"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the first time he had mentioned her. His voice was coldly aloof, but his hand began moving restlessly again over his coat in search of an ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... enacting and administering the laws. The judges are not chosen to represent the people in this sense. Their function is to interpret the laws. The legislators are responsible for the laws; the judges for the spirit in which they interpret and enforce the laws. We stand aloof from the reckless agitators who would make the judges mere pliant tools of popular prejudice and passion; and we stand aloof from those equally unwise partisans of reaction and privilege who deny the proposition that, inasmuch as judges are chosen to serve the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... pounds if somebody would beat him," muttered the discontented parson within Yorke's hearing, who was standing aloof with his cigar watching ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... which ever and anon it hung with a silken web, that by the next morn, would glitter with a thousand dew drops. "And, so," said he fancifully, "does Love lead forth its numberless creations, making the air its path and empire; ascending aloof at its wild will, hanging its meshes on every bough, and bidding the common grass break into a fairy lustre at the beam of ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man and nature are indissolubly joined. Things are ultimates, and they never look beyond their sphere. The presence of Reason mars this faith. The first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses, which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat. Until this higher agency intervened, the animal eye sees, with wonderful accuracy, sharp outlines and colored surfaces. When the eye of Reason opens, to outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression. These proceed from imagination and affection, and ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... came into contact with dark-skinned races of inferior vigour and individual power, made a point of holding aloof, so far as the more important social points were concerned. Thus in India and in Africa the gulf between the white and the black has continued unbridged. The representatives of the British have remained as a governing race, relying upon the strict justice of their rule for ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... in the cathedral, and by his mild and persuasive eloquence persuaded them to preserve the peace. FitzOsbert, finding himself deserted, clove the head of the man sent to arrest him, and shut himself up in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow. His followers kept aloof, and a three-days' siege was ended by the church being set on fire. On his attempt to escape he was severely wounded by the son of the man he had killed, was dragged away, and burned alive. But his memory was long cherished by the poor. Paul's ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... round by any Halfway! If he takes a fancy to come here by it, and strikes your tracks as you two came into Skunk's Misery, the rest wouldn't take him long! I believe—hang on a minute, while I speak to Baker!" He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the dark of the cave where Baker stood aloof. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... summoned at Pisa, which from the beginning bore a very inauspicious aspect, and promised little success to had adherents. Except a few French bishops, who unwillingly obeyed the king's commands in attending the council, all the other prelates kept aloof from an assembly which they regarded as the offspring of faction, intrigue, and worldly politics. Even Pisa, the place of their residence, showed them signs of contempt; which engaged them to transfer their session ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... not told her mother of her new friend. She had wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her mother ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... take part. From photographs I have seen and from what I have heard I believe that the Crown Prince entered cheerfully into the student life of the place and lived on terms of college equality with his brothers of the "Borussia" corps. These corps members, however, hold themselves aloof from other students. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the time, they all lived in the same quarter and were well known to each other—were persuaded or compelled to belong to the Guild. Here religion stepped in, for every Guild had its own patron saint, and if a craftsman stood aloof, he lost the protection and incurred the displeasure of that saint, so that, apart from considerations of the common weal, terror of how the offended saint might punish the blackleg forced men to join. Thus, St. George protected ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... only one to be blamed. Consciously or unconsciously those about him have been helping by their own carelessness and indolence, by cowardice, by indifference to right and wrong. By a thousand subtle influences we help our brother to disobey God; and when he is found out we stand aloof and raise an outcry against him. God has made every one of us his ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... was quite determined to hold myself absolutely aloof from everything in the most remote degree savouring of participation in this mad scheme, for many reasons; but I had no objection to the dropping of a hint to Polson now and then, for I considered that by so doing I should strengthen my influence with him. I wanted ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... worked at his surveyor's tasks in the lonely forests; that he knew all the roughness, all the hardships, all the adventure, all the variety of the common life of that day; and that if he stood a little stiffly in this place, if he looked a little aloof, it was because life had dealt hardly with him? All his sinews had been stiffened by the rough work of making America. He was a man of the people, whose touch had been with them since the day he saw the light first in the old Dominion of Virginia. And the men who came after ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... to do with this charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the Company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for us passively to bear with oppressions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... stand aloof, speak what I think, but not often, nor too soon. I will preserve my independence, if possible, but if involved with a party, I will take care not to be the last or least in the ranks. As to patriotism, the word is obsolete, perhaps improperly, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... who wore the same clothes as she herself did, but whose graceful and lively charm became their gay colors of youth so well, Zeze's intelligence saw only too plainly the contrast between her and them; she would hold aloof from the laughing set, morose, wounded, as if oppressed by ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... would have nothing to do with them till the women met her absolutely as an equal; and from the other half-breeds, who intermarried with one another and were content to take a lower place than the pure whites, she held aloof, save when any of them was ill or in trouble. Then she recognized the claim of race, and came to their doors with pity and soft impulses to help them. French and Scotch and English half-breeds, as they ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... course, he was not theatrical—he never is—but I know that set of his lips and look in his eyes, and have more than a fancy it means trouble for somebody. I suppose he has not told you anything—in fact, he seems to have kept curiously aloof from ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... court, had for some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le Due, Avignon, and Italy. [Footnote: Where the Chevalier St. George, or, as he was termed, the Old Pretender, held his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... through the war. "We should have conquered the South," says an American paper which I read this very day, "but for England." Was there ever such puling heard from men who have an army of a million, and who turn and revile a people who have stood as aloof from their contest as we have from the war of Troy? Or is it an outcry made with malice prepense? And is the song of the New York Times a variation of the Herald tune?—"The conduct of the British in folding their arms and taking no part in the fight, has been so ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with them. O mothers, ye do make us what ye please! Your tears and caresses are the rain and the sun that mature the seed which time and the accidents of life sow in our tender minds! She filled him with pride,—which is a cardinal virtue, let theologians say what they will,—and kept him aloof from the little blackguards who toss and tumble over the curb-stones, losing that dignity which is man's chastity, and removing one barrier between them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... had not forgiven his own loss of the tiara. Yet even now they seemed to shrink from the creation of an antipope. Urban precipitated and made inevitable this disastrous event. He was now alone; the Cardinal of St. Peter's was dead; Florence, Milan, and the Orsini stood aloof; they seemed only to wait to be thrown off by Urban, to join the adverse faction. Urban at first declared his intention to create nine cardinals; he proceeded at once, and without warning, to create twenty-six.[65] By this step the French and Italian cardinals together were now but an insignificant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... could like ordinary mortals, in general society, for the rest of the evening. A very pleasant evening it was, spite of this new element; which was got rid of as much as possible by means of the window recess, where Janetta and David encamped composedly, a little aloof from the rest. ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... had lived at La Morne for five years. He was perhaps the only man in the entire district who never concerned himself about politics, and kept aloof from all party activity, and this proud independence exposed him to the ill will, nay, the hatred, of his fellow-citizens. When upon one occasion a demonstration in favor of the Bourbons was to take place in Rodez, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Abode of Dogs, I desired a native to lead my horse to a pool, and let him drink. The man, however, declined with terror, refusing to go near the pool, which was inhabited by the Waugul. I therefore had to take my horse myself to the spot, whilst the native stood aloof, fully expecting that the Waugul would seize him by the nose and pull ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... of the prefecture was in a room overhead. I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of another race. I felt that I should ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Pole, nephew of Edward IV.,[660] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had more than once endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern counties; but Lady Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse with him; she remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty retirement she was contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the Princess Mary, to whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her relations with the king ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... eye,—it seems a chemic test, And drops upon you like an acid; It bites you with unconscious zest, So clear and bright, so coldly placid; It holds—you quietly aloof, It holds, and yet it does not win you; It merely puts you to the proof And sorts what qualities are in ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... of the cavalry officers called in person and tendered their services, and were very civilly received, but all offers were positively declined. Just what the infantry officers should do was a momentous question. That they could no longer hold aloof was a matter that was quickly settled, and three of their number went through the chill gloaming of the wintry eve and sent in their cards by Sam, who ushered them into the cheerless front room, while ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... Sturk, the wives of the two men who most hated one another within the vicinage of Chapelizod—natural enemies, holding aloof one from another, and each regarding the other in a puzzled way, with a sort of apprehension and horror, as the familiar of that worst and most formidable of men—her husband—were this night stricken with a common ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... paid but little attention to the dogs which, with their masters, were assembled there, and held himself aloof from them, squatting on the ground with head erect and almost an air of contempt for them, but it was evident that he was watching their every move. When I started homeward, he showed great satisfaction ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... called upon his friends and High Heaven to "watch his smoke," was the next to wring Dill's hand, and Lannigan followed, while the Judge forgot the priceless year of which he had been robbed and elbowed Porcupine Jim aside to greet him. Only Uncle Bill stood aloof turning his jack-knife over and over nonchalantly in the ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... lady sings "Douglas tender and true," and sings it so well, we could weep were we not so near port; a group in the stern beside the wheel watches a glorious sunset, which fills the space we sit in under the awning with a dull red and across the light a missionary paces, aloof and alone; a melancholy stooping silhouette against the glorious afterglow—to and fro—to and fro—a lanky, long-haired youth, his hands behind his back, looking into his particular future, a life devoted to convert the gracious, charitable followers of Gautauma Buddha to—his ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... legal ordinances, it is said she may descend with impunity; but, in this, where all are equal before the law, so many misunderstand the real merits of their position, that she is obliged to keep aloof from any collisions with those who might be disposed to mistake ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... been at leisure; but she was not at leisure. Her eyes travelled back to the figure beside the gang-way, which intrigued both her interest and her memory. Tall, spare, faultlessly dressed, yet with an effect of something exotic, aloof, unusual about him, he provoked her curiosity with suggestions of times and places quite ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... his way. He pored over them shelf by shelf, almost brushing them with his eye-lashes from near examination. At last, fixing upon something that happened to hit his fancy, he took it down, and standing aloof from the company, which he seemed clean and clear to forget, he began very composedly to read to himself, and as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. We were all excessively provoked, for we were languishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk.' Dr. Burney, taking ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... I am only too happy to stand aloof and watch the little wretch play out her game. Most certainly it is your own affair, but you will permit me to be amused, will you not? And with your accustomed suavity forgive me, if I chance inadvertently to whisper above my breath, 'Le jeu n'en vaut ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... man that would have murdered him; and he had displayed his caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a displeasure which all his dissimulation could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of Oubacha; for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more fatal than his open enmity. After the settlement on the Ily this feud continued to advance, until it came under the notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which all the Tartar chieftains made to his Majesty ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... always been exposed in very numerous ways and in various degrees to oppression. Cunning, intrigue, the oily tongue, have, through extended and powerful conspiracies, brought the resources of society under the control of the few, who stood aloof from his homely toil. Hence his dependence upon them. Hence the multiplied injuries which have fallen so heavily upon him. Hence the reduction of his wages from one degree to another, till at length, in the case of millions, fraud and violence strip him of his all, blot his name from ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... decorated apartments which were no idol's chamber. Then came the king and seeing her beauty and loveliness, went up to her to buss her; whereupon she fell down in a fainting fit and struck out with her hands and feet.[FN311] When he saw this, he held aloof from her in ruth and left her; but the matter was grievous to her and she refused meat and drink, and as often as the king drew near to her, she fled from him in fear, so he swore by Allah that he would not approach her save with her consent and fell to presenting her with ornaments ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... thinking, an important official was aloof. The greater his importance, the greater must be his isolation. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a handful of picked nobles, who, themselves, were never seen except by their ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pure-minded, bold and timid at the same time, and, like a repentant sinner, ashamed of his sins; he was ashamed alike of his timidity and his purity, and considered it his duty to scoff at all idealism. He had an affectionate heart, but held himself aloof from everybody, was easily exasperated, but never bore ill-will. He was furious with his father for having made him take up "aesthetics," openly interested himself in politics and social questions, professed the most extreme views (which meant more to him than mere words), but secretly ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... the kingdom are symbolized by the souls of martyrs, &c., living again and reigning with Christ. The symbol includes, with the martyred saints, those who had stood aloof from the worship of the beast and his image, and those who had not received his mark; who are shown by a parallel scripture to represent all who are redeemed to God "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... menial in alpaca. His waxen face showed a morose commiseration. He noiselessly approached the bed—he seemed to have none of the characteristics of a man, but to be a creature infinitely mysterious and aloof from humanity—and held out to Sophia a visiting card in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... less timid, who made nothing of snatching a hair ribbon. But the face in that instant of dream was the face of Miss Katharine Lansdale, and coupled with the vision was a prescience that in some later life I should again look back and see myself as now, a grown but awkward boy, still holding aloof—still adoring from some remote background while other and bolder gallants captured trophies and lightly carolled their serenades. It seemed like borrowing trouble to look still farther into the future, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... look much like the very self-assured, healthy specimen of young manhood whom Mary V could bully and tease and talk to without constraint. She felt as though she scarcely knew this thin, pale young man with the bandaged head and the somber eyes. He seemed so aloof, as though his spirit walked alone in dark places where she could ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... never trust Dwight Pollard again. You will never come any nearer to him than you have to-day. You have an upright soul, and whether you believe his declarations or not, can be safely relied upon to hold yourself aloof from a man who could lend his countenance to such a cowardly deed as I saw perpetrated in the old cellar a month or so ago. Honor does not wed with dishonor, nor truth with treachery. Constance Sterling may marry whom she may; it ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of going out to Australia in a mail steamer. I had not been very well for some months, and it was thought that the longer voyage by a sailing ship would benefit my health. And so you are Mr Leslie, the gentleman who held himself so rigidly aloof from all that he excited everybody's most lively curiosity as to his business, his antecedents, and, in short, everything about him. Well, Mr Leslie, let me say at once that I am profoundly grateful to you for your promise ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... insist. It seems that the wife of an aged ex-Premier came to have an audience and pay her respects. Hardly had she spoken when the Prince, in a fit of unreasoning displeasure, struck her a violent blow with his clenched fist. Had His Royal Highness not always stood so far aloof from political contention, it had been easier to find a motive for this unmannerly blow. The incident is deplorable, but it belongs, after all, to an earlier period of his life; and, were it not that no appreciation must rest upon the suppression of any scandal, I should not have referred to it. ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... it stood aloof. Before the nomination it was, naturally enough, looking out for some one who might be urged as a suitable competitor for Mr. Lincoln's place. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was then quite popular with a good many people of radical ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... Another to the rear picked up the passenger-train storming around the climbing curves of the eastern approach to the summit. There was a small problem impending for the division despatcher at Angels, and the new superintendent held aloof to see how ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... stock Hon. Charles Bell says: "The Scotch-Irish were people of Scottish lineage who dwelt upon Irish soil. They stuck together and kept aloof from the native Celtic race." Macaulay says: "They sprang from different stocks. They spoke different languages. They had different national characteristics as strongly opposed as any two national characters in Europe. Between two such populations there could be little sympathy, and centuries ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... come on deck at night, where they would stand, their hands clasped together, watching the beautiful constellations, and gazing over the dark ocean which they believed to be their beloved brother's grave. The other passengers, respecting their grief, kept aloof from them, and allowed them the part of the deck they chose to themselves. The old captain and Mr Paget were the only people who spoke to them on such occasions, and then only to advise them to retire to their ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Charles rode through the deserted streets, meeting only with sullen silence. A few who were hired to shout, were pelted, by the populace, with mud, as traitors to their lawful king. None flocked to his standard. Nobles, clergy, populace, all alike stood aloof from him. Charles and his generals were embarrassed and perplexed. They could not compel the nation to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... there is a literary aristocracy in America. Born in an intellectual atmosphere, with inherited talent, wrapped in their own dreams, knowing little of the struggle and toil of their less fortunate co-workers, its members stand aloof, saying: Thou shalt not enter therein. The old Italian ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... through the head of each quickly did this. Rapidly skinning them, we left the carcases to be devoured by the birds of prey, which almost before we got out of sight appeared in the air; for although hyaenas and jackals are said to keep aloof even from a dead lion, the vulture tribes possess no such awe for the monarch of ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... severing all entangling and intricate threads of observance, followed the voice which called him to solitary places of illimitable prospect. It was not through disillusion or injustice, or wounded pride, that he walked aloof; but loneliness was his birthright, and from the hills and headlands to which solitude allured his steps he saw the dust of mad encounters rise to heaven, and the rent sails of foundering galleys. He ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... states cannot be realized without war, and that the forces which hope to benefit by war are stronger than the forces which hope to benefit by peace. That is the indubitable reason why the United States must remain aloof from the European system and must avoid scrupulously any entanglements in the complicated web of European international affairs. The policy of isolation is in this respect as wise to-day as it was in the time of its enunciation ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... minded his business for so many years, and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure in good literature, at this time of life and in this state of health (for the shock he had received struck inward), fell into an accident tenfold worse—the fatal accident of love. And this ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... before has such supreme authority and such great dignity fallen upon men previously so submissive and so insignificant.—Formerly the subordinates of an intendant or sub-delegate, appointed, maintained, and ill-used by him, kept aloof from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves except by humble protestations against the aggravation of taxation, concerned with precedence and the conflicts of etiquette,[3116] plain townspeople ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... should know me, and I never dream it was you!" exclaimed the girl, as she gave her hand and let him lead her to where the figures were being formed. "There have been many guesses among the caps as to the identity of him who has held himself so aloof, but not a one suggested you. The disguise makes you look a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... experienced by Peter the Great or that which happened to Pascal, had broken some spring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as to account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... considerable number of company in the Park when he entered it, but, his present state of mind inducing him to avoid society, he kept aloof from the more frequented walks towards Westminster and Whitehall, and drew to the north, or, as we should now say, the Piccadilly verge of the enclosure, believing he might there enjoy, or rather combat, his ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... punishment shall rack that viper. (Pointing to Stukely) The tale is short. I was too busy in his secrets, and therefore doomed to die. Bates, to prevent the murder, undertook it. I kept aloof ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... is the most condemned and shunned of all the talkers in society.—Those who have any self-respect avoid him. The noble and virtuous stand aloof from his company. He is regarded as a dangerous person, possessed of deadly weapons, subject to a deadly malady. He is not depended upon at any time, or in anything. Even his veracity is suspected, if ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... they may all be grouped into two classes, the internal and the external. A story seen internally is narrated in the first person by one of its participants; a story seen externally is narrated in the third person by a mind aloof from the events depicted. There are, of course, many variations, both of the internal and of the external point of view. These in turn must be examined, for the purpose of determining the special advantages ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... matter?' said Miss Nugent, going up to him, as he stood aloof and indignant: 'Don't look so like a chafed lion; others may perhaps read your countenance as well ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... the social life of Ophir. Each had been a resident of the town, the one as a student and recluse, the other as a business man, but each was a stranger to the stratum known as society. Each held himself aloof that evening from the throng: the one, through natural reserve, courteous but indifferent to the passing crowd; the other alert, watchful, studying the crowd; weighing, gauging this new element, speculating whether or not it were worth his while to court its favor, whether or ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... it molest than wound Like gnats which too much heat of summer brings; But cares do swarm there too, and those have stings: As when the honey does too open lie, A thousand wasps about it fly Nor will the master even to share admit; The master stands aloof, and ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... dexterously holding aloof from Hyndford at present, clinging to French Valori as his chosen companion: we may fancy what a time he has of it, like a polygamist amid jealous wives. It will quicken Hyndford, he perceives, in these ulterior stages, to leave him well alone. Hyndford accordingly, as we have noticed, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... with a finger of fire upon the dim wall. To-night was to be a night of mysteries. To-night the great adventure was to be born. He glanced around the table. There was, indeed, an air of mystery about some of these guests, something curiously aloof, something which it was impossible to put into words. The man Starling, for instance, seemed queerly placed here. Count Sabatini was another of the guests who seemed somehow to be outside the little circle. For minutes together he sat sometimes ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... way to another more pompous. It seemed to me we were acting a play. There is something so little like common and real life, in everybody's standing, while talking, in a room full of chairs, and standing, too, so aloof from each other, that I almost thought myself upon a stage, assisting in the representation of a tragedy,—in which the king played his own part, of the king; Mrs. Delany that of a venerable confidante; Mr. Dewes, his respectful attendant;Miss Port, a suppliant ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the rich who relish best To dwell at times from state aloof; And simple suppers, neatly dressed, Beneath a poor man's humble roof, With neither pall nor purple there, Have smoothed ere now ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... his father's or his mother's vengeance. He was very sulky and disagreeable, and severely tried Richard's forbearance; but there were no fresh outbursts, and, on the whole, from one week to another, there might be said to be an improvement. He could not always hold aloof from one so good-natured and good-humoured as the little Duke; and the fact of being kept in order could not but have some beneficial effect on him, after such spoiling as his had ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ordered all crucifixes to be removed from the ambulances in their arrondissements. Their conduct is almost universally blamed. The enlistment of the Amazons, notwithstanding the efforts of the Government, still continues. The pretty women keep aloof from the movement; the recruits who have already joined are so old and ugly that possibly they may act upon an enemy ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... They outwardly conformed to the ceremonial of the times, reserving their higher doctrines to themselves, as something beyond vulgar comprehension. Considering themselves as an intellectual aristocracy, they stood aloof, and, with an ill-concealed smile, consented to the transparent folly around them. It had come to an evil state when authors like Polybius and Strabo apologized to their compeers for the traditions and legends they ostensibly accepted, on the ground that it is inconvenient and ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Sarah's pleasant approach, her smile, her amiability. Very soon, however, there would be trouble—some child would cry out; there would be blows; nurses would run forward, scoldings, protests, captives led away weeping ... and then Sarah would return slowly to her seat, her gaze aloof, cynical, remote. She would carefully explain to Hortense the reason of the uproar. She had done nothing—her conscience was clear. These silly little idiots. She would break into French, culled elaborately from ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... Tory party. The members of the Legislative Council and the administrative clique drew close about the person of this new champion, and in the same degree the French majority in the Legislative Assembly held aloof. The burning questions of the day, whether the judges should sit and vote in Parliament, whether the Assembly could communicate directly with the Home Government—these were but the occasions of an antagonism really due to diversity of race and temperament; for, as Lord Durham discovered ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... each colour employed; but the white and black ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the other colours should be continually passing one into the other, being all plainly companions in the same gay world; while the white, black, and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. Crimson may be melted into purple, purple into blue, and blue into green, but none of them must ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... classic age ... was removed from a depreciation and rejection of war is shown by the attitude assumed by a spirit so pathetically calm and aloof as Jean Paul, who nevertheless called war the strengthening iron cure of humanity, and maintained, indeed, that this held good more for the side which suffers than for that which wins. The fever caused by the wounds of war was, in his opinion, better than the ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill, past Santa Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount of amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached Pompeii, and dwelt on Torre dell'Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it smouldered while the day died slowly. The long, densely populated sea-line from Pozzuoli to Castellammare burned ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... alone seemed to escape the prevailing gloom. She came in at night smiling, left a trail of notes behind her as she walked to her dressing room, and from there clear scales and mellow bars rose spasmodically as she dressed. Usually holding herself aloof, she was friendly, made jokes in the wings, chatted with the chorus, and when she left the old doorkeeper was warmed ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... who dwelt happy there He staid not to inquire: above them all The golden Sun, in splendour likest Heaven Allured his eye: thither his course he bends Through the calm firmament, (but up or down By centre or eccentric hard to tell Or longitude) where the great luminary, Aloof the vulgar constellations thick, That from his lordly eye keep distance due, Dispenses light from far. They, as they move Their starry dance in numbers that compute Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp Turn swift their various motions, or are turned ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... document, and Yussuf walked straight to where the head-man was standing aloof, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him inside his house, where he made him read ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... do no good by standing aloof on a height and flinging down the Gospel to the people below. They must feel that we enter into their circumstances, prejudices, ways of thinking, and the like, if our words are to have power. That is true ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and women were cursing in the voices of men and men weeping loosely like women. They cast off their outer garments when the room grew hot, and lounged half- naked; and of all of them, only two seemed to live aloof, like men among beasts—Emmanuel ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... great solitary when I was young. I made it my pride to keep aloof and suffice for my own entertainment; and I may say that I had neither friends nor acquaintances until I met that friend who became my wife and the mother of my children. With one man only was I on private terms; this was R. Northmour, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... as to what Home Rule is likely to be; and both parties refer to it as a ground for their opinion. It is curious now to note that it was Gerald Balfour, the Unionist Chief Secretary, who, when introducing the measure, appealed to the Irish gentry not to stand aloof from the new order of things, but to seek from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens that position which no others were so well qualified to fill as themselves—in much the same way that English Radical orators now accuse the ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... in this criticism that served to keep him aloof from her while they ate, and the girl felt it like an arm pushing her away. She had been very close to him not many hours before; now she was far away. She could understand nothing ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... herself because she had for a moment thought of Jack as a possible suitor, and more especially because of the detestable and unworthy chagrin that his not being a suitor had caused her, she became hysterically erratic, aloof, and impossible, and began suddenly to talk like a paid guide about the sculptures at the Vatican! At the end of some minutes, during which Derby failed to get anything in the way of a natural remark from her, he arose to go. He left with a strong desire to send ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... often complained of them to Florida, who comforted her as well as she could, being herself smitten with the same disease. Amadour soon perceived the change in Florida's demeanour, and forthwith thought that she was keeping aloof from him not merely by his own advice, but also on account of some bitter fancies ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... patrimony, aloof from popular tumults. The successes of the Equi, (young Democracy,) however, rendered the appointment of a Dictator necessary, and CINCINNATUS was chosen to that high office. He laid aside his rural habiliments, assumed the ensigns of absolute power, levied ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... living with his German countrymen, he made little progress in English, which he afterward regretted; and he was wont, therefore, to counsel those who propose to work among a foreign people, not only to live among them in order to learn their language, but to keep aloof as far as may be from their own countrymen, so as to be compelled to use the tongue which is to give them access to ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Stand not aloof nor apart, Plunge in the thick of the fight; There, in the street and the mart, That is the place to do right. Not in some cloister or cave, Not in some kingdom above, Here, on this side of the grave, Here, should we ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... town, and was now settled in his mansion in Carlton Terrace. It was the fashion among the creme de la creme to keep aloof from him. The Tories did not love revolutionary dynasties, and the Whigs being in office could not sanction a pretender, and one who, they significantly intimated with a charitable shrug of the shoulders, was not a very scrupulous one. The prince himself, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Besides these five "affairs," on one or two occasions I dipped so low as the inky dismal sensuality of the streets, and made one of those pairs of correlated figures, the woman in her squalid finery sailing homeward, the man modestly aloof and behind, that every night in the London year flit by the score of thousands across ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... marriage to the confidence both of niece and uncle, he evinced steadier principles than he had ever made manifest when he had only his own fortune to mar, and his own happiness to trifle with. He joined his old companions, but he kept aloof from their more dissipated pursuits. Beyond what was then thought the venial error of too devout libations to Bacchus, Charley ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the skirts of victory, Achilles fell, nor any man might dare From forth the Trojan gateway to draw nigh; But, as the woodmen watch a lion die, Pierced with the hunter's arrow, nor come near Till Death hath veil'd his eyelids utterly, Even so the Trojans held aloof ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... ejaculation. There were perhaps a score of men in the room, and as I stepped forward they all started to their feet and began to press about me with questionings, of which I could barely understand a phrase. One man only hung aloof, and that man was Brunow. I was so amazed to see him there, and so bewildered by the din of welcome and inquiry, that I had no opportunity for a real observation of anything; but I am a mistaken man indeed if Brunow were not to the full as much amazed at ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... keep my innermost Me Fearless, aloof and free Of the least breath of love or hate, And not disconsolate At the sick load of sorrow laid on men; If I could keep a sanctuary there Free even of prayer, If I could do this, then, With quiet candor as ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... Protestant, of a strict Calvinist type, and she had taken up the impression that Miss Lesley must needs be a Romanist. Now this was not the case, for Lesley had always been allowed to go to her own church, see her own clergyman, and hold aloof from the devotional exercises prescribed for the other girls. But Sarah believed firmly that she belonged to the Church of Rome, and she did not feel at all easy in her mind at staying under the same roof with her. She made this remark to Miss Brooke on the third day after Lesley's ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and Sophie are faint shades leaving no impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof, looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng. It is Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by her father's infatuation for the Du Barry—an infatuation which, beginning within ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... mention to others what I have said to you. You are also at liberty to tell Overton that Captain Cortland is wholly convinced of his innocence, and so, I know, is Lieutenant Hampton. But some of the men in the company, and more especially in the squad room, are holding aloof from Corporal ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock |
