"Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Indians could find no trace of the gun-wheels—the gun was carried on a pack-horse,—and so he thought that the Kentuckians were forced to leave it behind on their retreat. He put the killed of the Kentuckians at the modest number of forty-eight; and reported the belief of Girty and the Indians that "three hundred [of them] would have given [Clark's men] a total rout." A very common feat of the small frontier historian was to put high praise of his own side in the mouth of a foe. Withers, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the Great Exhibition Jury, was also one of the Judges in Cleveland, and was so satisfied on the subject that he left, determined to urge for a medal for Mr. Hussey. It must be a source of pleasure to all to find that justice was thus about to be done to a worthy, modest and unassuming man." ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... modest!" she said. "I give you credit for more discernment than you admit. Confess that you think our marquis needs a stronger head beside him, to aid in ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... too modest, Chevalier," replied the vicomte. "I learn that you have entered the bouts, my poet. I tried to interest D'Herouville, but he declined. He goes about like a moping owl, watching ever for a returning ship which ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... professed materialist; but I think you treat rather too lightly the modest doubts of Locke on this subject. And without considering me as a partisan, you will, I hope, allow me to state some of the reasons which I have heard good physiologists advance in favour of that opinion to which you are so hostile. In the first accretion of the parts ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... knows the spirit of early California can understand this document. Its beginning is modest: "if there is any property left." What amount was the old man about to distribute? He was too cautious to mention it; and when his friend John Hintzen of Forest City, in whose safe the will was deposited, wrote asking for a list of the property, the ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... to composition. Two or three months ought to suffice for the work, for the material is already well in hand; and at the end of that time my pen shall turn to making money again. I have no anxiety about gaining a modest income—and can you imagine what that means to ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... too much; I am modest in my tastes, humble in my desires, and my title of ambassador does not make me proud; therefore 100 ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... recent and ingenious critic, "that in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse. How amid all that love of inferior company, which never to the last forsook him, did he keep his genius so free ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... modest, but truthful, and on this occasion piqued, went out into the gallery after his conversation, and made a general report of it to all, virtuously, braving Vendome and all his cabal. This cabal trembled with rage; Vendome still more so. They answered ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the gestures and tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would handle his subject, *****, handsome, showy, and superficial; *****, with his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession; *****, modest, sensitive, and underrated; *****, the mouth-piece of the debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic; and so following. Then I could see them receiving their A. Bs. from the dignified, feudal-looking ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... distemper. After the meal she went with him round the garden, inspected both roses and puppy, and manifested great interest in a trellis he was constructing for the accommodation later in the summer of some climbing cucumbers, at present only visible as modest leaves in flower-pots. Neither made any reference to the little scene of the night before. Morning had brought to Dick the conviction that in refusing her hand and slamming the door he had behaved in an unpardonably bearish ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... to give sentence according to orders received from court; the annulling of the charters of all the corporations, and the subjecting of elections to arbitrary will and pleasure; the treating of petitions, even the most modest, and from persons of the highest rank, as criminal and seditious; the committing of the whole authority of Ireland, civil and military, into the hands of Papists; the assuming of an absolute power over the religion and laws of Scotland, and openly exacting in that kingdom an obedience ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... actually read, that is a different question. One is tempted to believe that he must have read George Herbert, but of this there is no positive proof. We are quite certain about five books, for which we have his own express statements. His wife brought him as her dowry the very modest furniture of two small volumes, Baily's Practice of Piety and Dent's The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven. The first is a very complicated and elaborate statement of Christian dogma, which Bunyan passes ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... to tell my Pamela, to make her smile, till I return?—Yes, sir, said she, I could tell twenty pleasant stories; but my lady is too nice to hear them; and yet, I hope, I should not be shocking neither. Ah! poor woman! thought I; thy chastest stories will make a modest person blush, if I know thee! and I desire to hear ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Himself. England's one hope is in these, just now. They are among the silent, I believe; mostly far away from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image of their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his own little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant actions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer. They are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately vindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly maddened into all ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... since the "Lord knows when," probably from a fellow-feeling in the sentiments. Lord H. tells me I shall beat them all if I persevere; and Lord G. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like Burke's!! And so much for vanity. I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the Lord Chancellor very much out of humour: and if I may believe what I hear, have not lost any character by the experiment. As to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical. I could not recognize myself or any one else ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... rebind any of them. An old binding is like an old picture! Just look at this French binding! It's very dingy, and a good deal broken, but you never see anything like that nowadays—as mellow as modest, and as rich as roses! Here's one says the same thing as your grand hall out there, only ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... the risk of not appearing sufficiently modest (and yet, why should a wife ever be modest about her husband's merits?), must say that she thinks Lord John Russell will admit now that the Prince is possessed of very extraordinary powers of mind and heart. She feels so proud at being his wife that she cannot ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... grinned Jack, "they went and got taken prisoners by a martinet of a fellow and a dwarf, and I had to go and get them out. Say! But you wait a second, and I'll produce my modest assistant." ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... I am a modest man, as well as an honest one. Censure cannot move me by one hair's breadth from the narrow path of rectitude; praise cannot unduly puff me up. Had I been other than I am, this last week would have gone fatally near to ruining that timid and shrinking diffidence which (I say it without egotism) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... he had leased that residence. It stands on the (old) Portsmouth Road, and had earlier been an inn frequented by lovers of that game and patrons of cockfighting. After enlargement it had been converted into a gentleman's abode which well suited the modest requirements of Pitt and of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.[774] There, not far from the scenes of his youthful frolics with Wilberforce, and only a quarter of a mile from the dell where he fought the duel with Tierney, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the flowers, however, was the December greenness, especially of the humbler sorts: St. John's-wort, five-finger, the creeping blackberries,—whose modest winter loveliness was never half appreciated,—herb-robert, corydalis, partridge-berry, checkerberry, wintergreen, rattlesnake-plantain, veronica, and linnaea, to say nothing of the ferns and mosses. Most refreshing of all, perhaps, was an occasional patch ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... a happy hunting-ground for adventurers. Just as in the early days of British Somaliland, rascals would descend from nowhere in particular upon unfortunate villages, levy taxes and administer atrocity in the name of the Empire, and even, I am told, outface for a time the modest heralds of the government, so in this department of anthropology the public mind suffers from the imposition of theories and assertions claiming to be "scientific," which have no more relation to that organized system of criticism which is science, than a brigand ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the suburbs of Paris, an only child; his father, interested in little building speculations, maintained his family in modest comfort. The mason wished to make an architect of his son, and Marcelo was in the midst of his preparatory studies when his father suddenly died, leaving his affairs greatly involved. In a few months, he and his mother descended the slopes of ruin, and were obliged to give up their snug, middle-class ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and beloved—the high born and wealthy—the light and joy of fond and indulgent parents—had been beguiled by the infernal tempter to make one step aside from the straight and narrow-path of duty—and this was the result! The sensitive and guileless girl became an incarnate fiend, callous to every modest and virtuous impulse—scorned by the honest and good, and hating and undermining the redeeming principles of her species—rushing from the high station which her ancestors had arduously laboured for generations to attain, and voluntarily taking up ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... succeeded by the transformation scene—the red robbers becoming white ones—to all of which he was witness. After that the card-playing by the camp fire, during which the chief came to his tent, and did what he could to draw him. In this part of his narration, the mulatto with modest naivete, hints of his own adroitness; how he threw his inquisitor off the scent, and became at length disembarrassed of him. He is even more reticent about an incident, soon after succeeding, but referred to it at an early part ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... manners and passionate violence, in one ideal picture.' The character is indeed one of perfect truth and sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettish about it;—it is a pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does not consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of imagination and tenderness ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... something better than that. Tell us, who played him that trick? Who prevented him from putting down eight millions, or ten millions,—a good round sum? As for myself, I was quite disappointed in my hopes. I counted on unanimity. Coup d'etat, you are indeed modest! ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... and forgivenesses of injuries follow, to observe the complacency with which husbands who have sold their wives' favours, wives who have been at the command of the first comer or the highest bidder, mix cheek by jowl, and apparently unrebuked, with the modest maidens, the virtuous matrons, the faithful lovers of the piece. Shakespere never does this. Mrs. Quickly is indeed at one time the confidante of Anne Fenton, and at another the complaisant hostess of Doll Tear-sheet, but not in the same play. We do not find Marina's master and ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... accomplishment of penance was indeed impracticable: the guilt of adultery was multiplied by daily repetition; that of homicide might involve the massacre of a whole people; each act was separately numbered; and, in those times of anarchy and vice, a modest sinner might easily incur a debt of three hundred years. His insolvency was relieved by a commutation, or indulgence: a year of penance was appreciated at twenty-six solidi [24] of silver, about four pounds ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... progenitor, upon our dusky and silent sphere, like Peace and Goodwill, with hands bound in an oath and contract never to part. We will spare a dissertation on chaos; we will not speak of matter and inertia; but as our greatest and purest fountain of light is the sun, we may be allowed a modest exposition of his philosophical state, as a granite gate to the garden beyond. Ninety-five millions of miles to the north, east, south, or west of us, up or down, as the case may be, stands the molten ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... neck, and is surmounted by a big butterfly bow. The costume and pose are delightful and striking at first sight, but the more the picture is studied the more the face attracts the attention it merits. It is a sweet little girl's face, modest and sensible. She is holding the arm of her seat with a sort of determination to sit that way and be looked at so long as she must, but her expression shows that she is thinking hard of something that she intends to do so soon as she can jump down ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... perceived that drinking was very little in use but among inferior people, and as he was very watchful into the manners and conduct of the persons of rank who honoured him with their protection, he was sober and modest, and I never heard that, during the whole time of his stay in England, which was two years, he ever once was disguised with wine, or ever shewed an inclination to go beyond ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... information that the Empress was visible was accompanied with a kind of admonitory or courtly hint, that the strictest decency in dress and manners, and a conversation chaste, and rather of an unusually modest turn, would be highly agreeable to their Sovereigns, in consideration of the solemn occasion of a Sovereign Pontiff's arrival in France,—an occurrence that had not happened for centuries, and probably would not happen for centuries to come." ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... you mean," he answered, bridling. "The proprieties face any necessity for discussion with modest discretion, however painful it ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... entrust the expression of my most intimate and sacred thoughts into a stranger's hands. To appeal to the readers of French and English is to appeal to the whole world of intellect. Perhaps that is not a very modest desire; but it is mine, Mr. Armstrong, as I think it must be that of all those who are conscious of great thoughts. By the way,' she asked, with a comprehensive glance around the table, 'do any of these gentlemen ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... ii., p. 424.).—Mr. C.H. Cooper inquires whether this letter appeared before 1839? Gifford gives an extract from it in Massinger's City Madam, Act II., where the daughters of Sir John Frugal make somewhat similar stipulations from their suitors. When speaking of this letter as "a modest and consolatory one," Gifford adds, "it is yet extant." The editor of a work entitled Relics of Literature (1823) gives it at length, with this reference, "Harleian MSS. 7003." The property of Lady ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... that was never out of his possession was in the lock and out again. The door opened, closed; he drew the black silk mask from his pocket and slipped it over his face. Immediately in front of him the stairs led upward; immediately to his right was the door into the shop—the modest street entrance was common ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... came who felt the skull and read the character. He said to Victor, 'You have great talent, my little one,' and to me he said, 'You are going to be a very great man, Colibris.' But I did not care to develop my talents. I was always very modest and domestic. The cure at home always says, 'Now, Jacques Colibris—there's a man who is a model husband and father.'" He drank a ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... of the most miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with our army entered the sacred city of Rome, so lately profaned by the impious, who now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross and of my arms. Leave then, your Holiness, your too modest abode, and on the wings of cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend upon the Vatican, to purify it by your sacred presence." A letter to the King of Piedmont, who had already been exhorted by ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... a very modest man, Robert be; he didn't take much notice. 'Fancy that!' says he, when I did ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... lives in it, took most of the abuse, and asked no reward. Almost without knowing it, the subordinates ousted their employers and created a machine which no one but themselves could run. In 1850 things had not quite reached that point. The men who ran the small Free Soil machine were still modest, though they became famous enough in their own right. Henry Wilson, John B. Alley, Anson Burlingame, and the other managers, negotiated a bargain with the Massachusetts Democrats giving the State to the Democrats ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... proceeded from a ground-floor window, or rather from three windows, lighted up, and hung with draperies of crimson and gold: one of the casements, flaring meretriciously in the modest eye of morn, stood wide open down to the floor, probably to cool a heated atmosphere; and when Roger Acton, with a natural curiosity, went on tiptoe, looked in, and just put aside the curtain for a peep, to know what on earth ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... lay folded round the top of a spreading hill. To the left, beyond the hill, a wide plain travelled into the sunset, its level spaces cut by the scrawled elms and hedgerows of the nearer landscape. The beauty of it all—the beauty of an English midland—was of a modest and measured sort, depending chiefly on bounties of sun and air, on the delicacies of gentle curves and the pleasant intermingling of wood and cornfield, of light spaces with dark, of solid ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a modest hotel, comfortable, but not expensive. Harry was sitting in the reading room, when a servant brought in a card. It bore the ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... very simply and quietly, taking little part in the social life of the city, though cordially liked by all who made his acquaintance. An inmate of the modest boarding-house where he had rooms has told of the cheery atmosphere he seemed to bring with him into the common dining-room, where political arguments were apt to run high. He never appeared anxious to insist upon his ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... be modest, my dear fellow!" smiled the dwarf. "I am the last one to belittle your achievement. Indeed, it is because of it that I have invited you here to-day. Permit me to introduce myself, and to make clear one or two possibly perplexing matters. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... prejudices of centuries. We may imagine the rumours that must have gone before his coming. And now he was there. Ferdinand and Isabella had their thrones placed in the presence of the assembled court. Columbus approached the monarchs, and then, "his countenance beaming with modest satisfaction," knelt at the king's feet, and begged leave to kiss their highnesses' hands. They gave their hands; then they bade him rise and be seated before them. He recounted briefly the events of his voyage—a story more interesting ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... of the Archangel Government, near Kholmogory on the White Sea, he was a fisherman, like his father, until the age of sixteen, having learned to read and write from a peasant neighbor. A tyrannical stepmother forced him to endure hunger and cold, and to do his modest studying and reading in desert spots. Accordingly, when he obtained from the village authorities the permission requisite for absenting himself for the space of ten months, he failed to return, and was inscribed among the "fugitives." In the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... never saw Johnson really angry with me but once," writes that sainted maiden lady. "I alluded to some witty passage in 'Tom Jones.'" He replied: "I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it; a confession which no modest lady ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... strongly made, had none of the prettiness which pleases the masses; but she was beautiful with a beauty which the spirit recognizes, and none but artists truly love. A painter seeking here below for a type of Mary's celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud modest eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often due to chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life alone can bestow or keep unchanged,—such a painter, in love with his ideal, would have found in the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... had been seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious grasses. As for the town itself, it was certainly no great matter; containing about twenty dwellings, and otherwise being of very modest pretensions. Those who dwelt there were principally such mechanics as found it convenient to be at the centre of the settlement, some half a dozen persons employed about the warehouses of the merchants, a few officials of the government, and the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... companion of the lamented Franklin, and himself one of the great men of the earth. Sir John first regarded this bear, though very doubtfully, as a variety of the ursus americanus, or American black bear. Later observations influenced him to change this opinion; and again with modest doubtfulness—characteristic of the man—he suggests his being a variety of the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... said, "I make thee not, Except the doing; for the modest asking Ought to be followed by the ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... other hand, the priest's cheek was dark and sallow; his features singularly delicate and refined; his forehead high, but somewhat narrow, and crossed with lines of thought; his mien composed, modest, but not without calm self-confidence. Amongst that assembly of soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his surpassing power over swords ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The modest lady Hero was silent before the noble guests; and while Claudio was attentively observing the improvement which time had made in her beauty, and was contemplating the exquisite graces of her fine figure (for she was an admirable young lady), the prince was highly amused with listening to the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Leaf-cutter (Megachile imbecilla, GERST.). Nearly a quarter of a century ago, I saw her, all through the month of July, cutting out her rounds and ellipses at the expense of the petals of the Pelargonium zonale, the common geranium. Her perseverance devastated—there is no other word for it—my modest array of pots. Hardly was a blossom out, when the ardent Megachiles came and scalloped it into crescents. The colour was indifferent to her: red, white or pink, all the petals underwent the disastrous operation. A few captures, ancient relics of my collecting-boxes by this time, indemnified ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... This modest announcement of his subject was overwhelming in itself, and was greeted with such yells of laughter that the poor elocutionist found it utterly impossible to go on. He tried once or twice, but never got beyond ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Officers are most popular, and there were loud cheers. De la Borde had tea and Mitchell came in at the same time to say good-bye. We are all distressed at losing Mitchell. He is a very fine specimen of the sailor of the modern school. Efficient, modest, untiring at his work. He has collaborated in the most loyal and devoted manner with the G.S., and I don't know how we should ever have got ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... with a young lady, whose face and modest bearing were known to me, though I could not, at the moment, recall her name. This was the less remarkable as I am not prone to look much in maids' faces, leaving that to younger men; and Mademoiselle de Figeac's, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... "You're a modest youth," laughed Wagner, surveying his long legs and laughing in such a manner that ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... good eight hours' day at various unpaid labours. He became churchwarden of the parish, joined the vestry, and was a much valued unit of that obscure element in the population which does a great part of the public work for which individuals of a less modest type ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... of the extraterritorial operation of the Russian decree of nationalization and was binding on American courts. The power to remove such obstacles to full recognition as settlement of claims of our nationals was "a modest implied power of the President who is the 'sole organ of the Federal Government in the field of international relations' * * * It was the judgment of the political department that full recognition of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... wildest dreams, old dear," said her best friend with happy impudence. "You were more modest for me than I was ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... been at Riverdale-by-the-Sea, and liked it on account of the lack of entertainment. People who lived there called it simply "Riverdale," but the manager of the hotel, perhaps to atone for the missing orchestra and canned vegetables, added "by-the-Sea" to the name in his modest advertisements. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... while I am writing this paragraph, there passes by my window, on his daily errand of duty, not seeing me, though I catch a glimpse of his manly features through the oval glass of his chaise, as he rides by, a surgeon of skill and standing, so friendly, so modest, so tender-hearted in all his ways, that, if he had not approved himself at once adroit and firm, one would have said he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of pain, even if it were saving pain. You may be sure that some men, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... ought to be! The house was broken open last night, and the silver urn is missing. Shameless wretch! This comes of mysteries and veiled women, who are too modest to, look an honest female in the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of any of her husband's personal debts. It was not realised then that the Duchess of Kent, in marrying the Duke and becoming his widow and the guardian of their child, had given up not only independence, but what was affluence in her own country, with its modest ways of living—even where princes were concerned—for the mortification and worry of narrow means, the strain of a heavy responsibility, the pain of much unjustifiable and undeserved interference, misconception, and censure, until ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... between her cherry lips, As these were moving in a gracious smile, Which traced her features like a silvery stream, And ran from view adown her dove-like neck. Her cheek was blooming as a new-blown rose; A modest flush came o'er it as she stood. Her voice was sweet like music on the air, Thrown from a harp touched by a fairy sprite; And in her look a happy tranquil dwelt. Bound with the crown of virtue which she wore Upon her brow (a diadem of gems) Were the sweet flowers ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... full-rigged ship, the "Trial," which went to Malaga, and brought back "wine, fruit, oil, linen and wool, which was a great advantage to the country, and gave encouragement to trade." A year earlier there set out the modest forerunner of our present wholesale spring pilgrimages to Europe. A ship set sail for London from Boston "with many passengers, men of chief rank in the country, and great store of beaver. Their adventure ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... advantage of brains to a man who doesn't use them? Consider; she will look for employment. She won't try to teach, it would be useless. She is not strong enough for hard labor. She is too modest and reserved to take a place in a shop behind a counter, where she would be sure to be discovered. She will, therefore, be found in the employ of some milliner, tailor, or bookbinder. How easy to go through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... and Child Jesus had appeared in the prison well, where they took a bath and disappeared. When, at length, the belief became popular, hundreds of natives went there to get water from the well, and the official imposed a tax on the pilgrims, whereby he became possessed of a modest fortune, and owned two of the best houses in the Square ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... half compassionate, she pulled her blouse out of the box, adjusted the white scarf to it herself, and sent the bewildered Jane about her business, after having shown her first how to unpack her mistress's modest belongings, and strictly charged her to return half an hour before dinner. "Of course I shall dress myself,—but you may as well have ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... woeful life that Franz Hals led, it is amazing to think that he of all artists is the best painter of good humour. He puts a smile on the face of nearly every one of his "leading characters," whether it be a modest young girl, a hideous old woman, a strolling musician, or a riotous soldier, and in every case the laugh suits the subject. It may have been his own easygoing shiftlessness, his way of casting care aside with a ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... shrank from attempting it. His medical brethren whom he consulted all doubted the propriety of taking any measures for the removal of the tumor, in the particular condition and situation of it when they were called in. Your uncle alone differed with them. He was too modest a man to say so, but your mother found it out. The deformity of her beautiful child horrified her. She was desperate enough to catch at the faintest hope of remedying it that anyone might hold out to her; and she persuaded your uncle to put his opinion to the proof. Her horror at the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Elsie was very modest, and rather timid, too, but also very polite; so she said, "No excuse is necessary; but will you not take a seat, sir? though I fear my music will not afford you any pleasure, for you know I am only a little girl, and cannot play very ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... no reply and left the house. The only result of this affair was that he found it disagreeable to call at the drug store. Besides, it was useless; no practice had come from his assiduous attendance. Finally, he saw one morning that his modest sign no longer waved from the pendent ladder. He did not take the trouble to inquire why ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... strikingly parallel to that of seventy years before, when the president of Harvard College announced his acceptance of Baptist principles. The day after the Yale commencement in September, 1722, a modest and respectful paper was presented to the trustees of the college, signed by Rector Timothy Cutler and Tutor Brown (who constituted the entire faculty of the college) and by five pastors of good standing in the Connecticut churches. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... be the same as the one we had in the cabin," he answered, "there is no necessity for a veil; for a prettier or a more modest-looking girl is not often fallen in with. What she wanted exactly is more than I can tell you, as she spoke Italian altogether; and 'miladi' had the interview pretty much to herself. But her good looks seem to have taken with this old ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... frontier, and a warlike population, it would at least be safe from the worst consequences of a defeat. But what chances of escape are there for you, with an enemy so close at hand?" Gustavus Adolphus displayed the modest diffidence of a hero, whom an overweening belief of his own strength did not blind to the greatness of his danger; John George, the confidence of a weak man, who knows that he has a hero by his side. Impatient to rid his territories as soon as possible of the oppressive presence ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... punished. The science of those, proclaims the imperial convert, who, immersed in the arts of magic, are detected either in attempts against the life and health of their fellow-men, or in charming the minds of modest persons to the practice of debauchery, is to be avenged and punished deservedly by severest penalties. But in no sorts of criminal charges are those remedies to be involved which are employed for the good of individuals, or are harmlessly employed in remote ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... answered Geoffrey, 'our courage failed us at the last moment. We donned our uniforms, and looked like brigands, highway robbers, cowboys, firemen,—anything but modest young men; and as it was too warm for ulsters, we took refuge in civilised raiment for to-day. When we arrive, you shall behold our dashing sombreros fixed up with peacock feathers, and our refulgent shirts, which are of the ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Douglass at Edinburgh who was my friend and classmate. We were together a good bit of the time, and when we had come to the end of our course we both went to engage in journalism at Glasgow. We had a mighty conceit of ourselves—you know how it is, Brower, with a green lad—but we were a mind to be modest, with all our learning, so we made an agreement: I would blaw his horn and he would blaw mine. We were not to lack appreciation. He was on one paper and I on another, and every time he wrote an article I went up and down the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... first modest little venture encouraged Hazen and Simonds to undertake a more ambitious project, namely the formation of a trading company to "enter upon and pursue with all speed and faithfulness the business of the cod fishery, seine fishery, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... tell her from me, as she has made her bed she may lie in it. She has not taken under her roof my granddaughter, but the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, the play actress. I did my best for the girl, striving to bring her up to be a good and modest woman, despite the bad blood of the mother who broke my son's heart and killed him, who did what she could, and has been doing what she could in the years since, to disgrace our house. I might have ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that I asked him why, for the sort of enjoyment he desired, it wouldn't be more to the point to deal directly with the lady. He stared and blushed at this: it was plain the idea frightened him. He was an extraordinary case—personally so modest that I could see it had never occurred to him. He had fallen in love with a painted sign and seemed content just to dream of what it stood for. He was the young prince in the legend or the comedy who loses his heart to the miniature of the out-land princess. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... cost a plum. Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be sold: Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store, And be what Rome's great Didius was before. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfold, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold. Congenial souls! whose life one av'rice joins, And one fate buries in th' Asturian mines. Much injured Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate: "At length corruption, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... trees, but less and less lofty and Salvatorish in character; then he saw the gentler elm, succeeded by the sassafras and locust—these again by the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and maple—these yet again by still more graceful and more modest varieties. The whole face of the southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alone—an occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. In the bottom of the valley itself—(for it must be borne in mind ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... half-squalidly residential and half-heartedly commercial district, lying south of Washington Square, a little to the west of Broadway's great artery of traffic. A decorous and unbetraying door, bearing only the modest sign, "The Neptune Club," and a narrow stairway leading to an equally decorous and uncompromising hall, gave no hint, to the uninitiated, of what the great gloomy walls ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... that of bashful love. While the rest were talking and laughing, displaying their white teeth, and shaking their black hair over their polished foreheads, he was thinking only of the silent woman, and contrasting her modest and quiet deportment with the noisy and boisterous mirth of her sisters. When she saw that the stranger bent his eyes a great portion of the time on herself, and that their expression denoted the same sentiment in him as filled her own ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... scientific proclivities, and Josiah Wedgwood, with his sturdy common sense and patient workmanship, united to give Charles Darwin his inherited tastes, for he was a grandson of both. Born in 1809, on the banks of the Severn in England, Charles Darwin was the delicate son of a practicing physician of modest but sufficient means. Owing to his lack of early vigor, Darwin spent much time in the open air, and in his excursions about his home was chiefly interested in collecting beetles. This taste, which lasted through all his young manhood, ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... after room with doorway and window all cut out of the soft limestone, and Sir Humphrey and Briscoe were not long in giving it as their opinion that these single rooms, all separate and with their doorways opening upon the terrace, were really the modest little houses of the old dwellers in this hivelike arrangement. There they were, side by side, all opening upon the long terrace, and, after examining many, they found relics of the old inhabitants in the shape of clay-baked rough pots or their broken sherds; ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... were our modest grandmothers, of whom we hear so much! They went rather far in their search after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... showed a particular bent for poetry, and Horace and Luis de Leon were his admiration. He was an intimate friend of Jovellanos, who induced him to forsake light subjects and attempt a didactic poem, Las edades, which was left unfinished. Fray Diego's modest and lovable character and his friendly relations with other men of letters made him an attractive figure. His poems are in vol. 61 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... was of opinion, and with perfect justice, that even genius itself would scarcely be warranted in treating her approval in this summary fashion, and felt slightly inclined to resent it, even while excusing it to herself as the unintentional gaucherie of an over-modest man. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Sir, contemplate such a brilliant, such a soul-stirring prospect unmoved? That you cannot, and will at once hand over your useful millions for the purpose of carrying into effect the above modest but magnificent scheme, is the firm belief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... Under this modest title, I purpose to write a series of papers, some of which will be like many papers of garden-seeds, with nothing vital in them, on the subject of gardening; holding that no man has any right to keep valuable knowledge to himself, and hoping that those who come after me, except ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large Bohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, but for his good eyes, the young man could not have ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... strong. He is a very little man, only twenty-six years of age, and was dressed in a coat much too big for him. He made his reputation by protecting the retreat of the army through Kentucky last year. He was a graduate of West Point, and seems a remarkably zealous officer, besides being very modest and ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... bear; she is the most detestable creature I know. I would rather be buried alive in the country, than join in London society under her care; with her long speeches of prudery and virtue, and the modest reserve of young ladies, and a hundred other such saint-like terms, when all the time she is doing all she can to catch husbands for her three great gawky daughters, who in mamma's presence are all simplicity and simper—sweet girls just introduced; when I am very much mistaken if ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... and beautiful like the Moon. And in beauty of person he is like either of the twin Aswins. And with senses under control, he is meek, and brave, and truthful! And with passion in subjection he is devoted to his friends, and free from malice and modest and patient. Indeed, briefly speaking, they that are possessed of great ascetic merit and are of exalted character say that he is always correct in his conduct and that honour is firmly seated on his brow." Hearing this, Aswapati said, "O reverend sage, thou tellest me that he is possessed of every ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... group of buildings which must bear their true name of offices, belittling as a title suggestive of clerks and counting-rooms is to dimensions and capacity exceeding those of most churches. Right and left a brace of these modest but sightly and habitable-looking foot-hills to the Alps of glass accommodate the executive and staff departments of the exposition. They bring together, besides the central administration, the post, police, custom-house, telegraph, etc. A front, including ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... entrusted thee with an orphan, wouldst thou have thus neglected him? He hath delivered thee to thine own care, saying, I had none more faithful than myself: keep this man for me such as Nature hath made him—modest, faithful, high-minded, a stranger to fear, to passion, to ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... in a modest phaeton, happened to be jogging past Gorey, the residence of Ram. At that moment, out of the gate drove the more imposing carriage of the latter, and there was a collision. The Dean and his phaeton were thrown into ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... while her aunt held her hand, and Beatrice and Eleanor talked as fast as their tongues could wag. Then the taxi clattered on up the Avenue, to turn down a side street and presently stop at Carley's home. It was a modest three-story brown-stone house. Carley had been so benumbed by sensations that she did not imagine she could experience a new one. But peering out of the taxi, she gazed dubiously at the brownish-red stone steps and front ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... "My friend is too modest, and that is why she doesn't speak. I will answer for her. I must tell you that an hour ago we met an old wolf on the road, almost fainting from want of food, who asked alms of us. Not having so much as a fish-bone to give to him, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... to oblige, and kept those at the table, including the farm hand, Felix Boggs, thrilled with his stories. But the farmer could not help but notice how modest the boy was, giving most of the credit to his cousin Frank, when everybody about Bloomsbury knew that Andy deserved just as much credit, if not more, than the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... army, which gives you abundant material for conferring favours, and, moreover, has provided you with ample time during which you have advanced the interests of your own friends. Now give my friends a turn, please. There are not many of them, though you doubtless wish there were. But I am too modest to ask favours for more than one or two. Indeed there is only one, and that is Voconius Romanus. His father held a distinguished position in the equestrian order; his stepfather, or rather his second father, an even more distinguished ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... want me to bring it in?" Split had too much to do to listen to Tridentata culture. Her humble office was merely to make ready for the literary feast and modest bodily ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... and not long after a very splendid Entertainment for Breakfast: The Furniture was all very modish and rich, and the Attendance was suitable. Nor was the Lady Beldam's Conversation less obliging and modest, than Sir William's Discourse had given Philadelphia occasion to expect. After they had eaten and drank what they thought Convenient, the reverend old Lady led 'em out of the Parlour to shew 'em the House, every Room of which ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... circle, beyond which no maiden could ever venture, it was because they were under the dominion of some passionate impulse and a burning partisanship for husband or son, family or tribe. The women of his nation lived for the most part in modest retirement, and none but those who were carried away by some violent emotion ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Fools, leave off your Drunken fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... castle of modest dimensions near Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in chief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself, Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... general conversation with the Emperor; the Dukes and Princes, Admirals and Maids of Honor dropped into free-and-easy chat with first one and then another of our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is fourteen years old, light-haired, blue-eyed, unassuming and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fell all over her, the living incarnation of my long drawn out hopes and dreams. She had changed her dress to a light dinner-silk. The bodice was modest—I mean by that, it was unobtrusive—very. Excess of nervous excitement, the wealth of evening sunlight, and her fashion of dressing made her dazzling to look upon, and I stood for a second ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... tell you, however, that young Swinburne called here the other day with a college friend of his, and we asked him to dinner, and I thought him a very modest and intelligent young fellow. Moreover I read him what you vindicated [‘Maud’], but what I particularly admired in him was that he did not press upon me any verses of ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... enthusiastic, more turbulent, in Ireland, more artistic in Italy, more philosophic in Germany, more literary and discursive in France, more idolatrous in the States of South America, more reserved and modest, more decent and tolerant, less ambitious in its aspirations, and less audacious in its polemics, in England than in any ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... that I, moi qui vous parle, claim my humble and modest role. If, in my reaction from Rabelais, for instance, I find myself responding to his huge laughter at "love" and other things, and a moment later, in my reaction from Thomas Hardy, feeling as if "love" and ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime, though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one owed him. As he was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formed around him, and we have seen how he was deserted and attacked when his ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... he thought. "How can they fail to understand that vice is only alluring when it is beautiful and hidden, when it wears the mask of virtue? Modest black dresses, pale faces, mournful smiles, and darkness would be far more effective than this clumsy tawdriness. Stupid things! If they don't understand it of themselves, their visitors might surely ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... got a grip on him when he gets real enthusiastic. I could feel it in my fingers for hours after. Then he had to call in Piddie and tell him, and by noon the word has been passed all through the offices. I expect it started modest, but by the time it got to that bunch of young hicks in the bond room they had it that I was going to marry a Newport heiress, resign from ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... brains have, because, as I have said before and want to repeat, so far as experience in this kind of war is concerned we are all of the same rank. I am not saying that I do not expect the admirals to tell us what to do, but I am saying that I want the youngest and most modest youngster in the service to tell us what we ought to do if he knows what it is. Now I am willing to make any sacrifice for that. I mean any sacrifice of time or anything else. I am ready to put myself ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... that when he saw his wolfish eyes glaring so close to his face, he felt much more inclined to bang than to rub his nose. Avatea was the last to take leave of us, and we experienced a feeling of real sorrow when she approached to bid us farewell. Besides her modest air and gentle manners, she was the only one of the party who exhibited the smallest sign of regret at parting from us. Going up to Jack, she put out her flat little nose to be rubbed, and thereafter paid the same compliment to Peterkin ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... modest, unostentatious hero; and no one has recorded his hairbreadth escapes and daring adventures, for those who witnessed them never told the tale, nor would Doctor Howe willingly speak of them himself. He was of too active a temperament to be much of a scholar in his youth, although ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... quiet, modest, intelligent, hardworking young man with no talents; he has no pretensions, and is apparently content with what life has given him. He has been dismissed from the University [Translator's Note: On political grounds, of course, is understood.] just ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the "days that were no more." But this Christmas of 1836 was not without its hopes and daring aspirations. They had tried their hands at story-writing, in their miniature magazine, long ago; they all of them "made out" perpetually. They had likewise attempted to write poetry; and had a modest confidence that they had achieved a tolerable success. But they knew that they might deceive themselves, and that sisters' judgments of each other's productions were likely to be too partial to be depended upon. So Charlotte, as the eldest, resolved to write to Southey. I believe ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sufficient air. Again, if the aquarium is overstocked with plants, so that they are crowded so closely that the light fails to reach some of them, decomposition will take place, and everything will become a decaying mass. In fact, it is only by beginning on a very modest scale, with a very few and small fish at first, and by gradually increasing the number, that a beginner can expect to succeed. Over-stocking with animal life and overfeeding are the two greatest temptations that beset ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lion, James," said Constance, settling herself on the sofa. "I believe she is too modest to tell me herself." She ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... read the stars with Gunter's just opposite, ay, and bring out an almanac if he likes within a shilling fare of the Circus? If this is so"—he struck the deal table violently with his clenched fist—"of what use are the sacrifices of myself and Madame? Of what use is it to live under a modest name such as Sagittarius, when I might be Malkiel the Second to the whole world? Of what use to flee from W. and dwell perpetually in N.? Why, if what you say is true, we might leave the Mouse to-morrow ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... with their accession to a modest fortune, the matter was turning out well, and they hoped to have their ancient brougham repainted and a quiet horse to draw it, before very long, so that, even when it rained, they could have the pleasure ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... I, "will you run over and ask Dr. Finley to come here a moment? I must hear what news he has brought from Rock Island." She put on a modest look, and said,— ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Alzugaray came of a modest family; his mother, the widow of a government clerk, lived on her pension and on the income from some property they ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... his hand, and though he looked somewhat refined and self-effacing, as he always did, the spectators were surprised to feel that his presence was, upon the whole, more efficient and sufficing than his leader's. He was, in truth, one of those modest men who cannot speak until they are told to speak; and then can speak well. Moon was entirely the opposite. His own impudences amused him in private, but they slightly embarrassed him in public; he felt a fool while he was ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... to a certainty the place of these meetings, but I choose to fancy that it was an upper room in a modest restaurant that went by the name of Mory's—not the modern Mory's that affects the manners of a club, but the original Temple Bar, remembered justly for its brown ale ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... rose to his forehead, and for the first time his eyes fell before hers,—not in shame, but with a modest man's ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... suite, in order that he might be enabled to share with them the four hundred crowns a year which, together with his slender patrimony, formed his own income. This favour had no sooner been conceded than the three young men discarded the modest names of Charles, Honore, and Leon d'Albert, by which they had previously been known, and assumed those of Luynes, Cadenet, and Brantes, from the field, the vineyard, and a small sandy island beside them, which composed their joint estate.[193] ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... eyes glistened with modest joy, while her heart beat quick with revived expectation, in listening to an effusion of praise so infinitely grateful to her, found little difficulty in returning her friendly professions, and, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... attracted. He wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the illustration of books. He is an admirable draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities in him I know well of my own knowledge. He is in all things modest, punctual, and right; and I would answer for him, if it were needful, with ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... places and buildings true to reality, and the features and costumes both of our own people and of strangers, according to his pleasure; not to mention his gift of imparting grace to the heads of young men, old men, and women, reserving modesty for the modest, wantonness for the wanton, and for children now mischief in their eyes, now playfulness in their attitudes; and the folds of his draperies, also, are neither too simple nor too intricate, but of such a ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... progress on structural reform, substantial internal and external debt, and deficient infrastructure. Aided by a firmer exchange rate and perhaps a greater confidence in the economic policy of the Duarte FRUTOS administration, the economy rebounded in 2003 and 2004, posting modest ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... have attracted others, and devoted yourself, in retirement, to a life of quiet and unknown benevolence. You are in your sphere in this village,—humble though it be,—consoling, relieving, healing the wretched, the destitute, the infirm; and teaching your Evelyn insensibly to imitate your modest and Christian virtues." The good old lady spoke warmly, and with tears in her eyes; her companion placed her hand ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... called out, in a voice expressive of the temperament which kept him content with his modest fortune and his village circumstance, when he might have made so much more and spent so much more in the world outside, "did ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... else how could Homer have created the lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa? Nausikaa loves Ulysses at the first glance. She says at once to her female friends: 'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his destiny to remain here.' She was even too modest to appear in public at the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she should bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people would say, she may have taken him for a husband. How simple and natural all this is! But when she heard ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... ditches that separated the staff from the rest of the charging —teenth, and who died gloriously in the rush on the rebel works. Man after man of the woolly Westerners had been referred to by name while, but the Dudes had nothing to show but their wounded colonel's modest report that "where every officer and man appeared to do his whole duty it would be unjust to make especial mention of even a limited few." The Dudes were getting hot over the taunts of the "Toughs," as some one had misnamed their neighbors; and one night when there ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... virgin lips, And eyes that look perpetual reproach, Insults and is a blasphemy on youth. Is she to claim the worship of a man Hot with the first rich flush of ripened life?' Realities, like phantoms, glided by, Unnoted 'midst the torment and delights Of my conflicting spirit, and I doffed the modest Christian weeds of charity And fit humility, and steeled myself In pagan panoply of stoicism And self-sufficing pride. Yet constantly I gained men's charmed attention and applause, With the wild strains I smote from out my lyre, To me the native language of my soul, To ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... sexual morality of the Dyaks, opinions of observers differ somewhat. St. John (I., 52) observes that "the Sea Dyak women are modest and yet unchaste, love warmly and yet divorce easily, but are generally faithful to their husbands when married." It is agreed that the morality of the Land Dyaks is superior to that of the Sea Dyaks; yet ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... my land matters. I would have to be the boss, however. It has been a rule of my life, McGraw, to gather about me men with more brains than I possess myself. That is the secret of my—er—rather modest success." ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... was forced to acknowledge the important part which Melanie played in the house, with her thoughtful, refined, modest behavior; she was so sensible, so clever in everything. In the most delicate situation she could so well maintain a woman's dignity, while side by side she displayed a maiden's innocence. When his comrades were at the table, Topandy strove always by ambiguous jokes, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... sentiment of hatred and revenge; to show himself magnanimous and liberal, without ostentation and without profusion; to be the enemy of vice; to pay homage to wisdom and virtue; to respect innocence; to be constant and patient in adversity, and modest in prosperity; to avoid every irregularity that stains the soul and distempers the body—it is by following these precepts that a Mason will become a good citizen, a faithful husband, a tender father, an obedient ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... in its bosom a treasure for the thrifty bee. No one of us may ever have such splendid opportunities as did the illustrious ones to whom we owe our present inheritance. But at the threshold of our lives will ever come the veiled figure with its gifts, and, however modest may be the treasures which it brings, if we accept them and turn to good account all that they hold of value to us, our reward ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... the king, as Gotzkowsky, having finished, handed him the paper. "Oh, I see you are a modest man, and blush like a young girl. But tell me, now, what brings you here? What does ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the country doesn't appreciate their services, and, therefore, won't appreciate their sons, and so look out for berths on shore for them; but it's possible, Lady Rogers, that they over-estimate themselves. The case is very different with Jack; he is as modest as a maiden of sixteen, and yet as bold and daring as a lion; a first-rate officer; he's sure to get on; he'll be a commander in three or four years, and be a post-captain not long after. Now, there's ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, And slew him with ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... proper use of healing and new strength is to minister to Him. Such a guest made humble household cares worship; and all our poor powers or tasks, consecrated to His praise and become the offerings of grateful hearts, are lifted into greatness and dignity. He did not despise the modest fare hastily dressed for Him; and He still delights in our gifts, though the cattle on a thousand hills are His. 'I will sup with him,' says He, and therein promises to become, as it were, a guest at ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Tolstoi's War and Peace in the Franklin Square Library, at the same price. Of older works, I can still remember Lamb and part of De Quincey, Don Quixote and Rasselas (those four for some reason stand out in my mind from their fellows in the row), all bought for the modest ten-cent piece per volume—the price of two daily newspapers (for all newspapers in America then cost five cents) or one blacking of one's shoes. Much has, of course, been done of late years in England in popularising the "Classics" ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the girl sweeping the corridor outside the bedrooms, pale and composed, and neat as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed a curious dimness and dullness in her eyes—not as if she had been crying but as if she had been looking at something too long. Possibly, it was a misty something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly no object ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... bidding Cuthbert kneel before him, drew his sword and laid it across his shoulders, dubbing him Sir Cuthbert de Lance. When he had risen, the great barons of England pressed round to shake his hand, and Cuthbert, who was a modest young fellow, felt almost ashamed at the honours which were bestowed upon him. The usual ceremonies and penances which young knights had to undergo before admission into the body—and which in those days were extremely punctilious, and indeed severe, consisting, among other things, in fasting, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... indulge her penchant at will, which is forbidden when younger. After this age the diameter of the cigarette increases year by year; and when a lady has reached the mature age of twenty-four, no one sees anything remarkable in her smoking a modest little chibouque as she sits on the lower divan of the harem. Elderly matrons—and in Turkey every lady is an elderly matron in her fortieth year—are passionately devoted to this enjoyment. The pipe-bowls and stems always remain of the size ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... possible effects—for the purpose of enabling reason to introduce unity into its mode and grounds of explanation with regard to phenomena. But to assert that such a being necessarily exists, is no longer the modest enunciation of an admissible hypothesis, but the boldest declaration of an apodeictic certainty; for the cognition of that which is absolutely necessary must itself possess ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant |
