"Laconic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their conduct, attain a degree of glory which can never be reached by the keenest followers of Fame—They seek not panegyricks; and panegyricks can add nothing to their honour. The Eulogies have perished which were devoted by the luxuriant genius of Tully, and by the laconic spirit of Brutus, to the public virtue of Cato; yet the name of that illustrious Roman is still powerful in the world, and excites in every cultivated mind, an animating idea of independent integrity. The name of Howard has superior force, and a happier effect. It is a sound, at which ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... This laconic note contained all that Neb ought to know, and at the same time asked all that the colonists wished to know. It was folded and fastened to Top's ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... laconic response, and so saying, the gypsy turned towards the forest which lay just beyond the camp. The "doctor" obeyed, and the dogs sneaked after him, still growling, but keeping a respectful distance. A moment later ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Kamchadals, who returned from here, we muffled ourselves from the biting air in our heaviest furs, took seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the absence of the favourite senior conductor, was called upon to lead the music to Egmont at Munich, I induced him, amongst other things, to attend to the proper rendering of this passage. It proved at once strikingly effective—concise, laconic—as Beethoven meant it. The tempo, which up to that point had been kept up with passionate animation, was firmly arrested, and very slightly modified—just as much, and no more than was necessary to permit the orchestra properly to attack this thematic combination, so full of energetic decision ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... to this country to offer his services to Congress. "What can you do?" asked Washington. "Try me," was the laconic reply. In course of time, he was sent to Schuyler as engineer of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... quick as a cat. She threw herself bodily upon both scooper and pick—the latter an old fork with but one tine left. Bep promptly threw herself on top of her twin, while Peter, a laconic lad, calmly set himself to rehabilitating the hind wheel of a battered tin toy express which ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... will description become—how laconic all comment! You will no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than you would travel by the waggon, or make a ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... comparison with a society where mind and morals had the glorious license of Olympians and could follow the unobstructed paths of inclination in realms controlled only by fancy! Napoleon's greeting was laconic, "Vous etes un homme." This flattered Goethe, who called it the inverse "ecce homo," and felt its allusion to his citizenship, not in Germany, but in the world. The nineteenth-century Caesar then urged the great writer to carry out an already-formed design and compose a ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... wrote with temperateness, and in pitying love of human nature, in the instinctive hope of helping it to know and redeem itself. His quality was philosophy, his style forgiveness. And for this temperate and logical and laconic work—giving nothing to the world for its mere enjoyment, but going beyond all that to ennoble each reader by his perfect renunciation of artistic claptrap and artistic license—for this aim he needed a mental method that could entirely command itself, and, when necessary, weigh and ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... documents, the explanations in which were harder to understand than conundrums. Although greatly averse to following the notary's advice as to seeking Claudet's assistance, he found himself compelled to do so, but was met by such laconic and surly answers that he concluded it would be more dignified on his part to dispense with the services of one who was so badly disposed toward him. He therefore resolved to have recourse to the debtors themselves, whose names he found, after much difficulty, in the books. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Artists will especially delight in the view of a fourteenth-century church close to the castle, with its chancel with creepers growing over it, and peeping out between the stones; and historians will be interested in the laconic inscription on its walls, 'rebuilt in 1438, a year of war, death, plague, and famine.' If such artists as Brewer, or Burgess, would only come here and give us drawings of these streets (of one especially, taking in the cathedral at the end, with its stone walls built ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... petrified, and this outburst of the grief of the usually haughty and laconic young man filled him with the utmost surprise ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... without grave doubts—which I think occur naturally to people in like situations—that this was the general rule of humanity and I was a solitary and somewhat gratuitous exception. It was a relief when a laconic announcement of supper by a weak-eyed girl caused a general movement in the family. We walked across the dark platform, which led to another low-ceiled room. Its entire length was occupied by a table, at ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... separated from the Hellas by bad weather, and in returning to the rendezvous at Spetzia, he lost two of his masts and two men, in a hurricane off Cape Malea. Shortly after his return to Poros, where he was again compelled to refit, he received the following laconic communication from Lord Cochrane, in which all mention of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... and the talk turned on the political situation. Rogers remarked, 'What a powerful band Lord John Russell will have to contend with! There's Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham——;' and the Duke interrupted him at this point with the laconic reply, 'Lord John Russell is a host ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... sharp terms to this laconic opinion that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... into the mechanics of the heavens: I cannot prevail upon him, cannot make him share my audacity. He calls it a mad scheme, which will exhaust us and come to nothing. Without the advice of an experienced pilot, with no other compass than a book, which is not always very clear, because of its laconic adherence to set terms, our poor bark is bound to be wrecked on the first reef. One might as well put out to sea in a nutshell and defy the billows of the vasty deep. He does not use these actual words, but his gloomy estimate of the extreme difficulties to be encountered is enough to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the opportunity of Mr Innes's parcel, which leaves this to-morrow afternoon, to give you a more succinct account of my affairs than you could derive from my laconic epistle of last week. I must, however, preface by requesting you to write me as soon as you conveniently can, either by Innes or L. Smith's conveyance, as I am anxious to hear the state of your cold, and how ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... are not treated with great indulgence, nor rewarded by many commendations; for the English are laconic and reserved towards their domestics; but an approving nod and kind word from master or mistress, goes as far here, as an excess of praise or indulgence elsewhere. Neither do servants exhibit any animated ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... canoes, swim your horses, camp on the island," was the laconic message. Evidently, in view of the coming struggle, Multnomah wanted the loyal Cayuses close ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... chauffeur answered in the laconic way he affects sometimes, but there was an odd smile in his eyes, almost like defiance—of me, or of Fate. I didn't know which but I should ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... find out how glad he was to receive this laconic epistle from his only living relative. He cast about for a ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... reasonably enough thinks gave rise to the lock on the modern musket. The old logicians illustrate the distinction in their quaintest fashion. Bayle, explaining the difference between testimony and argument, uses this laconic simile, "Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible, whether discharged by a dwarf ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... laconic advice, I soon found myself near a tree whose branches were sheltering a guru with an attractive group of disciples. The master, a bright unusual figure, with sparkling dark eyes, rose at my ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the interesting complications that were being woven for him in the hot-hearted frontier community of which he was now a part; for Merrifield and Sylvane, as correspondents, were laconic, not being given to spreading themselves out on paper. His work in the Assembly and the pre-convention campaign for presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He was eager that a reform ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Harbor was located the wireless telegraph station from where Commander Peary flashed to the civilized world his laconic message, "Stars and Stripes nailed to the ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... much affected by this laconic piece of intelligence, as I might have been had I known more of the sea; and perhaps I should have regarded it still less, but for the gloomy glances and apprehensive air of those around me. I was not stunned by it at the first announcement; but it was not long before I became sufficiently ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... minute or two of silence, during which Bienville seemed to probe for the meaning of the two laconic words. If anything could be read from his countenance, it was doubt as to whether to relinquish the prize with dignity or to pay its price in humiliation. There was an instant in which he appeared to be bracing ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... sometimes gets so he doesn't answer questions at great length. I even know a young woman who becomes excessively laconic when interrogated ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the fellow sharply as he got into the wagon and noticed nothing in his disfavor. His laconic account of himself was borne ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... are chiefly pleased with that close mode of oratory, which in a laconic manner states the facts, and forms an immediate conclusion: in that case, it is obvious how necessary it is to be a complete master of the rules of logic. Others delight in a more open, free, and copious style, where the arguments are drawn from topics of ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Women, in particular, had played ducks and drakes with his career. Weakly chivalrous, mindlessly gallant, he lacked the faculty of learning by experience—especially where the other sex were concerned. "Predestined to be stung!" was, his first wife's laconic comment on her ex-husband. She, for instance, was undoubtedly the blameworthy one in their marital failure, but she had managed to extract a ruinous alimony from him. Twice married and twice divorced, he was traveled through the Orient to write a series of muck raking articles ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... precaution. They were attacked by the natives. Fifteen of them were wounded, four of whom died. Some women who had been sent ashore to wash the soiled linen were carried off. Ponce's report of the event was laconic: "I wrote from San Lucas and from la Palma," he writes to the king (August 7th to 8th). "In Guadeloupe, while taking in water the Indians wounded some of my men. They shall be chastised." Haro, one of the crown officers ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... a suggestion of physical disdain in the tone of the laconic question, as well as in the look he fixed on the neat, middle-aged man doing his best to be cool and collected Wayne glanced over his shoulder toward the telephone on the wall. Norrie Ford understood and ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... [227] The 'abrupt and laconic structure' of Glover's periods appears at the very commencement of Leonidas, which has something military in its movement, but rather the stiff gait of the drilled soldier than the proud march ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... over. Not long after this, the friend in question was likewise approached for a political contribution, whereupon he handed out $100 for himself and the same amount for Vanderbilt. On being told of his debt, Vanderbilt declined to pay it, closing the matter abruptly with this laconic pronunciamento, "When I give anything, I give it myself." At another time Vanderbilt assured a friend that he would "carry" one thousand shares of New York Central stock for him. The market price rose to $115 a share and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... plagiarizing, rose to the surface of his mind. Such deep wells of eyes he had never looked into in all his life before, and they were as ever, filled to the brim with reverence, even awe of him. It was a heady draught he quaffed before she looked down and answered his laconic remark. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Caesar met the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate, announcing his victory, is famous. It ran thus: Veni, vidi, vici,—"I ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... quarts) of flour for overlaying a chariot with copper, and in the seventeenth year of the same reign half a shekel of silver and 1 gur of wheat from the royal storehouse were paid to five men who had brought a flock of sheep to the King's administrator in the city of Ruzabu. The following laconic letter also tells the same tale: "Letter from Tabik-zeri to Gula-ibni, my brother. Give 54 qas of meal to the men who have dug the canal. The 9th of Nisan, fifth year of Cyrus, King of Eridu, King of the World." The employer had a right to the workman's labor so long as he furnished him ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... jumped up from his chair, and went forward to the new-comer. 'You are not long behind us, then,' he said, with laconic disquietude. 'I thought you were ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... this fierce reply should be rendered to him in writing for the satisfaction of his chief. "I will answer your master by the mouth of my cannon," replied the angry Frenchman, "that he may learn that a man of my rank is not to be summoned in this manner." Thus ended the laconic conference. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... J. W. H., "the connexion of the Welsh dwr with the Greek [Greek: hudor] is remarkable," he appears not to have known that Vezron found so many resemblances in the Doric or Laconic dialect, and the Celtic, that he thereupon raised the theory that the Lacedaemonians and the Celts were of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... laconic," observed the storekeeper in a hollow voice, yet eyeing the prince sternly; "very laconic, indeed, I must say. If I was you, I would n't be quite so laconic. How the (sheol) comes it that you did n't ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. "What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a book for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you sent him. He is making ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... frightened. But man, reckless animal, is so made that in him curiosity, the paltriest curiosity, will overcome all terrors, every disgust, and even despair itself. To my laconic invitation to come in for a drink he answered by a deep, gravely accented: "Thanks, I will" as though it were a response in church. His face as seen in the lamplight gave me no clue to the character of the impending communication; as indeed from the nature of things it couldn't do, its normal ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... heard no tidings of, although he was upon the eve of his departure, and he had taken leave of Cornwallis in a more particular manner than any other person. This obliged the Chevalier to write him a billet, which was rather laconic. It ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... laconic Bosko returned his all sufficing "Oui, monsieur," to the request that he would bring Mademoiselle Joan's French maid to Princess Delgrado, since it was in Alec's mind that Pauline might ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... both the Way of Thinking and the Style must be Laconic: Much must be contained in a little Compass. Brevity of Diction adds new Life to a good Thought: And since every perfect Stroke ought to be a distinct Representation of a particular Feature, Matters ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... not spread to the master and mistress of the establishment. The Kerry Sentinel quickly had an allusion to 'a report that Mr. Hussey turned into bed after the outrage with one of his laconic jokes—that he should be called when the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... where—Hampstead, Greenwich, Windsor? WHERE?????? while the day is bright, not when it has dwindled away to nothing! For who can be of any use whatsomdever such a day as this, excepting out of doors?" Or it might be interrogatory summons to "A hard trot of three hours?" or intimation as laconic "To be heard of at Eel-pie House, Twickenham!" When first I knew him, I may add, his carriage for his wife's use was a small chaise with a smaller pair of ponies, which, having a habit of making sudden rushes up by-streets in the day and peremptory standstills ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... through the sudden disagreement of the uncertain Wobbles brothers who owned the land. It was a day of failures; and at four o'clock he returned to the office and inscribed, upon the credit side of his unique little day-book, the laconic entry: ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... for P.B. is on the table," was the laconic message: on reading which I inserted my key, swung the heavy door outward, and opened the lighter inner door. The note was lying on the table and I brought it out to the landing to read by the light ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but forcible. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that his manner betrays anything like swagger—for he is evidently not one of the swaggering sort. Rather is his behaviour characterised by a cool, quiet effrontery—a sort of sarcastic assurance—ten times more irritating. This is displayed in the laconic style of his salutation: "Morning girls! father at home?"— in the fact of his dismounting without waiting to be invited—in sharply scolding the dog out of his way as he leads his horse to the shed; and, finally, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the hasty summons, heard the message before the clerk had time to write it out. His lips were closely compressed as he put his own hand on the key and sent these laconic sentences: "O.K. Keep perfectly dark. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that butt of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense by the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... enemy. Of the thirteen officers present some were for retreating to Point Isabel, others for intrenching upon the spot, and only four for pushing ahead. The general, after hearing all opinions, settled the question by the laconic declaration, "I will be at Fort Brown before to-morrow night if I live." In the morning ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law end civility, it is to be wondered how useless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all but their own laconic apothegms, and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus out of their city, perhaps for composing in a higher strain than their own soldierly ballads and roundels could reach to. Or if it were for his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... with intense interest, his countenance gradually lighting into a smile of pleasure, and the instant Mr. Wharton concluded his laconic reply he turned on his heel and left the apartment. The Whartons, judging from his manner, thought he was about to proceed in quest of the object of his inquiries. They observed the dragoon, on gaining the lawn, in earnest and apparently pleased conversation with ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... if you had a brother, who, in a like case, were to act by you, as you do by me?—You cannot but remember what a laconic answer you gave even to my father, who recommended to you Miss Nelly D'Oily—You did not like her, were your words: and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... thought, with much probability, to have belonged to the Aesculapian temple in the Insula Tiberina. The present translation, in which some errors either of the artist or copyist are rectified, is extracted from the first volume of Gruter's Corp. Inscriptionum. The narrations are perspicuous and laconic. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... surplice at the organ on Sundays, leading the singing with his strong tenor voice, or whether he were in the workshop with the boys, he was always a centre of magic and fascination to her, his voice, sounding out in command, cheerful, laconic, had always a twang in it that sent a thrill over her blood, and hypnotized her. She seemed to run in the shadow of some dark, potent secret of which she would not, of whose existence even she dared not become ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Chantraine district," was the laconic answer; and like the gentleman who could not weep at the sermon because he belonged to another parish, this specimen of a French Dogberry would not hear reason except in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... laconic observations and directions behind him, he set off to the neighbouring town to meet Scatterbrain, and to make a blow-up at the post-office about the missing letters. This he was the more anxious to do, as the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... thoughts my cheeks began to burn even more hotly than Milly's. I had been questioning Eagle about his adventures, and he had been answering in the laconic way most brave men have when teased to talk of themselves; but for a minute, keen though I was, I lost the thread of narrative I had begun eagerly drawing out. This was when I met Milly's eyes and flung a challenge ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... about brings me up to the date of my receiving, in Waterbury, the laconic cable from Edward to the effect that he wanted me to go to Branshaw and have a chat. I was pretty busy at the time and I was half minded to send him a reply cable to the effect that I would start in a fortnight. But I was having a long interview ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... was Charm's laconic translation of this note, "means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to P——, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... is no Where more seen than in the dispatches of the one and the bulletins of the other. In his demeanour to his men, the Duke was reserved; in his language, curt and laconic. If his troops felt the moral certainty that he was leading them to victory, and honoured him accordingly, it was not from personal enthusiasm, such as the wild love the emperor inspired in those around ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... was as laconic as the query. "Because the trap was set for my car, going west; not for the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... mistaken; for the captain's speech was laconic in the extreme, being "much shorter, indeed, than his nose," as my fellow mid was forced to acknowledge in ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that Love does not speak: To-day commanding and to-morrow meek, One hour laconic and the next verbose, With hope triumphant and with doubt morose, His varying moods all forms of speech employ. To give expression ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hour. He shared our frugal breakfast, answered Yes, and No to my uncle's questions as to the nature of the road, and at last when asked where we were to pass the night was as laconic as usual. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... thet I wants ter be selfish er onreasonable, but ..." Judd stopped. Words of passionate love trembled on his lips, but were held there by a barrier of inherited reticence in matters of the heart. Iron reserve and laconic speech were essentially typical of his breed; but, at length, the eager utterances strained against the fetter of ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... guest to arrive. He shuffled in without answering the laconic greetings accorded him, and his usually mild ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... say that you'll take me to Sweden. I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway, isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say Tig to her just now. Tig means 'be silent.' Could anything sound more ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... so suddenly while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the window, and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite. I was angry with myself—generally angry—refused more tea rather dryly, and was laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was very cross and foolish; and afterwards, from my bed-room window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady Mary among the flowers, under the drawing-room window, talking, as I instinctively ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... to which it related. All was in order, but in alarming order for him, because each note only referred to the very essence of the business it alluded to, and related only to the exact point of its then relations with France. These laconic notes proved as enigmatic to Louis, as did the letters in cipher which covered the table. Here all was confusion. An edict of banishment and expropriation of the Huguenots of La Rochelle was mingled with treaties with Gustavus Adolphus ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... not over, the majority of the audience had begun to stream out. Two men who loitered in the gangway in front of Stonehouse exchanged laconic comments. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... captured... and Hindenburg's still counting..."). And all you could find in the papers was the General Staff report that "at one place the fighting has been very severe; up to the present we have made some twenty-six thousand prisoners," etc., and even this laconic sentence lost in the middle of the regular communique beginning: "Yesterday on the Belgian coast, after a ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... have it, what do you make on't? The seer is ancient, the style laconic, the sentences dark like those of Scotus, though they treat of matters dark enough in themselves. The best commentators on that good father take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that are included in this present age till ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... laconic order, which I instantly despatched to General Ferino. I acquainted my cousin with what had passed, and remained at ease as to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of my residence at Sydney I find as the result of one day's experience, the following laconic and somewhat enigmatical memorandum: "Is this grass?" The question implies a doubt, which it would not be easy for any person unacquainted with the circumstances of time and place, to solve: but the reader, when he has seen the explanation, will understand ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... thoughts; "here's somebody who will clear it up." And I pointed to a cottage-door at which I suddenly espied the old woman whose handling of the roller-towel had so impressed me. "Where," I shouted, addressing her, "where is the wounded man?" "Took away," was the laconic reply. "Took away!" I said; "and who has had the ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... loosened, their soft pink shirts unbuttoned at the collar. They were listening with gloomy voracity to the instruction of a third. They sat at a table bared of its customary sporting ornaments, and from time to time they questioned, sucked their pencils, and scrawled vigorous, laconic notes. Their necks and faces shone with the bloom of out-of-doors. Studious concentration was evidently a painful novelty to their features. Drops of perspiration came one by one from their matted hair, and their hands dampened ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... san come," was the laconic reply. "Ingiris' danna san live in Japan, Japanese girl very nice. Ingiris' danna san go away, no want Japanese girl. Japanese girl no want go away Japan. Japanese girl go to other country, she feel very sick; heart ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... were both silent. And now, tired of finding the ill- success of each particular enquiry, she thought a more general one might obtain an answer less laconic, and therefore begged she would inform her what was the most fashionable place of diversion for ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... scrutiny and revision. The modern or metaphysical system of criticism, in short, supposes the question, Why? to be repeated at the end of every decision; and the answer gives birth to interminable arguments and discussion. The former laconic mode was well adapted to guide those who merely wanted to be informed of the character and subject of a work in order to read it: the present is more useful to those whose object is less to read the work than to dispute upon its ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... courts, camps of the rich and great, The vast Xerxean army, I retreat, And to the small Laconic forces fly Which hold the straits of poverty. Cellars and granaries in vain we fill With all the bounteous summer's store: If the mind thirst and hunger still, The poor rich man's emphatically poor. Slaves to the things we too much prize, We masters ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... her rebellious lips to the laconic assent. She drooped the lids over her rebellious eyes, lest he should detect her wounded feelings ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... birth, and consequently his true home. At a particular season of the year, corresponding to the summer of our own country, he makes a roving expedition to the lower regions; and for what purpose? This was the very question which Alexis put to the tigrero. The answer was as curious as laconic: ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... sunshine, seemed to greet and cheer him. These two laconic but expressive words, sans souci, smoothed the lines which the crown and its duties had laid upon his brow, and made his heart, which was so cold and weary, beat with the hopes ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... his imagination. Miss Cooper says that her father followed Indian delegations from town to town, observing them carefully, conversing with them freely, and was impressed "with the vein of poetry and of laconic eloquence marking their ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... I have ever encountered from a reviewer was the laconic and cynical remark (commenting upon my rather altruistic belief in the duty of giving one's best thought to the conversational circle), that "Nowadays, people don't talk: if they have any good ideas, they save them and write them out and sell them." The critic implied that, ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... health. I saw my young cousin before I set out—she is more charming than ever. I am sure by the time you return she will be the finest woman in England." Lord Nelville said nothing—and Mr Edgermond was also silent. Some other words passed between them, very laconic, though extremely friendly, and Mr Edgermond was going, when suddenly turning back, he said, "Apropos, my lord, you can do me a kindness—they tell me you are acquainted with the celebrated Corinne: I don't much like forming new acquaintances, but I am ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... words and produced a French opera, "Le Devin du Village." Diderot was also a warm partisan of the Italians. Pergolesi's beautiful music having been murdered by the French orchestra players at the Grand Opera-House, Diderot proposed for it the following witty and laconic inscription: ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... always exempt; though to say the truth, he had nothing of it in his manner. He moved about taciturn and reserved as usual, among the gaping crowd in his gingerbread-colored travelling cap, with his hands in his pockets. He gave laconic orders to John as he packed away the thousand and one indispensable conveniencies of the night, double loaded his pistols with great sang-froid, and deposited them in the pockets of the carriage, taking no notice of a pair of keen eyes gazing on him from among the herd ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... curiosities of Moscow he kept it a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite, dignified, and gentlemanly—never refused to drink a glass of beer with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public functionaries with whom we came ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... it was now a question of a satisfactory table. But here he knew he was strong. Mother Boswell's cooking—there was none better obtainable. He was already in a hurry to prove to this laconic stranger who demanded the best he had of everything, including breezes, that in the matter of food Boswell's Inn could satisfy the most exacting. Not in elaborately dressed viands of rare kitchen product, of course—that ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... day after) "that the sum intended for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, should be given to the Wesleyan Methodists, who are now, and who may be hereafter, connected with the British Wesleyan Conference." I believe Lord Sydenham's laconic reply was, that he had to do with religious bodies ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... The capture of the fortress was due primarily to the immensity of the Russian artillery, which maintained a violent, continuous fire, smashing the successive rows of wire entanglements, breastworks, and trenches. The town was surrounded with nineteen rows of entanglements. The laconic order to attack was given at dawn on June 7, 1916. Up to noon the issue hung in the balance, but at 1 o'clock the Russians made a breach in the enemy's position near the village of Podgauzy. They repulsed a fierce Austrian counterattack and captured ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... to offer his father eight thousand pounds of Charlotte's fortune, if he would give them one thousand a-year in present, and settle a jointure on her. The Earl returned this truly laconic, for being so unnatural, an answer. "Lord Huntingtower, I answer your letter as soon as I receive it; I wish you joy; I hear your wife is very accomplished. Yours, Dysart." I believe my Lady Huntingtower must contrive ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... little remorse as he would have driven the point of his lance through a laced doublet. Sir Piercie Shafton, a man of rank and high birth, by no means encouraged or endured this familiarity, and requited the intruder either with total neglect, or such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for the rude spearman, who affected to converse with him ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... through this list again, only naming each letter himself, and receiving laconic answers from Grimm—answers which seemed to be numbers, but I could not be sure. For minutes together I caught nothing but the scratching of pens and inarticulate mutterings. But out of the muck-heap I picked five pearls—four sibilant nouns and a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... entered the farm-house to visit him. To start the conversation, Lady Heloise asked him who he was and what was the matter with the child; also what crime he had committed and where they were taking him with such an escort. Kohlhaas doffed his leather cap to her and, continuing his occupation, made laconic but satisfactory answers to all these questions. The Elector, who was standing behind the hunting-pages, remarked a little leaden locket hanging on a silk string around the horse-dealer's neck, and, since no better topic of conversation offered itself, he asked him what it signified and what was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... laconic but expressive answer he received, and Cuthbert, who knew the logger so well, understood all ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... Men of laconic speech say much by tone and gesture, and often by silence. In Ike's tone Shock read contempt, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... go back into his stall," was Byrne's laconic rejoinder, as he pushed his mount forward to pass ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... told me, and may consider that you've done your duty in doing so," replied the skipper, grimly laconic. "But I'm not going to ease down till seven bells, my hearty, unless we run across Dick Haldane's ship before, when we'll go as slow as you like and bear up again on our ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... inquired my way to Cambridge there; but I was sceptical of the direction the Cambridge horse-car took when I found it, and I hinted to the driver my anxieties as to why he should be starting east when I had been told that Cambridge was west of Boston. He reassured me in the laconic and sarcastic manner of his kind, and we really reached Cambridge by the route ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... joined, and we were soon the centre of a crowd. We imagined in time of war even a stray automobile must prove of account. We all laughed to find ourselves of such importance. Then up came a charming boy officer, who asked the chauffeur if he spoke German. "Ja wohl," was the laconic reply. "Are you ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... and while yet in his travelling dress, did the amiable kind man hasten up to me. He now knew me, and he came to me with cordiality. I was just then standing and packing my clothes in a trunk for a journey to the country; I had only a few minutes time: by this means my reception of him was just as laconic as had been ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... liberation of Trento by more than half a century, and greatly modified the problems of Italian policy in recent years. The story is well known of the recall of Garibaldi, which reached him at the moment of victory at Bezzecca, and of his famous reply, a model of laconic self-discipline, in the one word "Ubbidisco"—"I obey." The little town of Bezzecca lay this July behind the Italian lines, but in full view and easy range of the Austrians. A company of Arditi was billeted here, with whom I lunched one day, returning ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... be March. "The portfolio of war was withdrawn from him, by a very laconic letter from the king, March 10, 1792; he had held it three months and three days." (Nouvelle Biographie Gnrale: ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... could not pretend that he had been the cause of what old-fashioned people would call her "fall." He had gone so far as to belie his own convictions, to neglect his mission, and was even prepared to contemplate marriage. Yet he received a laconic note instead of a friendly letter, a go-between instead of herself. It was as if he had been struck with a knife, and a cold shiver ran through his body. It was not the old lady who had invented these measures, for Vera ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... Sim Relander feelingly, as if that laconic reply had been the only thing necessary to establish ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the influence of his injurer's glance and presence, would acknowledge whatever misdeed, debt, and even crime was attributed to him, responding to the demand if what his accuser said was true, with the invariable and laconic words: "What he says ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Rubens is crimsoned, the massacres, the executioners torturing, martyring, and making their victims howl, we recognize that here we have a noble execution. Everything in it is restrained, concise, and laconic, as in a ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... was the laconic reply. But the other pressed him for fuller detail and he proceeded cheerfully. "The Halloway millions didn't come to us on a tray borne by angels. My father made his pile, and much of it he made in coal and iron—here and there in the Appalachians. He trained me up in that ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... twice or thrice, pausing between whiles. The envelope bore the London postmark. Then he took out his cigar case, selected a promising weed, and wrapping the laconic note prettily round one of his scented matches, lighted it, and the note flamed pale in the daylight, and dropped still blazing, at the root of the old tree he stood by, and sent up a little curl of blue smoke—an incense to the demon of the wood—and turned in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... henceforth reckon him among his friends—"Yours very sincerely, H. Bullinger." This literary effort he carefully dispatched by a Guinea-pig to its destination, and awaited a reply with the utmost impatience. The reply was laconic, but highly satisfactory. It was a verbal one, given by Oliver himself in class that afternoon, who volunteered the information to the delighted Bullinger that it was a ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... there were mechanical difficulties in the way that rendered the plan impracticable at the present time. I added that I felt that I had not the electrical knowledge necessary to overcome the difficulties. His laconic answer was, 'GET IT!' I cannot tell you how much these ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... heaving, swearing, laughing mass of more or less dilapidated humanity interested in the retail sale of newspapers. At six o'clock Ephraim Bander, a retired constable, now on the staff of the Beacon, had taken his station at the door, in order to greet would-be purchasers with the laconic ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... this instance is not isolated, As a survey of our statesmen shows; WINSTON now suggests a long post-dated DAN O'CONNELL in his mouth and nose; NORTHCLIFFE's growing more Napoleonic Than the Corsican, though less laconic. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... commented Dixon with laconic directness. "It seems just no use workin' over a good horse when any mut of a crook who is takin' a turn at plungin' can get at the boy. I believe Boston Bill's game of gettin' a straight boy to play, an' lettin' the horses go hang, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... have been inspired with the ambition of a moralist, and distributed Hermae, or stone busts of Mercury, about the city and the public roads, which, while answering a similar purpose to our mile-stones, arrested the eye of the passenger with pithy and laconic apothegms in verse; such as, "Do not deceive your friend," and "Persevere in affection to justice;"—proofs rather of the simplicity than the wisdom of the prince. It is not by writing the decalogue ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the valley of the Mississippi, give us, then, a man who is called a "sawed-off" by those who love him—a very thick, very short, very tobaccofied, strong man in cavalry pants, with a jacket of the heaviest chinchilla—a restless, oathful, laconic, thirsty, never-drunk "editor." It is a man after the sailor's own heart. It is a man, too, well known to the gamblers, and they all vote ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... laconic response. "If they only will, too, for there ain't much fun in doing chores while father and Rufe and ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... village had ever known? Thus, a few days after the widow's departure, the stocks was again the object of midnight desecration: it was bedaubed and bescratched, it was hacked and hewed, it was scrawled over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic execrations on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions appeared, testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive sentiment of the parish. And perhaps the stocks was only spared from axe and bonfire by the convenience it afforded to the malice of the disaffected: it ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Paul never knew where they were except when a telegram announced that they were going somewhere else. He did not even know that there was any method of communication between mothers and sons less laconic than that of the electric wire; and once, when a boy at school asked him if his mother often wrote, he had answered in all sincerity: "Oh yes—I got a telegram ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... captain had to silence him. Then the captain praised the company. (He also sent a message to us at Retreat, where the lieutenant commanded—we had done well; he would try to keep us out of brooks hereafter. I like these laconic statements; they mean much.) Then I company, with full cartridge belts, took up the advance-guard work along the road, and we saw them rummage out of a barn some cavalrymen who had hidden there. But soon, the day's manoeuvre over, we began the hike to camp. I wish you ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... books in the eyes of Amru, and made him scrupulous of giving them away without permission of the Caliph. He forthwith wrote to Omar, stating the merits of John, and requesting to know whether the books might be given to him. The reply of Omar was laconic, but fatal. "The contents of those books," said he, "are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they are, the Koran is sufficient without them; if they are not, they are pernicious. Let them, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Susan's laconic "The spring's dry," was not necessary. He fell forward on the seat with a moan, his head propped in his hands, his fingers buried in his hair. Courant sent a look of furious contempt over his abject figure, then gave a laugh that fell on the silence bitter as a curse. Daddy ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... guessed and expressed his badly expressed idea. Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by this transition from the confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this laconic, clear, almost wordless communication of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... General S.D. Lee was in the Department of Mississippi, showing that the hands of that officer were more than full. [Footnote: The letter, however, did not reach Johnston till after he had been relieved of command.] On the 10th Johnston had forwarded a laconic dispatch, saying, "On the night of the 8th the enemy crossed at Isham's Cavalry Ford; intrenched. In consequence we crossed at and below the railroad, and are now about two miles from the river, guarding the crossings." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... them in the role which to my mind they never before occupied—that of organizers. I started the trip to see the real French Army in the most open but unexpectant frame of mind. For weeks I had read only laconic official communiques that told me nothing. I saw well-fed officers in beautiful limousines rolling about Paris with an air that the war was a million miles away. The best way now to explain my enthusiasm is to give the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not have been more pregnant with meaning. Jean's sharp sensibilities absorbed much. None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans—for so Jean at once classed them—had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... dialect of those Indians common in Guinana is soft, agreeable, and regular, and their substantives are Hebrew. "Their language, in the roots, idioms, and particular construction, has the genius of the Hebrew language, as their orations have the bold, laconic, and figurative style ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... gladly know—albeit Pigafetta's journal and the still more laconic pilot's logbook leave us in the dark on this point—how the ignorant and suffering crews interpreted this everlasting stretch of sea, vaster, said Maximilian Transylvanus, "than the human mind could conceive." To them it may well have seemed that the ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... "The epistle is laconic," said D'Artagnan; "and if there had not been a postscript, probably I should not have understood it; but happily there ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not a proof of their confidence in him? Moreover, on Garibaldi's return to Rome, Mazzini made a last effort to induce him to unburden his mind, at least to himself, by asking him in writing to tell him frankly what were his wishes. Here is the laconic answer, characteristic of the writer; frank and unabashed as the round, clear handwriting of the original, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... room of the office, William laid down the money he had collected with the laconic statement, "It's kinder ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... to be seen, and how best seen in the shortest time, in every place to which he may be successively conducted. This novelty in the work will prove very frequently of great utility, especially to those visitors who have too little time for their trip, and who, for want of such a laconic memento wherever they go, are known in a thousand instances to pass by the most interesting objects unnoticed,—not being aware even ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... the morning before they reached the bank. The gold was taken out and deposited in the vaults, and the three went up to the Hall. They brought out brandy and refreshed themselves, after which John remarked, in his usual laconic style, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... passed the porter, Lady Chatterton observed to him significantly—"Nobody at home, Willis."—"Yes, my lady," was the laconic reply, and Lord Herriefield, as he took his seat by the side of his wife in the carriage, thought she was ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper |
