"Unpretentious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gentlefolk," "Holiday Haunts, by Jingle Junior on the Jaunt," "Club Carols," "Uncle Bulger's Moral Tales," "Songs of the Streets," "Rambling Rondeaux," and "Paper-knife Poems." But it is his fluent, melodious, and unpretentious verse that has ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... said Reginald, "would be one of those little everyday tragedies that one sees going on all round one. In my mind's eye there is the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way has quite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it. They'd only been married some eighteen months or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeing much of each other. With him there was always a foursome or something that had to be ...
— Reginald • Saki
... the ground, grass and flowers sprang up, and great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.... As they rode on beneath the leafy trees from every tree the birds sang out, for the spell of silence over the lonely moor was broken for ever." This unpretentious story, a child's story, is as engaging as a gem. And so, I think, are most of the others. One more example to illustrate the quality of Leamy's style—say, the description of the contest of the bards before the High King at the Feis of Tara in the story called "The Huntsman's Son." The King ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... darkened London conducting the last hour of business under lowered awnings, "as if it were a liaison." There are many such rewarding passages, some perhaps a little facile, but, taken together, quite enough to make this unpretentious little volume a very agreeable companion for the few moments of leisure which are all that most of us can get in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... that she looked upon as she turned back toward that spot—it was one more low mound, simple, unpretentious, added to the many which had been placed there this last century and a half; one more little gray sandstone head-mark, cut simply with the name and dates of him who rested there, last in a long roll of our others. The slight figure in the dove-colored gown ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... It was an unpretentious sort of pleasure that Teeny-bits and his friend shared that Sunday afternoon. When the meal was over they walked lazily through the village to look at some of the old buildings that were standing in Revolutionary days and then they came lazily back and Dad Holbrook harnessed ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... a book. I shall do neither: I have tried to explain my meaning simply and clearly in the book itself, and I am optimistic enough to think that my favourite game is too popular to require an apology for increasing its literature, however unpretentious the attempt may be. Moreover, I am still too much affected by the "brilliant and feverish glow" of enthusiasm ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... the old and the blatancy of the new. The little parish church is of the very far past, having lost its Cathedral rank over six hundred years ago to Sainte-Marie in Grasse, a town scarcely younger than its own. It is the type of the church of this coast, with its unpretentious smallness, its strength, and its disfiguring restorations; and it is, especially in comparison with Vence and Grasse, of small architectural interest. The facade, and the double archway which connects the church ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... however, allowed his title to be used, as he shrank from the notoriety which the knowledge of his position and wealth would create among the settlers of that region. He had come there in an unpretentious way, and he wished to leave as quietly. There would be time enough, he thought, to resume his honors when he and his bride should ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Mary had left the room. "You were asking about the lecture," he said. "Really, it was only a very unpretentious affair, and to tell you the truth, only intended for people whose opportunities for reading have not been great. I am quite sure it would not have been worth your while to come down. We just read a chapter or so from A Tale of Two ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gardens, its entrance lodge, its entire surroundings had shown him that only a well-to-do man could live there. How came it, then, that the Squire's relations—his cousin and her mother—lived in a small and unpretentious cottage, and were obviously not well off as regards material goods? Copplestone had the faculty of seeing things at a glance, and refined and cultivated as the atmosphere of Mrs. Greyle's parlour was, it had taken no more than a glance from his perceptive eyes to see that he was there ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere. Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples in England ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... have been clad very simply; at any rate, I cannot remember anything of her dress. I only know that it was unpretentious and charming. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... to Forster by the fact that I was thus constituted his representative and champion in the Press, and I became a somewhat frequent visitor at his delightful but unpretentious residence on the banks of the Wharfe at Burley. It was on my first visit to him after his resignation that an incident took place which touched me deeply. I was sitting with his and my old friend, Canon Jackson, of Leeds, in the library after breakfast. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... dubious. This having a society girl to chaperone was new business for her. She had never thought much about it, but somehow she would hardly have associated the Salvation Army with the Macdonald family in any way. She paused and looked doubtfully at the unpretentious little one-story building that stretched away capaciously and unostentatiously ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... woodwork is plain and unpretentious, that the lighting-fixtures are logically placed, and of simple construction. (Is there anything more dreadful than those colored glass domes, with fringes of beads, that landlords so proudly hang ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... attendance. The vicarage was an old-fashioned house too large for the living, its long front, dotted with rosebushes, rising up honey-coloured against the clear green of a beech grove. There are grand houses that one sees at once will never be comfortable, and there are unpretentious houses that promise to be cool in summer and warm in winter and restful all the year round: of such was Chilmark vicarage, sunning itself in the afternoon clearness, while faded green sunblinds filled the interior ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn't help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... and unpretentious structure. The door opened directly into the living-room, to which there was only one small window looking out on the verandah. A second door led into a small kitchen, off which opened another small room used by Dudgeon ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Hall of Meeting. Though the depth of the fortress prevented me from knowing the time, it felt to be early afternoon by that strange internal clock that so seldom errs. It was correct, as usual. There was a quaint fireplace on the far wall of the room with a small, unadorned and unpretentious mantle, decorated like the rest of the fortress in a practical and experienced way, finding just the right flavor between the ornate, the practical, and the quaint, and avoiding all the while the clutter brought by superfluous material possessions. A table ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... result will be a sham that will deceive no one, and you will soon tire of it, and the sooner the better. Be honest. If you have only cheap material to work with, be satisfied with unambitious undertakings. Let them be in keeping with what you have to work with—simple, unpretentious, and without any attempt in the way of deception. The humblest home can be made attractive by holding fast to the principle of honesty in everything that is done about it. It is not necessary to imitate in order to make it attractive. Think out ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... frien', la veuve Gravois, who lives ver' quiet. She have one room, and I ask her tek you in, Davy." He led the way through the empty Rue Chartres, turned to the right at the Rue Bienville, and stopped before an unpretentious house some three doors from the corner. Madame Gravois, elderly, wizened, primp in a starched cotton gown, opened the door herself, fell upon Monsieur Vigo in the Creole fashion; and within a quarter of an hour I was installed in her best room, which gave ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unpretentious. The translators are content to exhibit such a work to the American military public without changing its poignancy and originality. They hope that readers will enjoy it as much as they ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... been the foundation of the great Canby fortune. Small and unpretentious, the herring had swum in the icy waters of the Maine coast until transformed into a French sardine by Canby, Sr. It had brought wealth and renown to the shrewd old Yankee, who was alleged to have smelled of herring even in his coffin, but the Canby ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... at Vivey, the person whose name excited the curiosity and the conversational powers of the villagers—Marie-Julien de Buxieres—ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... that he must have a fund of information concerning every current Chicagoan of importance, and this fact alone was certain to be of value. Then the old man was direct, plain-spoken, simple-appearing, and wholly unpretentious—qualities which ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no longer trodden ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... I had scarcely done more than look into some of them at off-moments, for our life had left no leisure for reading. This particular volume was—no, I had better not describe it too fully; but I will say that it was old and unpretentious, bound in cheap cloth of a rather antiquated style, with a title which showed it to be a guide for yachtsmen to a certain British estuary. A white label partly scratched away bore the legend '3d.' I had glanced at it once or twice ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... stay she had scarcely been able to believe that she was really in Athens. A great name had aroused in her imagination a conception of a great city. The soft familiarity, the almost rustic simplicity and intimacy, the absolutely unpretentious brightness and homely cheerfulness of the small capital of this unique land had surprised, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... living requires enormous vigilance and sympathy. No one can write conclusively about it. Compared with this creative statesmanship, the administering of a routine or the battle for a platitude is a very simple affair. But genuine politics is not an inhuman task. Part of the genuineness is its unpretentious humanity. I am not creating the figure of an ideal statesman out of some inner fancy. That is just the deepest error of our political thinking—to talk of politics without reference to human beings. The creative men appear ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... of such a trio was, like themselves, ancient and unpretentious, nearly one hundred years having elapsed since the solid foundation was laid to a portion of the building. Unquestionably, it was the oldest house in Silverton, for on the heavy, oaken door of what was called the back room was still to be seen the mark of a bullet, left ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... afterward, I went to visit a friend in the country, a modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple, unpretentious house, set about with big trees, encircled in meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest. The fragrance of the pink and hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma of the orchard and of the gardens, and resonant with the cluck ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... beautiful place. Lionel, who in no way resented her thus withdrawing herself from time to time, had been leisurely talking to Mrs. Grey of theatrical things in general; and, now that coffee was coming in, he begged permission to light a cigarette. Altogether it was a simple, friendly, unpretentious evening, that did not seem to involve any serious consequences. As night fell, they set out on their homeward drive; and through the silent country they went, under the stars. Lionel left his two friends at their door in ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... gravel-walks of the then rural Kensington Gardens, accompanied by her elder and half-sister, the Princess Feodore, and attended by a single servant. Many elderly people still remember the extreme simplicity of the child's attire, and the quiet and unpretentious appearance and manners of her sister, who was one day seen to stop the tiny carriage to indulge the fancy of an unknown little girl by allowing her to kiss her ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... and how you used to speculate about his antecedents and associations. But I have not known this story long. He only told it me this evening; just an hour or two before he died. Well, we all have our little romances, as you are pleased to call them!" "Yes, yes, all of us. Even I, unpretentious, plain Elizabeth Fairleigh,—but no matter." I mind me, reader, that I promised not to talk of my own experiences. Ah, there are no such phenomena in the world really, as "commonplace" lives, and "commonplace" persons! "Poor little old man!" I sighed again. ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... were walking through the fragrant roads, in a dream they entered the unpretentious little church, and were questioned by the small Spanish sexton at the door. No, that was Miss Carroll,— this was Miss Brown. Yes, everyone was here. The groom and his best man had gone in the other door. Who would give away the bride? This gentleman, Mr. Eastman, who ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... to the visitor from temperate climes that in such surroundings the cacao tree seems almost commonplace. It is in appearance as moderate and unpretentious as an apple tree, though somewhat taller, being, when full grown, about twenty feet high. It begins to bear in its fourth or fifth year. Smooth in its early youth, as it gets older it becomes covered with little bosses (cushions) ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... should unite for protection of common interests against the encroachment of a common enemy—the ambitious house of Hapsburg. The lake formed at once a bond and a highway between them. On the first day of August, 1291, more than six hundred years ago, a group of unpretentious patriots, ignored by the great world, signed a document which formed these lands into a loose Confederation. By this act they laid the foundation upon which the Swiss state was afterward reared. In their naive, but prophetic, faith, the contracting parties called this ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... telephone—a simple unpretentious toy, just like the next one. Sometimes I think it must be exceptional, but anon I hear other telephoners talking, and I realise that theirs too have the same ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... deal more might be said about skating, and the allied sports of tobogganing, sleighing, curling, ice yachting, and last, but by no means least, sliding—that unpretentious pastime of the million. Happy the boy who has nails in his boots when Jack-Frost appears in his white garment, and congeals the neighbouring pond. But I must turn away at the threshold of the humorous aspect of my subject (for the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... name on the narrow wooden gate, however, and seeing by his watch that the hour of the "Thinker's" appointment had just struck, he went in and knocked at the front door. Inside the garden hedge, he could see that the house, though unpretentious enough, was larger and more luxurious than it looked at first, and was quite a different kind of place from a porter's lodge. A dog-kennel and a beehive stood outside, like symbols of old English country-life; the moon was rising behind a plantation of prosperous ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... course; and each street is lined with neat frame or brick houses, surrounding a square in such a manner that within each household has a sufficient garden. The broad streets have neat foot-pavements of brick; the houses, substantially built but unpretentious, are beautified by a singular arrangement of grape-vines, which are trained to espaliers fixed to cover the space between the top of the lower and the bottom of the upper windows. This manner of training vines gives the town quite ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... look on his flippant protege and then commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times when genius must stoop to pick ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... unpretentious ministry of "three months" shadowed forth the loving, gentle, yet vigorous and successful ministry of a quarter of a century; a ministry so like the Master's, not confined to sect or nationality, limited only by the wants of humanity and the great heart-love that went gushing out ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... over the files of more of less ephemeral literature, as well as the records of the explorations of early days, I have been astonished at the rich treasures of scientific and descriptive literature that have Lake Tahoe as their object. Not the least service this unpretentious volume will accomplish is the gathering together ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... to express my admiration for Lockhart's criticism of Scott, and particularly for his description of the way in which the Lay came to be written. It is really wonderful, Lockhart's sensible, unpretentious, thorough interpretation of the half-unconscious processes by which Scott's reading and recollections were turned into his poems and novels. Of course, it is all founded on Scott's own notes ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... integrity of pants, and caused need of frequent repairs, for ours was not as those of the ancient Hebrews to whom Moses said, "Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee"—ours waxed very old, before we could get another pair, and were easily rubbed through. The more sedate men were content with a plain, unpretentious patch, but this did not satisfy the youngsters, whose aesthetic souls yearned for "they know not what," until Ben Lambert showed them. One morning he appeared at roll call with a large patch in the ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... is not bound for Labrador. She is going to "the Labrador," or, to be more of a purist still, "the Larbadore." Having put you right on these rudiments—oh! I forgot another: "Fish" is always codfish. Other finny sea-dwellers may have to be designated by their special names, but the unpretentious cod is "t' fish"; and the salutation of friends is not, "How is your wife?" or, "How is your health?" But, "How's t' fish, B'y?" I like it. It is friendly and different—a kind ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... residences of all the Legations are quite comfortable, pretty and unpretentious, with the usual complement of furniture of folding pattern, so convenient but so inartistic, and a superabundance of cane chairs. Really good furniture being very expensive in Teheran, a good deal of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... your finger,' he said, 'and do not open it until you are safely at home and in your father's conservatory. Plant it in an unpretentious pot at night, and do not tell anyone what it is, but watch it every day yourself. The fairy too will watch it and pick the blossoms for you, as no mortal can do that. She will pick the seed flower as soon as it blooms, so that the Evil Magician ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... Carolan house, and over the dusty, neglected gardens that enclosed it. The heavy wooden railing of the porch, half smothered in dry vines, was hot to the touch, as were the brick walks that wound between parched lawns and the ruins of old flowerbeds. The house, despite the charm of its simple, unpretentious lines, looked shabby and desolate. Only the great surrounding trees kept, after long years of neglect, their ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... landlord's whole force, and then marking his descent to his cab by the clanking of his sword upon the stairs, after which the joint service spent a good part of the night in celebrating the event at a banquet in the basement. At two lodgings in a most unpretentious street, it was the landlords' boast that a royal princess had taken tea with their tenants, who were of the quality to be rightfully taken tea with by a royal princess; and at certain hours of the afternoon during the season it was not uncommon to see noble equipages ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... world! A cloud of dust rose under his feet as he went up to the cases and tried to read the tarnished titles of the volumes on the shelves. Again Chance led him aright, and his eye brightened as he discovered an unpretentious volume that proclaimed itself: The Official Visitors' Guide to the City of New York for the Year 1905. He pulled out the book and opened it. Of course it contained what he wanted, a large folding map, and spreading the latter out upon a table Constans set himself to ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... collection, though in an unpretentious store, at last attracted attention, and after some little time it became the thing in the fashionable world to go there, and from that time forward his fortune ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... small wayfarer followed. It also was very easily discouraged; an unfriendly push would have knocked it over at once. But nobody seemed to want to push so unpretentious a thing, so it ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... may as well explain here that Olaf Jansen, a man who quite recently celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday, has for the last half-dozen years been living alone in an unpretentious bungalow out Glendale way, a short distance from the business district ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... may be admirably adapted to unpretentious establishments, where, however, it is wished to employ separate rooms; the second (1, b) is only suitable for elaborate baths of the highest class, in which it may be adopted with excellent and with practical results. Of the combination arrangements (a) has little to recommend ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... literature of the supernatural. On the contrary, the scenes enacted in houses that appear to be really haunted are generally very simple and insignificant, not to say dull and commonplace. The ghosts are quite unpretentious and go to no expense in the matter of staging or costume. They are clad as they were when, sometimes many years ago, they led their quiet, unadventurous life within their own home. We find in one case an old woman, ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... four generations of Mrs. Marsden's family had lived, was home-like, but quaint and unpretentious. It had a very solid look and was in thorough repair, for the family were thrifty and well-to-do always. Luxuriant vines of the Virginia creeper grew on the sides of the house and around the pillars of the porches. ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... most striking is the number of cases of individual kindness shown by Germans to "alien enemies." The minds of many might be cleared on this subject if they would read a charming and unpretentious little book, "An English Girl's Adventures in Hostile Germany," by Mary Littlefair, published by John Long, Ltd. The authoress saw and heard absurd Press charges on the other side, and something, too, of the irrational hatred of war-time, but the little book is a record of almost nothing but kindness, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... mentioned "the average voter in tramcar or railway train," and the words had called up a haunting vision of disgust. He often said that he had no objection to the working classes as such. He rather liked them. He found them intelligent and unpretentious. He could converse with them without effort, and they always had the interest of sport in common. He felt no depression in passing through the working quarters of the city, and at Stennynge he was well acquainted with all the cottagers ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... when the latter offers him food. But there is always some penalty attached to the possession of anything really valuable. So, though I wasn't interested in the cattle, I was bound to follow them till I recovered my dog. Thompson's unpretentious stockwhip was in my hand at the time; and, judging it unlikely that Cleopatra had been broken in to the use of that disquieting implement, I was just turning Bunyip round, when ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... heeded. A stream ran right across it, still it straggled on. Suddenly it gave up the minimum property that a road should possess, and, renouncing its connection with High Streets, its lineage of Piccadilly, shrank to one side and became an unpretentious footpath. Then it led me to the old bridge over the stream, and thus I came to Wrellisford, and found after travelling in many lands a village with no wheel tracks in its street. On the other side of the bridge, my friend the road struggled a few yards up a grassy slope, and ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... of the regime, as established under the Commonwealth, 1649, was reflected in the dress of both men and women when all finery was discarded. Fabrics became somber in color and unpretentious in texture. Men had their locks shorn close to the head, and women returned to the simple caps or hoods, which held the hair close to the head. Virginia authorities took cognizance of England's turn towards ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... The unpretentious chapel was small and nearly dark, for the usual dimness was increased by the lowering clouds outside. The deep, narrow window openings, fitted with stained glass, ran almost to the rough-hewn rafters supporting ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the horses and our two guides, and started about two o'clock. For some time we followed the road known as the Rue de la Raillere, which leads to the baths of the same name from the Place St. Martin; crossing the river by a very unpretentious bridge, not far from the town. Leaving La Raillere behind, and passing in turn the drinking establishment of Mauhourat—near which the Gaves of Lutour and Marcadau form the Gave of Cauterets—and the baths of Petit St. Sauveur and Le ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... branch was at its best, as there had been recent rains, and everything was fresh and green. At Tampico, we resisted the attractions of the hotels "where Americans always stop," and went to the unpretentious Pan Cardo. Here we were comfortably located, and early the next morning tried to define our plans. We were in uncertainty as to what towns we should visit in order to examine the Huaxtecs. The ancient Huaxtecs were among the most interesting of Mexican tribes. They are a northern ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... son of a solicitor, and all his early circumstances were homely, unpretentious, and rather straitened. His mother died when he was eight years old, and when his father followed her five years later, two of his uncles provided means for continuing at Cambridge the education which had been begun ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... himself to the inevitable, he sold his goods, distributed the money to the poor, read the Koran through once every three days, and died in the holy month of Ramadan. His tomb at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, still exists, a simple brickwork building, rectangular in shape, and surrounded by an unpretentious court. It was restored in 1877, but is again in need of repair. The illustration here shown is from a photograph sent by Dr. Neligan of Teheran. Though dead, the great Persian has still a large practice, as his ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... time in her experience, to a life absolutely without a hope, and one that accepted the despair of such a destiny with silent resignation; it moved her as nothing less, as nothing feebler or of more common type could ever have found power to do. There were a simplicity and a greatness in the mute, unpretentious, almost unconscious, heroism of this man, who, for the sheer sake of that which he deemed the need of "honor," accepted the desolation of his entire future, which attracted her as nothing else had ever done, which made her heart ache ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... without consciousness of presumption, and he saw the landlord of a hotel, with a fortune of six hundred thousand pounds, wait at table as deferentially as any footman in his employ. He was struck by the contentment with which, in winter, women went barefoot in the streets, and by the unpretentious composure with which the common herd, on holidays, disported themselves in public, not seeking to disguise their native vulgarity and shabbiness. At the same time, he could not help a misgiving that the portentous inequality between rich and poor must finally breed disaster; ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the history of the academy ship and her crew of boys, with their trips into the interior as well as voyages along the coast of Ireland and Scotland. The young scholar will get a truer and fuller conception of these countries by reading this unpretentious journal of travel, than by weeks of hard study upon ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... blank, ugly line of sun-blistered shanties, along a road, yellow-sand deep, is a mill village. The word village has a cheerful sound. It summons a country scene, with the charms of home, however simple and unpretentious. There is nothing to charm or please in the villages I have already, in these pages, drawn for you to see and which with veritable sick reluctance I summon again before your eyes. Every house is like unto its neighbour—a ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Jackson. When our friend Mr. Parton was writing his "Life of Jackson," I gave him, at his request, my impressions as a child, of the great man, with whom we were daily and intimately associated, and now transfer those impressions from that great work, "Parton's Life of Jackson," to the pages of this unpretentious record of ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... vegetation, which, combined with the setting of the bluest sky that can be imagined, make the drives round Cape Town some of the most beautiful in the world. At Newlands, the Governor's summer residence, a pretty but unpretentious abode, Sir Hercules and Lady Robinson then dispensed generous hospitality, only regretting their house was too small to accommodate visitors, besides their married daughters. We stayed at the Vineyard Hotel ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Jim entered. This man's home possessed an unique interior. It was such as one would hardly have expected in a bachelor in Barnriff. There were none of the usual impedimenta of a prairie man's abode, there was no untidiness, no dirt, no makeshift. Yet like the man himself the place was simple and unpretentious. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... his affability to the ladies, and the delicious odour of violets which his garments always diffused. Pascal's parents did not understand him any better than other people. When Felicite saw him adopting such a strange, unpretentious mode of life she was stupefied, and reproached him for disappointing her hopes. She, who tolerated Aristide's idleness because she thought it would prove fertile, could not view without regret the slow progress of Pascal, his partiality for obscurity ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... were safer here than they would be at New York. It was a doughtful anomaly in a society which otherwise was exceedingly brutal, that a good woman possessed a civilising power which gained the respect of her rough surroundings, and, by an unpretentious charm, softened both speech ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... unpretentious huts where travelling soldiers or Malays put up, these shelters are very useful, especially for the night. There is another kind of pasang-grahan, comfortable structures provided with beds, similar to the rest-houses in India. In ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... thrown open. A single thick-set man, apparently unarmed and dressed like an ordinary traveler, followed by half a dozen other equally unpretentious-looking men, entered. The leader ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... station. The paths are guarded by picked grenadiers, not Landsturm men this time, while an officer of the guard makes his ceaseless rounds. Opposite the railroad station, on the other side of the little park, is an unpretentious villa of red brick and terra cotta trimmings, but two guard houses painted with red-white-black stripes flank the front door and give it a look of importance. The street at either end is barred by red, white and black striped ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... will transpire through the most limited amount of creative art. This has been the case with the few published works of a writer, whose compositions, though unpretentious in size and sentiment, yet reveal a graceful fancy, and a marked contemplation upon the details of ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... stood in the center of his quiet and sheltered office, seeming, to her, a strangely old-time and courtly figure, a proud yet unpretentious student of life at peace with his own soul. The years would come and go, the years that would so age and wear and torture her, but he would reign on in that quiet office unchanged, contented, still at peace with himself and all his world. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Sir Francis!" he said in a rich, thick, uncomfortable voice. "This is an unexpected pleasure! Won't you come upstairs? My girls are having a little informal dance—just among themselves and their own young friends—quite simple,—in fact an unpretentious little affair!" And he rubbed his fat hands, on which twinkled two or three large diamond rings. "But we shall be charmed ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... This unpretentious work makes no claim to deal with the whole subject which it has presumed to open. Its aim is rather to promote in others the desire which actuates the author to follow up and develop the new field of antiquarian research which it has attempted to introduce. As old ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... behind a leafy lane, Low in a pocket of some sheltered ground, An unpretentious farm, so snug and plain, An invitation in itself; when found, Only a whining howl like dingoes' sound, Reminds one that there is a war near by. The tools of peace see littered here around, Weapons by which men learn to ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... in the Chapel Royal, Savoy, when enter Wife No. 1 who explains that she was a married woman when she met Cuthbertson, and therefore, a fair, or rather unfair, bigamist. Upon this Cuthbertson (who is conveniently near in a pew, wearing the unpretentious uniform of the Royal Horse Artillery), rushes into the arms of the lady who has erroneously been numbered Wife No. 2, when she has been in reality Wife No. 1, and all is joy. Now I need scarcely point out to you that nothing like this has ever been ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... complete circle in their own length. While unable to sail as close to the wind as a yacht, their chief point is in running, when with huge sails set on either side they will tear along at a pace perfectly astounding for craft of their unpretentious build ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... husband and herself took up their residence in the rural town of Wayland, Mass. Their house, plain and unpretentious, had a wide and pleasant outlook; a flower garden, carefully tended by her own hands, in front, and on the side a fruit orchard and vegetable garden, under the special care of her husband. The house was always neat, with some appearance of unostentatious ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Chief George Mansion's silent, unpretentious little mother possessing all this power among her people, and she, Lydia Bestman, was shaking hands with ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... The present unpretentious volume is composed of letters written to a friend from South Africa, during the past twelve months, with a few necessary omissions and additions; the illustrations which have been introduced, are reproductions in pen and ink of pencil sketches done on the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... at Noningsby his extensive reading respecting the Iapetidae recommended him not at all, nor did his agricultural ambitions;—not even to Felix Graham, as a companion, though Felix Graham could see further into his character than did the others. He was not such as they were. He had not the unpretentious, self-controlling humour, perfectly free from all conceit, which was common to them. Life did not come easy to him, and the effort which he was ever making was always visible. All men should ever be making efforts, no doubt; but ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... I'm not sure it was right for you to come here where the life is so different from the quiet, unpretentious one you have led," the doctor thought, but he merely said: "It's my impression they wear their best dresses here, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... also very substantial, being built of stone and made to last. They are scrupulously plain; utility rather than beauty seems conspicuously stamped upon them, within and without. Economy has been manifestly a ruling law in their construction; the furniture is equally unpretentious and unostentatious; and, as to garniture, there is absolutely none. To some few, they are almost too destitute of embellishment, and Mr. Muller has been blamed for not introducing some aesthetic features which might relieve this bald utilitarianism ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... because fashioned divinely, were those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and Jesus. Theirs were modes of mind cast in the moulds of Christian Science: Paul's, by the supremely natural transforming power of Truth; and the character of [10] Jesus, by his original scientific sonship with God. Phi- losophy never has produced, nor can it ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... Armstrong's gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction—that is towards the city—on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see, near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter. It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of Mississippi—which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a "frame-house," its ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... And the Emperor with his cortege rode directly through the middle of the avenue. The trembling trees bowed toward him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet curious, through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there swam visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his unpretentious-green uniform and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey, which stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly—had I then been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The Emperor sat carelessly, almost laxly, holding his rein with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... limitless downs or the thwart-leading footpath through copse and spinney, not without pleasant fellowship with feather and fir. Nor does it follow from all this that the god is unsocial. Albeit shy of the company of his more showy brother-deities, he loveth the more unpretentious humankind, especially them that are adscripti gleb, addicted to the kindly soil and to the working thereof: perfect in no way, only simple, cheery sinners. For he is only half a god after all, and the red earth in him is strong. When the pelting storm drives the wayfarers to the sheltering ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... criticism had grown up. Stricter thinkers disliked the imposing ceremonies which the English church still retained: some of the ministers ceased to wear gowns in preaching, performed the marriage ceremony without using a ring, and were in favor of simplifying all the church service. Unpretentious workers began to tire of the everlasting quarreling, and to long for a religion simple and quiet. These soon met trouble, for the rulers had decided that salvation was by the Church of England, as the sovereign, its head, should order. Dissent was the two-fold guilt ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... afterward. German opera was also given throughout a large part of the season at the Thalia Theater, the manager being Mr. Gustav Amberg, and the conductor John Lund, who had come into notice at the Metropolitan Opera House by reason of the death of Dr. Damrosch. These performances were unpretentious, and divided between operetta and the type of opera which grew out of the Singspiel. Their significance, so far as this history is concerned, lay in the evidence which they bore of a considerable degree of interest on the part of the public outside of the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... end of the twenty miles one comes to a small and unpretentious village and an equally small and unpretentious wayside tchai-khan, both owing their existence to a stream of fresh water as small and unpretentious as themselves. Beyond this cheerless oasis stretches again the still more cheerless desert, the rivulets of undrinkable ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... be so, fulfilling His word, "it must needs be that scandals come" (St. Matthew XVIII. 7), that they are therefore rather a confirmation than a stumbling-block to our faith, this is a necessary safeguard. To have some unpretentious knowledge of what is said and thought concerning Holy Scripture, to know at least something about Modernism and other phases of current opinion is necessary, without making a study of their subtilties, for the most ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... the year in their own country or else pay the penalty of a higher tax. The country people, in their sad poverty, form a great contrast to the enormously wealthy Bojars. Although very backward in everything relating to culture, the Roumanian peasant is a busy, quiet, and easily satisfied type, unpretentious to a touching degree when ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... Von Barwig taught him, but played the mandolin, guitar and piano by ear. These men were not only grateful to Von Barwig for his kindness, but they loved him, and recognising in him the real artist had unbounded respect for him. As for Von Barwig, he found them simple fellows, sentimental, unpretentious and good-hearted, and he liked them and felt at ease with them because they did not seek to probe into that part of his life which he preferred should remain unknown to them. They merely accepted him as they found him and for this Von ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... was an orphan of New England extraction. Her father, the eldest child of a simple unpretentious country family in Western Massachusetts, had been a brilliant but erratic throw-back to Mayflower traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had married a girl with much the same ancestry as his own, but herself born ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... defense of fishing with a worm to pronounce the truism that no man is a complete angler until he has mastered all the modes of angling. Lovely streams, lonely and enticing, but impossible to fish with a fly, await the fisherman who is not too proud to use, with a man's skill, the same unpretentious tackle which he began ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... kindly, unpretentious people were! thought Thomas. A multimillionaire as amiable as a clerk; a daughter who would have graced any court in Europe with her charm and elfin beauty. Up to a month ago he had held all Americans in ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... distinct. The style adopted has therefore been the opposite of the pedantic, utilizing any vivacities of method which are consistent with truth of fact." The same principles have guided me in the present equally unpretentious treatise. I agree entirely with Mr. Warde Fowler when he says: "I firmly believe that the one great hope for classical learning and education lies in the interest which the unlearned public may be brought to feel in ancient life ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... designation which ignores the existence of several neighbouring ponds, the gifts of nature, and gives the whole credit to the handiwork of man. For "the pond" is just a small artificial affair of cement, entirely unpretentious. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... by sins against that "sober standard of feeling," than which, as a high authority assures us, nothing except "a sound rule of faith" is more important "in matters of practical religion." Of all of them, Scudamore's unpretentious little "Manual" is, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... the heart as Lincoln did it is perhaps not given to be uniformly felicitous. Among these speeches was that delivered at Philadelphia, which has already been quoted, but most of them were not considered felicitous at the time. They were too unpretentious. Moreover, they contained sentences which seemed to understate the gravity of the crisis in a way which threw doubt on his own serious statesmanship. Whether they were felicitous or not, the intention ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... cottage gardens that famous travellers have used in telling of the gardens of Italian princes; yet why should we not, when the one nature and the one art are mother and godmother of them all? It is a laughing wonder what beauty can be called into life about the most unpretentious domicile, out of what ugliness such beauty can be evoked and at how trivial a cost in money. Three years before this "garden to look out from" won its Carnegie prize it was for the most part a rubbish heap. Let me now tell of one other, that sprang ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... away, as no one knew that incomparable blonde. Yet she had often been to the opera, but in an unpretentious way—in the second tier of boxes. And to Prince Agenor above the first tier of boxes there was nothing, absolutely nothing. There was emptiness—space. The prince had never been in a second-tier box, so the second-tier boxes ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... formed the connecting link between the two towns above mentioned. The land was carefully tilled, and the houses, generally speaking, were of a better class than were to be found in most rural communities in Upper Canada at that period. Savareen's own dwelling was unpretentious enough, having been originally erected for one of the squire's "hired men," but it was sufficient for his needs, as he had not married until a little more than a year before the happening of the events to be presently related, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... buildings as to any undertaking in life. Rough hemlock lumber, rudely put up and whitewashed, would be a cheap mode of construction, which might be tolerated on a merely commercial place, but would illy correspond with neatly-kept private grounds, however humble and unpretentious they might be. The plan selected may be devoid of mere ornament, which would increase the cost, without adding to the capacity or usefulness, but the proportions should be satisfactory, the arrangement convenient, the materials the very best of their kind, and the workmanship ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... in the obscurity of the passage, and who was laughing heartily, and I began to laugh in my turn, especially when I saw Marchas's face. Then motioning the nun to the seats I said: 'Sit down, Sister: we are very proud and very happy that you have accepted our unpretentious invitation.' ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the four freshmen lived was an unpretentious dwelling, built of wood and painted a dull gray. A straggling bit of uneven lawn in front by no means added to its appearance. Even in the concealing twilight it had a neglected look. It ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... its name from Brooke Market, established here by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, but demolished a hundred years ago. It was in Brooke Street, in a house on the west side, that poor Chatterton committed suicide. St. Alban's Church is an unpretentious building at the north end. An inscription over the north door tells us that it was erected to be free for ever to the poor by one of the humble stewards of God's mercies, with date 1860. Within we learn that this benefactor was the first Baron Addington. The church ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... State, which had been admitted to the Union only four months before. Whatever the speculation aroused by the personnel of the party, however, the business that called them to Ann Arbor caused little comment, if we are to judge from contemporary reports. Yet this unpretentious gathering of notables was charged with the inauguration of what was to become one of the most significant developments in the history of American education,—the establishment and successful maintenance of a University by the people of ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... a year after her experience with the train robbers, Clyde Burnaby received a dinner invitation from the Wades. Kitty Wade was an old friend; her husband, Harrison Wade, was a lawyer just coming into prominence. They had an unpretentious home on the North Side, and such entertaining as they did was on a modest scale. Nevertheless, one met there people worth while, coming people, most of them, seldom those who had "arrived" in the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the young lady—had not brought her into bad odour with the servants. She was a favourite with them all, because she gave herself no airs, and was always ready to lend a hand to help at any time, disarming all jealousy by her unpretentious, willing, cheerful ways. Gladys found her in the drawing-room, dusting the treasures of the ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and ranch-house—was a commodious frame dwelling, unpretentious in appearance but not wanting in evidences of prosperity. Its rear presented the usual aspect of a ranch, with huge, well-built barns and corrals. Although it was summer, many wide stacks of hay and green oats, apparently left over from the previous season, suggested that he ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr. Pertwee was an unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an unostentatious office on the third floor. He showed me a picture in water-colours of the Rogue flying before the wind. The deck was at an angle of 95 to the ocean. In the picture no human beings were represented ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... played to the regular accompaniment of clapping palms, songs about ducks and parrakeets, dances full of shuffling and leaping. Even the movements of the sumptuous "Persian Dances" in "Khovanchtchina" are singularly naive and simple and unpretentious. Sometimes, however, the full gorgeousness of Byzantine art shines through this music, and the gold-dusty modes, the metallic flatness of the pentatonic scale, the mystic twilit chants and brazen trumpet-calls make us see the mosaics ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... had received her as a welcome guest, and they certainly did not seem to be poor. The house was spacious, and though it was old and unpretentious it was comfortable and furnished with artistic taste. The garden had amazed her by the care lavished on it; she had seen a hump-backed gardener and several children at work in it. A strange party-for every one of them, like their chief, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the evening at the house of the local magnate. The granddaughter of a former governor or justice of the Supreme Court comes home from her typewriter and her brother from the cotton mill or the lumber yard. Social life in a small town—and most Southern towns are small—is simple and unpretentious, although here too the influence of prosperity is beginning to be manifest. Social affairs are more elaborate than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and there is also less casual expression of informal hospitality. The higher prices of food and ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... range, at the same time thorough and unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in expressing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... little standing room between these and the wall. By paying nearly double fare a passenger might secure a room for himself, but the room given him did not compare well even with that of small and unpretentious modern steamers. ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... this, the shallowness of Sterne's imitators who whimpered over the death of a violet, and stretched out their arms and threw kisses to the moon and stars. In the second place they are distinguished in the manner of their expression: "Empfindsamkeit" is "secret, unpretentious, laconic and serious;" the latter attracts attention, is theatrical, voluble, whining, vain. Thirdly, they are known by their fruits, in the one case by deeds, in the other by shallow pretension. In the latter part of his volume, Campe treats the problem ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... of Keswick stands some distance back from the border of Derwentwater, and is noted as having been the residence of Southey. In Greta Hall, an unpretentious house in the town, Southey lived for forty years, dying there in 1843. He was laid to rest in the parish church of Crosthwaite, just outside the town. At the pretty little church there is a marble altar-tomb, the inscription ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... John and Constance Temple were married. The wedding took place at Royston, and by John's special desire (with which Constance fully agreed) the ceremony was of a strictly private and unpretentious nature. The newly married pair had determined to spend their honeymoon in Italy, and left for the Continent ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... snow-bird is a very unpretentious and familiar little friend. You can find him almost any day from the 1st of October to the 1st of May, and may know him by his grayish or ashy black head, back, and wings, white body underneath from the middle of his breast backward, and white external ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... valor; and while recognizing the glory that came to American arms in the period described, honestly seeks to place some of that glory upon the deserving brow of a race then enslaved and despised. The book is unpretentious and aims to relate the facts in a straight-forward way, unaccompanied by any of the charms of tasteful presentation. Its author, however, is deserving our thanks, and the book marks an important stage in the development of the colored American. His mind was turning ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... the low, three-legged altar-table, and cultus vases. To complete the list, a potsherd was found with the Double Axe moulded upon it, an indication, perhaps, that some who claimed kin with the masters of Crete paid their devotions at this unpretentious shrine.'[*] The smallness of the shrine at Gournia may be compared with the smallness of the sacred rooms at Knossos, and seems to have been ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... is a typical Prussian building of administration. Solid but unpretentious, it is the very embodiment of Prussian efficiency, and like all official buildings in Germany is well guarded. The doorkeeper and commissaire, a taciturn non-commissioned officer, takes your name and whom you wish ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... palace of the khedive's mother, the medical school and the government hospital. Farther removed from the river are the offices of the ministries of public works and of war—a large building surrounded by gardens—and of justice and finance. On the east side of Abdin Square is Abdin palace, an unpretentious building used for official receptions. Adjoining the palace are barracks. N.E. of Abdin Square, in the Sharia Mehemet Ali, is the Arab museum and khedivial library. Near this building are the new courts of the native tribunals. Private houses ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... me) was narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I who write to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling piece of fiction entitled THE BOTTLE IMP. Parties who come up to visit my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a speaking ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proceeded to ensconce ourselves in Flashman's Hotel, which is certainly far better than the Lime Tree, where we stayed before. Indian hotels are about the worst in the world. We have sampled rough dens in Spain, in Tetuan, and in Corsica—especially in Corsica, but then they are unpretentious inns in unfrequented villages, whereas in India you find in world-famous cities such as Agra or Delhi the most comfortless dens calling themselves hotels—hotels where you hardly dare eat half the food for fear of typhoid, and will not eat the rest ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... clothe the trees. Everywhere and always we hear the whirr and hum of insect life, sometimes soft and soothing, sometimes harsh and strident. And floating about wherever we look are butterflies innumerable, many dull and unpretentious, but some of a brilliancy of colour that makes us gasp ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... unpretentious, being a low, one-storied, verandah—fronted structure, with plenty of room about it, but little "style" or ornament. It was, though, picturesquely situated in the centre of a well-timbered little park and homestead and snugly ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... principally, as he informs us, from the New York Ledger, and partially from the Independent; were consequently written very much for the many, and very little for the student of elaborate literature. They are unstudied, unpretentious—true nugae venales, 'representing the impressions of happy homes, or the moods and musings of the movement * * fragmentary and careless as even a newspaper style will permit.' But, beyond this, we may assure the reader that these 'scintillant trifles' are knocked off from no second-rate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... purpose of leaving here the surplus of their passion. He, the good for nothing, has come to enjoy himself; he needs beauty, d'you see—aesthete that he is! But all these girls, these daughters of the simple, unpretentious, great Russian people—how do they regard aesthetics? 'What's sweet, that's tasty; what's red, that's handsome.' And so, there you are, receive, if you please, a beauty of ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a wit as well as a humorist. He was the author of many epigrams and curt aphorisms which have become stock phrases in conversation, quoted in all classes of society wherever the English language is spoken. His phrasing is unpretentious, even homely, wearing none of the polished brilliancy of La Rochefoucauld or Bernard Shaw; but Mark Twain's sayings "stick" because they are rooted ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... studied poetizations of traditional, aristocratic, high-flown themes brought him but scant recognition even in his day, and they have since been well-nigh forgotten. But when, one year before his death, he wrote an unpretentious love story taken from the life of simple people whom he met on his daily walks, he thereby assured himself of immortality. Few works prove more convincingly than Der Oberhof that great literature is neither more nor less than an artistic visualization and faithful ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... shy, unpretentious, unpretending, unobtrusive, retiring, demure, coy, reserved, unostentatious. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the strawberry, which, though small and unpretentious, has been from year to year rising in importance until it has become second only to the apple in the estimation of a majority ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Sixth Avenues, more and more affronted the day. We seemed to have come up from a world of quieter harmonies, the world of Washington Square and thereabouts, so decent in its dignity, so instinctively unpretentious. There were even there spots of shabbiness that I recall, such as the charmless void reaching westward from the two houses that formed the Fifth Avenue corner to our grandfather's, our New York grandfather's ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... New Year's Day a little book plainly bound and modestly entitled Songs and Sonnets. After reading this with ever-growing surprise and delight, Rose never had another doubt about the writer's being a poet, for though she was no critic, she had read the best authors and knew what was good. Unpretentious as it was, this had the true ring, and its very simplicity showed conscious power for, unlike so many first attempts, the book was not full of "My Lady," neither did it indulge ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the unpretentious cottage across the road the actual author of a printed book that lay on a table in the drawing-room; and when this actual author was discovered on near view to be a rather stout man with a shockingly bad hat and creases all over his linen coats; and when the maid ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... indeed been transformed! No one would have recognized it, covered as it was with a wealth of pure white blossoms and dark-green leaves, for it looked more like the throne of a fairy than like anything so ordinary and unpretentious. Mrs. Seabrook, who possessed exquisite taste, had so massed the blossoms around her and daintily perched an inverted one on her head that the effect was exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. Katherine, who ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... newcomers. The tranquil night was sweet with delicate odors wafted from numberless plants and blossoms in the adjacent forest, and with the fragrance breathed from the roses, gardenias and dahlias with which these unpretentious dwellings were fairly embowered. A spirit of calm and peaceful contentment hovered over the spot, and the round, white moon smiled down in holy benediction upon the gentle folk who passed their ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... less flattering to his head than to his heart. He is a person, however, that improves with acquaintance, and is probably more intelligent than he looks. He seems to be living here in a very plain and unpretentious manner; no gaudy stained glass, no tinsel, no mirror-work, no vain gew-gaws of any description impart a cheap and garish glitter to the place; no gorgeous apparel bedecks his ample proportions. Clad in the ordinary dress of a well-to-do Persian ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... open an unpretentious glazed door and we followed him into the restaurant, whereof the atmosphere was pervaded by an appetising meatiness mingled with less agreeable suggestions of the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... for the public, but for them—the anecdotes which she related so well. Finally, she acquiesced, and committed to paper certain incidents, certain portraits. What a treasure are these Souvenirs—so fluently written, so unpretentious, with neither dates nor chronological order, but upon which, for more than a century, all historians have drawn! How much is contained in this little book which teaches more in a few lines than interminable works do in many volumes! How feminine ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... are two unpretentious inns where men with an unnatural craving for Bouillabaisse go and eat it, and return with a strong aroma of saffron and garlic accompanying them, saying that they have partaken of the real dish, such as the fishermen cook for themselves, and not the stew toned ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... Bonnet's terminal adventures a very unpretentious pirate made his appearance in the waters of New York. This was a man named Richard Worley, who set himself up in piracy in a very small way, but who, by a strict attention to business, soon achieved a remarkable success. He started out as a scourge ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... Monty, a cigarette on the terrace before the Casino, where the gay world was sunning itself beside the sapphire sea, prior to the opening of the Rooms, and a cocktail at my friend Ciro's, I took my dejeuner at the Palmiers, a small and unpretentious hotel in the back of the town, where I was well known, and where one gets a very good lunch ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux |
