"Evasive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conduct to the circumstances, by living in the most cordial intimacy with Undine—who passed in the town for a princess, released by Huldbrand from the power of some wicked enchanter of the forest. If she or her husband were questioned about it, they gave evasive answers; Father Heilmann's lips were sealed on all such idle topics, beside which, he had left them soon after they arrived, and returned to his cloister: so the citizens were left to their own wondering conjectures, and even ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... lady humbly. But with a woman's evasive pertinacity she wreathed one towel swiftly round the foot she was drying, and placed his other foot on the dry napkin; ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... work at once, Juba aiding us a little under Edmund's direction, and soon we had the sleds out of the tangle and properly attached. Then we replaced the natives on their seats, and entered the car. Edmund began to fumble with his apparatus. After some ten minutes' work he said, in an evasive way, that the damage was not serious enough to prevent the working of the car, but I thought I caught an expression of extreme anxiety in his face. Still, his manner indicated that he considered himself master of ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... subject of sorties the Government promised to conform to the general desire, and to allow the National Guards to co-operate with the regular army as soon as they should know how to fight and escape being simply butchered. To other demands made by Flourens, evasive replies were returned, whereupon he indignantly resigned his command of the Belleville men, but resumed it at ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... troubles, Julius," was the evasive reply. "Just you figure to keep things out of my way and give me a clear track. Let's see—where were we? Cheyenne Crossing at 2 a.m., water at Riddle Creek, coal ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the Quakers, as another bad trait in their character, that they are not plain and direct, but that they are evasive in their answers to any questions that ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... they had reached a deadlock. Somebody had to trust somebody. This could go on all night—parry and riposte, question and evasive answer, each of them throwing back the other's questions in a verbal fencing-match. Raynor One wasn't giving away any information. And, considering what was probably at stake, Bart ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... she had had with her husband on the "woman-problem." She had thought at first that it was going to prove a helpful talk—he had been in a fairer mood than she was usually able to induce. "He evaded some of my questions," she explained, "but I don't think it was deliberate; it is simply the evasive attitude of mind which the whole world takes. He says he does not think that women are inferior to men, only that they are different; the mistake is for them to try to become like men. It is the old proposition of 'charm,' you see. I put that to him, and he admitted that ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... him privately his opinion of the case. "I give her six months of life," said Aesculapius.] "Well, six months or not," [replied Huxley,] "she is going to be my wife." [The doctor was mightily put out. "You ought to have told me that before." Of course, the evasive answer in such a contingency was precisely what Huxley wished to avoid. Happily another leading doctor held a much more favourable opinion, and said that with care her strength would come back, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... been to all Englishmen, but the English government would at this point have been satisfied if its representative had been granted admission for the purpose of direct negotiation with the Chinese authorities. To the plain question put to him Yeh returned an evasive answer. All his time was taken up with the military affairs of the province, and he absolutely ignored the proposal for holding an interview within the city. The matter had gone too far to be put on one side in this manner, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... d'you think I mind mauling? There's something wrong or you wouldn't be so deucedly evasive. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... different rooms, and a sentinel was stationed in the gallery common to them all, in such a manner as to keep an eye on his whole charge at once, the hour had run deep into the night. Captain Borroughcliffe obeyed a summons from the colonel, who made him an evasive apology for the change in their evening's amusement, and challenged his guest to a renewal of the attack on the Madeira. This was too grateful a theme to be lightly discussed by the captain; and the abbey clock ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... new, sullen note in his voice perplexed her. Too, at times, in his increasing reticence there seemed to be almost a hint of cold effrontery. She felt it now—an indefinite suggestion of displeasure and the power to retaliate; something evasive, watchful, patiently hostile; and, try as she might, she could not rid herself of the discomfort of it, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... case, faithful Ursel must deceive herself and misjudge the girl, for the old woman's strangely evasive words had revealed plainly enough that she did not consider Barbara the right ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... matters under discussion when I was called to Washington in February, 1916, for consultation with the President. The long and wearing controversy had been going on for months. Every month notes were coming from Berlin, each more evasive and unsatisfactory than the last. Every week Count Bernstorff and his aides were coming to the State Department with new excuses, new subterfuges, and the same old lies. The President and Secretary Lansing, both of whom are ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... as he did after a moment's rapid thinking. To Adler's questions as to the manner of the chief engineer's death Bennett had at first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the face. True, he had made a mistake—a fearful, unspeakable mistake—but at least let him be man enough to ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... spirit of the British legislature never showed itself more conspicuous in any act, than in that for suppressing the immoderate use of distilled spirits among the people, whose strength and numbers constitute the true wealth of a nation: though evasive arts will, it is feared, prevail so long as distilled spirits of any kind are allowed, the character of Englishmen in general being that of Brutus, Quicquid vult valde vult [whatever he desires he desires intensely]. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... eldest son, had come from their mother. As soon as Mrs. Talbert could command herself, she began to talk, and every word she said was full of sense, with a little gust of humor in the sense which was perfectly charming. Absolutely unworldly as she was, she had very good manners; in her evasive way she was certainly qualified to be the leader of society in Eastridge, and socially Eastridge thought fairly well of itself. She did not obviously pretend to so much literature as her mother, but she showed an even nicer intelligence of our own situation in Eastridge. She ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... abruptly. Then he came slowly, and touched me in a queer evasive way on my shoulder. Finally he drew a long breath, and gripped me by the arm. "Don't you recognize it?" "It's the dream! See! The stone wall—the field—the sumac! Now that's ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... sleeper who undertakes a voyage to Australia to deliver a letter which anywhere but in a dream would have been dropped in the nearest pillar-box. The obvious solution that would occur to a waking mind is persistently evasive. The plot of Caleb Williams hinges on an improbability, but so does that of King Lear; and if it had not been for Falkland's stupidity, the story would have ended with the first volume. Godwin excels in the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... evasive reply, Juve beat a retreat in good order, and followed Colonel Hofferman, who was talking ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... that for him so eventful day he asked Prince Tchajawadse about Georgi he had received only a short, evasive reply, and the Prince's knitted brows showed such evident anger that he well perceived that something must have taken place between them, and so it appeared to him to be best to him not to mention again the name of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... off your smartness, bub," sharply spoke the man at last, as he fully comprehended that Ree had purposely given him an evasive answer, "I asked ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... an evasive and laughing answer; but, being quite near the tent by this time, it was necessary to change the discourse. The reader may think it odd, but that was the very first time the possibility of my marrying Emily Merton ever crossed my mind. In London, I had regarded her as an agreeable acquaintance, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... period were necessarily so vague, or hopelessly contradictory, as various travelling swagsmen tried to embellish them for the benefit of the listeners in the men's hut, that scant courtesy was paid to them. More recent stories were evasive enough as far as substantiation was concerned; all save one, and that was a gruesome tale—a tale of a fallen tree stretching out long, jagged branches, sharp at the ends and pointing up a by-track used by the station hands, years ago, as a short cut to the branding ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... something evasive about her answers. She was trying to say neither too much nor too little. She left one in doubt whether she was trying to shield herself or to involve another. Though we chatted several minutes, I could gain nothing that would lead me to judge how intimately ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... me," he said. "A—beast—of brutish foulness! Beast is too inadequate a term to describe it, but I know no words to tell its form. It is an intangible and evasive—thing—but very real. And it is coming closer! It has no organs of sight as I know them, but I feel that it can see me. Or rather that it is aware of me with a sense sharper than vision itself. It is very near now. Oh God, the malevolence, the hate—the potentiality of awful, fearsome destructiveness ...
— There is a Reaper ... • Charles V. De Vet
... and Peters fell apart and looked out of the window. "It's too dark to read anything now, 'Lige," said Harkutt, with evasive good humor, "and I ain't ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... at ten dollars each. At Baltimore I had a charming little theatre, and a very apprehensive impulsive audience. It is remarkable to see how the Ghost of Slavery haunts the town; and how the shambling, untidy, evasive, and postponing Irrepressible proceeds about his free work, going round and round it, instead of at it. The melancholy absurdity of giving these people votes, at any rate at present, would glare at one out of every roll of their eyes, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... distracted between his desire to preserve Dare from the consequences of folly, and a gentlemanly wish to keep as close to the truth as was compatible with that condition, his answers had not appeared to Paula to be particularly evasive, the conjuncture being one in which a handsome heiress's shrewdness was prone to overleap itself by setting down embarrassment on the part of the man she questioned to a mere lover's difficulty in steering ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... "you conceal the truth from us; there must be something of consequence. It is impossible we could observe so sudden a change if nothing was the matter with you. You would not have us satisfied with the evasive answer you have given: do not conceal any thing, unless you would have us suspect that you renounce the strict union which has hitherto subsisted between us from ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... all goes to prove the truth of what I said in my last letter. It is vain for you to protest that you came away more amorous than ever of the Countess, your embarrassment when she inquired whether you had remained long with your "fermiere generale," the attempt you made to deceive her by an evasive answer, the extreme care you took to disarm her slightest suspicion, are indications to me that you are far more guilty than you pretend, or than ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... Honor," he said, "I submit that the witness is evasive. Will you direct him to respond to my direct question ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... was the only one in her confidence. It is well known that the King of England greatly respected the personal virtues of Their French Majesties; but upon the point of business, both King and Ministers were now become ambiguous and evasive. Her Highness, therefore, resolved to return. It had already been whispered that she had left France, only to save herself, like the rest; and she would no longer remain under so slanderous an imputation. She felt, too, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put him off with an evasive answer. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... and it occurred to me even at that first sight that she had the frightened and evasive look of a wife who lives under the intimidation of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... while that the intuition of both Dick and Pennington had failed. They spent many days in the valley trying to catch the evasive Mosby and his men, although they had little success. Mosby's rangers knowing the country thoroughly made many daring raids, although they could not become ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... himself. At another time he might have got out of the room with an evasive answer, but he spoke without ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... chimney-piece draped with lambrequins of red serge and black fringes, and were talking of trifles. Babette asked once or twice where Christophe could be, and the father and mother of the young Huguenot gave evasive answers; but when the two families were seated at table, and the two servants had retired to the kitchen, Lecamus ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... greatest followers, Manet and Sargent, seem incomplete. Manet, with his abridgments, his suppressions, his elliptical handling, never had the smiling confidence of Hals in facing a problem. The Frenchman is more subtle, also more evasive; and there is no hint in him of the trite statement of a fact that we encounter in Bartholomew Van der Heist—himself a great painter. Hals had not the poetic vision of Rembrandt, but he possessed a more dexterous hand, a keener eye. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... person who possessed a red beard, and who had given the name of Jules Dequanter, and his nationality as Belgian, native of Liege—was none other than Gustav Heureux, the man who had been recalled from New York by the evasive doctor ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... an impression that all our early conversations were incredibly banal. We met several times in a manner half-accidental, half furtive and wholly awkward. Mentally I didn't take hold of her. I never did take hold of her mentally. Her talk, I now know all too clearly, was shallow, pretentious, evasive. Only—even to this day—I don't remember it as in any way vulgar. She was, I could see quite clearly, anxious to overstate or conceal her real social status, a little desirous to be taken for a student ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... About had a freakish, evasive, many-sided personality, a nature drawn in too many directions to achieve in any one of these the success his talents warranted. He was born in Dreuze, and like most French boys of literary ambition, soon ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... is the most complete and perfect poem of this period. Like "Epochs," it is a cycle of poems, and the verse has caught the very trick of music,—alluring, baffling, and evasive. This time we have the landscape of the night, the glamour of moon and stars,—pictures half real and half unreal, mystic imaginings, fancies, dreams, and the enchantment of "faerie," and throughout the unanswered cry, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... to make an effort to obtain the freedom of my parents, and to relieve myself from liability. For this purpose, after arranging for the means to purchase, I employed counsel to make a definite offer for my parents and myself. To his proposal, the following evasive and offensive answer ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... was a beautiful sheepdrove upon the Downs, between Everly and Amesbury. I will call this my second campaign. As the several members of the corps arrived upon the ground, I eagerly accosted them, to know their determination; but most of them appeared shy, and gave evasive answers. I could, however, discover that some of them had got their cue; and these began boldly and manfully to inveigh against the want of good faith in the government, in thus striving to draw the troop into a snare. Some of them even swore that ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the excuse of a long, and elaborate toilet had been tried next. Even the moments occupied in reprimanding the servant had been moments seized on as the pretext for another delay. The hasty entrance into the room, the nervous assumption of playfulness in language and manner, the evasive and wandering eyes, were all referable to the same cause. In the presence of others, Lady Janet had successfully silenced the protest of her own inbred delicacy and inbred sense of honor. In the presence of Mercy, whom she loved ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... so great that its realization may be far off, and the evolution of law may be rivalled by the evolution of evasive ingenuity, so that the commonwealth may be compelled to prohibit evasive ante-mortem donations, and to reinforce the succession tax by more stringent measures, from which there can be no escape, and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... mistakes," he said, conscientiously trying to assure her. He realized, however, that his answer sounded evasive and fearful of further questioning he added, hastily, "His election is conceded ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... her personal traits has been given by Mrs. Lippincott. "She impressed me," says this writer, "at first as exceedingly plain, with the massive character of her features, her aggressive jaw and evasive blue eyes. But as she grew interested and earnest in conversation, a great light flashed over or out of her face, till it seemed transfigured, while the sweetness of her rare smile was something quite indescribable. But she seemed to me to the last lofty and cold. ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... to bed last night; and, at six this morning, came to take leave of their majesties. I found them in great distress. The courier who left London on the 4th, has not brought any assurance of support from the emperor. M. Turget is evasive; and wishes, he says, the French to be the aggressors. It is aggression, if this court knows—all the world knows—that the French are collecting an army to over-run Naples; in a week, destroy the monarchy; plunder, and make it a republic. As this is fully known; surely, it is an ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... His evasive answer seemed to make no impression upon her. He was astonished to see how energetic and resolute she was, in contrast with her behaviour of yesterday, when she played the spoiled, suffering, helpless child. She begged him to go try to ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... fact that out of shame she will allow no visitor to enter the apartment if she can help it. Concrete selfishness is her chief mark. She avoids responsibility; sidesteps every duty that calls for honest effort; is secretive, untruthful, indolent, evasive ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... in encouraging fashion, but there was no answering smile upon Peggy's face. She stood up stiff and straight, her brows puckered in lines of distress. Hector's evasive answers had not deceived her, for she knew too well that the accident had happened after, not before, he had reached Yew Hedge. In some fashion he had strained his foot in mounting the ladder, and he was now trying to screen her from the result of her carelessness. To allow such a thing as that, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... strong excitement; the sacrifice she did not shrink from making was a heavy one, and she must have an opportunity for considering it calmly. He was not long left undisturbed, for men flocked in, anxious for an account of the affair, but he put them off with evasive answers and, making his escape, hurried to the livery-stable where he ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... The king felt the blow; Dumouriez saw through the perfidy, and could not repress his choler against Servan in the council-chamber. His reproaches were those of a loyal defender of his king. The replies of Servan were evasive, but full of provocation. The two ministers laid their hands upon their swords, and but for the presence of the king, and the intervention of their colleagues, blood would have flowed ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... grimly when he saw her departing with Graydon. She had been evasive, but very friendly, during the day thus far, and after what he had said the preceding night he felt that he was committed to her moods for a week if he could not bring her to a decision before. Seeing Mr. Wildmere walking restlessly up and down the piazza, he joined him, and offering ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... priest answered, a shadow coming into his merry grey eyes. He gave her an evasive reply, and then murmured to himself, as he picked a handful of orange lilies: "It is an institution of the Evil One to sow ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... Merope. It attracted the attention of many observers, but was so often missed, owing to its extreme susceptibility to adverse atmospheric influences, as to rouse unfounded suspicions of its variability. The detection of this evasive object gave a hint, barely intelligible at the time, of further revelations of the same kind by more ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... and the doctor was not disposed to purchase his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They separated, however, with an understanding on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... insane conceit of Berlin, which had forgotten nothing and learned nothing since the days of Moltke; of the luxurious laziness of Pall Mall, where superannuated soldiers dozed in front of their dusty pigeon-holes after apoplectic lunches, and exercised their wits chiefly in framing evasive answers suited to the intelligence of the House ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... in appearance, and was very popular in Smyrna. His brother wound up the estate, and had since been living in luxury, but whether the property was his or his nephew's Kit was unable to tell. He had asked the question occasionally, but his uncle showed a distaste for the subject, and gave evasive replies. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... which had never yet been presented to her by love or philosophy, or even curiosity? As for any influence from the public offices of religion, a contented soul may glide through them all for a long life, unstruck to the last, buoyant and evasive as a bee amongst hailstones. And now her cousin, unsolicited, was about to assume, if she should permit him, the unspiritual direction of her being, so that she need never be troubled from the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... kind and dutiful Ellen took that week to make her mother feel easy! How often she replied to her anxious questions, "that she was quite well," or "that her head did not ache much!" and by various other evasive expedients the child tried to persuade herself that she was speaking the truth. And during the times her mother slept, in the day or evening, she accomplished one or two pieces of plain work, with the price of which she expected ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Epiphanes invaded Egypt, which was then under the protection of Rome, the Romans sent an ambassador who met Antiochus near Alexandria and commanded him to withdraw. The invader gave an evasive reply. The brave Roman swept a circle around the king with his sword, and forbade his crossing the line until he had given his answer. By the prompt decision of the intrepid ambassador the invader was led to withdraw, and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... masts and a ship-load of timber; successive obsequious and evasive addresses; explanations of agents; compliance in some particulars with the Royal requirements in regard to the oath of allegiance, and administering the law, so far appeased the King's Government that further action was suspended for a time in regard to enforcing the granting ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... to be with Josephine when Hortense came in, and was the first to be questioned by her, gave her only an evasive and jocose reply, and withdrew. Hortense then turned to her mother, who was leaning over on the divan, her eyes reddened with weeping and her heart oppressed with grief. To her, Bonaparte had given no evasive ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... to lay her head on her pillow again, assuring her all the time that nothing this woman had had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken to heart. The girl, exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It may be she had noticed something evasive in Mrs. Fyne's assurances. After a while, without ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Joey, "as soon as I can go to the light and read the address. Good-bye, and thank you," continued he, glad at last to be clear of any more evasive replies. ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... been another evening prowl with the young female panther before the evasive chance was grasped, and the storm-tossed, overdue Monarchic hoped to ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... and powerful enemies. A silly thing, published in Philadelphia, by a native of Virginia, has just made its appearance here, strongly recommended, 't is said, by one of our delegates now with you,—Braxton. His reasonings upon and distinction between private and public virtue, are weak, shallow, evasive, and the whole performance an affront and disgrace to this country; and, by one ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... supposed. Managers' offices did not seem so easy of access as before. The success of her stock engagement at Denver had not impressed the New York managers so favorably as she expected it would. When she called and stated she was at liberty, they were evasive and non-committal; the next time she called they were out. It was the same everywhere. No one seemed to want her at any price. She did not realize that at no time had the stage been clamoring for her ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... concerned had been brought to justice,"—unless by this phrase he designates only the ringleaders. The avowed aim of the governor's letter, indeed, is to smooth the thing over, for the credit and safety of the city; and its evasive tone contrasts strongly with the more frank and thorough statements of the judges, made after the thing could no longer be hushed up. These high authorities explicitly acknowledge that they had failed to ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the satisfaction of his wife, he would find it hard to make it sound altogether as reassuring as when accompanied by the Count's sympathetic voice. He ruminated for a minute, and then suddenly recalled what the Count's evasive answers and sympathetic assurances had driven from his mind. Yet it was, in fact, the chief occasion ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... very young for such a deed," he replied, shaking his head solemnly, and with this evasive answer he took his departure, bolting and ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... daughter so disturb you. Helena, do you love my son?' 'Good madam, pardon me,' said the affrighted Helena. Again the countess repeated her question. 'Do you love my son?' 'Do not you love him, madam?' said Helena. The countess replied: 'Give me not this evasive answer, Helena. Come, come, disclose the state of your affections, for your love has to the full appeared.' Helena on her knees now owned her love, and with shame and terror implored the pardon of her noble mistress; and with words expressive of the sense she had ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... extinguishment of capitalists, and so on, that his admittance to the Marble Workers' Association resolved itself into merely a question of time. The old prejudice against apprentices was already wearing off. The quiet, evasive man of few words was now a loquacious talker, holding his own with the hardest hitters, and very skillful in giving offense to no one. "Whoever picks up Blake for a fool," Dexter remarked one night, "will put ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... tailor's garden, the butcher's yard, the churchyard and Bromley church tower behind; and one was taken upon expeditions to fields and open places. This limited world was peopled with certain familiar presences, mother and father, two brothers, the evasive but interesting cat, and by intermittent people of a livelier but more transient interest, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... unimportant roads and entertaining Mr. Van der Pant with discourses upon the nearness of victory and the subtle estimableness of all that was indolent, wasteful and evasive in English life, the war was passing from its first swift phases into a slower, grimmer struggle. The German retreat ended at the Aisne, and the long outflanking manoeuvres of both hosts towards the Channel began. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... either facts or people. If you note that another prospect glances obliquely at persons or objects, or that he habitually turns his eyes to one side or the other while keeping his head still, judge him to lack the characteristic of frankness. He is likely to be evasive and shifty in his dealings. Perhaps the sign you have perceived indicates no more than that your prospect is "stalling." It is evidence, nevertheless, that his mind is not meeting your ideas squarely. You will need to compel ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... thought flashed into my mind. What did Talleyrand mean by repeating over and over, and in such significant phrase, that his answer must be "evasive"? Could it be possible that he was intimating that a consideration would be necessary to make it more decided? I believed that he had so intimated, and that Mr. Livingston had understood him, and had repelled ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... gladly shall I naturally avail myself of any chance by which to contribute to the knowledge of that seemingly ever evasive pathway leading to that which to me is the supreme motive power of human life—faith in the divine Redeemer and Master. The best helps to reach the haven we are in search of, over the unblazed trails of Labrador, are ever the ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... Claire's answers were politely evasive, and presently he began to grow restless, and finally pulled out his watch, and jumped to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... looking stranger concerning his business in Philadelphia; and he, being ashamed to acknowledge himself a slave-catcher, returned very evasive and unsatisfactory answers. He was accordingly committed to prison, to answer at the next court of Sessions. It was customary to examine prisoners before they were locked up, and take whatever was in their pockets, to be restored to them whenever they were discharged. David Lea strongly objected ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... some one suggested that it might be Professor Frieze. I made my way through the crowd toward the room from which the sounds came, but before arriving there the music had ended; and when I met the professor shortly afterward, and asked him if he had been the musician, his reply was so modest and evasive that I thought the whole thing a mistake and said nothing more about it. On our way to Italy some months later, I observed that, as we were passing through Bohemia, he jotted down in his note-book the quaint songs of the peasants and soldiers, and a few weeks later still he ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... an evasive reply. The Khedive was too overwhelmed at the situation to take any decisive course. France hesitated, and England determined that, with or without allies, she would take ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff's advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the words mother and daughter so disturb you. Helena, do you love my son?" "Good madam, pardon me," said the affrighted Helena. Again the countess repeated her question, "Do you love my son?" "Do not you love him, madam?" said Helena. The countess replied, "Give me not this evasive answer, Helena. Come, come, disclose the state of your affections, for your love has to the full appeared." Helena on her knees now owned her love, and with shame and terror implored the pardon of her noble mistress; ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... made some evasive response to this raillery and then became silent. Soon quiet prevailed in the encampment; only out of the recesses of the forest came the menacing howl of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... that a concave speculum hung slantingly high over his head; a movement in this caught my attention sharply, and I looked up to see, distorted and made fantastic but bright and beautifully colored, the magnified, reflected, evasive rendering of a palace, of a terrace, of the vista of a great roadway with many people, people exaggerated, impossible-looking because of the curvature of the mirror, going to and fro. I turned my head quickly that I might see more clearly through the window ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... soil, and the extreme repugnance with which they regard any legislation on the subject. Besides, the want of sympathy with the people, of earnestness and courage in meeting the realities of the case, is conspicuous in all attempts of the kind during the last half-century. Those attempts have been evasive, feeble, abortive—concessions to the demand that something must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to weaken the power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass of the nation dependent on the land for their existence. Hence has arisen a great amount ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... was not beautiful in any strictly defined sense of the word she possessed a certain evasive charm and distinction of appearance that left beholders with a pleasurable sense of satisfaction in that softly rounded girlhood of hers, with all its strongly felt potentialities. Those who knew Anne best felt, without realizing that they felt it, that ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... be acting honestly, went off to Tripoli to obtain the governor's sanction, but on his arrival there he obtained only evasive answers, and finally threatened to embark for England, where he said he would report the obstacles thrown in his way by the pacha, in the carrying out of the objects of the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... a smooth, slippery, unstable, evasive fellow you are, Plutus! there is no getting a firm hold of you; you wriggle through one's fingers somehow, like an eel or a snake. Poverty is so different—sticky, clinging, all over hooks; any one who ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... sick man on as soon as he had rested sufficiently. "You've only to ask for it and we'll send the old station buck-board across," he said, and the man began fumbling uneasily at his saddle-girths, and said something evasive about "giving trouble"; but when the Maluka—afraid that a man's life might be the forfeit of another man's shrinking fear of causing trouble—added that on second thoughts we would ride across as soon as horses could be brought in, he flushed hotly and stammered: ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... an evasive reply was returned on the 22d by the Hon. Joseph Holt, Secretary of War ad interim, on behalf of the President, the material points of which are contained ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... evasive and Georgie noticed the evasion. However, his trust in his Aunt Thankful was absolute and if she said a fat man could get through a stovepipe he probably could. But the performance promised to be an interesting one. Georgie wished he might see it. ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... only preferred his business to his salvation, but he mentions it with evasive disdain. "When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." "When I have a convenient season!" Might we not thence infer that the truths discust by St. Paul were not of serious importance? Might we not infer that the soul of Felix was created ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... reproduced here, was originally intended as a ceiling for the Louvre, and from a decorative point of view would excite a pitying smile from Veronese or Tiepolo. Taken bit by bit, as a beautiful exhibition of supreme knowledge, of the evasive quality of style in drawing, it is, however, admirable, and as a whole it has the merits of grave, balanced composition. It was the spirit of work like this which the master sought to force upon his epoch, rather than that of his portraits or of pictures like the "Source;" and ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... This may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne felt for the sufferers, and the memorial that he submitted to our government on their account has a dignity, a clearness and cogency of statement, worthy of Blackstone or Marshall. It is in marked contrast to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, both for its fine English and for the directness of its logic. It is published at length in Julian Hawthorne's biography of his father, and is unique for the insight which it affords as to Hawthorne's mental ability in this direction. We may infer from it that if ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... to her house. How beautiful she was, the strange woman, she thought, with a renewal of her wonder over Tira, the calm majesty of her, the way she sat erect in the old red sleigh as if she were queen of a triumphal progress, the sad inscrutability of her wonderful eyes, the mouth with its evasive curves; how would an artist indicate them delicately enough so that you kept them in your memory as she saw herself doing, and were yet not able to say whether it was the indented corner or the full bow? She found herself remembering poetic lines about Grecian ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... vacation. Travelling alone had not been as pleasant as he anticipated; the horse was a nuisance to look after; and then the country taverns were snuffy and unendurable. As to where he had been and what he had seen—he must have seen something and been somewhere in eight days—his answers were so evasive that Miss Mildred was positive something distractingly romantic ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... this consolatory Biblical reflection disposes of the matter. Politicians, as also diplomatists, are often obliged to give evasive answers to inconvenient questions, but it is not possible for any man, when dealing with a point of primary importance, deliberately to make and to repeat a statement so absolutely untrue as that made by Disraeli on the occasion in question ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... This was constructively evasive. Lanyard wondered who had betrayed him. Phinuit? The tongue of that plain-spoken man was hinged in the middle; but one couldn't feel certain. Liane Delorme had made much of the chief engineer; though she seemed less likely to talk too much than anyone of the ship's company but Lanyard ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... length and breadth of Lombardy; and Frederic departed for Germany, leaving trustworthy lieutenants to complete the vindication of his Italian rights. It only remained to try conclusions with a recalcitrant Pope and the evasive Normans of the South. The Emperor already saw himself in imagination the master of Italy, and even of the Western Mediterranean. Five years passed without bringing him nearer to his goal. Then Frederic returned to effect the expulsion of Alexander III from ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... refrain from the inward comment, "How singularly inappropriate! I should have said Katherine was about the last person in the world to——" She turned round and found herself face to face with the poet. Knowles had been wandering through the crowd with evasive eyes, successfully dodging the ladies of his acquaintance, while his air of abstraction took all quality of offence from the unerring precision of his movements. But when he saw Miss Craven he stopped. He had an inkling of the truth, and ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... had another interview with the governor, and endeavored to ascertain the intentions of that dignitary with regard to the destination of his prisoners. The governor, however, seemed to regard that as a state secret, and declined making any but a very evasive answer. As some amends for his severity, he condescended to give Captain Williams full permission to visit the prisoners, of which the veteran immediately availed himself. The kind-hearted old seaman was deeply affected, as he held Morton in his arms with all the affection ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... in its old evasive ways even at the moment of his penitence, which goes to prove—I suppose—that we are all the sum total of the thing called habit, that even spontaneous acts are evidences of the summed result of past years. I did not expect to find him when I came ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... may not proceed any further, or my pages will equal in extent those of the gentleman already named. Indeed, to follow that most confused of thinkers, and crooked of disputants, through all his perverse pages; to expose his habitual paltry evasive dodging,—his shifting equivocations,—his misapplications of Scripture,—his unworthy insinuations,—his plaintive puerilities of thought and sentiment;—would require a thick volume.—If Mr. Jowett ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... flushed, and he looked up uncertainly at the goggles. "He used to teach, I told you," was the evasive answer, "until his eyes ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... early womanhood, and her son, a fine young man of twenty, had committed suicide, and flung himself off the bridge into the Moira river only a few months before. Her insanity saved her from the knowledge of events, which might have distracted a firmer brain. She seemed hardly satisfied with my evasive answers, and looked doubtingly and cunningly at me, as if some demon had whispered to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... remained in ignorance of the young people's attachment, for, when on Clara's birthday the following year (1837) Schumann made formal application in writing for her hand, her father gave an evasive answer, and on the suit being pressed, he, who had been almost like a second father to Robert, became his bitter enemy. Clara, however, remained faithful to her lover through the three years of unhappiness which her father's sudden hatred of Robert caused them. In 1839 ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... English. He would never have taken umbrage at advice given by a subordinate. But General Abercromby was of a different order, and he little liked Rogers' assured manner and brusque, independent tone. He heard him to the end, but gave an evasive reply, and sent out an engineer on his own account to survey the French position, and bring him word ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... North!" he said. And that, I promptly realized, was an evasive way of answering an honest question, especially as there was a California license-number on ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... her toes into the evasive muscle-pads for the quick effort, and leaping upward, one hand twined in the wet mane, the other hand free and up-stretched, darting between the ears and clutching the foretop. The next moment, as the stallion balanced out horizontally in obedience to her shiftage of weight, she had slipped ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... This evasive reply could not be expected to satisfy Mr. Bolster, who returns to the charge in The Tittersham Observer of the 23rd May. Side by side with the sale figures of the Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine he prints those of his own periodical, which for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... Mr. B——," said the spokesman, reddening with anger, "we understand all this perfectly, and think very little, I assure you, of such mean evasive conduct. Had you said boldly and at once that you favoured the other party, we would at least have given you credit for honesty. But you may depend upon it, sir," he added, "White never will get the church. That ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... had been impossible for her to appear before the king; and then I consoled myself with the idea, that if my fears were well founded, the doctor's heart might be softened, and he might screen her from the Shah's observation, by giving some evasive reason for her non-appearance. Then, after all, as if braving my feelings, I repeated to myself the lines of one of our poets, who, like ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... perceived that the answers to these questions are, from the beginning, evasive; but the real idea entertained clearly shines through the thin veil drawn over to conceal it. The questions pertain to the source, or authorship, of the "laws of spiritual life;" and this would generally be understood to be God. But on a technicality the spirits refuse to answer. The ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... Newman, of Chicago University, in answer to the writer's question, "How many new species have arisen in the last 6000 years?" wrote this evasive reply: "I do not know how to answer your questions.... None of us know just what a species is. [If so, how could 3,000,000 species be counted, the number, he says, exists?].... It is difficult to say just when a new species has arisen from an old." He does not seem to know of ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... taking a turn for the better. To Miss Cronin's increasingly plaintive inquiries as to when they would return to Paris Miss Van Tuyn gave evasive replies. She was held in London, and had almost forgotten her friends ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... persons, by whatever lawful means, the compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare say the Roman Prefects and Exarchates had plenty of petitioning in their days. But what would a Festus or Agrippa have replied to a petition to that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the very meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily rather than abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing, where the conscience has previously relieved itself,—that is, has complied with the injunctions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... questions: "What happened at the council? Has the money for the new bell been collected? Will Jacob Van Sloten rent you the meadow?" he made curt, evasive replies. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... so I moved in closer to check, as I wanted to get into the landing pattern. I was well above landing traffic altitude at this time. As I neared the light I noticed that it was not another airplane. Just then it began to take violent evasive action so I tried to close on it. I made first contact at 2,700 feet over the field. I switched my navigation lights on and off but got no answer so I went in closer— but the light quickly flew up and ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... 1916-17, Roosevelt never relaxed his criticism of President Wilson's dilatory and evasive policy, or his efforts to arouse the American people to a sense of their duty to civilization. By this time the President himself felt that it was safe for him to speak up in behalf of Americanism. The year before, Roosevelt having been assured that it would be dangerous to make American and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... were present at a death-bed, and that the patient had some excuse for taking an unconscionable time in dying. Their patience was not increased by the knowledge of the fact that the time secured by these evasive excuses was being used in desperate attempts to sow dissensions among the allies and to beat up support in some European capital for the ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... inevitably ensue, both to the king and to the city, if pardon were granted to Northampton and his friends. The king had replied that he would take good precautions for himself before he granted them their liberty;(677) and with this answer the citizens had to be content. The answer was an evasive one, if it be true, as one authority states, that on the 27th April—the day on which the mayor had informed the citizens of the intervention of Lord Zouche—Northampton had received his pardon and been restored to his property.(678) His friends remained still unsatisfied, and plagued the king ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... pressure put upon him, did Dunne yield up the tale of how he had conducted the two absconders to my lady's house with her consent, and it was sought to prove that she was aware of their connection with the rebellion. The stubbornly evasive Dunne ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... that kingdom to John. During an interview between Henry and Richard, at which Philip was present, Richard demanded that his father recognize him, the elder son, as the future King of England. Henry made an evasive reply, whereupon, referring to the rumor that John would be heir to the ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... aware of another flier close to his. On its top a blue light blinked glaringly. He looked at it in consternation. Had they——? But how? He started to pull the control to him and go into evasive flight. Then ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... a French squadron appeared before Salee, to claim satisfaction for an act of piracy committed by the inhabitants of that town. The Caid asked for six days to take the orders of the Emperor of Morocco; and the Caid of Rabat sent a similar evasive reply. The next day the French bombarded the place for seven hours, the fire being returned by both forts of Rabat and Salee. The Admiral, however, confined his chastisement to the latter, which he thoroughly performed, and fired the town in several ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... I, like all things kind or cruel, The garnered days and light evasive hours, Are gone again to be a part of flowers And tears and tides, in ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... they lived somewhars in Kaintuck ginerations afore my time," he made evasive answer. "What made ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... energy by which he was characterized, he resolved to proceed to head-quarters and to intercede for the devoted town. He was received by Colonel McClure with a cold and repellent dignity, and obtained only evasive answers. As he was about to leave the presence of that officer, the Colonel ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... most dignified positions in the Established Church seem to have drifted into the somewhat ignoble attitude of avoiding the disagreeable subject of vivisection altogether. When we invite them to help us we receive either no reply at all, or a reply that is carefully evasive, or we are damned with faint praise while assured that the writer is too busy to give the subject the attention it needs before any public utterance is possible upon it. All of which methods of dealing with the matter display much wisdom of the world and a very ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... carry over his division to Clive. But as the decisive moment approached, the fears of the conspirator overcame his ambition. Clive advanced to the river which separated him from his foe. The Nabob lay with a mighty power a few miles off at Plassey. Meer Jaffier delayed, and returned evasive answers to the remonstrances ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... as her daughter's friend," was the evasive answer. Eve seemed to accept it as sufficient, and there was a ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... be the desired electrical action unless a conducting substance were mixed with it, and so incorporated and packed that there would be good electrical contact throughout. This proved to be a most knotty and intricate puzzle—tricky and evasive—always leading on and promising something, and at the last slipping away leaving the work undone. Edison's remarkable patience and persistence in dealing with this trying problem and in finally solving it successfully won for him more than ordinary ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... too, she had caught him watching her with furtive glances in which, she imagined, she detected a glint of speculation. But of this she was not quite sure, for when she bluntly questioned him concerning his moods he had invariably given her an evasive reply. Fearing that there might have been a recurrence of the old trouble with the Two Diamond manager—about which he had told her during her first days at the cabin—she ventured a question. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sap of its life. To talk like Falstaff, you must in imagination become Falstaff, feel as he would do, think as he would think. You cannot lay on the Falstaffian humour by a reasoning process from the outside. The result may be clever, but it will lack just that subtle and evasive quality which the modern cant seeks to describe by the word "inevitable." A merely brilliant man—a Sheridan, for instance—might make the endeavour, and gain some considerable applause. But Shakespeare for the moment lived the part, the humour came to him with the part, whether the humour ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is important, not for himself, but for the great man with ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the meantime, with such evasive answers, and finding resistance useless, indeed uncalled for, as I was unconscious of any crime, I now went peaceably along with the men. Whither they were conducting me the reader will readily guess; it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... moon, large, round and red, was rising above the black tree-tops. Its soft evasive light touched the stone steps, and Lida's dress, and her pensive, smiling face. In the garden the shadows had grown deeper; they were now sombre and profound as those of ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... of bells. Benham had brought letters of introduction to a variety of people, some had vanished, it seemed. They were "away," the porters said, and they continued to be "away,"—it was the formula, he learnt, for arrest; others were evasive, a few showed themselves extraordinarily anxious to inform him about things, to explain themselves and things about them exhaustively. One young student took him to various meetings and showed him in great detail the scene of the recent murder of the Grand Duke ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... except for Doc's questions about the sick woman. Her husband, George Lynn, was evasive and probably ignorant. He admitted that Harriet had been to the dispensary and small infirmary that Southport called ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... already four minutes late, so that he had less to spare for his daughter's disappointment than Mrs Leicester, who on her arrival took up the lamentation with all her heart. She attacked her nephew at once upon the subject, whose replies were at first wavering and evasive, till he caught Flora's eye, and then he answered with a dogged sort of resolution, exceedingly amusing to me who understood his position, and at last got quite cross with his aunt for persisting in her entreaties. I declared, for my part, that I was dependent on Horace's movements; that, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... sufficient self-control to bide in patience, holding her wonder in check. Edna's portentous manner throughout luncheon was enough to keep expectation at the highest. Even Aunt Clara noticed it, and had to be put off with evasive reasons. Subsequently Edna set the elderly lady to writing letters in a cubicle that went by the name of library, so the young people should have the drawing-room to themselves. Readers who have lived in New York flats need not be reminded, of the skill the ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... invitation of the Count of Flanders, who promised them that the King of France would entertain all their claims, Artevelde and Breydel, the deputies from Ghent and Bruges, even repaired to Courtrai to make terms with him. But as they got there nothing but ambiguous engagements and evasive promises, they let the negotiation drop, and, while Count Louis was on his way to rejoin Philip at St. Quentin, Artevelde with the deputies from the Flemish communes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his radio phone. "Attention everybody! General alert. Prepare for combat; prepare to take immediate evasive action. We must assume that the spaceport is occupied, and that the occupants are hostile. Captain Poole, will you please make ready aboard your ship? Reduce both speed and altitude, and ready your guns and missiles ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... finding the musician asleep with an overturned candle by his side and the conflagration well started. Spabbink gave HIS version some days later, when he had partially recovered from the shock of his midnight castigation and immersion, but the gentle pitying smiles and evasive comments with which his story was greeted warned him that the public ear was not at his disposal. He refused, however, to attend the ceremonial presentation of the Royal Humane ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki |
