"Unpretending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unpretending volume entitled "Honor Edgeworth," or "Ottawa's Present Tense," the writer has not proposed to make any display of the learning she has acquired by a few years' study, and she would therefore seek to remove, in anticipation, any impression the reader may be inclined to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... costly beverage. It is nothing more than a greenish warm water, innocent of sugar, and often decidedly turbid; still, human art has discovered no food, invented no nectar, which is so grateful, so refreshing, in the desert as this unpretending drink. I have still a vivid recollection of its wonderful effects. As I sipped the first drops, a soft fire filled my veins, a fire which enlivened without intoxicating. The later draughts affected both heart and head; the eye became peculiarly ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... layman's course of study at the college of Navarre, under the name of the Marquis de Chillon, when his elder brother, Alphonse Louis du Plessis de Richelieu, became disgusted yith ecclesiastical life, turned Carthusian, and resigned the unpretending bishopric of Lucon in favor of his brother Armand, whom Henry IV. nominated to it in 1605, instructing Cardinal du Perron, at that time his charge d'affaires at Rome, to recommend to Pope Paul V. that election which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... which inserts his tiny head in the flesh and burrows until he causes a throbbing fester. For instance, I have never forgotten a speech which was addressed to me over twenty years ago. It was just after we had built an unpretending, but thoroughly cozy summer cottage, nestled in a grove of trees that threw long shadows into a silvery lake. The man in question told me he never saw our light at night from the other side of the pretty sheet of water that it did not "remind him ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... silk petticoat, all black, as became the day, sat on the small seat at one side of the door. But Rhoda sat with her face to the horses, while the yet lower place opposite was reserved for Phoebe, in her unpretending mourning. The great coach rumbled off, out of the grand gates, always opened when Madam was present, past the ruins of the Abbey Church, and drew up before a row of six little houses, fronted by six little gardens. They were built on a very minute scale, exactly alike, ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... ultimate law of dramatic art. In the case of great plays, the dramatic representation is most successful from the genuinely artistic point of view—which is the only point of view worthy of discussion—when the just dramatic illusion is produced by simple and unpretending scenic appliances, in which the inevitable "imperfections" are frankly left to be supplied by the "thoughts" or ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... repute by his intellect and industry, and had then, almost at once, allowed himself to be hustled out of the throng simply because others had been rougher than he,—because other men had pushed and shouldered while he had been quiet and unpretending. Then he had resolved to make up for this disappointment by work of another kind,—by work which would, after all, be more congenial to him. He would go back to the dream of his youth, to the labours ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... and has always continued, in the wrong church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a church which, had it been a bigoted church, and not long-suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at present. No! let those who ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... further reflection I have concluded that the little cottage plans which I sent last will not answer. I doubt whether you and Jack have sufficient independence and originality to make a success of living; even temporarily, in a small, unpretending cottage. It requires unusual strength ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... attended his father, but he died in infancy. The spot where the poet was laid was in a comer of St. Michael's churchyard, and the grave remained for a time unmarked by any monument. After some years his wife placed over it a plain, unpretending stone, inscribed with his name and age, and with the names of his two boys, who were buried in the same place. Well had it been, if he had been allowed to rest undisturbed in this grave where his family had laid ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... me an unvaried and unusual success in the pursuit of fortune in other lands, I am still in heart the humble boy who left yonder unpretending dwelling. There is not a youth within the sound of my voice whose early opportunities and advantages are not very much greater than were my own, and I have since achieved nothing that is impossible to the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the thick of the publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer by the cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Life only, but all the garniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even think and feel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given it us?—Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending Volume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren Stillschweigen and Company; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others whom thou knowest not. Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! it was ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... was born, and has always continued in the wrong Church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England—a Church which had it been a bigoted Church, and not long suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different position from which it ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... architecture during that period. They are known by their broad and ample, but low-studded rooms, their numerous windows with small panes, their single chimney in the centre of the roof that sloped down to the lower story in the back part, and in their general unpretending appearance, reminding one vividly of that simplicity of life which characterized our people before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is delightful, by leaving the imagination free to dwell upon their pleasing suggestions. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... words. He was proud, too, and she liked him for it, although she was striving to humble her own pride. What would she not have given to have recalled those words! The Rowland Prothero of London, esteemed and loved by the wise and good, for his unpretending but strenuous parochial labours, his clear, forcible, but very simple preaching—was to her quite a different person from him of Glanyravon Farm, the son of her father's tenant. In short they were no longer identical. As she was no longer the heiress of Glanyravon, but simply Miss ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... make their opponents subdue theirs, and thus prove themselves to be the truest disciples of the Prince of Peace. "Let the contest," said he, "be only which shall serve our common master best, by leading a life of unpretending holiness. Schism does infinitely more harm by the enmity it engenders, than it does good by the zeal it kindles. Controversial ardour is rather the death than the life ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Scotch—a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that I was sitting next to ——, the Great Unknown! It was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the most unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and such an expression of true-hearted kindness, that it was impossible not to conceive a sort of affection for him. Towards the ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... that flower will also guard and protect the hand that planted it." He knew that I had drank deep of the cup of slavery, was aware of what I meant, and merely nodded his head in reply. I never experienced hospitality more genuine, and yet more unpretending, than was meted out to me while at Hartwell. And the favourable impression made on my own mind, of the distinguished proprietor of Hartwell Park, was nearly as indelible as my humble name that the Doctor had engraven in a brick, in the vault beneath the Observatory ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... may displease you; it may offend; but still truth is truth. Offended vanity may blame me; power may frown at me, and pride may call my boldness arrogant, but still truth is truth, and I, bold in my unpretending humility, will proclaim that truth; I will proclaim it from land to land and from sea to sea; I will proclaim it with the faith of the martyrs of old, till the seed of my word falls upon the consciences of men. Let come what come may, I say with Luther: God help ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... merits of prose thought; and it is more than merely legitimate that they should form the criterion of prose style, because within the scope of those qualities, according to Mr. Saintsbury, there is more than just the quiet, unpretending usefulness of the bare sermo pedestris. Acting on language, those qualities generate a specific and unique beauty—"that other beauty of prose"—fitly illustrated by these specimens, which the reader needs hardly be told, after what has ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... or true. The writer has succeeded wonderfully, in taking himself and his readers into the heart of the age he describes. What is more, he has uttered words and thoughts which stir up the deep places of the soul. Let those read who wish to commune with the true and unpretending martyr-spirit, the spread of faith and endurance, courage, self denial, ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... missionary was already so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once a bright ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... ourselves with country fare and looking at the strange place from the window of the little inn. Then Richard proposed that we should walk out while waiting for repairs to our vehicle. Together we strolled through the quiet lanes and open commons till we came upon a pretty, unpretending church, half hidden in ivy and creeping vines. The door stood open. "Come," said he, "let us go in." I followed him in. To my surprise I discovered a clergyman in his robes at the altar. Richard whispered in my ear some words which I could not understand ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... this amiable occupation, and indeed in the middle of a sentence, he stopped short, and his heart throbbed, and he thrilled from head to foot; for two ladies glided in at the door, and passed up the room with the unpretending composure of well-bred people. They were equally remarkable; but Alfred saw only the radiant young creature in flowing muslin, with the narrowest sash in the room, and no ornament but a necklace of large pearls and her own vivid beauty. She had altered her mind about coming, with apologies for her ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... unpretending page shall fill, Their offspring's innocent flirtations By the old lime-tree or the rill, Their Jealousy and separation And tears of reconciliation: Fresh cause of quarrel then I'll find, But finally in wedlock bind. The passionate speeches ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... hold upon me: Proeschke's "Fragments on Anthropology" (a small unpretending book), Novalis' Works, and Arndt's "Germany" and "Europe."[31] The first of these at one stroke drew together, so that I could recognise in them myself as a connected whole, my outer existence, my inner character, my disposition, and the course of my life. I for the first time realised myself ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... southern part of the grounds of Sans Souci, is an unpretending villa, beautiful in its simplicity, and with all its charms enhanced by its having been granted by the King as a summer residence to Alexander von Humboldt while working at his "Kosmos." Near this is the beautiful Roman Bath, adorned with ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... delightful musical composition and though unpretending and not on the level of Gounod's "Margaretha", it does not deserve to ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... again assure you that I take the liveliest interest in them. The modesty of your claims, dear friend, is very much out of proportion with the importance of the services you have rendered. One rarely meets with demands that are as just and as unpretending as yours. Be assured of my sincere readiness to promote your interest in higher quarters, and to do what I can ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... endowments, and so temperate and regular had been his habits, that time had scarcely left a trace on his manly brow; and his fair and well-moulded features had almost the freshness of youth. And notwithstanding the unpretending simplicity of his deportment, and the extreme plainness of his dress, the large arm-chair, in which he now reclined, furnished probably by some considerate matron of the neighborhood for his special convenience, could not have found, in the broad land, an occupant who would have ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... rather minute in drawing the pictures of these two families, because I considered them specimens of what is often to be met with in this country—the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. I have no respect for titled rank, unless it be accompanied with true nobility of soul; but I have remarked, in all countries where artificial distinctions exist, that the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... adroitly as any practised thief eluding the hot pursuit of the police. At last she paused and looked back, and thinking she had shaken me off (for knowing the game well I had hastily effaced myself in a doorway) plunged into the entrance of a small unpretending hotel in a quiet, retired square—the Hotel Pierre Fatio, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle Ages. A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, and, on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which neither aspired to elegance nor betrayed my distress, admitted of my passing from my solitude to a drawing-room without either attracting or offending the eye of the indifferent. I always went on foot; for the price of one evening's coach-hire would have cost me a ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... attended to protect this group from the thronging multitude, but it needed not. The high respectability and unpretending simplicity of their appearance gave them, even in the eyes of the coarsest of the people, an air of patriarchal dignity, which commanded general regard; and they sat upon the bank which they had chosen for their station by the way-side, as undisturbed as if they had ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... probably, than that it was an English institution; but had he foreseen its durability he would have been a greater wonder than he was from having his eyes more fully opened than were the eyes of any man at that period to the rare qualities possessed by Englishmen; their unpretending magnanimity; their fine talents for business; their keen views in policy; the great things they had done in the arts of peace and war, as well as their capability of continuing to accomplish still greater achievements ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... publication of the famous romance the 'Exiles of Siberia,' of Madame Cottin, we have had no account of these desolate lands more attractive than the present work, from the pen of the Lady Eve Felinska, which, in its unpretending style and truthful simplicity, will win its way to the reader's heart, and compel him to sympathise with the fair sufferer. The series of hardships endured in traversing these frozen solitudes is affectingly told: and once settled down at one of the most northern ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... though clearly and impressively conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring incidentally from the circumstances of the story; they are not forced upon the reader, but he is left to collect them (though without any difficulty) for himself: hers is that unpretending kind of instruction which is furnished by real life; and certainly no author has ever conformed more closely to real life, as well in the incidents, as in the characters and descriptions. Her fables appear to us to be, in their ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... successful in the conversion of the natives, that his little chapel could not contain the numbers who resorted to his ministrations: to Father Marest, the first preacher against intemperance; and, finally, to Marquette, the best and bravest of them all, the most single-hearted and unpretending! ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... her devotees were Norris, the singer, and Mr. Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be captivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet boy wrote to her, of which this is, perhaps, one ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... in which Eastern life is 'taken in the fact' with a truth and liveliness of touch rarely found in an amateur pencil. The letter-press is a secondary part of the work,—merely to render the drawings intelligible; and we are convinced that if the author could have imagined a more unpretending title for his book than the one given, he would have selected it. Indeed, the word book is scarcely an appropriate one to use on this occasion; and we may compare the pleasure which we have derived in perusing ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... claim to knowledge, made Nehemiah's scheme seem multifariously guilty in some sort; while Tyler Sudley and his wife, albeit no wiser mathematically, had all the sanctions of probity in their calm, unpretending ignorance. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... to the harbour by way of the King's palace, which is in the centre of the town, and may be known by the royal flag floating over it. The palace is built of coral stone, and is an unpretending building, reminding one of a French maison de campagne. It stands in about an acre of ground, ornamented with flowers, shrubs, and an avenue of kukui and koa-trees. A native sentry stood at the gate in his uniform of blue coat ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... receptacle as you may chance to carry with you in the railway carriage. It costs you no more than a few illustrated papers, and is more handy to bestow when you have read it. As for the contents, they are eight slight stories, in Mrs. Clifford's best manner. Yet, simple and unpretending as they are, they contain the real novelist's touch. There is nature, drama, character, in these short histories, and, above all, that command of simple pathos which Mrs. Clifford has more than most writers. We do not ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... praise, alas! a gift how rare! Artless, and unpretending, to excel! Forget the envied charm of being fair, To learn the noblest science,—acting well! And let no world the seal of truth displace, Or spoil the heart's accordance ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... as to say the simplest thing in the least simple manner. Not Osric nor Iachimo detests the mot propre more than Sidney. Yet again, he is one of the arch offenders in the matter of spoiling the syntax of the sentence and the paragraph. As has been observed already, the unpretending writers noticed above, if they have little harmony or balance of phrase, are seldom confused or breathless. Sidney was one of the first writers of great popularity and influence (for the Arcadia was ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... for some facts of which he has been able to make use. Some anachronisms may be noted. Wherever they occur, they have been admitted, as aiding in the development of the story, and will probably be considered as of little importance in an unpretending volume, which does not ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... German, from Baden Baden, whose life in the New World was commenced as a laborer. He afterward became a peddler of fancy goods, and eventually a dealer in peltries. In 1791 there appeared at Number 40 Little Dock street, the unpretending name of John Jacob Astor, and here the foundation of his estate was laid. Astor soon took fair rank among business men. He was prompt and snug in his dealing, honest and straightforward, and beside this, carried great weight of character in his countenance. No ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Pittsburg occupied the site of the present one, on Fifth Street. It was an unpretending structure, rudely built of boards, and of moderate proportions, but sufficient, nevertheless, to satisfy the taste and secure the comfort of the few who dared to face consequences and lend patronage to an establishment under the ban of the Scotch-Irish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of the Houses the numerical strength of the respective parties was fairly tested by the vote on the Speakership. The Reformers nominated as their candidate John Willson, one of the members for Wentworth. Mr. Willson was an unpretending farmer, of strong political convictions, but of good sense and calm judgment, who had allied himself with the Reformers, and who might safely be depended upon to discharge the duties incidental to the Speakership with judicial impartiality. The vote ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... met in my room and remained an hour. Miss Bremer is quiet and unpretending. Mrs. W. is flashy and brilliant, and, as I usually say when I don't understand a person, a little insane; she had the floor all the time after she came in. She gave a sketch of her life from her birth ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Mackay we have not ascertained, nor have we cared to inquire. His love-songs, however, are exquisitely touching, and among the purest compositions in the language. Certain it is that the poetical power was early manifested; for we find that, in 1836, he gave his first poems to the public. The unpretending volume attracted the attention of John Black, who was then the distinguished editor of the Morning Chronicle. Ever ready to recognise genius wherever it could be found, and always prepared to lend a hand to lift into light the unobtrusive ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... diamonds, embroidered uniforms, and long white ostrich-plumes. Not on them, however, were the eyes of the crowd fixed; they gazed only at that grave, pale man, who rode by himself at the head of the dazzling suite. He wore no orders, no golden epaulettes, no ostrich-plumes. Plain and unpretending was his green uniform with its white facings; unadorned was his small three-cornered hat. He sat carelessly and proudly on his magnificent charger, which, prancing and rearing, seemed to greet the crowd. The rider's features were as immovable as if made of stone; his eyes ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... vases for the oecus, the exedra, and the wings, and enough of lamps to hang up; enough of candelabra to place in the saloons. Stretch carpets over the costly mosaic pavements and even over the simple opus signinum (a mixture of lime and crushed brick) which covered the floor of the unpretending chambers with a solid incrustation. Above all, replace the ceilings and the roofs, and then the doors and draperies; in fine, revive upon all these walls—the humblest as well as the most splendid—the bright and vivid pictures now effaced. What light, and what a gay impression! ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... be made the road to heaven. Many a man who was unaffected by what the minister said has been captured for God by the Christian word of an unpretending layman ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... my book of ornithology in vain, to find out the name of this kindly little bird, who certainly deserves honor and favor far beyond his modest pretensions. He comes like the lowly violet, the most unpretending, but welcomest of flowers, breathing the sweet promise of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... greatest crown on earth dreamed her childish dreams, and from which she was hastily aroused one June morning to be saluted as Queen. So homelike and livable an air pervades the place, that one almost expects to see the lonely little girl of seventy years ago playing about the unpretending chambers. ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... conceited enough to attribute her reserve to the awe which he fancied his "elegant presence" inspired! If Ella with all her wealth and beauty placed an invaluable estimate upon his attentions, why should not her unpretending sister be equally in love with him? And the young dandy stroked his mustache with his white fingers, and wondered what Ella Campbell would say if she knew how much her sister admired him, and how very nearly ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... before a handsome flight of steps, with two magnificent camphor-trees on either side. The gate at the top being thrown open, we all entered the unpretending yet clean abode of the governor. A few inferior officers were sitting or standing about in the vestibule. They saluted us with a careless air, and one of them then announced our arrival, when the vice-governor, or one of the principal officers, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... black whiskers under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames. But the first time he addressed the waiter sharply as 'steward' we knew him at once for a sailor as ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Sulpice; this is why it has never attached any importance to literature, excluding it almost entirely. The rule of the St. Sulpice Company is to publish everything anonymously, and to write in the most unpretending and retiring style possible. They see clearly the vanity, and the drawbacks of talent, and they will have none of it. The word which best characterises them is mediocrity, but then their mediocrity is systematic ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... tyranny or cruelty in any form. He entertained a love for the horse in the stable without bowing down to worship the stage-coachmen, the jockeys, and other ignoble heroes of "horsey" life. He loved his country and "the quiet, unpretending Church of England." He was ready to exalt the obsolescent fisticuffs and the "strong ale of Old England," but he was not blind either to the drunkenness or to the overbearing brutality which he had reason to fear might be held to disfigure the ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... districts of Morlaix and Brest. The Pays de Leon is remarkable for the number of its religious monuments, its fine churches, its bone-houses, calvaries, way-side crosses, and shrines. Crosses are set up in every direction, and of every description, from the plain unpretending simple cross of wood or stone, to the huge crosses flaunting in green paint, with tears of gold—specimens of the taste of the maire or priest of the district. No Breton passes the sacred symbol without kneeling to salute it, and making the sign of the cross—evidence ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... cottage clean and comfortable, presided over by an evidently clever wife. He took me into his sitting-room, where I inspected his drawings of the sun-spots, made in colour on a large scale. In all his statements he was perfectly modest and unpretending. The following is his story, so far as I can recollect, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... the cardinal de Richelieu figure. A large and notable company is present, among them many high civil functionaries, but the charge d'affaires is not there. In the billiard-room the honorable minister of finance plays a game with the honorable minister of the interior. They are both of unpretending manners, polite and affable, and during the pauses of the game they call for and drink their beer in true democratic fashion. M. Forgues learns that his charge lives two leagues out of town, and, hugging his exasperating valise—which, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... Birney, George Thompson, Theodore, or Angelia Weld, Joseph and Thankful Southwick were quietly looking about for such of the anti-slavery brothers and sisters as were too little known to be likely to receive invitations. Always kindly unpretending, clear-sighted to perceive the right, and faithful in following it wherever it might lead. They were upright in all their dealings with the world, tender and true in the relations of private life and the memory they have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... complacency the neat artisanne's cap on the brows of a respectable young Frenchwoman. This cap is made of some opaque white substance, tender yet solid, and the theory of its existence is that it should be stainless and incapable of disturbance. It is the badge of an order, the sign of unpretending industry. The personage who wears it does not propose to look like a "dame:" she contentedly crowns herself with the tiara of her rank. Long generations of unaspiring humility have bequeathed her this soft and candid sign of distinction: as her turn ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... friend of the family, to visit him. We get an interesting little picture of a Roman of the upper class on a tour. "At dawn he would send on a baker and a cook to the place which he intended to visit. These would enter the town in a most unpretending fashion, and if their master did not happen to have a friend or acquaintance in the place, would betake themselves to an inn, and there prepare for their master's accommodation without troubling any one. It was ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... custom-house, an unpretending wooden structure, our luggage was carefully overhauled by a courteous officer, attired in spotless, light-blue linen. Passing through the building I emerged on the street where crowds of negroes, Cuban and foreigners were engaged in smoking, chatting, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... that he had access to the best existing authorities on his subject. Besides the public chronicles and the archives of his own house, he is said to have drawn on Greek sources. Niebuhr, also, takes a high view of his merits; and the unpretending form in which he clothed his work, merely a bare statement of events without any attempt at literary decoration, inclines us to believe that so far as national prejudices allowed, he endeavoured to represent faithfully the facts ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... times its present length, we should have read it to the end with the same interest which its perusal inspired, and arrived, with the same regret that there was not more of it, at its last page. It is simple and unpretending, but as life-like and spirited as any collection of descriptive sketches which we can recall. We realize in it all the vexations of mud, all the horrors of blood, and all the joys of occasional chickens and a good night's rest, which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had the "air noble," which he valued far above beauty. "And where she got it from, Miriam, is sufficiently plain," he said, one day, glancing at me with undisguised admiration as he spoke. "Her mother was simple and unpretending enough, Heaven above knows, but you Monforts, and you, especially, Miriam, are truly distingue, which is a word that cannot often be justly applied in any land to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... vowed to the night, "or I'll die!" She made plans and estimated means and resources. These and her general preparations had perhaps a certain disproportion. She had a gold watch, a very good gold watch that had been her mother's, a pearl necklace that was also pretty good, some unpretending rings, some silver bangles and a few other such inferior trinkets, three pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her dress and book allowance and a few good salable books. So equipped, she proposed to set up a separate ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... the guests, and exchanging with them the salutations and commonplaces of the evening. Mrs. Elwood, though not beautiful, nor even handsome, was yet every way a comely woman; and the quiet dignity and the unpretending simplicity of her manner, together with a certain intelligent and appreciating cast of countenance, which always rested on her placid, features, seldom failed to impress those who approached her with feelings of kindness ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... a great simplicity of manners. The dress of the upper classes was wonderfully plain and unpretending, presenting little variety and scarcely any ornament. The grandee wore, indeed, an elaborate wig, it being imperative on all men to shave the head for the sake of cleanliness. But otherwise, his costume was of the simplest and the scantiest. Ordinarily, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... this service was a small party, commanded by Stawarth Bolton, a captain in the English army, and full of the blunt and unpretending gallantry and generosity which has so often distinguished that nation. Resistance was in vain. Elspeth Brydone, when she descried a dozen of horsemen threading their way up the glen, with a man at their head, whose scarlet ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Lady Bulwer Lytton,—and who sat rather impatiently at the feet of her eccentric 'Gamaliel.' Miss Emma Roberts was one of the favored ladies, and Miss Spence (who, like all 'Leo-hunters,' delighted in novelty) had just caught the author of 'The Mummy,' Jane Webb, who was as gentle and unpretending then as she was in after-years, when, laying aside romance for reality, she became a great helper of her husband, Mr. London, in his laborious and valuable works. When I heard Miss Benger was there, in her historic turban, I thought how fortunate that I had remained at home! I had always ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Italy. It is true that the population of Germany is increasing with immense rapidity, and that the question of expansion is becoming a burning one; but it is a question quite outside the strictly home politics of this unpretending chronicle. We are only concerned with the obvious fact that Germans settle in far countries in much smaller numbers than we do, and that those who go abroad mostly choose the British flag and avoid their own. It does not occur as easily ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... "He was two distinct men," wrote Elwin to John Murray the elder, in 1876, "and the one man quite dissimilar from the other. To see him in company I should not have recognised him for the friend with whom I was intimate in private. Then he was quiet, natural, unpretending, and most agreeable, and in the warmth and generosity of his friendship he had no superior. Sensitive as he was in some ways, there was no man to whom it was easier so speak with perfect frankness. He always bore it with gentle ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... that of inciting himself to the more perfect love of God, and strengthening himself in the hope of enjoying the good things of Heaven, and resisting the attacks of the tempter, who strove to dissuade him from the holy exercise of prayer. Living thus in great simplicity among his unpretending brethren, he disguised under a plain exterior the vast light he received from Heaven; but by that humility he deserved to be brought forward for the accomplishment of the designs of Providence, who generally prepares those in secret, whom ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... heart of that despised and neglected one. For he had discovered that, in his visits to his aunt, Amos had found the pearl of great price, and the old man's heart leapt for joy, for he himself was a true though unpretending follower of his Saviour. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... writing at our head-court of freeholders—a set of quiet, unpretending, but sound-judging country gentlemen, and whose opinions may be very well taken as a fair specimen of those men of sense and honor, who are not likely to be dazzled by literary talent, which {p.165} lies out of their beat, and who, therefore, cannot be of partial counsel in the cause; and I never ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... was so prudently disposed that, for the last decade of his life, he made it a rule never to spend a farthing of his wages. Mrs. Peckover at that time kept a small beer-shop in Rosoman Street—small and unpretending in appearance, but through it there ran a beery Pactolus. By selling the business shortly after her husband's death, Mrs. Peckover realised a handsome capital. She retired into private life, having a strong sense of personal dignity, and feeling it necessary to devote herself ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... advance escape before you, and a happy and grateful community rise up in their clustering cities, towns, and villages, impede your way with demonstrations of respect and kindness, and convert your unpretending journey into a triumphal progress. Such honors frequently attend public functionaries, and such an one may sometimes find it difficult to determine how much of the homage he receives is paid to his own worth, how much proceeds from the habitual reverence of good republican citizens ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... quite a sensation when she came down dressed for church on Christmas Day in a dark blue velvet jacket, deeply trimmed with silver fox, and a hat and muff en suite, matching with her serge dress, and though unpretending, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is it anyhow? ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... that Ludovico often did doubt very much whether Paolina really loved him. He did not understand the position in which they stood towards each other at all. Here was a little utterly unpretending artist, dependent on no one but herself, owing no duty to any one, to whom he had been making love for the last eight months, as he had never in his life made love before, who assured him that she loved him; how was it that she had not been his mistress months and months ago? How to account ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... hair; a false step ruining all. With a generosity that would have rendered a Roman illustrious throughout all time, but which, in the career of one so simple and humble, would have been forever lost to the world but for this unpretending legend, Deerslayer threw all his force into a desperate effort, shoved the canoe off with a power that sent it a hundred feet from the shore, as it might be in an instant, and fell forward into the lake, himself, face downward; his assailant ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the old Belgian cities. Mrs. Eyrecourt is so eager to get away from them that she backs me in hurrying the marriage, and even consents, sorely against the grain, to let the wedding be celebrated at Brussels in a private and unpretending way. She has only stipulated that Lord and Lady Loring (old friends) shall be present. They are to arrive tomorrow, and two days afterward ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... to their theories, that they have never been able in any way to shake the confidence of the Scottish public in the stability of their national bankers. It was no use drawing invidious comparisons between a weighty glittering guinea, fresh started from the mint of Mammon, and the homely unpretending well-thumbed issue of the North; it was no use hinting that a system which professed to dispense with bullion must of necessity be a mere illusion, which would go down with the first blast of misfortune, as easily as its fragile notes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... which separates man's intelligence from that of the brutes; and, according to their general custom, they gave utterance to much foolishness before resolving upon the only course possible for them to take,—observation. It was reserved for an unpretending savant—who perhaps did not pride himself on his philosophy—to put an end to the interminable controversy by a simple distinction; but one of those luminous distinctions which are worth more than systems. Frederic Cuvier ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... he had entirely wandered; and now, steering vaguely west, it was his luck to light upon an unpretending street, which presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the midst. Here was quite a stir of birds; even at that hour, the shadow of the leaves was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere of cities, there was something brisk and rural in the air; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... also found at Blenheim, in Oxfordshire, when it was visited by Dr. Johnson, as may be seen in "Boswell."] As my father always retained a town-house in Manchester (somewhere in Fountain-street), and, though a plain, unpretending man, was literary to the extent of having written a book, all things were so arranged that there was no possibility of any commercial mementos ever penetrating to the rural retreat of his family; such mementos, I mean, as, by reviving painful recollections ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... his absence, Alette was to pay a visit to her uncle in Hallingdal; but, according to Mrs. Astrid's wish, she yet spent another week at Semb. During these days, Alette and Susanna became better friends, for Alette was touched involuntarily by Susanna's unwearied and unpretending attentions, and besides this, she found in her such a frank mind and such cordial sympathy, that she could not deny herself the pleasure of communicating much of that which lived in the heart of the ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... compelling, her mouth was firm and bright; and her hair, her father often said, resembled the fire at the top of Shadrach. Howat knew that she was as impersonal, as essentially unstirred, as himself; but he had a clear doubt of Mrs. Gilkan. The latter was too anxious to welcome him to their unpretending home; she obviously moved to throw Fanny and himself together, and to disparage such suits as honest Dan Hesa's. He wondered if the older woman thought he might marry her daughter. And wondering he came to the conclusion ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... statements of religion acquire a singular and living force when we perceive them carried out and realised in the actual affairs of life in a degree to which our personal experience is a stranger. Influenced as human nature is by example, these unpretending narratives, whose whole strength lies in the facts which they record, and not in the art of the biographer, undeniably strike the mind with an almost supernatural force. They enchain the attention; they compel us to say, Are these things true? Are these things possible? Is ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... wish I could speak English better; but you understand me, sir." We rowed off with many vivas, and this poor mason's "hopes" that we "might find all square at home." At home! Oh, that we had a home!!—an unassuming wife—placens et tacens uxor; an unpretending house, with a comfortable guest-chamber; and no noiseless nursery, unfendered and uncared for! But the bells of Messina, all let loose together, interrupt our pleasing reverie, and our friends, who have been hovering round us in a boat, are now permitted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... drawers, beautifully grained and well polished, four chairs of the same wood, a large table with one of those green cloth covers sometimes seen in country cottages, a straw-bottom armchair, with a footstool—such was the unpretending furniture. There was, too, in the recess in one of the windows, the cage of the two canaries, faithful companions of Miss Dimpleton. By one of those notable inventions which arise only in the minds of poor people, the cage ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... tripped away before me, and we soon reached the churchyard. She pointed out an unpretending white little slab of stone in a quiet corner, with a number of wild-flowers growing round it, and then, looking up into my face with an earnest, commiserating look, she nodded and ran off. I walked up to the stone ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... not many minutes later, this spring wagon stopped, was not a fine old family mansion like that of Midbranch, but it was a comfortable dwelling, though an unpretending one. The gentleman on the back seat, and the driver, who was an elderly negro, both turned toward the hall door, which was open and lighted by a lamp within, as if they expected some one to come out on the porch. But nobody came, and, after ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... dress worn by the Greek sailors; on his breast hung a silver medal with the figure of the Virgin Mary, and his scarf was as costly as those worn by rich lords. Every one could see that we were about to perform a solemn ceremony. When we entered the little, unpretending church, the evening sunlight streamed through the open door on the burning lamp, and glittered on the golden picture frames. We knelt down together on the altar steps, and Anastasia drew near and stood beside us. A long, white garment fell in graceful ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... eyes of the law rendered them almost a negative factor in the later life of New England. No great movement can be traced to their initiation, no great leader to birth within their borders, and no great work of art, literature, or scholarship to those who belonged to this unpretending company. The Pilgrim Fathers stand rather as an emblem of virtue than a moulding force in the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... of humour, though in other respects he was simple and unpretending. He was a great reader of old-fashioned novels, which indeed in those days were the only works of the kind to be met with. The Arabian Nights, Robinson crusoe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and such like, were his favourites, and gave a ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Compare this unpretending youth to one of Bulwer's heroes, or Disraeli's, or even Thackeray's! And his simple old duke of a father and his dowdy old duchess of a mother are almost as devoid of swagger as himself; they seem to apologise for their very existence, if we may trust ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... after me.——When it has dwelt all Day long upon the Ear, It takes Possession, all Night, of the Fancy.——It has Witchcraft in every Page of it: but it is the Witchcraft of Passion and Meaning. Who is there that will not despise the false, empty Pomp of the Poets, when he observes in this little, unpretending, mild Triumph of Nature, the whole Force of Invention and Genius, creating new Powers of Emotion, and transplanting Ideas of Pleasure into that unweeded low Garden the Heart, from the dry ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... pattern. The ties of these varied with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat, unpretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant, flyaway, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His coats were of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets outside, and generally either Oxford ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of gratifying her inquiries, would scarce have had power enough to induce Julian to repeat his visits to the lonely glen; but Deborah had a companion—a lovely girl—bred in solitude, and in the quiet and unpretending tastes which solitude encourages—spirited, also, and inquisitive, and listening, with laughing cheek, and an eager eye, to every tale which the young angler brought from the town ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott |
