition to take nourishment, and seemed literally to be living on air. It was remarkable that with all this her look was almost natural, and her features were hardly sharpened so as to suggest that her life was burning away. He did not like this, nor various other unobtrusive signs of danger which his practised eye detected. A very small matter might turn the balance which held life and death poised against each other. He surrounded her with precautions, that Nature might have every opportunity of cunningly ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... sympathy, the vivacity, the enjoyment of life, the fulness of activity, bodily and mental, that makes the Lebensglueckseligkeit I spoke of, and the superadding, or rather diffusing through it all, an unobtrusive but deep Christian faith ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... life together came flooding back—her eyes, her kisses, her attentions, her passionate love for him, so pervasive yet so unobtrusive; the feeling of her smooth, round arm about his neck; her way of pressing close up to him and locking her fingers in his; the music of her voice, singing her heartsong to him yet never putting ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... patiently, seeking constantly to find some favour with her, and grateful beyond words when he succeeded ever so little. At first, he could win but slight notice of any sort from her, and that only at rare and uncertain intervals. But gradually his unobtrusive efforts told, and, little by little, she began to take him into her confidence. The first day she invited him to play with her in one of her games was a day of rejoicing for him. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... fellow with the spectacles," replied Fullaway. "Quiet, unobtrusive man, Delkin—but cute as they're made. Know the other man, ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... supposing that Elisha sent his servant quickly, 'if peradventure' the touch of his staff might suffice, and followed in person, because he did not know whether it would. There is nothing unworthy of a prophet who had just confessed his ignorance in the supposition. His unobtrusive spirit delighted to hide its power behind material vehicles, as is seen in most of his miracles; and, if he remembered how he himself, in his early days, had parted the waters with his master's cloak, he might think it possible that his servant should work ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... said she with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... some appointed work to perform, some little niche in the spiritual temple to occupy. Yours may be no splendid services, no flaming or brilliant actions to blaze and dazzle in the eye of man. It may be the quiet, unobtrusive inner work, the secret prayer, the mortified sin, the forgiven injury, the trifling act of self-sacrifice for God's glory and the good of others, of which no eye but the Eye which seeth in secret ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... the keynote of his art is refinement. Quiet and dignified he carried taste through all branches of his art. In subject he was rather elevated, in color subdued with broken tones, in composition simple, in brush-work sure, vivacious, and yet unobtrusive. Selection in his characters was followed by reserve in using them. Detail was not very apparent. A few people with some accessory objects were all that he required to make a picture. Perhaps his best qualities appear in a number ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... Francois, half rising from his reclining posture, while his colour heightened. Gaspard had also started up, and it seemed as if the little camp were in danger of becoming a scene of strife, when Dick Prince, who was habitually silent and unobtrusive, preferring generally to listen rather than to speak, laid his hand on Gaspard's broad shoulder and pulled him somewhat forcibly to ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... consider. As a matter of personal preference, I should have liked the former, but I did not allow any such considerations to influence my conduct. My only hope was that the killing would take long enough to leave time for our unobtrusive exit. At the same time, as a matter of betting, I would have laid ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... she became a widow, Madeline's uncle died. Left alone with her little child, and with no resources but her own efforts, Madeline's mother struggled on, ever the object of the kind watchfulness and unobtrusive care of John Arthur, who professed to adore the child for the sake of the father, and through the baby Madeline, gradually won his way in the mother's esteem. Mrs. Payne was deeply grateful, and her mother's heart was touched by the devotion of Arthur to her little child. So ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... a continual puzzle to her, this man. There was no servility about him, but she had a feeling that he, too, was in some fashion under Mercer's heel. He made himself exceedingly useful to her in his silent, unobtrusive way; but he seldom spoke on his own initiative, and it was some time before she felt herself to be on terms of intimacy with him. He was an excellent cook; and he and Beelzebub between them made her duties remarkably light. In fact, she spent most of her time riding with her ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... places in the long races and the other events which were certainties for their opponents, could hold the School House, Fenn's sprinting might just give them the cup. In the meantime they trained hard, but in an unobtrusive fashion which aroused no fear in ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... less remarkable than servile deliberation. The gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their lives; and except for civility, they bestirred themselves like so many American hotel clerks. The spectator was aware of an unobtrusive yet invincible inertia, at which the skipper of a trading dandy might ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are a part of the Consolidated, to be sure. But the men who promoted those plants and were unable to complete them came to us and begged us to step in and take the burden off their hands." While Colonel Dodd talked he kept glancing, but in an extremely unobtrusive manner, at a huge and magnificent Japanese screen that occupied one corner of his office. "It is easy enough to start ventures in this world, Mr. Davis. An inexperienced man can do that. But it most often takes ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... understanding does not necessarily inquire for the reason of things. I must here repeat that Mr. Lincoln was an odd and original man; he lived by himself and out of himself. He could not absorb. He was a very sensitive man, unobtrusive and gentlemanly, and often hid himself in the common mass of men, in order to prevent the discovery of his individuality. He had no insulting egotism, and no pompous pride; no haughtiness, and no aristocracy. He was not indifferent, however, to approbation ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... The appointment had been made by the great minister, Robert Walpole, for whom Mr. Bedford had unquestionably done some service or other, and of whose son, Horace Walpole, the letter-writer, he had continued from that day to be a kind of dependent or protege, being precisely the sort of unobtrusive factotum which that fastidious eccentric needed to manage his mundane affairs. But now, after this long time, when the King's business was placed in the hands of George Grenville, who entertained the odd notion that a Collector of the Customs should reside at the port of entry where the customs ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... feet in his stockings and tipped the beam close to the two hundred mark. Not one ounce of fat was on his huge frame. So fine was he drawn that unless one looked closely he would never suspect the weight of bone and muscle that his unobtrusive tweed suit covered. Piercing black eyes looked out from under shaggy brows. His face was lean and browned, and it took a second glance to realize the tremendous height and breadth of his forehead. A craggy jutting chin spoke of stubbornness and the relentless following up of ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... boy, just a quiet, unobtrusive young fellow, who talked little but thought much, saw in the discovery of an older scientist the means of producing a revolutionising invention by which nations could talk to nations without the use of wires or tangible connection, no matter how far apart they might be ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... home in this city Dec. 6, 1867, at the age of 67. A long and eminently useful although unobtrusive life entitles his memory to respect. He commenced his career as a mechanic in the steam engine establishment of James P. Allaire, soon after the application of steam for the propulsion of boats and long before its application to ships for the purposes of commerce ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... smile—which was, like some joint stock companies, strictly limited—she liked him well enough. It was something to her, in her monotonous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with August—it was something to have the unobtrusive attentions of Mr. Humphreys, who always interested her with his adventures. For indeed it really seemed that he had had more adventures than any dozen other men. How should a simple-hearted girl understand him? How ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... indifferent acquaintance, Miriam's love, like that of all proud, reserved natures, was intense. Ackermann's attentions to her were graceful and delicate, and he ever manifested toward her in his whole manner that silent devotion, unobtrusive and indescribable, which is so gratifying to woman. It was evident that he understood her thoroughly: whether he appreciated her as thoroughly was another matter, about which I had ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Indeed he had no serious intention of setting out that day. The figure of the lady was small, but finely formed, and her complexion of a clear copper colour, while, unlike most beautiful women, she was mild and unobtrusive in her manners. Her husband, too, whom she had deserted, was one of the finest looking men Clapperton ever saw, and had also the reputation of being one of the bravest ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... trifles which will not bear recital, by some scarcely perceptible change of tone, by an answer given in the right place, by a look of assent when no word was uttered, he gave what at that moment I wanted—sympathy, and that silent, constant, unobtrusive sympathy, fell ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... basket in their hands, which betokened an evening not passed absolutely in idleness. No fear there of unruly questions on the way, or of insolence from the ill- conducted of the other sex. All was, or seemed to be, orderly, sleek, and unobtrusive. Probably, of all modes of life that are allotted to man by his Creator, life such as this is the most happy. One hint, however, for improvement, I must give even to Portland: It would be well if they could make their streets of some material ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... our eyes can pierce the mists of the future, no reason can be discerned why they should not continue so to cleave. The peoples of both countries are altogether friendly to one another. But much will depend on the knowledge, the prudence, the patience, the quiet and unobtrusive tact, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... a brother of John who for many years was the principal physician in the town of Salem. He had several grants of land, and was a worthy, peaceable, unobtrusive citizen. He seems to have kept out of the heat of the various contentions that occurred in the village; and, although his influence was sometimes decisively put forth, he evidently did nothing to aggravate them. He died April ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... in a quiet, unobtrusive way, but it seemed plain to me that Mr Raydon did try to keep us apart, or under ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... I went on to certain batteries of big guns which had played their part in hammering the Austrian left above Monfalcone across an arm of the Adriatic, and which were now under orders to shift and move up closer. The battery was the most unobtrusive of batteries; its one desire seemed to be to appear a simple piece of woodland in the eye of God and the aeroplane. I went about the network of railways and paths under the trees that a modern battery requires, and came presently ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... came here every night to catch a glimpse of his divinity. He was quite unobtrusive, and I was probably the only one who noticed his constant attendance. I learned at the newspaper office that he had called for the rejected manuscript bearing his name,—Ernest Ruddle. Then for a time I neither saw ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... with you. Cetoxa, though a gambler and a rake, is a nobleman of birth and high repute for courage and honour. Besides, this stranger, with his noble presence and lofty air,—so calm, so unobtrusive,—has nothing in common with the forward garrulity of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... only threatened. He was solvent; he had still a reserve. It behoved him merely to avoid the risks of speculation, and to check, in natural, unobtrusive ways, that tendency to extravagance of living which was nowadays universal. Could he not depend upon himself for this ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness in the treatment, both of sentiment and incident, which is not often found. We imagine that few can read it without deriving some comfort or profit from the quiet good sense and unobtrusive words of counsel with ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... attention. There are still one or two window-dressers who lower the whole tone of the street by adhering to the gaudy-overcrowded style; but the majority, in a violent reaction from that, seem to have rushed to the wildest extremes of the simple-unobtrusive. They are delightful, I think, those reverent little windows with the chaste curtains and floors of polished walnut, in the middle of which reposes delicately a single toque, a single chocolate or a single pearl. Some of the picture-places are among ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... partners,—getting into that same corner also, found the best pleasure of their evening there. There was something about her dress, too, that women appreciated most fully; the delicate textures, the finishings—and only those—of rare, exquisite lace, the perfect harmony of the whole unobtrusive toilet,—women looked at these in wonder at the unerring instinct of her taste; in wonder, also, that they only with each other raved about her. Nobody had ever been supposed to be devoted to her; she had never been reported as ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... with those bumping, buzzing bugs, who "put out the light, and then put out their light." Lizards crawl over the walls and ceilings, but they are harmless, and catch flies. I do not know how it is, and it may be thought a strange taste, but I rather affection the lizard. His frugal habits, his unobtrusive manners, and that cunning blink of his bright black eyes, have taken away that aversion which is a natural sentiment towards that species of animals "which crawl upon the belly;" and upon the whole, must confess I consider him, despite his ugly tail, a very proper domestic animal; ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple fact—and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his authorities—and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... visitors, had hastened to report them at head-quarters, with a full account of their having presumptuously charged her with the delivery of a message afterwards consigned to the footman; which outrage, taken in conjunction with Mr Pecksniff's unobtrusive remarks on the establishment, might possibly have had some share in their dismissal. Poor Miss Pinch, however, had to bear the brunt of it with both parties; being so severely taken to task by the Seraph's mother for having such vulgar acquaintances, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... barely three hundred dollars a year—eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Unobtrusive and unfettered, the colony slowly spread. But wherever it spread, it took root. It was a tree which Providence planted for all generations. It was established upon a rock. It was a branch of the true church, which was destined to defy storms ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Fairfax from Greenway Court, by his Excellency the Governor of Virginia (with his coach), by the Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the Washingtons, and many others, for the whole county esteemed the departed gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents, whose benevolence and unobtrusive urbanity had earned for him the just respect of his neighbours. When informed of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond's stepson, the Lord Castlewood of Hampshire in England, asked to be at the charges of the marble slab which recorded the names and virtues of his lordship's mother and her husband; ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is as difficult to write as it would be to describe the dress of a gentleman we had met, who was so perfectly dressed that we paid no attention to his clothes. His style is called transparent, because at first we are not conscious of his manner; and unobtrusive, because we never think of Newman himself, but only of the subject he is discussing. He is like the best French prose writers in expressing his thought with such naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we receive exactly the impression which he means to convey. In ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a more complete reliance upon my own powers, and some of that universal commodity known as "cheek," I should at this present moment have been far better off in fame and fortune. But I have been unobtrusive, unambitious, retiring—and my friends have blamed me for this a thousand times. I have seen writers of no talent at all—petty scribblers, wasters of ink and spoilers of paper, who could not write six consecutive ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... all the qualifications that go to make a good scout. His eye is as keen as the hawk's, and many a time "by keeping his eyes skinned" he has done useful, if unobtrusive, work. Once he was riding in the night with despatches for headquarters' camp, guiding himself by the stars. Arriving at the place where he thought the camp ought to be, he was surprised to find no sign of it. Dismounting from his ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... smiled at him. "What an adorable house," she pronounced; "I wish I could have it near the studio." She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, "Come, everybody has had enough drinks, and show it to me." They passed through the hall, and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusive lamp. "What a satisfactory fireplace!" she exclaimed in her faint key, as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... seated at lunch at Llwynelen, Mr. Trevor plying him with questions concerning his studies and college life; Dr. Owen not a little pleased with his nephew's self-possessed, though unobtrusive, manner. He was pleased, too, to see that he made a favourable impression upon the genial host ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... in gripping those present by the presentation of a world theme backed by a striking personality. In the lounge Mr. Rowell, our best authority on the ethics of the Empire and the League of Nations, went about alone, unobtrusive, drab-coloured, almost insignificant. He spoke to nobody and few men as much as noticed him. He nodded gravely now and again, but never smiled. Both hands in his trouser pockets, he seemed to be gazing at some vagabond blind spot in the room. He almost seemed ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... who had a large family and many poor dependents, should take over Mr. Parker's landed interests; being a native of the place he might succeed in squeezing a little something out of them. In exchange for this concession an unobtrusive Government job was specially created for Mr. Parker. He was appointed Financial Commissioner for South-Eastern Europe, to reside at Nepenthe or wherever else he pleased—unpaid; the exalted social status conferred by such a post being deemed ample ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the straight, smooth, flowery path of orthodoxy; otherwise he might have been a clergyman or he might have been Dr. Knapp, but he would not have been George Borrow. "What is truth?" he asked. "Would that I had never been born!" he said to himself. And it was an open air ranter, not a clergyman or unobtrusive godly man, that made him exclaim: "Would that my life had been like his—even like that man's." Then the Gypsy reminded him of "the wind on the heath" and ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the gate energetic policemen taking the shillings of eager citizens who crowd in to sit and smoke in the cool groves, lighted by inexpensive Chinese lanterns, and to listen to the music of the military bands, now alert, cheerful and occupied. Scattered through the cool groves a few energetic, but unobtrusive, policemen, seeing that everyone behaves as quietly as at the Fisheries or the Healtheries. And (the next morning) any number of charitable institutions receiving the shillings thus virtuously and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... background is an indistinguishable brown. Her eyes have that very delicate light blue of advanced age, wistful yet prophetic. The skin, too, has the rare ivory delicacy of old age, of old age gently dealt with and protected. The light is unobtrusive yet luminous—morning sunshine. The picture is utterly simple; the more so for its touch of incompleteness. The masses are broad, artless. It is tender, reverential, a sweet and solemn glorification of old age, and of the old age of ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... relief into her black domino and took her seat at Miss Jones's side in the carriage. Grover, in the guise of King Gunther in the Nibelungen Lay, sat opposite, arrayed in a splendid helmet and scarlet cloak, endeavoring to make his legs as unobtrusive as possible. The drive to the Schuetzenhaus was not long, and Miss Jones, muffled up to her very eyes, hopped out of the carriage as lightly as Cinderella from her metamorphosed cucumber. The Frau Professorin, likewise muffled, allowed Grover to assist her up the stairs, and was conducted by ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... often saw in those abstracted moods, and frequently saw them wiping away silent but unobtrusive tears. I asked Wauna for the meaning of such stoical reserve, and the explanation was as curious as were all the other things that I met with ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... literary skill is shown in her books of travel, "Station Life in New Zealand" and "A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa." Pleasanter reading one could hardly wish for; the sketches are vivid, and the observations judicious; the style is fluent, and flavoured by a genial and unobtrusive humour. Lady Barker looks at things, of course, with a woman's eye, and this womanliness is one of the charms of her books. She sees so much that no man would ever have seen, and sees it all in a light so different from that in which men would have ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... of their conduct which has been most generally applauded, were we, who are strangers to the strife, to affect a deeper resentment than those concerned more closely. Those who can recollect the former residence of this unhappy prince in our Northern capital cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet manner in which his little court was then conducted, and now, still further restricted and diminished, he may naturally expect to be received with civility and respect by a nation whose good will he has done nothing to forfeit. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... course of their duties, to disturb them, or put a stop to them, was to Olivia like an attempt to counteract the laws that regulate the sunrise. She knew neither how to set about it nor where to begin. There was something poignant in the irony of these unobtrusive services from the minute when her maid woke her in the morning till she helped her to change her dress for dinner, and yet there was nothing for it but to go through the customary daily round. When it became necessary ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... for, and the boatswain's son had no cause to complain of his reception by those whose messmate he was about to become. They, with one exception, came forward and cordially shook him by the hand, and when he entered the berth they all seemed to vie who should pay him the most unobtrusive attention as forthwith to place him at his ease. So surely will true bravery and worth be rightly esteemed by the generous-hearted officers of the British Navy. Pearce had gained the respect of his messmates; he soon won their regard by his readiness ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... tranter and his wife might have been observed standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness to each other, a just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to each, which had apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of their guests, but much to their sustenance. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... officer is a bright mulatto, tall and soldierly, with a quiet unobtrusive manner, and the bearing of a gentleman. As the forerunner of his race in the position he occupies, he is placed in a delicate and trying situation, a fact which he realizes. He remarked that he knew it was one of the requirements of an officer of the army to be a gentleman, a man of ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... is true that this practice may be defended to a certain extent by the example and authority of Milton. But Miss Barrett is mistaken if she supposes that her frequent and prominent use of such a form of speech, can be justified by the rare and unobtrusive instances of it which are to be found in the Paradise Lost. To use an anomalous expression two or three times in a poem consisting of many thousand lines, is a very different thing from bringing the same anomaly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... in a public habit continuing from the fathers down, sanctified by the memories of generations gone, and tender with the hope of the generation to come; and this is of measureless good within such families for young and old alike. It bespeaks also an instrument of charity, unobtrusive, friendly, and searching, and growing more and more unconfined; it bespeaks a rock of public morality deep-set in the foundations of ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... tender vein of unobtrusive moralizing running through his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundly pessimistic and disenchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning and unforced; his sentiment natural and never ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... thus formed a habit of reflection about trifles, which the more gifted amongst them extend to weightier topics. And it is in this way that they are able to gain an ascendancy over man that is the more potent because it is unobtrusive. The average woman sees things the subtleties of which escape man altogether, and she perceives them because her mind has been trained, ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... brought gratifying response—for did not all black Washington know well of the work in sculpture done by Mrs. Samuel Stillings, nee Wynn? Mrs. Vanderpool remembered Mrs. Stillings perfectly, and she walked, that evening, through unobtrusive thoroughfares and called on Mrs. Stillings. Had Mrs. Stillings heard of the new art movement? Did she intend to exhibit? Mrs. Stillings did not intend to exhibit as she was sure she would not be welcome. She had had a bust accepted by the Corcoran Art Gallery once, and when they found ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of him, and she was no doubt too modest to make manifest, feelings which she could never under ordinary circumstances hope to see returned. Yet he certainly had received encouragement of a quiet and unobtrusive kind, quite sufficient to warrant the most favourable conclusions. He remembered how many, many times their eyes had met when they were in one another's company; she must certainly have read the tenderness which had inspired his glances, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner |
