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More "Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... body but of his soul. He recognized his sorrow for the sin which had caused the sickness, and the anguish of remorse and immediately he spoke the word of pardon and of peace. Thus Jesus voiced the message which the world seems reluctant to accept. He declared that physical ills and social evils are less serious than the moral and spiritual maladies of which they are the symptoms and the results; and further, he expressed his claim of divine power to pronounce pardon and ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... inferring the self-denial of its votaries, and at the same time exposing them to persecution. When the cross became triumphant, and its cause no longer required the direction of inspired men, or the evidence of miracles, to compel reluctant belief, it is evident that the converts who thronged into the fold must have, many of them, entered because Christianity was the prevailing faith—many because it was the church, the members of which rose most readily to promotion—many, finally, who, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... acquaint his host with so much; but the worthy Bruce was not so easily satisfied; and not conceiving there was any peculiar impropriety in indulging curiosity in matters relating to his old major, however distasteful that curiosity might prove to his guest, he succeeded in drawing from the reluctant young man many more particulars of his story; which, as they have an important connection with the events it is our object to narrate, we must be ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... carried their caution and watchfulness so far, that for a long time they would not suffer us to approach the shore. However, as we pleaded hard to be allowed to do so, because we could walk so much easier on the wet sand, they at last gave a reluctant consent, taking care to keep between us and the water, even where they were obliged to wade in it. When, also, they allowed us to smoke pipes, they held them with both hands, or fastened to the ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... circumstances, the only thing we can do is to wait," MacRae assented, and I fancied that there was a reluctant quiver in his usually steady voice. "It's going to be smoky at daybreak, but we can see their camp from this first point, I think. There's a big rock over here—I'll show you—you and Sarge can get under cover there. I'll lie up on the opposite side, so they'll have to come between ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... seated herself on the bank of the river, and followed the downward course of the stream, with her eye, to gain the earliest notice of his approach. Thus time passed on. The second year the father greeted a son, and obtained his squaw's reluctant consent to take their daughter with him on his return voyage to the country of the white people. But, no sooner had he commenced his voyage, and although she had another charge upon which to lavish her caresses, than her maternal fondness overpowered her, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Impregnation of queens. Dangerous for queens to mistake their own hives, 158. Precautions against this. Proper color for hives. Time of laying eggs. None but worker eggs, the first season, 159. Directions for hiving. Hives should be painted and well dried. Bees reluctant to enter thin warm hives in the sun, 160. Management with the improved hives, 161. Drone combs should never be used as guide comb. Pleasure of bees in finding comb in their new quarters. Bees never voluntarily enter empty hives. ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... now, Hepzibah!" murmured he, with a torpid and reluctant utterance. "Do with me as you will!" She knelt down upon the platform where they were standing and lifted her clasped hands to the sky. The dull, gray weight of clouds made it invisible; but it was no hour for disbelief,—no juncture this to question that there was a sky above, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... towards me. Had he sought to make me a proselyte to his ruined cause, violence and compulsion were arguments very unlikely to prevail with any generous spirit. But even if such were his object, of what use to him could be the acquisition of a single reluctant partisan, who could bring only his own person to support any quarrel which he might adopt? He had claimed over me the rights of a guardian; he had more than hinted that I was in a state of mind which could not dispense ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... with the whole Gothic army and thought that they should make war in the open field. Belisarius, however, considering that the difference in size of the two armies was still very great, continued to be reluctant to risk a decisive battle with his whole army; and so he busied himself still more with his sallies and kept planning them against the enemy. But when at last he yielded his point because of the abuse ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... thrusting the money into Joe's reluctant hand, "when I make a bargain, I generally keep it. I wish all my money had been spent to ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to sing;—he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet ...
— Laws • Plato
... The late Mr. Richardson, even to a comparatively late period in his professional career, was afflicted with the usual bashfulness about having his work published. We well remember the solicitations, the refusals, the renewed appeals, and, finally, the reluctant and conditional assent to have a single gelatine print from one of his perspectives published. This was the drawing, we think, of the Woburn Library, and was accompanied by a plan. Finding that he had suffered no severe injury from this exposure of his design to the gaze of the cold ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... failed to make provision for the care of British troops in accordance with the terms of the Quartering Act. Parliament therefore suspended the assembly until it promised to obey the law. It was not until a third election was held that compliance with the Quartering Act was wrung from the reluctant province. In the meantime, all the colonies had learned on how frail a foundation ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... point. At Steynham Nevil was sure to be howling all day over his tumbled joss Shrapnel. Once away in the heart of the downs, and Cecilia beside him, it was a matter of calculation that two or three hours of the sharpening air would screw his human nature to the pitch. In fact, unless each of them was reluctant, they could hardly return unbetrothed. Cecilia's consent was foreshadowed by her submission in going: Mr. Romfrey had noticed her fright at the suggestive formalities he cast round the expedition, and felt ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Christ, as Eisler remarks: "Orpheus is connected with nearly all the mystery, and a great many of the ordinary chthonic, cults in Greece and Italy. Christianity took its first tentative steps into the reluctant world of Graeco-Roman Paganism under ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... the night in the valley below. Peter was reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched forward after Roger. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... "All right if you don't stay long," he said. But, to Kent's surprise Krell seemed reluctant to endorse ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton
... robin's note, like the wind's in a tree: The infant morning breathes sweet breath, And with it is blent The wistful, wild, moist scent Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth: And behold! The last reluctant drop of the storm, Wrung from the roof, is smitten warm And turned to gold; For in its veins doth run The very blood of the bold, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dominant personality, the reluctant applicant for work now made his way. He cut an absent-minded figure upon the street, did Mr. Queed, but this time he made his crossings without mishap. Undisturbed by dogs, he landed at the Post building, and in time blundered into a room described as "Editorial" on the glass-door. A ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... When he returned, reluctant and disappointed, with alienated feelings, to his native home, he found that his father was dead, and his mother a solitary widow. By selling the little farm which had served them for a support, and restricting ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... having up there,' she said. 'Somebody asked Mr. Neigh to tell a story which he had told at some previous time, but he was very reluctant to do so, and pretended he could not recollect it. Well, then, the other man—I could not distinguish him by his voice—began telling it, to prompt Mr. Neigh's memory; and, as far as I could understand, it was about some lady who thought Mr. Neigh ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... whom he communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... have no authority to say what: enough that the messenger departed and our friend remained. But, alas! a second envoy followed and proved to be of sterner composition; and with a basket full of food, kava, and tobacco, the reluctant hero proceeded to the wars. I am sure they had few handsomer soldiers, if, perhaps, some that were more willing. And he would have been better to be armed. His gun—but in Mr. Kipling's pleasant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were packed away by reluctant hands, boxes tied up and labelled hopefully for the next dance, while heads that had been curled for the big occasion bore testimony to the skill of many willing fingers (not a few of the fingers bearing blisters to still further testify to such achievements), ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... unsheathed the reluctant Sword of Freedom against his Friend, Humanity must suppose that his Heart was wrung with Compunction, while his Country enjoined and impelled ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... corner now to the South panel again, there are two figures representing Lust trying to embrace a reluctant woman. Then one comes to Vanity once more, and the story of life on earth is done. Again there is a gap, and the scene leaves the earth for the unknown world after ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... 1688, and in a book entitled The Guardian's Instruction, a Mr. Stephen Penton gave the world a pleasing and lifelike little narrative—superior, in my opinion, to anything in Verdant Green— telling us how a reluctant father was persuaded to send his son to Oxford; what doubts, misgivings, hesitations he had, and how they were overcome. I take the story to be fictitious. It is written in the first person, professedly by the hesitating parent: but the parent can hardly have been ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their half of the allotted work, in the race to drive home the last spike and wedge into place the last scantling. For days now with a grave sort of satisfaction which he hardly understood himself, Young Denny had time after time put all his strength against a reluctant log, skidding timber back on the hillside, and watched the lithe pike-pole bend half double under the steadily increasing strain. Somehow he felt very sure that one or the other of the captains would single him out; they couldn't afford to pass ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had placed in the middle of the living-room floor. "I'll do my best to sell everything," he said, "but it's going to be difficult going till we get a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place to shop until the local markets ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... in heavy vapor, threw an eldritch shimmer upon the little group that silently bore the body of the martyred Lazaro from the old church late that night to the dreary cemetery on the hill. Jose took but a reluctant part in the proceedings. He would even have avoided this last service to his faithful friend if he could. It seemed to him as he stumbled along the stony road behind the body which Rosendo and Don Jorge carried that his human endurance ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... universally referred to their Anglo-Saxon blood, while the transcendent influence of the Scandinavian element is entirely overlooked. The so-called Anglo- Saxons were a handful of people in Holstein, where they may still be found in inglorious obscurity, the reluctant subjects of Denmark. The early emigrants who bore that name, were, it is true, from various portions of Germany; but even if the glory of our English ancestry be transferred from Anglen, and spread over the whole country, we find ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... from dispatching by the vigour of the Prussian Queen of Greece and by the veto of the King. Possibly there was precipitation, for the naval attack did not await the arrival of the military forces, which were before long on the way, extorted, it would seem, by impetuous pressure from a reluctant and unconvinced authority. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... time,' and she had heard his expressions of remorse. He had blabbed to many witnesses of a precious something hidden aboard the 'Worcester;' to Anne he said that he had now thrown it overboard. We shall see later what this object was. Anne was a reluctant witness. Glen, a goldsmith, had seen a seal of the Scots East India Company in the hands of Madder, the inference being that it was ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... of Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at Pagan spiritualistic seances, with the usual accompaniments of darkness and fraud. His perplexed ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... took a metal cup between his teeth and began to go the round of the "distinguished audience." When a spectator failed to drop a coin in, he put his two fore paws upon the reluctant giver's pocket, barked three times, then tapped the pocket with his paw. At this every one laughed and ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Columbus seized two of them to act as guides in his journey further down the coast. Weighing anchor on October 5th he worked along the Costa Rica shore, which here turns to the eastward again, and soon found a tribe of natives who wore large ornaments of gold. They were reluctant to part with the gold, but as usual pointed down the coast and said that there was much more gold there; they even gave a name to the place where the gold could be found—Veragua; and for once this country was found to have a real existence. The fleet anchored there on ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... been reluctant to take sides in the contest and in answer to John Allan's solicitations they said, with quiet dignity, "We do not comprehend what all this quarreling is about. How comes it that Old England and New England should quarrel and come to blows? The ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... butterfly, flits before the face of beauty. There is the rapid flirt which signifies scorn, another motion is the graceful wave of confidence, an abrupt closing of the fan indicates vexation, and the striking of it into the palm of the hand expresses anger. The gradual opening of its folds intimates reluctant forgiveness, and so on. In short, the fan can be more eloquent than words, if in the hands of a Mexican senorita, stimulated by the watchful eyes and the adoration of an ardent Romeo. But this is only preliminary. All parents are presumed to be implacably and absolutely opposed ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... were most dangerous to those who drank distilled liquors; so that temperance, which was every where commendable and salutary, would be absolutely necessary to preserve health. Finally, they were plainly told that if they were distrustful, or reluctant at putting forth their strenuous exertions, they must not engage ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... often mistaken, and so productive of mischief in goading reluctant authorship to the publication of unwise, immature, or feeble literature, prevailed upon Mr. Reed to give the world the present book; and we have a real pleasure in saying that for once this affectionate counsel has done the world a favor and a service. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... strengthened her gentle hold upon Peter's reluctant arm. Her bright eyes were a trifle blurred. "Last night, when we met on the bund," she went on in a small voice, "I knew immediately—immediately—what you were. A chivalrous gentleman! A man who would shelter and protect any helpless woman ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... or three years the children's librarian has herself gone after each book long overdue, and with each visit she has seized the opportunity not only to recover the book, but to become acquainted with the mother and to gain her often reluctant confidence. Most of the readers live in tenements, many of which open into one common yard. The appearance of the library assistant usually causes much commotion, and she is received often not only by the mother of the negligent child but also the mothers ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... them amiably, with a secret smile over the memory of a time when they had purloined the Little Doctor's pills and had made reluctant acquaintance with a stomach pump. "Where's the ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... from the moment when she met him in her husband's office. She had guessed, but not certainly, that it was still inimical at least to John, and the exact words of Uncle Meshach's warning had recurred to her time after time as she met his reluctant, cautious eyes. Nevertheless, it was by the sudden uprush of an instinct, rather than by a calculated design, that she, in her home and surrounded by her daughters, began the process of enmeshing him in the web ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Daunted by what fear Stayed ye me sacrificing to the God[2] Who guards this deme Colonos? Let me know What cause so hastened my reluctant foot. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... be offending any prejudices of theirs, for we believe they would be as unwilling to throw impediments in the way of Institutions of Learning not intended to belong exclusively to their Church, as they would be reluctant to admit the interference of others in the management of their own valuable Seminaries where the exclusive maintenance of one form of doctrine and worship tends to secure in all respects the advantages of unity ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... West bitterly, as they led their reluctant ponies along the bed of the stream, fortunately for them too stony for any discoloration to be borne down to show the keen-eyed Boers that someone had passed that way, and at the same time yielding no impress of the footprints of ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... The doctor seemed reluctant to leave. Ernestine was alone with him for a minute in the hall, and she was sure he started to say something once and then changed it to something else. But when he did leave, it was with merely ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... the confirmation of the title of augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius, and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from his choice a praetorian prefect ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... unerring skill, O'erlooks the busy, crowded mart, And, like a kingly domicile, Its burnished dome and sculpture thrill With admiration every heart; And strangers pause beyond the rill To view its grandeur, lingering still, And with reluctant ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... recovering, could the pleasure have been thus purchased. The truth is that within a few days he had been conscious of a feeling of which he had never before suspected himself, and it was this feeling that made him so reluctant to depart. And yet, when, in the silence of his chamber, and away from the blue eyes of Anne Bernard, he reflected upon his position, he was obliged to confess, with a sigh, that prudence required he should leave a society as dangerous as it was sweet. To be in the same ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that that visit will be marked by the same independence of their help as the others had been. And then he just lets a glimpse of his pained heart peep out in the words of my text. 'I seek not yours, but you.' There speaks a disinterested love which feels obliged, and yet reluctant, to stoop to say that it is love, and that it is disinterested. Where did Paul learn this passionate desire to possess these people, and this entire suppression of self in the desire? It was a spark from a sacred fire, a drop from an infinite ocean, an echo of a divine voice. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... pay for the outfit, himself, but this Will would not hear of; and Captain Mayhew was the less reluctant to let the lad have his own way as he had, in the course of the interview with the agent, agreed that the lad's services deserved a handsome recognition from the firm; and that the sum of one hundred guineas should ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... luggage had by this been put on Odo's carriage, and the latter advanced to Fulvia. He had drawn a favourable inference from the concern she had shown for his welfare; but to his mortification she merely laid two reluctant finger tips in his hand and took her seat without a word of thanks or so much as a glance at her rescuer. This unmerited repulse, and the constraint occasioned by Cantapresto's presence, made the remainder ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Wister wrote: "I sent you back the photo. from the youthful miniature of Maj. Butler & regret very much that I have no copy of the other left; but four sets were made of wh. I sent you one & gave the others to his few living descendants. I regret this all the more as I am reluctant to trust the miniature again to a photographer. I live out of town so that there is some trouble in sending & calling for them; (I went personally last time, & there are no other likenesses ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... cloth-merchant, were early in their habits, and the house was already open. With heavy and reluctant step, Luis ascended the stairs, and then paused, irresolute and unwilling to enter the Count's apartment. At last, summoning resolution, he was about to lift the latch, when it was raised, and Count Villabuena, completely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... husband was killed in an accident and she was left rather badly off. People out there were very kind to her. She had been hurt in the accident and was laid up for months. Then this rich German asked her to marry him, and as she was reluctant to return home and face grandpa, she said 'Yes.' But perhaps it ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... should really like to do would be to translate in extenso Dr. Sommer's re-edition of the Vulgate Arthuriad. But I should probably die before I had done half of it; no publisher would undertake the risk of it; and if any did, "Dora," reluctant to die, would no doubt put us both in 'prison for using so much paper. Therefore I had better be content with the divine suggestion, and not spoil it by my human ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... III., for his part, was but little touched by the shouts of Long live the king! that he heard as he left the palace; he was too much disquieted to be rejoiced at them. He did not return the greeting of the municipal functionaries or of the mob that blocked his way. "You see how reluctant he is to embroil himself with the Huguenots," said the partisans of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... resource in arms, the most quiet, the most passive, the most timid of the human race rose up in an universal insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments of the tyranny, who in several places were massacred. The insurrection began in Rungpore, and soon spread its fire to the neighboring provinces, which had been harassed by the same person with the same oppressions. The English Chief in that province had been the silent witness, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... cleaning my rifle,' which would be another thing altogether, he probably had not yet begun cleaning it when he heard Miss Byrne coming and went out to speak to her; it is possible some feeling akin to shyness might make him reluctant to confess this afterwards in public. Indeed I now feel quite sure that this is the explanation of the matter. Later on, when I questioned her again, she did not appear certain which of the two forms ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the steps. They took their way to the stables. A dim light shone from the open door of the motor-house. The Duke went into it ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... started with reluctant steps. He became reminiscently aware as he hastily reviewed the events of the day, that in carrying out one or two measures for the good of the house, he had laid himself open to an investigation ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... happy confidence the governor set out for Nauvoo on the morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers who accompanied him told him that he was apprehensive of an attack on the jail because of talk he had heard in Carthage. The governor was reluctant to believe that such a thing could occur while he was in the Mormon city, exposed to Mormon vengeance, but he sent back a squad, with instructions to Captain Smith to see that the jail was safely guarded. He had apprehensions of his ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... supplying hints for the removal" of a difficulty, and with full acknowledgment "that in minor points, whether in question of fact or of judgment, there was room for difference or error of opinion," and that I "should not be ashamed to own a mistake, if it were proved against me, nor reluctant to bear the just blame ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... it came to pass that Lily Dale and Emily Dunstable were soon very intimate, and that they saw each other every day. Indeed, before long they would have been living together in the same house had it not been that the squire had felt reluctant to abandon the independence of his own lodgings. When Mrs Thorne had pressed her invitation for the second, and then for the third time, asking them both to come to her large house, he had begged his niece ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... after Rockingham's death, gossips noticed that Fox and Burke continued, long after the Speaker had taken the chair, to walk backwards and forwards in the Court of Bequests, engaged in earnest conversation. According to one story, Burke was very reluctant to abandon an office whose emoluments were as convenient to him as to his spendthrift colleague. According to another and more probable legend, it was Burke who hurried the rupture, and stimulated Fox's jealousy of Shelburne. The Duke of Richmond disapproved of the secession, and remained ...
— Burke • John Morley
... indefinable flavor of absurdity that pervaded his courtly bearing. She would never love him as she loved Capes, of course, but there are grades and qualities of love. For Manning it would be a more temperate love altogether. Much more temperate; the discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending wife. She had been quite convinced that an engagement with him and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromise which distinguishes the ways of the wise. It would be the wrappered world almost at its best. She saw herself building up ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Scip, booted and spurred, standing in the center of the room. Softly Cummings approached the picture, his finger found the spring through the canvas and, pressing it hard, the frame swung slowly forward as if reluctant to give up ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... month of August, it having become evident that General Harney was reluctant to proceed to Utah, anticipating a brighter field for military distinction in Kansas, Colonel Johnston was summoned from Texas to Washington and there ordered to hasten to take command of the expedition. On the 17th of September, he left Fort Leavenworth, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... other Spartan king, was at this time in the Phokian territory at the head of an army. The Ephors now at once sent orders to him to cross the Theban frontier, while they assembled a force from all the allied cities, who were most reluctant to serve, and objected strongly to the war, yet dared not express their discontent or disobey the Lacedaemonians. Many sinister omens were observed, which we have spoken of in the life of Epameinondas, and Prothous the Laconian openly opposed the whole campaign; ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the white heat of the city had scorched upon itself. By midday, when I rode forth with half a dozen of my men, the streets were packed, and more reluctant than ever were the folk to give way before me. If looks could kill I should have been a dead man that day. Openly they spat at sight of me, and, everywhere ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... French occupation of Rome—he could only bestow upon the arduous task the scanty leisure available from more engrossing duties. The work was therefore so imperfectly done that the cardinal himself was reluctant to publish it; and the learned and honest Barnabite under whose editorial auspices it appeared was obliged to append a formidable list of errata, and to make a gentle apology in his preface for his friend's inaccuracies. But, with all its defects, the five quarto volumes ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... surrounding the basin of the Wash were being rapidly drained and converted into rich alluvial districts. The unreformed condition of the poor-law, under which the support of the poor fell upon each individual parish, instead of a union of parishes, made landlords reluctant to erect cottages on the reclaimed land for the benefit of their tenants. Labour had to be obtained for the cultivation of these new lands, and that of women, girls and boys, being cheaper than the labour of men, was consequently very largely employed. The tendency to moral and physical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... but one joy for the hills to him—the Blight was coming back to them. All those weary waiting months he had clung grimly to his work. He must have heard from her sometimes, else I think he would have gone to her; but I knew the Blight's pen was reluctant and casual for anybody, and, moreover, she was having a strenuous winter at home. That he knew as well, for he took one paper, at least, that he might simply read her name. He saw accounts of her many social doings as well, and ate his heart out as lovers have done for all time gone ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... cutlery with which he had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, and many ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... fires—a luxury which even wealthy people cannot always command. Miss Maitland made it Moses' business to see that the Mansion wood-piles were high and broad, long before the autumn came, and the hardship of splitting smaller sticks for kitchen and kindling fell upon the reluctant Montgomery. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... resolved upon. Lord Wharncliffe said to me yesterday morning that the real obstacle to the Tories coming into office was the Queen. This was the only difficulty; but her antipathy to Peel rendered him exceedingly reluctant to take office, and there were many among the party who felt scruples in forcing an obnoxious Ministry upon her. This is, in fact, the real Tory principle, but I doubt many of the Tories being ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the most disturbed and impoverished parts of Ireland are those in which the farms are largest; while the two most prosperous and best ordered counties—Armagh and Wexford—are the counties in which small farms most abound. I call a reluctant witness, Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish tenant, be his holding ever so small, gets common justice and is not subjected to caprice, he gives no trouble. That gentleman informs us that there are 650 estates of all magnitudes, from 100 ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... since I parted from thee? But things that are wasted, and full of ruin, All unworthy, even of me. Yet, it was to me that the gift was given, No greater joy have the Gods above,— That night of nights when my only lover, Though all reluctant, granted ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... sighed Anne, sitting down on the top step of the veranda. "I'm too lazy to look at my books to-night." The four girls had reached Wayne Hall and the beauty of the autumn night made them reluctant to go into the house, where an evening of hard study awaited them. "I'd like to stay out here for hours ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Strangely reluctant to leave the house, I went downstairs again, looked into the living-room, and passed on to the dining-room. I contemplated the sideboard, in front of which Randolph Schuyler had met his death. Many pieces of silver and glass stood upon ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... grave the question, however essential the answer to their well-being, there does not seem to be even now on the part of the multitude an earnest desire for the truth. Their wishes and emotions cloud their vision and they are reluctant to have those clouds brushed aside lest the truth thus revealed be harsh and condemnatory. The truth often causes pain. As said by the Preacher, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." People generally give much the ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... before," she said, "and I can do what others cannot do, what, indeed, medical opinion would not allow them to try. No one meddles with me, and I can slip along and do my work with less expenditure of strength than any," Had there been some one to fill her place she would have gone, but she was very reluctant to shut the doors of the stations for so long a period. How she regarded the idea may be gathered from a letter to a friend who had ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... from the table and stood irresolute with it in his hand. He was hungry, but his essential Puritan fastidiousness, combined with that pride of race which he knew to be un-Christian, rendered him reluctant to dip into the common pot or to eat on equal terms with these people. Besides, the sun and his amazing introduction to the island had given him a raging headache: he could not think clearly nor rid himself ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... thee not, thus afflicted, for a God; And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 60 Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands Scorches and burns our once serene domain. O aching time! O moments big as years! All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth, And press it so upon our weary griefs ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... had a moment's chance of life; so far from being ratified by nine States as a condition precedent to going into effect, it would have been summarily rejected by a majority of the States. In the language of John Adams, the Constitution was "extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people." The theory of State sovereignty was successfully ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... year following the appearance of Wallace's essay in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, both Hooker and Lyell urged Darwin to publish the result of his long and patient research. But he was still reluctant to do so, not having as yet satisfied himself with regard to certain conclusions which, he felt, must be stoutly maintained in face of the enormous amount of criticism which would arise immediately his theory was launched on the scientific world. And thus the event was ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... of forty or fifty men were at work. They clamped their peavies to the reluctant timbers, heaved, pushed, slid, and rolled them one by one into the current, where they were caught and borne away. They had been doing this for a week. As yet their efforts had made but slight impression on the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... victory. He also believed that there was only one man in the party whose leadership would surely win, and that man was Horatio Seymour. But Seymour had higher ambitions than the governorship of New York and was very reluctant to run. Nevertheless, he could not resist Richmond's insistence that he must sacrifice himself, if necessary, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... mother kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer." ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward downright sort ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... 1809, when he was near forty; after that he dwelt in retirement in Berlin until he was called to the throne of the Netherlands. At that time he had exchanged his German possessions for the grand duchy of Luxemburg; and was therefore naturally reluctant to be deprived of the latter. The old soldier survived his abdication only a few years, dying ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... complaining of the unwarrantable and illegal interference by her son on behalf of a slave who was being very properly punished for gross misconduct; and of the personal assault upon his son. The writer said that he was most reluctant to take legal proceedings against a member of so highly respected a family, but that it was impossible that he could submit to such ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned, made her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long, pale face all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great erectness, as if reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to disguise a trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind and womanly expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... light which shone from Heaven: and by this great light above him, as Jurgen mounted higher and yet higher, the shadow of Jurgen was lengthened beyond belief along the sheer white wall of Heaven, as though the shadow were reluctant and adhered tenaciously to Hell. Yet presently Jurgen leaped the ramparts: and then the shadow leaped too; and so his shadow came with Jurgen into Heaven, and huddled dispiritedly at ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... and she took up her theme again with visible and painful effort. A sickening familiarity, a weariness of it all before she had begun, showed in her voice and in her pale, reluctant smile. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Reluctant as he had been to go, the change was good for Peter. The dawn grew rosy, promised sunshine, fulfilled its promise. The hurrying crowds at the depot interested him: he enjoyed his coffee, taken from a bare table in the station. The horizontal morning sunlight, ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was beside himself, for he still remained with that evil companion with whom he had lived, nor did he seem to have feeling or thought for any other thing. It pleased our Lord that by serious conversations and arguments he was induced not to visit his wicked companion; and after a reluctant "yes" had been drawn from him, almost by force, he did afterward abandon her, so entirely that it seemed as if he had never known her. He made a general confession, and began a new life, to the wonder of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the guessing and conceits of a multitude of writers, most trustworthy of whom are the early Christian Fathers, who, to the end that they might arouse the attention of the sleeping nations, yielded a reluctant, but impartial and graceful, tribute to the long-forgotten creeds of Chaldea, Phenicia, Assyria, and Egypt. Nevertheless, they would never have appealed to the doctrine of Buddha as being most like to Christianity in its rejection of the claims ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... shown," wailed poor Dulcie piteously, clinging to the reluctant Paul; "I know. Don't fight with him, Dick. I say you're ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... as marching "without orders" from right to left with his own brigade and the Michigan brigade. In the text the words "without orders" have been omitted. This is not because my own recollection of the events of that day is not the same now as then, but for the reason that I am reluctant to invite controversy by giving as statements of fact things that rest upon the evidence of my ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... everything had turned out as David had calculated, you would have seen that his plan was worthy of his talents. The guineas would have lain safely in the earth while the theft was discovered, and David, with the calm of conscious innocence, would have lingered at home, reluctant to say good-bye to his dear mother while she was in grief about her guineas; till at length, on the eve of his departure, he would have disinterred them in the strictest privacy, and carried them on his own person without inconvenience. But David, you ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... and representing so earnestly her desire that their marriage should be unknown till his return to England, upon a thousand motives of delicacy, propriety, and fearfulness, that the obligation he owed already to a compliance which he saw grew more and more reluctant, restrained him both in gratitude and pity from persecuting her further. Neither would she consent to seeing him in Suffolk; which could but delay his mother's journey, and expose her to unnecessary suspicions; she promised, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... during his anxious seat upon the throne of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course of policy—if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a conscious doubt of the valour of his troops—if he commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage—his expedients were the disgrace of the age, rather ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... consequences of the wrath. To have inserted the battle at the ships, in which Sarpedon breaks down the wall of the Greeks, immediately after the occurrences of the first book, would have been too abrupt altogether. Zeus, after his reluctant promise to Thetis, must not be expected so suddenly to exhibit such fell determination. And after the long series of books describing the valorous deeds of Aias, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Menelaos, the powerful intervention of Achilleus appears in far grander proportions than would ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually fixed directly upon the eyes of the person ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... our cravings; the very beauty of the day and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty setting a keener edge upon them! How faint and languid, finally, we would return toward nightfall to our desired morsel, half rejoicing, half reluctant, that the hours ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... nest their home hung over the village on the unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart Brenner and his kin. The village said that he—and all those who belonged to him as well—were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster had truly written itself through-out their history. His mother was mad, a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... laughter died on stiffened lips. There was not a smile left among all the ship's company. Not a word was spoken. Many turned their backs, trying to look unconcerned; others, with averted heads, sent half-reluctant glances out of the corners of their eyes. They resembled criminals conscious of misdeeds more than honest men distracted by doubt; only two or three stared frankly, but stupidly, with lips slightly open. All expected James Wait to say something, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... second visit to Boston I was asked to invite him to attend an evening meeting of a scientific club, which was to be held at the house of a distinguished member. I was very reluctant to ask him to be present, for I knew he could be easily bored, and I was fearful that a prosy essay or geological speech might ensue, and I knew he would be exasperated with me, even although I were the innocent cause of his affliction. My worst fears ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future. Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where we belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She, apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at least. At ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... two yards of each other; and even so, shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary passenger had reached the journey's end. The swirl of snow and sleet screaming out of the blackness at the end of the station-building enveloped the porter in an instant, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sleeps, and all night sings; There in cold remote recesses That nor alien eyes assail, Feet, nor imminence of wings, Nor a wind nor any tune, Thou, O queen and holiest, Flower the whitest of all things, With reluctant lengthening tresses And with sudden splendid breast Save of maidens unbeholden, There art wont to enter, there Thy divine swift limbs and golden. Maiden growth of unbound hair, Bathed in waters white, Shine, and many a maid's by thee In moist woodland ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... through all the long drive, and finally the jangling bells which had so recalled that last joyous day at home—at home—had brought her to a point where this meeting between mother and son—these two stony, unpleasant creatures exchanging a reluctant rub of uninviting cheeks—as two savages might have rubbed noses—proved the finishing impetus to hysteria. They were so hideous, these two, and so ghastly comic and fantastic in their unresponsive glumness, that the poor girl lost all hold ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lethargy, speaking no word, making no sign that he had noticed a different attendant. When she had quite finished, he breathed a long sigh of relaxation; his quivering, weak little body went suddenly limp, and Miss Beaver had a good scare as she bent over him, trying to bring back that weary and reluctant spirit to ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... exercised an extensive authority; being termed, by Lord Dacre, "chief maintainer of all misguided men on the borders of Scotland."—Letter to Wolsey, July 18. 1528. The Earl of Angus, with his reluctant ward, had slept at Melrose; and the clans of Home and Kerr, under the Lord Home, and the barons of Cessford, and Fairnihirst, had taken their leave of the king, when, in the gray of the morning, Buccleuch and his band of cavalry were discovered, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... those views and hopes that pointed to future improvement, it was not a matter of triumph or exultation to the lecturer or any body else, to the young or the old, the wise or the foolish; on the contrary, it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... it and set it for you. This is how it works—" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Barton, skeptically. In honest if reluctant admiration for an instant, he sat appraising his companion's extraordinary litheness and agility. "Ha!" he laughed. "It would take a good deal older head than yours to discover what ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... is parted from thee, and the earth Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God; And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 60 Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands Scorches and burns our once serene domain. O aching time! O moments big as years! All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth, And press it so upon our weary ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... gave a great start at this almost reluctant suggestion, shrinking back with a look which fell not far short of being horrified. But then he rallied, forcing a laugh ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... head, and in a moment we were fencing away at a merry rate. We both had revolvers strapped to our waists, but I had no intention of drawing mine unless in extremity. At my right Stoddard was busy keeping off Morgan’s personal guard, who seemed reluctant ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... purpose of religious meditation, for which it was well adapted, as being surrounded by fens and waters it was difficult of access. She was again solicited to enter the marriage state, and, although for some time reluctant, she was induced by her uncle Ethelwold, then king of East Anglia, to give her hand to Egfrid, son of Oswy, king of Northumberland, and she afterwards became queen by the accession of her husband to his father's kingdom. ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... and false guise. The joy of the nation was boundless—its gratitude immeasurable. In the shout that hailed the deliverer, earlier deliverers were forgotten. No one remembered the men whose stupendous exertions wrung from the reluctant spirit of a far darker time the right of living, of worship, of enjoying property, and exercising the franchise. All these, and more, which were once, and not very remotely, denied to the Catholics had been before this accorded to them. Yet the interest and importance ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... radiant company of angels and archangels.' And always I cherish the belief that if I obeyed the summons I should receive fulfilment of the promise. Well, the beliefs that one most cherishes one is least willing to test. I do not go in at that open door. But lingering, but reluctant, is my tread as I pass by it; and I pause to bathe in the light that is as the span of our human life, granted between one great ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... rapids, their boat, with all its contents intact, rode safely in the placid waters of a little bay where the river widened out and navigation was once more possible. Here at last the kind-hearted natives bade a reluctant and sorrowful farewell to Dick and Stukely; the bitterness of parting being mitigated by a promise on the part of the white men that, in the event of their returning by way of the river, they would not fail to make a stay of at least a week in their ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... literary figures of the day, Ruskin could not avoid society, and, as he tells in "Praeterita," he was rewarded for the reluctant performance of his duties by meeting with several who became his lifelong friends. Chief among these he mentions Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple, afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple. The acquaintance with Samuel Rogers, inauspiciously begun many years before, now ripened into something like ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... we offer new engagement and a renewed vow: We will stay strong to protect the peace. The "offered hand" is a reluctant fist; but once made, strong, and can be used with great effect. There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands, and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here, and will be long remembered. ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... journeyman, small in frame, and saved from the draft by not attaining the required military height; naturally lean and made more so by hard work and the enforced sobriety under which reluctant workers like Courtecuisse succumb. His face was no bigger than a man's fist, and was lighted by a pair of yellow eyes with greenish strips and brown spots, in which a thirst for the possession of property was mingled with a concupiscence which ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... her devotion to Zillah, and some further conversation followed, all of which resulted in this—that Hilda wrote the letter in Zillah's name, and signed that name in her own hand, and under Zillah's own eye, and with Zillah's half-reluctant, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... her to come to the house of God and seek rest. However this might be, Annie's tones so animated some hearts and strengthened some voices as that the psalm might be, and was, heard a long way off. It reached an unwilling ear, and drew forward reluctant steps. The links of old association, are, however, the strongest of chains, and no charm is so magical as that of religious emotion. Lady Carse was drawn nearer and nearer, in hope of hearing ano, her psalm, till the solemn ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... contact with the reality of this; a Boston as alien as Europe to her simple experiences, and that seemed to be proud only of the things that were unlike other American things; a Boston that would rather perish by fire and sword than be suspected of vulgarity; a critical, fastidious, and reluctant Boston, dissatisfied with the rest of the hemisphere, and gelidly self-satisfied in so far as it was not in the least the Boston of her fond preconceptions. It was, doubtless, no more the real Boston we know and love, than ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... not tell you the name of my lover," replied Angelique. She was reluctant to mention the name of Bigot as her lover. The idea was hateful to her. "The name of the woman I cannot tell you, even if I would," ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was also you who first saw the body in the water," observed the coroner, regarding the reluctant witness curiously. "How came you to see that? Were you looking ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the difficulty of dispatch increased with each succeeding train, until when it came to entraining reluctant horses and still more reluctant mules practically in the dark, for there was no other light but the dim glimmer of two candle-lamps, the task became herculean, and required an infinity of patience and ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a village on the further ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for an instant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there must have been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry read it and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In a fraction of time, certain information went from ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... forget Emily's death-day; it becomes a more fixed, a darker, a more frequently recurring idea in my mind than ever. It was very terrible. She was torn, conscious, panting, reluctant, though resolute, out of a happy life. But it will not do to dwell on ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... note, like the wind's in a tree: The infant morning breathes sweet breath, And with it is blent The wistful, wild, moist scent Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth: And behold! The last reluctant drop of the storm, Wrung from the roof, is smitten warm And turned to gold; For in its veins doth run The very blood of ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... news and Olive answered the letter. She begged permission of her husband to invite Jane and the baby to visit the old home. At first Zelotes said no, flatly; the girl had made her bed, let her lie in it. But a year later he had so far relented as to give reluctant consent for Jane and the child to come, provided her condemned husband did not accompany them. "If that low-lived Portygee sets foot on my premises, so help me God, I'll kill him!" declared the captain. In his ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Inasmuch as reluctant heretics were imprisoned for life, it seems certain that the severer penalty reserved for obstinate heretics must have been the death penalty of the stake, for that was the mode of punishment decreed by the imperial law of 1224, which had just been copied ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... persisted. Still he said he was acting according to orders. Not to be baffled, she begged that she might be allowed to take me to Brother, telling him who he was, while our trunk, Miriam, Tiche, and mother would remain as hostages. Then he gave a reluctant consent on condition I left my number, so he could go after me when I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the people. This was true. His power was considered almost unlimited, and his life one that would not disgrace the highest saint in the calendar. There were not wanting some persons in the parish who hinted that Father Felix O'Rourke, the parish priest, was himself rather reluctant to incur the displeasure, or challenge the power, of the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... woman's heart is, the less she credits the existence of vice and the possibility of crime among her own sex. You doubtless consider the Brinvilliers, Fredegonds, Fulvias and Faustinas, quite as fabulous as Centaurs, Sirens and Were-wolves; and I feel as reluctant to shake your fair faith in womanhood, as to dash the dew from a rose-bud, or rudely brush the bloom a cluster of tempting grapes; but the grim truth must be told, that our old friend was robbed and murdered by ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... was evidently made in good faith, and Gilbert hesitated, reluctant to accept it, and yet unwilling to reject it in a manner ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... they disappeared, going into the ballroom, Karl evidently reluctant to be taken away. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... and went deeper than Philip knew, for Ruth at once thought of practicing her profession among the young gentlemen and ladies of her acquaintance in the village; but she was reluctant to admit to herself that her notions of a career had undergone ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... yellow crops. She saw a small figure climb a stile and come towards the house along a footpath, increasing in stature as it approached. It was Colonel Dewes, and her thoughts went back to the day when first, with reluctant steps, he had walked along that path, carrying with him a battered silver watch and chain and a little black leather letter-case. Because of that memory she advanced ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... haste and got from the side of my bed the only chair in the room, placed it in the window, sat down before the reluctant instrument, and gave it a third swing. Then, my elbows on the sill, I sat and watched it with growing awe, but growing determination as well. Once more it showed signs of refusal; once more the forefinger of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... I do I'd make you miserable, dear," I whispered back as I drew myself out of his reluctant arms and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... be asked for our parole was verified next morning; and Southcott, giving his, bade us a reluctant farewell after a further ineffectual effort to persuade us to reconsider our decision. Finding that we were not to be persuaded he bade us take heart and keep up our spirits, as his very first task should be to make such representations to the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... although excessive red tape, bureaucratic oversight, and uncertainties about pricing have slowed the process. Escalating unemployment and high rates of inflation may impede efforts to speed up privatization and budget reform, while Hungary's heavy foreign debt will make the government reluctant to introduce full convertibility of the forint before 1994 and to rein in inflation. The government is projecting an end to the 5-year recession in 1993, and GDP is forecast to grow 0%-3%. National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $55.4 billion (1992 est.) National ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... would be the very end of my story; but I must add one curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a shop which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a great ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... going was reluctant. And then, a month later he came back again, and, oh, what a difference there was in his return! It took the conductor and two train-men to put him off at the station; they were considerably marked up in the operation. Once safely landed on the platform, however, Long John spread out his ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... in a wayward mood, Reluctant, yearning, with a faithless mind, I sought once more a long neglected spot, A wooded upland bordered by the sea, Whose tides were swirling up the reedy sands, Or floating noiseless in the yellow marsh. My way was wild. The winds, awaking, smote My face, but as I passed a ruined ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... received, and married instantly, without his wishing it, although the young girl was pretty. It was some time before she would take his moccasins, which he had taken off. It displeased him to see her so reluctant to do so, and when she did reach them, he snatched them out of her hand and hung them up himself. He laid down and thought of the swan, and made up his mind to be off by dawn. He awoke early, and spoke to the young woman, but she gave no answer. He slightly touched her. ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread,— But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... cost of public roads fell chiefly upon the farmers, cities escaping taxation for this purpose, except for their own streets. A road running across a state might be well kept in some localities while allowed to run down in others. A community was reluctant to spend money on a highway only to have the improvements destroyed by through traffic from neighboring communities who had no responsibility for maintaining the road. Local communities could not afford to employ expert officials to plan ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... Town, and leisurely climbing the hill on the road that leads past the old Academy, he paused frequently to look back over the ever widening view, and to drink deep of the pure, sun-filled air. At the top of the hill, reluctant to go back to the town that lay beyond, he stood contemplating the ancient school building that held so bravely its commanding position, and looked so pitiful in its shabby old age. Then passing through a gap ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... wife, Charlotte de Laval, whose brave Christian injunctions, as we have seen, decided the reluctant admiral to take up arms in the first religious war (see ante, chapter xiii., p. 35), lay dying of a disease contracted in her indefatigable labors for the sick and wounded soldiers at Orleans, whilst ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... returned with a sealed letter. Until she was gone, Amaryllis eyed the writing on the envelope with reluctant displeasure; ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... that followed American entry into World War II, the nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few segregated Negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially integrated military establishment. Nor was this change confined to military installations. By the time it was over, the armed forces had redefined their traditional ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... accepted, and the administration of affairs entrusted to Sir John Colborne, in whose judgment and abilities government felt the highest confidence. They had declared to that officer that, though they were reluctant to resort to means of extreme severity, yet, nevertheless, if he found it necessary to proclaim martial law in the province, they would take upon themselves the responsibility. Accounts of open disturbance had been recently received; and there was reason to believe that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hesitating, reluctant, long-suffering people into crusaders? Propaganda. Press work. Five-minute men. Open and secret work. It was necessary to uncover and oppose the open and secret propaganda of paid agents of Germany, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... region or air which we breath in, thronged with spirits now invisible, and which otherwise would be the most terrible; we should view the secret transactions of those messengers who are employed when the parting soul takes it's leave of the reluctant body, and perhaps see things nature would shrink back from with the utmost terror and amazement. In a word, the curtain of Providence for the disposition of things here, and the curtain of judgment for the determination of the state ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... quite so desolate over the separation now. For one thing it had not been necessary to give up all claim on Captain Kidd to insure him a good home. Georgina had gladly accepted the offer of half of him, and had coaxed even Tippy into according him a reluctant welcome. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... serious business intentions, the luncheon which followed was the last the city saw of Bobby Burnit for three days. Be it said to his credit that he had accomplished his purpose when he returned. He had brought reluctant Jack Starlett back with him, and together they walked into the ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... fixed and unshakable delusions. She saw that high-sounding titles were no more part of the personalities bearing them than the mass of frankly false hair so grandly worn by Aristide's grand-aunt was part of the wisp-like remnant of natural head covering. But that other self of hers, so reluctant to be laughed or frowned down and out by the self that was Hiram Ranger's daughter, still forced her to share in the ancient, ignorant allegiance to "appearances." She did not appreciate how bored she was, how impatient to be back with Dory, the never monotonous, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... She dragged from a reluctant Phineas the history of his wound and obtained confirmation of his statement from a nurse who happened to pass up the gangway of the pleasant ward and lingered by the bedside. McPhail was doing splendidly. Of course, a man with ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... give them a chance of escaping," said D'Artagnan. "Why, one of them is a rich lord from Touraine and the other a knight of Malta, of noble family. We have arranged the ransom of each of them—2,000 on arriving in France. We are reluctant to leave for a single moment men whom our lackeys know to be millionaires. It is true we plundered them a little when we took them, and I will even confess that it is their purse that Monsieur du Vallon and I draw on in our nightly play. Still, they may have concealed some precious stone, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... safety. She thought, however, still more frequently of the babe, and felt a still greater solicitude for her, left as she had been, at so exceedingly tender an age, in a situation of the most extreme and imminent danger. She felt somewhat guilty in having yielded her reluctant consent, for political reasons, to have her other children educated in what she believed a false system of religious faith, and she now prayed earnestly to God to spare the life of this her last and dearest child, and vowed in her anguish that, if the babe were ever ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... happiness;—and I vowed that unless he would consent to aid me, it was my firm resolve to shut myself up in a convent and take the veil. This threat, which I had not the least design of carrying into effect, induced him to yield a reluctant acquiescence with my project: for he loved me as if I had been his child. He was moreover consoled somewhat by the assurance which I gave him, and in which I myself felt implicit confidence at the time, that the necessity for the simulation of deafness and dumbness on my part would cease the moment ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... to crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay, hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned upon ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... secure. And what this saying was and in what manner it was spoken I shall explain. When the Vandals originally, pressed by hunger, were about to remove from their ancestral abodes, a certain part of them was left behind who were reluctant to go and not desirous of following Godigisclus. And as time went on it seemed to those who had remained that they were well off as regards abundance of provisions, and Gizeric with his followers gained possession ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... that there was nobody in the camp that would undertake to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new arrival; and so she was forced to do it herself, with some very ungracious and reluctant assistance from Jane. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... moved. For a moment his iron muscles relaxed—a gentler expression overspread his countenance, and he took her in his arms. That single, half-reluctant embrace was a boon not much bestowed in the latter days of his victim, and it awakened a thousand tender recollections in her heart, and unsealed a warm spring of gushing waters. An infantile smile was in her eyes, while the tears were ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the canal; but she shines like the sun, With yellow hair and dreaming, wine-brown eyes. Thick crowd the doves for food. She gives ME none. She sees and will not see. Vain are my sighs. One slow, reluctant stroke. Aha! she turns, Gestures and smiles, with ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... comes, and some one must go to Baltimore. It is not a matter he cares to have Wilmarth settle, and Eugene is not to be relied upon. He could take Violet, but it would look absurd this hot weather, and on such a hurried journey, when he has not hesitated to go alone before. Why should he be so reluctant ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the object of worship, questioned Ei-sai by way of reproach: "Is it, sir, right for us Buddhists to demolish the image of a Buddha?" "Well," replied Ei-sai promptly, "Buddha would give even his own life for the sake of suffering people. How could he be reluctant to give his halo?" This anecdote clearly shows us self-sacrifice is of first ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... publicist, the discontented with things as they are and the protagonist of things as they ought to be, have all taken their turn and the Church generally, with some natural protest against being made the scapegoat for the sins of a society arrestingly reluctant to make the Church's gospel the law of its life, has taken account of its own shortcomings and sought to correct them. The cults are as yet less inclined to test themselves by that against which they have reacted. But this is beside the point. ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... the sunrise kindled and scattered The red rose-leaflets of countless cloud: For her the blasts of the springtide shattered The strengths reluctant of waves back-bowed. For her would winds in the mid sky levy Bright wars that hardly the night bade cease At noon, when sleep on the sea lies heavy, For her would the ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was the most desirous of going there. The reasons of such an order I think I may attribute to other motives. The same Hazen confesses we are not strong enough to think of the expedition in this moment. As to the troops, they are disgusted, and (if you except some Hazen's Canadians) reluctant, to the utmost degree, to begin a winter incursion in a so cold country. I have consulted everybody, and everybody answers me that it would be madness to undertake ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... within a few days' march of Vienna, the Hungarians rose in a mass; they formed what they called the sacred insurrection, to defend their sovereign, their rights and liberties, now common to all; and the apprehension of their approach dictated to the reluctant Bonaparte the immediate signature of the treaty of Leoben. The Romish hierarchy of Hungary exists in all its former splendour and opulence; never has the slightest attempt been made to diminish it; and those revolutionary principles, to which so large a ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... twenty-first year till the battle of Wagram in 1809, when he was near forty; after that he dwelt in retirement in Berlin until he was called to the throne of the Netherlands. At that time he had exchanged his German possessions for the grand duchy of Luxemburg; and was therefore naturally reluctant to be deprived of the latter. The old soldier survived his abdication only a few years, dying ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... I only said what I did as a suggestion," Mrs. Whately answered with dignity. "You are in your own home. I merely felt reluctant that this Yankee should have a chance to say that we were so rude and uncivilized that we couldn't appreciate good treatment when we received it. There's no harm in gaining his goodwill, either, for he said that his general, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... visit could not have been chosen. It was plain to see that the Throckmortons were not aware of the honor conferred upon them. The guest chamber having been converted into a convalescent hospital, Miss Ann must share room and bed with the reluctant Lucy. Bureau drawers were cleared and part of a wardrobe dedicated to the aged relative. Moreover there was no room in the stable for the visiting carriage horses, as a young Throckmorton had recently purchased a string of valuable hunters that must be housed, although Miss Ann's Golddust breed ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... it while her eyes searched Esther's face. It seemed to her such an extraordinary choice for a tiny child to make. She was reluctant to let her have it. "Hadn't she better have the one she chose first?" she asked anxiously. But Esther was accustomed to ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... You wouldn't be a real true woman if you weren't!" she accused. A reluctant dimple tugged at Nina's pouting mouth. She did not dislike the idea of potential despotism, of the travelled, experienced woman of the world, confident of ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... their windows, all intoxicated with the mere delight of living and the gladness of a new day. The pagan populace of Antioch—reckless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift—were preparing for the Saturnalia. But all this Hermas had renounced. He cleft his way through the crowd slowly, like a reluctant swimmer ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... of his marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood added the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an unreverend awe, but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and reluctant witness, bowed to his authority - and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subject, returning to Piers' prospects. They talked for half an hour, the lady's eyes occasionally turning towards the door, and Otway sometimes losing himself as he glanced at the crayon portrait. He was thinking of a reluctant withdrawal, when the door opened. He heard a soft rustle, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... to reveal a broken flight of steps, conducting, it would seem, to regions of perpetual night. So thought Eleanor, as she shudderingly gazed into the abyss. She hesitated; she trembled; she refused. But her mother's entreaties, and Barbara's threatening looks, induced, in the end, reluctant compliance. At length the place was empty. Peter was about to follow, when the sound of a horse's hoofs broke upon his ear. He tarried for an instant, and the mounted figure of the highwayman burst within the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... conscious of his unfitness for many things; but he felt there was nothing in life to which he was so ill adapted as his present position. Yet, until he could look about him, he must needs eat his kinsman's reluctant bread, or starve. The world was younger and more unsophisticated when manna ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Rule bowed a reluctant admission to this mandate. He knew well that argument would be thrown away upon the Iron King, and he knew that, even if he himself were tempted to try to persuade Cora to marry him at present, she would not do so in ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... green in his memory, it only remained to him to view the stately splendor of the Challoner mansion up town to be reminded that his vagabond companion of a week rightfully belonged to another world in which he was only a reluctant and somewhat captious visitor. Her riches bewildered him. They obtruded unbearably, proclaiming their importance in terms which there was no denying. Vagabondia, it seemed, was ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... England, of rewarding her blows with caresses, of submitting to be fairly scourged into a servile alliance with her. It is not surprising that the independent temper of Mr. Adams revolted at the position which his party seemed not reluctant to assume at this juncture. Yet not very much better seemed for a time the policy of the administration. Jefferson was far from being a man for troubled seasons, which called for high spirit and executive energy. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... she was to bribe cast a deep shadow on her imagination. Sharing the feeling of many others, she had reached the reluctant conclusion that Mrs. Brace in some way knew more than anybody else about the murder and its motives. It was, she told herself, a horrid feeling, and without reason. But she could not shake it off. To her, Mrs. Brace was a ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Ellen. I'm going to find all those things, surely, but more—much more, as you'll see in time," and, snatching the sheet from her maid's reluctant hand, she was off with a merry look back at the two, who watched her till she had rounded the corner of ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... and De Castro in the intervals of his talk kept pulling out his watch. It was evident that he wanted to be going, but was reluctant to leave me there. For my part, I frequently rose to go, but on getting a sign from D'Arcy that he wished me to stay I sat down again. At ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... that my energy met with its due reward, for such was the realism with which I had treated the subject allotted to me that the editor and proprietors of the Illustrated London News were reluctant to shock the susceptibilities of their readers by presenting them with such scenes, and I had to substitute for them sketches of soup kitchens, committee meetings and refuges. That the editorial decision was not a sound one was amply proved a few years ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph? Pray, "Lead us into no such temptation, Lord!" Yea, but, O thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Loretz, reluctant still because of his misgivings, "go on. It will be a comfort to you, I dare say, Mr. Wenck, to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the evil he is incurring or causing, during this progress of violating, step after step, the circumscription by which the aristocratic compasses were again and again, with small reluctant extensions to successive greater distances, defining the scope of the knowledge proper for a man of his condition? It is a bad thing, is it, that he has a multiplicity of ideas to relieve the tedium incident ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... askaris scuttled away about their business, which was, at this moment, to herd and hustle the reluctant porters back to their job. Kingozi, his head and jaw thrust forward, stared after them, his eyes— indeed, his whole personality—projecting aggressive force. The men hurried to their positions, their loud laughter stilled, ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... descended upon Corner Stone. The caravan remained at Corner Stone for a night and a day, and then moved on to Winyip. Nickie the Kid, for some reason of his own, strongly opposed the trip to Winyip; possibly because he was reluctant to appear as a mere man-monkey with a demoralised head and a rudimentary tail in a township in which he had recently figured to great advantage as Crips ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... however, to save her Lord from any additional shock, and prepared by a series of griefs not to tremble at any accession to it, she determined to make herself the first sacrifice, if fate had marked the present hour for their destruction. Dismissing the reluctant Matilda to her rest, who in vain sued for leave to accompany her mother, and attended only by her chaplain, Hippolita had visited the gallery and great chamber; and now with more serenity of soul than she had felt for many hours, she ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... royal family. Having thus excluded Bute, they urged the King to let them, in the most marked manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the House of Commons would undoubtedly strike her name out, and by this threat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it appeared that the representations by which they had induced the King to put this gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the Princess in the House of Commons moved that her name should be inserted. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dwellings of her aunts and uncles she was reluctant to disturb. She felt a sort of sacredness about these splendid houses where she had been merry as a child. When at last she made up her mind to part with one she would not give the order to sell ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... invasion of the other imps—which Dr Rider inly dreaded up to the last moment—was over, Freddy grew more and more tolerable. Where Fred once lay and dozed, and filled the doctor's house with heavy fumes and discreditable gossip, a burden on his brother's reluctant hospitality, little Freddy now obliterated that dismal memory with prayers and slumbers of childhood; and where the discontented doctor had grumbled many a night and day over that bare habitation of his, which was a house, and not a home, Nettie diffused ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality, and its pride, as well as in its fortitude or faith, but makes it noble in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body, and beholds the mysteries of its form like an angel looking down on an inferior creature: there is nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that he is ashamed to confess; with all that lives, triumphing, falling, or suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, yet standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deepness of his sympathy; for the spirit within him is too thoughtful ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... it through the Interposition of France by the Means of Sweden. The ostensible Reason on the Part of Russia was, that there was no Cartel settled between Great Britain and America; the Want of which will make every Power reluctant in lending their Troops. France is attentive to this Struggle and wishes for a Separation of the two Countries. I am in no Doubt that she would with Chearfulness openly lend her Aid to promote it, if America would declare herself free and independent; for I think it is easy to see what great ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... shortsighted view (not for the first time in history) of the great problems that were beginning to present themselves. The British empire in the East was not won by a towering ambition so much as forced upon a reluctant commercial company by the necessities of its position. The English race became dominant in America; but the political connection was broken off mainly because English statesmen could only regard it from the shopkeeping point of view. When a new world began to arise at the Antipodes, our rulers saw ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... would be too selfish of me. Aunt wished me to give you this information before, but papa and all the rest were anxious I should delay until we saw whether matters took a more settled aspect, and I myself kept putting it off from day to day, most bitterly reluctant to give up all the pleasure I had anticipated so long. However, remembering what you told me, namely, that you had commended the matter to a higher decision than ours, and that you were resolved to submit with ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... three first years of his reign the forms, and even the spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have ripened into solid virtue.[47] A fatal incident ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... was for a time abandoned, yet about this time it was partially renewed by a bill for allowing promotion in the army and navy to Roman Catholics, as well as to other dissenters from the protestant establishment. This bill which had received the reluctant acquiescence of his majesty, was read a first time on the 5th of March, and was ordered to be read on the twelfth of the same month. In the meantime the king's sentiments underwent a material change; his coronation-oath would not, he said, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... warning of Iroquois proved all too true. Within a year, in June, 1743, six workmen were beset in the fields, only one escaping. Because his mission was to convert the Indians, Maisonneuve had been ever reluctant to meet the Iroquois in open war, preferring to retreat within the fort when the dog Pilot and her litter barked loud warning that Indians were hiding in the woods. Any one who knows the Indian character will realize how clemency would ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... common ground between sensitive people; a common sensual and psychic language, so to speak, to which appeals may be made, and through which intelligent tokens may be exchanged. This common ground is not necessarily—one is reluctant to introduce metaphysical speculation—any hidden "law of beauty" or "principle of spiritual harmony." It is, indeed, as far as we can ever know for certain, only "objective" in the sense of being essentially human; in the sense, that is, of being something ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... Fielding here used his reluctant and indignant forerunner as a spring-board, whence to attain heights which that forerunner could never have reached: he "stood upon his shoulders" in the most cavalier but also the most successful fashion. In the novel as Richardson knew it and was thinking of it, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... usual, exasperated by a religious feud. The King found the Church in a singular state. A short time before the commencement of the civil war, his father had given a reluctant assent to a bill, strongly supported by Falkland, which deprived the Bishops of their seats in the House of Lords: but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, however, had passed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... girl. I trembled, all hope and all despair, for the issue. She would not be vanquished. Her love was stronger than its hate; her love knew not the name of fear. For a thousand nights, so it seemed, the two remained thus, at grips, as it were, in a death-struggle. Then with a reluctant gesture of abdication the ghost waved a hand; its terrible features softened into a consent, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Latin. Tyrwhitt disputes the existence of this personage, and supposes Chaucer's original to have been the Philostrato dell' amorose fatiche de Troilo, a work of Boccacio. But Chaucer was never reluctant in acknowledging obligations to his contemporaries, when such really existed; and Mr Tyrwhitt's opinion seems to be successfully combated by Mr Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer." The subject, whencesoever derived, was deemed by Shakespeare ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... with crimes committed within their borders, and was not intended to bring to the test of a decision of this Court every ruling made in the course of a State trial. Consistently with the preservation of constitutional balance between State and federal sovereignty, this Court must respect and is reluctant to interfere with the States' determination of local social policy."[822] One year later, the Court made another inconclusive observation in Smith v. O'Grady,[823] in which it stated that if true, allegations ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... persevered hostilities of Edward against Scotland explained the delay; but the king yet hoped for a favorable reply, and made such entreaties to Bruce and his friend to remain in Paris till it should arrive, that they at last granted a reluctant consent. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... minutes, being reluctant to leave, but satisfied at last that Dost's advice was right, and that I must wait patiently for my release, I covered my face with the great palm fan, and said ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Revolutionaries. Although theoretically sharing the Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at first were reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics. However, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries remained in the Soviet Government, sharing the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of Agriculture. They withdrew from the Government several times, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... an evil spirit of dawdling seized me as I went. I stopped to gaze into shops, to chat with a passing acquaintance, and to have my boots blacked. Forgetting the passage of time altogether, I strolled leisurely along, stopping at the slightest temptation, and prolonging my halts as if reluctant to advance, when suddenly I heard the deep bell of Westminster clock chime a quarter. "A quarter past eleven," thought I; "I must look sharp." And I did look sharp, and reached the place of appointment out of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a school was opened about a mile distant, and the parents thought best that the little girls should have the advantage of attending it through the summer. At first they were quite reluctant to go; for they were strangers still to the children around them, and the young lady who taught them they had never seen until they met her among her pupils. After a few days they became very fond ...
— The Allis Family; or, Scenes of Western Life • American Sunday School Union
... and against common sense. Why cannot they agree to sink their differences, and to unite upon the broad basis of a common loyalty to Christ? To what purpose is this overlapping and conflict? The reluctant tribute of the ancient sceptic—"See how these Christians love one another"—has become the modern worldling's cynical and familiar jibe; and when to the spectacle of Christian disunion is added the observation that professing Christians of all denominations ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... for our pardon, coming from men the governors had confidence in, urging them to a pardon they were reluctant to grant, led to a feeling, which found expression finally in official circles, that the responsibility of the pardoning power should be divided by the creation of a board of pardons as ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... at me when the bag passed, but I bore it with fortitude. I took particular notice that the crimson bag passed along the front of our family pew at a very dilatory pace, and tarried a good deal, as if reluctant to leave it. To and fro it passed in front of my nose as if it contained something I should like to smell, and at last moved away altogether. I was glad of that, because it prevented my following the words of the hymn in my book, and, unfortunately, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... therefore, that, if we should be involved in war, the odds against us would be far greater than what was due merely to our inferiority in population. Believing that secession would be the precursor of war between the States, I was consequently slower and more reluctant than others, who entertained a different opinion, to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... prospect of attracting industry. With the growth of the great cities here and there, perhaps a majority of small towns are faced now with flagging agricultural prosperity, a lack of jobs, and the resultant departure—often reluctant—of most of their energetic young people for the new centers of action. The mere rumor that an industry is considering setting up a plant in such a place is likely to set off shock waves of delight and establish a general mood in which almost any concession will be offered to tempt ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... glad of the change, too, for I am sure it must have taxed his love for me to stay in the goods-box which I had converted into a kennel and placed in the small backyard. Mrs. Moss,—honest soul,—when giving her reluctant consent to this, consoled herself by thinking that she was only yielding to another of ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... It is with reluctant shame I enter on a comparison of such a person and Pericles. On one hand we behold the richest cultivation of the most varied and extensive genius; the confidence of courage, the sedateness of wisdom, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... or thirty minutes Wolf went on banging with his board and demanding his rights; then at last the weary President threatened to summon the dread order-maker. But both his manner and his words were reluctant. Evidently it grieved him to have to resort to this dire extremity. He said to Wolf, 'If this goes on, I shall feel obliged to summon the Ordner, and beg him to restore order ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the history of their tribes and nations, or records the deeds of their warriors and chiefs, their prowess and their wrongs. Their spoilers have been their historians; and although a reluctant assent has been awarded to some of the nobler traits of their nature, yet, without yielding a due allowance for the peculiarities of their situation, the Indian character has been presented with singular uniformity as being cold, cruel, morose, and revengeful; unrelieved ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Seddon wants Brig.-Gen. R. (Charleston) relieved, for insulting a lady in one of his fits of drunkenness. The President is reluctant ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Mrs. Payson agreed—"if you will only let me take this away first." She pointed to the address of the cottage, printed under the photograph. Past experience in the Home made her reluctant to trust Sally with the address in London at which ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... bear it but I do—I do! I shall have a grown-up daughter. She will be the kind of girl everyone will look at—and someone—important—may want to marry her. But, Oh!—" He was reminded of the day when she had fallen at his feet, and clasped his rigid and reluctant knees. This was something of the same feeble desperation of mood. "Oh, WHY couldn't someone like that have wanted to marry ME! See!" she was like a pathetic fairy as she spread her nymphlike arms, ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you request, I frankly confess to you, Gentlemen, that whatever may be my private opinion as to the course most advantageous to you and the province in general—and even to the President himself—I should feel extremely reluctant, except in a case of manifest and extreme necessity, to take upon myself a responsibility which might possibly subject me to the displeasure of His Imperial Majesty, and would most certainly expose me to be continually ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Nichols has set down a reasoned sequence of war impressions. The opening Third of his book, and by far its most interesting section, consists of a cycle of pieces in which the personal experience of fighting is minutely reported, stage by stage. We have "The Summons," the reluctant but unhesitating answer to the call in England, the break-up of plans; then the farewell to home, "the place of comfort." "The Approach," in three successive lyrics, describes the arrival at the Front. "Battle," in eleven sections, reproduces the mental ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... resumed Savarin, drawing away the manuscript from Isaura's coy, reluctant clasp, "do permit me to cast a glance over these papers. For what I yet know, there may be here more promise of fame than even you could gain as ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... both sides, was interrupted by the return of Bradamante. Finding herself unable to overtake the fugitives, and reluctant to leave to another the burden and risk of a contest which belonged to herself, she had returned to reclaim the combat. She arrived, however, when her champion had dealt his enemy such a blow as obliged him to drop both his sword and bridle. Rogero, disdaining to profit by his adversary's ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... expression of intense displeasure gave way to one of reluctant admiration with dislike struggling in the background. "You are extremely frank in your statements, ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... incurred a fearful shock. He entered the house, and a sickness came over him; his limbs trembled; he sat down in the hall, and, placing the fruit beside him, covered his face with his hands and wept. Those were not the tears of a boy, drawn from a shallow source; they were the burning, agonising, reluctant tears, that men shed, wrung from the heart as if it were its blood. He had never been sent to school, lest he should meet with mortification. He had had various tutors, trained to show, rather than to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sixteenth century, St. Lo was once more so unfortunate as to act a prominent part. Early in the troubles, it distinguished itself by a decided devotion to the cause of Protestantism; and, though often obliged, by the current of affairs, to yield a reluctant submission to the opposite party, it continued throughout the whole of the struggle, unshaken in its attachment to the Huguenots. Hence, when finally summoned to surrender to the Catholics, in 1574, it rather chose to expose itself to all the miseries of a siege, as well as to the still greater ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... been in session fifteen days. While I have felt reluctant to do any thing which should have the appearance of precipitating our action, of cutting off or limiting debate, I have all the time been pressed with this conviction; that if we are to save this country we must act speedily. I have been in constant communication with the people of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... that my true policy was to feign a reluctant consent to this proposition, and to determine later what recourse to take, as if indeed any remained to me in that den of serpents. I would consider, as soon as Mrs. Raymond was gone, what measures to pursue in order to elude the vigilance of McDermot, the detective; and then, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... as brilliant and noisy as it had been before when Henry reached it that night, escorting a reluctant Minnie. After a silent dinner and a theatrical performance during which neither had exchanged more than a word between the acts, she had wished to abandon the idea of supper and go home. But a squad of police could not have ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... an easy one, for in the first reconnaissance he made with his head inside the tree he discovered that the honey must be not less than 20 ft. above the ground, and it was necessary to climb up to that height inside the tree before he could get it. In order to hasten matters—as Benedicto was reluctant in carrying out the job—I tried my hand at it, but I was stung badly by hundreds of bees behind my head, on my eyelids, on my arms and legs. When I came out of the tree I was simply covered with angry bees, which stung me all over. So I told Benedicto that, as Fate ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... even when we saw him at his most dogmatic, the fact that the question of sex, in its physical aspects, did not enter into their relations—he was only her step-great-uncle—saved us from a great deal of uneasiness. In all his moods, whether of blustering self-assertion or reluctant surrender, of canny craft or protesting generosity, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... the smiles of Peace expand, And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing land; While France ships outward her reluctant ore, And half our navy basks upon the shore; From ruder themes our meek-eyed Muses turn To crown with ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... utmost twig, from scarlet crown Untouched with yet a tinct of brown, Reluctant, slow, As loath to go, The loosened leaves come ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... were reluctant to undertake such a risky adventure, but Betsy at once grasped the value of the suggestion and began jumping up and down until she found herself bounding almost as high as Polychrome had done. Then she suddenly leaned ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
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