"Recluse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Luella Gloaming was naturally glum, So she married young Grouch, the recluse; For she says when she's sad, she just looks at his face— Then she can't help ...
— Why They Married • James Montgomery Flagg
... took few play-spells; he broke off entirely from his tavern companions and lived the life of an ascetic and recluse, seeing no society except the society that came to his studio. His heart was in his art, and he was intent on working while it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... about the pleasant kitchen, was tempted to linger. Sallie's conversation yielded, to the discerning, something of the rich essence of the past; and Agatha began to yearn for a better knowledge of the recluse who had been her friend, unknown, through all the years. But she remembered her industrious plans for the day and postponed ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... desirous, full of suppressed emotion that was warmly and intensely human; he saw in her, as well as the mother, something that was perhaps almost pale, almost elusive, like the still figure and downbent face of a recluse seen in passing an ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... precious glasses did more to soothe the ruffled spirit of the recluse than anything else. He wiped them tenderly, and looking through them, observed that they were all right. Then he sat in profound silence, while Susan, under Katherine's directions, cleared up the hearth, and removed the heap of dust and ashes which had nearly put out the fire. When ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... seen how these men used to entertain each other over their wine by quoting the Odes and other ancient saws; when consulting the imperial library to rectify their own dates, they would naturally meet the old recluse Lao-tsz, and hear from his own mouth what he thought of the coming collapse anticipated by all. He is said to have left orthodox China in disgust, and gone West—well, he must have passed through Ts'in if he went to ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any longer, he closed his window, drew the curtain, and, as he had not the wherewithal to buy oil for his lamp, lit a resin taper that he had brought back from a trip to the Grande-Chartreuse. Sadder than ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... him to his present lonely life, but he spent his days in doing all the good that lay in his power, and doubtless many a passing traveller was the better in more ways than one for meeting the old recluse. ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... man, living the life of a recluse in his own observatory, which was situated in a lonely part of the country, had, or at any rate, believed that he had, opened up a communication with the inhabitants of Mars, by means of powerful electric lights, flashing in the manner of a signal-lantern or heliograph. I had set him down as a monomaniac; ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... I told you, was solitary and retired; my time chiefly passed in writing out documentary matters for the lawyers. The circumstance of my using the pen so incessantly became known, and I was looked on as a literary recluse. One day a lady personally unknown to me, but whose indefatigable zeal was always seeking the good of others, sent me a parcel of tracts. With equal wonder and delight I opened one of them, a simple, spiritual little ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... left it, he poured out his soul with all the fervour and abandon of which only the shy are capable. Williams was afraid of his own past. It was not a hideously criminal one, for his life had been that of a bookworm and recluse. But out of that past Williams would conjure up the slightest incident—a trifling breach of manners, a mere word out of place, a moment in which he had lost control of his emotions, and the memory of it would put him into a cold ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... said I didn't care what means you used," corrected Moore, with delicate emphasis. He added, reflectively: "Blair has always been something of a recluse; but I've noticed that when a Puritan once feels a little of the warmth of the devil's presence that he's rather loath to step out into the cold again." The look of anger from Mrs. Latimer made him change both tone and words. "We have depended on you to get Charlie," he said, reproachfully. ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... to behold the eye-sparkle of pure admiration between young man and maid? 'They worship, truly, they know not what.' In bowing down to their ideal, they bow to the real human—the purified man or woman of the better land. The recluse is ever the true prophet and seer, in this as in still higher matters. Your modest-eyed student, stealing glances of unfeigned admiration at ordinary maidens, is not such a simpleton as some suppose. His seclusion has cleared his vision. He sees on through the eons—sees things as they ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... proceedings; for Parson Endicott and Mr. Sam had both approached him hat in hand, and begged him, not without servility, to preside. This proposal he had declined with his habitual shy, melancholy smile, and shrunk away to a back row of the audience. In his great house over Troy he lived a recluse: a scholar, a childless man, the last of his race, rarely seen by the townsfolk, of whom two-thirds at least were his tenants. He had heard of the Inspector's coming, and some ray of remembered affection had enticed him forth from his shell, to listen. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... HE lived a recluse on a mountain in Syria, and shut himself up ten years in an open cage of wood. Theodoret asked him why he had chosen so singular a practice. The penitent answered: "I punish my criminal body, that God, seeing my affliction for my sins, may be moved to ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... he was not a recluse in the accepted sense of the word, nor did he lead a sad life. He only preferred to enjoy it alone, or with one or two ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... country outside Millstreet is the village of Cullen, where tradition says no smith has been known to thrive. Saint Lateerin, a virgin of early Christian days, near here made her recluse, and every day she walked across the bog, and took "living fire" in her kirtle from the forge to her home. The smith once remarking the prettiness of her white feet, she momentarily forgot her vow of chastity, and ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... or similar adjectives to the cuckoo. Solemn and priestly, or at least monkish, it certainly is. It is a real recluse and suggests the druidical. If it ever frolics or fights, or is gay and cheerful like our other birds, I have yet ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... acquaintance with military life. In 1831 he had joined the insurgents in the Romagna who were in arms against the Papal Government. The death of his own elder brother, followed in 1832 by that of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, made him chief of the house of Bonaparte. Though far more of a recluse than a man of action, though so little of his own nation that he could not pronounce a sentence of French without a marked German accent, and had never even seen a French play performed, he now became possessed by the fixed idea that he was one day to wear the French Crown. A ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... to make my meaning plain. There are subjects relating to the human body, mind, and soul, which cannot be said to have been really studied at all, except by some recluse here and there, who is generally considered mad. You deal with the things which are seen, but think not of the great unsolved spiritual problems of life. For example, the effect of mind upon mind, animal magnetism, mesmerism, biology, and kindred subjects are unknown to you. ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... thunderbolt on the bright hopes of youth. She looked back at some verses that she had written, when first perceiving that life was to be her portion, where her own intended feelings were ascribed to a maiden who had taken the veil, believing her crusader slain, but who saw him return and lead a recluse life, with the light in her cell for his guiding star. She smiled sadly to find how far the imaginings of four and twenty transcended the powers of four and thirty; and how the heart that had deemed ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... peepholes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were observed, and therefore took care to keep Sukey in chat with questions concerning their way of life; when appeared at last Madonella,[7] a lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall; and Rake, knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from his company. She begins, "Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was sent out to know, What affair could make strangers ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... man. If I remember rightly, his name was Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, and—" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour "—and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it is better that the truth should be told than that ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... renowned of these dates from 1067, when Marianus Scotus ("Marianus the Irishman"), with his companions, John and Candidus, left his native land and arrived in Bavaria. These holy men were welcomed at Ratisbon by the Bishop Otto; and on the advice of Murcherat, an Irish recluse, took up their residence near St. Peter's church at the outskirts of the city. Novices flocked from Ireland to join them and a monastery was erected to receive the community. In a short time this had to be replaced by a still larger one, which was known to future ages ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Archie's hermitage. An unusual sign of life was to be seen at the mill-house itself; smoke was rising from the extemporized chimney; for Bell, as I knew, had installed herself as nurse and was doing her best to render the last days of the old recluse more restful than they could have been during his ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... austere recluse,— Still less as one who hates mankind—, Do I thy peaceful precincts choose; But as a student, who can find No joys in Vanity's gay Fair That for an instant can compare With those thou askest me ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... inspiration, communicating new powers to his being and vivifying it with the fires of love. As he had said to the father, to impose a wife on Etienne would be to kill him. Above all it was important that the young recluse should not be alarmed at the thought of marriage, of which he knew nothing, or be made aware of the object of his father's wishes. This unknown poet conceived as yet only the beautiful and noble passion of Petrarch for Laura, of Dante for Beatrice. Like his mother he was all pure love and ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... him, I said, "Brother, I had no sooner parted from you, but a thought came into my head, which neither of us had reflected on before. You are a recluse dervish, used to live in tranquillity, disengaged from all the cares of the world, and intent only upon serving God. You know not, perhaps, what trouble you have taken upon yourself, to take care of so many camels. If you would take my ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... whole. The classic movement, against which he set his face steadily, was not to be easily annihilated; it survived in Rome in such illustrious representatives as Canova, Thorwaldsen and Gibson. But Overbeck grew more and more the recluse; he shortly became a proselyte to the Romish Church, shut himself out from other associations, and thus after a time devoted his pencil exclusively ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... "A recluse, manifestly," said Philippa to herself; "the child does not understand. But is she an anchoritess or an eremitess?—Does she ever leave her ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... means dull in the little town. There were picnics in summer, sleigh-drives in winter, dances, and what not; and Eelan was no recluse. Still, she loved the place better than the people, and there was not a spot of ground in the neighbourhood that she ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... up what I could nearest spy, I digged about That place where I had seen him to grow out; And by and by I saw the warm recluse alone to lie, Where fresh and green He ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... cup of humiliation to the dregs. The fools who call themselves my friends think, that because I can endure to live here, I am indifferent to all I have lost; that I am an eccentric bookworm—an easy-going philosophical recluse, content to dawdle away the remnant of my days amongst old books. It pleases me to let them think so. Why, there is never a day that yonder trader's carriage, passing my windows, does not seem to drive over my body; not a sound of a woodman's axe or a carpenter's hammer in the place that ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... he found himself again opposed by his London friends. Unable to secure a new Alice in Wonderland for his child readers, he determined to give them Kate Greenaway. But here he had selected another recluse. Everybody discouraged him. The artist never saw visitors, he was told, and she particularly shunned editors and publishers. Her own publishers confessed that Miss Greenaway was inaccessible to them. "We conduct all our business ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... up—nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living to-day who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... seconded by Harcourt, and accepted office with no light heart: there will be much trouble and thought needed to work it satisfactorily, but it will take me out of myself a little, and so may be a real good—my life was tending to become too much that of a selfish recluse. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... Laura hardly a word need be said. She lives at Saulsby the life of a recluse, and the old Earl her father is ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of masters (him before me always excepted)—a deity which ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... from the kitchen and threatened her husband's life. Once she deliberately set fire to the house, and often she hid herself away for days in her own room and would see no one. Her life, lived as a half recluse, gave rise to all sorts of stories concerning her. It was said that she took drugs and that she hid herself away from people because she was often so under the influence of drink that her condition could ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... not gifted with superior understanding or with any stock of what is called imagination. He was cold, silent, sad, sober, fond of no pleasure except the chase, fearing society, fearing himself, unexpansive, a recluse by taste and habits, rarely touched by others, of good sense nevertheless, and upright, with a tolerably good knowledge of things, obstinate when he liked, and often then not to be moved; nevertheless, easy at other ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... thirty years she had not once gone out of her palace on the Arno, where, she painted, and wearing a wig, she played the guitar in her spacious white salon. She received the best society of Florence, and Miss Bell often called on her. At table this recluse, eighty-seven years of age, questioned the Countess Martin on the fashionable world of Paris, whose movement was familiar to her through the journals. Solitary, she retained respect and a sort of devotion for the world ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... twenty-five, a student and scholarly recluse, delving all day in accounts and dispatches, grubbing in books at night, and walking an hour before sunrise in the park every morning. It was about then that he accepted the invitation of Mrs. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... hope that my return will not scare either you or Bessie away; that you will come here as often as you feel inclined. I am something of a recluse when ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... hurry and reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much or how well he works, this fellow is an ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and tired of the world, I dragged on a miserable existence for some time, in a secluded situation on the shores of Cornwall; but, by degrees, the monotony of my sedentary and recluse life wearied me. I began to associate with the poor fishermen around me, and, in a short time, became enthusiastically fond of their perilous and exciting mode of life. The sea became to me quite a 'passion'—my mind had found ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... have been ignoble had it not been naive. The recluse of Kremenetz, passionately devoted to his people but wanting in political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight against the bigotry of the Jewish masses, in the childish conviction that the Russian authorities ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... art, and his encomiums awakened all my ardor. What a blissful period of my existence was it that I passed beneath his roof. Another being seemed created within me, or rather, all that was amiable and excellent was drawn out. I was as recluse as ever I had been at the convent, but how different was my seclusion. My time was spent in storing my mind with lofty and poetical ideas; in meditating on all that was striking and noble in history or fiction; in studying and tracing all that was sublime and beautiful ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... breakfasts. She found the servants' hall a more amusing place than the invalid's chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news from up-stairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young recluse who, as the cook said, "had found his master, and good for him." The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler, who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion that the ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hush of the noon. Any intrusion was disagreeable to him. Nevertheless, when he saw the rector he came forward with that consciousness of the necessity of looking pleased which is one of the vexations of a recluse. What did he mean by bringing men here, where nobody wanted either them or him? But when he saw who it was who accompanied the rector, Warrender's face and the line of annoyance in his forehead softened a little; for Dick was one of the men who are everywhere welcome. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Geneva, to be a youth of great promise, destined to become distinguished. But the years slipped by, and his literary performance, consisting of desultory essays and several slight volumes of verse, was not enough to justify the prophecy. His life more and more became that of a bachelor recluse and valetudinarian. When he died, in 1881, at sixty years of age, after much suffering heroically borne, as pathetic entries in the last leaves of his Diary remain to show, there was a feeling that here was "one more faithful failure." But the quiet, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be run every hour—every second—and you will understand that those two English gentlemen had something in them passing self-interest, passing all that the world has to offer. Ferrier never dreamed of becoming a nautical recluse; he was too full of the joy of life for that: but he had a purpose, and he went right at his mark like a bullet from a rifle. Once that evening he went on deck and tried to peer through the wall of trembling darkness that surrounded him; the view made him feel like ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... in the afternoon, were devoted to work in the fields or in the garden by those who were able for such tasks. Confession and communion were frequent, but no uniform rule was enforced. In this, as in fasting and austerities generally, each recluse was left to his own free will; and, as will be seen in Pascal’s case, there was no need to stimulate the morbid desire for ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... as the State was not disposed to honor them he concluded to remain an Englishman. Vexed with the perversity of human nature, he built Solitude and named it for a lodge belonging to the Duke of Wuerttemburg. There he lived somewhat the life of a recluse with his books and trees for three years. He was on friendly terms with his neighbors, however, who included his cousin, Governor John Penn, and Judge Richard Peters. Gay week-end parties also came in boats to enjoy his hospitality, and Washington once ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... not stir from the Altenburg, where I am reckoning on finishing my Elizabeth, and on living more and more as a recluse—indeed, even a little like a bear—but not in the style of those estimable citizens of the woods, whom the impresarii of small pleasures degrade by making them dance in the market-places to the sound of their flutes and drums! I shall ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... drops down. Scarce was he fallen asleep, when a figure entered the room: 'tis a girl all clothed and veiled in white; on her forehead a fillet of black and gold. She sees him. In amazement she lifts her white hand: 'Am I, then, such a stranger in the house already? Alas, poor recluse!... But I am ashamed, and withdraw. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... said the man of the island slowly. "After I knew I was ruined, I fled down here, where I was raised, and became a recluse on that island. It was cowardly of me, I know, but from now on I am going to lead a ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... changed was the soul of the young recluse and mystic. The consciousness of God had vanished from it; the visions of the spiritual world no longer visited it; he ceased to pray in secret, and the petitions which he offered at the family altar were so dull and spiritless as even to excite the observation and comment of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... he had been practically a recluse these past several years, had, nevertheless, the metropolite's inborn indifference to the passerby. He had scarcely noticed the steadily increasing group before the steps. Now he ignored them all. He was hungry. That invitation to partake ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... just in time. She and Adelaide were great friends as youngsters at the public school, but the friendship cooled into acquaintance as Adelaide developed fashionable ideas and tastes. Also, Estelle had been almost a recluse since she was seventeen. The rest of the Wilmots went into Saint X's newly developed but flourishing fashionable society. They had no money to give return entertainments or even to pay their share of the joint, dances and card parties ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... open door, and we can hear the breathing of the corpulent recluse. As soon as he has carried away the enormous overcoat that sheathes him, like the hide of a pachyderm, and is disappearing, Brisbille begins to roar, "What a snout! Did you see it, eh? Did you see the jaws he swings from his ears, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... nothing!" Homais continued. "I merely wished to convey to you, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually live at home like a recluse. To-day, however, considering the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... rule over men, but who had abdicated his empire to become the servant of Heaven. Still, it must be allowed that his gigantic size, the length of his unshaven locks and beard, and the fire of a deep-set and wild eye were rather attributes of a soldier than of a recluse. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... acts of oppression. Here, one man has been thrown into prison on the charge of high treason; when all they proved against him was the remark, that if the king had signed the Quebec bill, he had broken his coronation oath. There, another, a poor harmless recluse, as I have ever supposed him, is dragged from his hut in the mountains and imprisoned to await his trial for an alleged murder, committed long ago, and in another jurisdiction; when his only crime, with his prosecutors, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... touching the event, with the most impenetrable suavity. The marbles and pictures, upholstery and services, were delivered over to the order of Miss Bellairs, and Philip, disposed, apparently, to be very much a recluse in his rooms, or, at other times, engrossed by troops of welcoming friends, saw much less of his bride elect than suited her wishes, and saw her seldom alone. By particular request, also, he took no part in the plenishing and embellishing of the new abode—not permitted even to inquire ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... a long poem, is only part of what Wordsworth meant to write. He meant in three books to give his opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be called The Recluse. To this great work The Prelude was to be the introduction, hence its name. But Wordsworth never finished his great design and The Excursion remains a fragment. Much of The Excursion cannot be ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... same power of expressing the rapturous rejoicing of celestial beings, but his conception of the angelic nature remains unapproached, unapproachable: it is only his, for it was the gentle, passionless, refined nature of the recluse which stamped itself there. Angelico's angels are unearthly, not so much in form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become feeble ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... say not quite," Blackmore answered. "My uncle was a studious, solitary man, but he was not formerly a recluse. He was not much of a correspondent but he kept up some sort of communication with his friends. He used, for instance, to write to me sometimes, and, when I came down from Cambridge for the vacations, he had me to stay with him ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... return more than twice, Pringle never at all, and there came a time when Archie even desisted from the Tuesday Club, and became in all things - what he had had the name of almost from the first - the Recluse of Hermiston. High-nosed Miss Pringle of Drumanno and high-stepping Miss Marshall of the Mains were understood to have had a difference of opinion about him the day after the ball - he was none the wiser, he could not suppose ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quite an open book. I was born twenty-four years ago. I am an only child, and, as usula, the apple of my mother's eye and the terror of my father's pocket. He, my father, is not much else just now except a recluse. He was recently a member of parliament, a Liberal member, and, God knows, that's little enough. I believe he even climbed in ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... would sleep for a while. I am weary. "My friend, I had meant in these lines to regather, and send To our old home, my life's scatter'd links. But 'tis vain! Each attempt seems to shatter the chaplet again; Only fit now for fingers like mine to run o'er, Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore Whence too far I have wander'd. "How many long years Does it seem to me now since the quick, scorching tears, While I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's premature Moans of pain at what women in silence endure! ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the shadow, four masked robbers (Jocrisse was their leader!) climbed into the Baroness Landsknechtsschild's windows. The hermit in his observatory beheld this incursion, and, being a knight as well as a recluse, what else could he do but rush to the rescue of his fair neighbor? His telescope had told him she was fair. Jocrisse played his part admirably. At the approach of the deliverer the "robbers" took to their heels, and the brave knight unbound ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... till the king, in sheer desperation, acquiesced in the just demand, though with a chagrin of spirit toward the instrument of his defeat which became settled hatred, and never lifted from his heart for a moment in those long succeeding years, when the king, like a recluse in the Escurial, brooded over his defeat. His troops forced from Flemish territories, Philip himself departed from a region he had never loved and had scarcely tolerated, departed, not to return any more, save by proxy of fire and sword, and cruel soldiery, and more cruel ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Naples, Graham heard little of Selby except as a literary recluse, whose only distraction from books was the operatic stage. But he heard much of Isaura; of the kindness which Madame de Grantmesnil had shown to her, when left by Selby's death alone in the world; of the interest which the friendship and the warm eulogies of one so eminent as the great ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... love with him. I like him, very much. But he's too much of a recluse. Could I kiss him? No! No! Guy Pollock at twenty-six I could have kissed him then, maybe, even if I were married to some one else, and probably I'd have been glib in persuading myself ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Luke and Cecile Shepard Mr. Northrup appeared very well indeed at dinner that night in the Corner House. They learned he could be very entertaining if he wished; that he had not forgotten how to interest women if he had been a recluse for so long; and that even Tess and Dot found something about him to admire. The former said afterward that Mr. Northrup had a voice like a distant drum; Dot said he had a "noble looking forehead," meaning that it was very ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... was somewhat of a recluse in her habits; she was a nervous, diffident woman, who made weak health an excuse for shutting herself out from society. Fay had lived with her ever since her father's death; but during the last year Miss Mordaunt had been much troubled by qualms of conscience, as to whether ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... just opened your third letter. My dear, I have about one thousand livres to dispose of; spend them for me on pretty things, such as we can't find here, nor even at Marseilles. While speeding on your own business, give a thought to the recluse of La Crampade. Remember that on neither side have the heads of the family any people of taste in Paris to make their purchases. I shall reply to ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... in the Settlement seemed to him suspicious: Belarab's absence, Jorgenson's refusal to make over at once the promised supply of arms and ammunition. And now that white man had by the power of his speech got them away from Belarab's people. So much influence filled Daman with wonder and awe. A recluse for many years in the most obscure corner of the Archipelago he felt himself surrounded by intrigues. But the alliance was a great thing, too. He did not want to quarrel. He was quite willing for the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... gone from Gramarye, and Anthony reigned in his stead, the duty, when it arose, fell to his lot. Never relishing the idea, he would not have believed that it could become so odious. Ere it had taken shape, it loomed vexatious. Looking it in the face, he found it repulsive. No recluse could have been more reluctant to leave his hermitage. Major Anthony Lyveden felt ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a boat—had on board—his fare paid, and so good-bye. But it is needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained—a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "I think he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Roman Catholic, in the college of the English Benedictines, at Doway in Flanders, but being born with a poetical turn, and consequently too volatile to be confined within the walls of a cloister, he threw off the restraint of his education, quitted a recluse life, came over to England, and commenced Protestant[1]. Sir Robert having good interest, found the change of religion prepared the way to preferment; he was made gentleman usher of the privy chamber to King Charles ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... and for them that which is imperishable, and so wrought although he was to have no part in their fame and perhaps but a small financial recompense; and that it is the loves, griefs, fears, forebodings and sorrows of the student and recluse, thus circumstanced and ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... the dim close of day, The Captive loves alone to stray Along the haunts recluse and rude Of sorrow and of solitude; When he sits with moveless eye To mark the lingering radiance die, And lets distemper'd Fancy roam Amid the ruins of his home,— Oh give to him the flowing bowl, Bid it renovate his soul; The bowl shall better thoughts bestow, And lull to rest ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... have said, to look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak of the dark girl's which brought him there, for he had the air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... explain than I the parliamentary process by which all the consequences of the judgment against the late Lord Dunoran were abrogated, as respected his son. An ancient name rescued from the shadow of dishonour, and still greater estates, made my lord and lady as happy as things can. So for the recluse Mervyn, and the fair Gertrude Chattesworth, our story ends like ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... she, looking also, and thinking what a sketch it would make, if she could keep on friendly terms with this old recluse, and get leave to sit in the garden. Then her conscience smiting her for selfishness, she turned her big eyes on him and ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... Living as a recluse at Passy, shut up in his working room with its hangings of red velvet, seated at his table, with one shapely hand supporting his massive head and his eyes fixed upon a miniature reproducing the somewhat ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... to her from Wootton on the 22nd of March 1766: "I am glad you have taken my friend Smith under your protection. You will find him a man of true merit, though perhaps his sedentary recluse life may have hurt his air and appearance as a man of the world." The Comtesse writes Hume on the 6th of May: "I think I told you that I have made the acquaintance of Mr. Smith, and that for the love of you I had given him a very hearty welcome. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... o'clock on the Friday afternoon that Blue Bonnet and Carita had left for Woodford, that Joy Cross entered the room which she and Blue Bonnet occupied jointly. She glanced about, a look closely akin to joy lighting her plain features. Joy Cross was a recluse by nature, and the thought of having the room solely to herself for three days gave ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... questions were asked about him, because he lived like the rest of the world. But that two men should come into a strange country, and partake of none of the country diversions, seek no acquaintance, and live entirely recluse, is something so inexplicable as to puzzle the wisest heads, even that of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... a recluse, a dreamer, a kind of isolated philosopher, easy-going, content with but little, harboring ill-feeling against no man, and without even having a grudge against heaven. I have constantly lived alone, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... but I don't have to be of it. There are only so many hours in the day. I go around "in circles" all winter; in summer I wish to invite my soul, and there isn't time for both. I think I am regarded by the people in the village as a mixture of recluse and curmudgeon, but who cares if they can live ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... Grace is on the threshold of young womanhood, she goes to stay with her grandfather in Ireland, with the trust from her mother of reconciling him and his son, Bertha's father. Bertha finds her grandfather a recluse and a miser, and in the hands of an underling, who is his evil genius. How she keeps faith with her mother and finds her own fate, through many strange adventures, is ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... the recluse. "Your young eyes will wax heavy with these midnight vigils. You must sleep, my boy, and to-morrow I will communicate my plans ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... continued. "In fact, it has never passed out of the hands of the original owners, because it is almost uninhabitable in winter, except by Indians. I understand that M. Duchaine has built himself a fine chateau there; but then he is a recluse monsieur, and probably not ten men have ever visited it. But mademoiselle is too fine a woman ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... lay outside the windows of his mind that Townsend found life a thing of odd discoveries, strange secrets, and thrilling hazards. His own existence, though in reality an exceedingly quiet one, indeed almost that of a recluse, was still to him a great adventure. There was always for him the possibility of the sudden appearance of the man in the black cloak with hat drawn over his brows, either looking, or saying "Beware!" I remember well his pointing out to a member ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... dazzling impression even upon those who hated his person, or disputed his conclusions. But, coming into collision with politics, personal as well as speculative, and with questions of real life, fitted to call for other accomplishments than those of a recluse scholar, it seemed probable that this great classical critic would be found pedantic and scurrilous; and upon the affairs of so peculiar a people, it was certain that he would be found ignorant and self-contradicting. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... said the host. "Yes; I'm afraid I became a bit of a recluse latterly. I had to take such confounded care of myself. Well, I didn't want to go out of the world before I could help it, and I was enjoying the quiet here after the strenuous years in Africa—Africa South, East, West. What years they were!" He sighed. "Only the luck came too late to save ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... island in the Firth of Forth which is hallowed by the reputation of having been the residence of anchorets, seeking for scenes in which they might practise uninterrupted devotion. Thus, St. Baldred or Balther lived for some time, during the course of the seventh century, as a religious recluse, upon the rugged and precipitous island of the Bass, as stated by Boece, Leslie, Dempster,[117] etc., and, as we know with more certainty from a poem written—upwards now of one thousand years ago—by ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... weakness of his character led to his being deprived of it. He then went to London and wrote for magazines. From 1823 to 1828 he tried keeping a school at Ambleside, which failed, and he then led the life of a recluse at Grasmere until his death. Here he wrote Essays, Biographia Borealis (lives of worthies of the northern counties) (1832), and a Life of Massinger (1839). He is remembered chiefly for his Sonnets. He also ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... For four days had passed and the recluse had not returned her call. True, there had come to her hotel a wicker full of superb wild tree blooms, and, again, a tiny box, cunning in workmanship of scented wood, containing what at first glance she had taken ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the arguments it had put in the mouth of her child. She was conscious that her pride, which made a humble occupation repulsive to her, was a false pride. If it could have been carried on in private, it would not have seemed so galling. For years she had been a recluse from society, mingling only with her humble neighbors, and with them no more than her circumstances required. She had labored in solitude, and shunned observation as much as possible, by carrying her work back and forth in the evening. Years of hard toil had not familiarized ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... had heard of this from Swinburne. 'I myself,' he said, 'very seldom read the magazines. But Algernon always has a look at them.' There was something to me very droll, and cheery too, in this picture of the illustrious recluse snatching at the current issues of our twaddle. And I was immensely pleased at hearing that my article had 'interested him very much.' I inwardly promised myself that as soon as I reached home I would read the article, to ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... mind from these recluse moods and tastes, she endeavored to bring about an alliance with a neighboring forester, who, though older than herself, had the reputation of being an excellent hunter, and active man, and he had even creditably ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... very much between his recluse studious life there, and his very active one at Mota, with almost no leisure to read, and very little to write, and with an abundance of society which was a pleasure ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... booksellers appropriated any popular name of the day, and affixed it to their publications; and who so popular with all playgoers of the period as the gentle, well-living Shakspeare? And his name would better suit his friends and the then public, than any mere recluse, unknown poet, until his name, like other myths, acquired sanctity by age. Indeed, we fear it is not necessary to go back to Shakspeare's time to find the practice of assumed authorship of purchased plays, without either the reasons or the excuses which apply to Shakspeare. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... the child of George's uncle, who was a recluse living at Tunbridge. He was a scholar and a pedant, and concerned himself but little about his only child, whose fortune was inherited from ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... of its rapidly unfolding series of peculiar situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the townspeople. They believe odd things about her. The particular family in Tupton with which she comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father is a recluse—for reasons. His adopted daughter, Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among young girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney's real daughter had disappeared years before. Why? What has become of ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... our hermit, is it?" he remarked; "the old man they say acts so queerly, and has kept to himself up there on his estate for years, living the life of a recluse among his books and papers. There must be some good reason for his acting that way. He's met with some sort of terrible disappointment in life it may be; but then ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... tastes, he soon withdrew, applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber, he devoted himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... this report—in the manner of the man as well as his words—that caused the strangers to hesitate. The description of "the Student" led them to suspect he was a recluse who might not welcome them cordially, but Mary Louise reflected that there was a daughter and decided that any American girl shut up on this three-acre "estate" for three years would be glad to meet another American ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... truth and nature of her feelings. These appeared in every paragraph in which it was proper to make any allusions of the sort. But the letters had other charms. It was apparent, throughout, that the writer was ignorant that she wrote to an invalid, though she could not but know that she wrote to a recluse. Her aim evidently was to amuse Grace, of whose mental sufferings she could not well be ignorant. Lucy was a keen observer, and her epistles were filled with amusing comments on the follies that were daily committed in New York, as well as ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the form of Lectures, because it seems to me the most natural form which in our age didactic composition ought to take. As in ancient Greece the dialogue reflected most truly the intellectual life of the people, and as in the Middle Ages learned literature naturally assumed with the recluse in his monastic cell the form of a long monologue, so with us the lecture places the writer most readily in that position in which he is accustomed to deal with his fellow-men, and to communicate his knowledge to others. It has no doubt certain disadvantages. In a lecture ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... a rather curious thing that one is reminded at times of Ballantyne's "Martin Rattler," written very much earlier, even down to to the presence of a "recluse". That doesn't mean you won't enjoy the book just as much as you might have enjoyed "Martin Rattler." Best, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... that seems natural to India or to the Indian mind, type also of the independence of each thinker. The thinker secludes himself; "the mind is its own place." To become a thinker signifies to become an ascetic recluse; even modern enlightenment often removes an Indian from ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... possessed by a devil,—a foul and melancholy fiend,—who resented the attempted possession of others by subjecting them to himself. One had turned from quiet and sober habits to reckless dissipation; another had turned from the usual gayety of life to recluse habits, and both, apparently, by the same influence; at least, so it appeared to Redclyffe, as he insulated their story from all other circumstances, and looked at them by one light. He even thought that he felt a similar influence coming over himself, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... your Royal Highness to protect such a man. And how beautiful it will be, to send me his chief Book, as you have the kindness to promise! "The Heir of a Monarchy, from his palace, attending to the wants of a recluse far off! Condescend to afford me the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... volume, this admirable second leads us through one of the most entertaining of tutti frutti which we have ever met in the form of a biography. It is fortunate that IRVING—so generally imagined by 'those of the second after-generation' as a quiet recluse on the banks of the Hudson—was in reality, in his early time and full prime, a traveler, a man of the world, somewhat of a diplomat, and one who knew the leading minds of Europe and of his own country in the days when there were giants. It is really pleasant to travel in these pages over the grande ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... true, with the exception that the name of the manor-house is a fictitious one. With regard to "Good Master Systeme," I have been furnished by M. Duportal du Godasmeur with further details which do not confirm certain ideas entertained by my mother as to the mystery in which this aged recluse enveloped his existence. I have, however, made no change in the body of the work, thinking that it would be better to leave M. Duportal to publish the true story, known only to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... girls were playing with their dolls these precocious children were writing poems and stories. Their father developed the ways of a recluse and never took his meals with his children. Living in this dream world of their own, these children could not understand normal girls. They were terribly unhappy at school and came near to death of homesickness. Finally Emily ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... men, whilst I had eight hundred thousand. I trusted in the number of my troops, whilst mine enemy trusted in God; so he defeated me and routed me and I was put to a shameful flight and hid myself in one of the mountains, where I met with a recluse, [who had] withdrawn [himself from the world]. So I joined myself to him and complained to him of my case and acquainted him with all that had befallen me. Quoth he, "Knowest thou why this befell thee and thou wast defeated?" "I know not," ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the Cape Ann children shout in glee, Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse; Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose Go honking northward over Tennessee; West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie, And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung, And yonder where, gigantic, willful, young, Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates, With restless violent hands and casual ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... seldom hear till June, and that is the cuckoo. Sometimes the last days of May bring him, but oftener it is June before I hear his note. The cuckoo is the true recluse among our birds. I doubt if there is any joy in his soul. "Rain-crow," he is called in some parts of the country. His call is supposed to bode rain. Why do other birds, the robin for instance, often make war upon the cuckoo, ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... these sentiments. Possibly, in their beginnings, no person did more in the exertion of those means which have wrought into the heart of the English people such undying hatred to Negro Slavery than the amiable recluse whose writings can never die so long as lovers of poetry continue to live. Who has not at times turned away from the best-loved of the living poets, to regale himself with the compact, polished, sweetly ringing numbers of Cowper? On the subject of Slavery he had already given expression ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... off from the usual forms of social intercourse, we formed a strong contrast to each other. I always required the stimulants of companionship and applause. Perdita was all-sufficient to herself. Notwithstanding my lawless habits, my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life was spent among tangible realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my enemies, since by exciting me they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me; Perdita almost disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... which no association with others can do away; but there is no reason why we should add to that burden of personality which the Bishop of Oxford, in one of his most striking sermons, has shown to be truly 'an awful gift.' And say, youthful recluse (I don't mean you, middle-aged bachelor, I mean really young men of five or six and twenty), have you not sometimes, sitting by the fireside in the evening, looked at the opposite easy chair in the ruddy glow, and imagined that easy chair occupied by a gentle ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... was every day making discoveries about life, and about myself. I had naturally some elements of the recluse, and would never, of my own choice, have lived in a crowd. I loved quietness. The noise of machinery was particularly distasteful to me. But I found that the crowd was made up of single human lives, not ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... and peculiar, indeed, that many people had considered him to be out of his mind. He was reputed to be extremely wealthy, yet lived in a miserly fashion, entertaining no visitors, and never spending a penny which it was possible for him to save. He never married, but passed his days as a recluse, shut up among the books in his library, seeing only a few old servants whose services he had retained. Sometimes in the early morning he would wander about the woods and fields in the neighbourhood, seeking for wild flowers, but on such occasions he seemed much annoyed if spoken to, and evidently ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... relations, and the ultimate reason, I think, was what I should call Mill's want of virility. He might be called 'cold,' not as wanting in tenderness or enthusiasm, but as representing a kind of philosophical asceticism. Whether from his early education, his recluse life, or his innate temperament, half the feelings which moved mankind seemed to him simply coarse and brutal. They were altogether detestable—not the perversions which, after all, might show a masculine ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... interested. He had been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... England, without knowing that, from elevated and secluded places, some of the finest inspirations of genius have emanated which have ever been conceived by the mind of man. There are mountains in Europe where the recluse may stand and see beneath him curling clouds, and roaring tempests spending their strength, while he is in a calm untroubled atmosphere, on the summit of a mountain of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... sister—Margaret's and mine; but I ought not to think of it, since a recluse should have no kindred out of her Order and the blessed saints. And there are three Sisters in the Priory named Alianora: wherefore, to make diversity, the eldest professed is called Alianora, and the second (that is myself) Annora, and the youngest, only last year professed, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Cyril Waring met Elma Clifford once more, the first time for months, and had twenty minutes' talk in the tea-room alone with her. Contrary to his rule, he had gone to the Holkers' party that night, for a man can't remain a recluse all his life, no matter how hard he tries, merely because his brother's suspected of having committed a murder. In course of time, the attitude palls upon him. For the first year after Guy's sudden and mysterious disappearance, indeed, Cyril refused ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... to employ the language of Hume, "They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at his age, and under his circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work, as his History of the World." He was assisted ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... any wonder, living in that lawless country, that Robert Palmer became almost a recluse? But why should he work so? He was working unselfishly for others, as you will see when you read his will, for his twenty-nine nephews and nieces. As if a heap of double eagles would be of any particular use to relatives ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... of the adventurous little band not now accounted for is Peter Bell, the former recluse. Peter was forward in the smoking car enjoying his old black pipe, which was his delight and solace and Miss Prescott's particular abomination. Among Peter's other peculiarities, acquired in a long and solitary life, ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished house, had striven ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... hence Nature has her maligners, as if she were Circe; and Alphonso of Castille fancied he could have given useful advice. But she does not go unprovided; she has hellebore at the bottom of the cup. Solitude would ripen a plentiful crop of despots. The recluse thinks of men as having his manner, or as not having his manner; and as having degrees of it, more and less. But when he comes into a public assembly he sees that men have very different manners from his own, and in their way admirable. In his childhood and youth he has had many checks and ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to observe how certainly this deficiency in humor and in the delineation of ordinary human feeling is connected with a recluse, a solitary, and to some extent an unsympathizing life. If we combine a certain natural aloofness from common men with literary habits and an incessantly studious musing, we shall at once see how powerful a force ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... said, "go and put on your jewels. Your sister Gemma gives a ball to-night and the carriage waits to take you there. I am too much of a recluse to be at ease in such scenes, but I have sent word to your father ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... appeared at the first instant of even less importance. I recollect the news coming. The King, having been always in frail health, had never married; seeing clearly but not far, he was a sad man: the fate that struck down his brother increased his natural melancholy; he became almost a recluse, withdrew himself from the capital to a retired residence, and henceforward was little more than a name in which Prince von Hammerfeldt conducted the business of the country. Now and then my mother visited him; once she brought back to me a letter from him, little of which I understood ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope |
