"Deprecating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... none, and the tint she would fain have called into requisition at that moment was not contained in any of her numerous rouge-pots. So she cast down her eyes, thereby displaying to advantage the length and thickness of her jet-black lashes, and raised her hand with a deprecating gesture, which called attention to its pretty, taper fingers and rosy nails. The marquis watched he admiringly, and she certainly was very charming in her way. He did not vouchsafe even a glance to the other two young actresses—refraining from testifying any marked ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... came out as they approached, and with a deprecating gesture invited them to take a seat beneath his verandah, and partake ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... I wasn't thinking of that," interrupted Miss Valeyon, with a gesture as if deprecating the idea of having ever entertained ideas so lowly. "I shall hardly be in town on the Fourth," she added, reflectively, as ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... over-rate my abilities," he said, with a slight deprecating smile. "But at any rate, please be sure of one thing. You could not have asked the advice of anyone more anxious to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... saw he had gone a little too far in his effort to create the proper dramatic setting for his clemency. He had not expected the young woman to "rise" quite so far and high. His deprecating half-apology, half-eulogy, gave ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... his deficiency in composition; but it is questionable if this be not mere affectation, common with writers who are far from thinking too meanly of themselves, for the reasons they chuse to state in the way of deprecating critical severity, and abundantly disposed to attach magnitude of consequence to the very particulars which they have employed to indicate their own inferiority. A translation of his work by Mr John Reinhold Forster, was published at London 1772, and contains additional notes. This ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... been a very bad boy," said he, with a kind of deprecating smile, as though he did not believe more than ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... judge best, by proving that ever since the passing of Pitt's first bill, in 1784, the Company had been constantly subject to Parliamentary control. He showed, too, most convincingly, that a petition which the Company had presented to the House of Commons, deprecating any change in the existing system which should tend to diminish the authority of the Directors, was based on one great fallacy—speaking, as it did, of the Company as one and indivisible, and unchanged in character, functions, and influence, down to the date of the last renewal of its ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the newspapers announced the fact that the Memoirs of Colonel Burr were to be written by me, than I received letters from various quarters of the country, inquiring into the nature of the revelations that the book would make, and deprecating the introduction of individual cases. These letters came to hand both anonymously and under known signatures, expressing intense solicitude ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... for the fugitives, and to send out vessels to intercept them, should they be driven back by bad weather to any part of the coast. At the same time the lord deputy sent a despatch to the Government in London, deprecating censure for an occurrence so unexpected, and so much to be regretted, because of the possibility of its leading to an invasion by the Spaniards. In other respects it was regarded by the principal ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... we laughed too much to be seriously angry; the muleteer, too, deprecating our wrath by assuring us that his mules had first-rate qualities for scrambling up and down precipices. So we took it all in good part, and, more amused than annoyed, assisted in contriving to adjust the girths of the English saddles to the poor beasts' wizened sides; ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna, and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both writers and begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance by closing a useless and unseemly war of words. On the following day the Churchman contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly expressed desire, "A Son of the Church" would ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... a moment as though she could hardly believe her ears, and made a deprecating "tut-tut-tut" in her throat, looking alternately at Katharine and Mary, and shaking her head as she did so. Then she remarked, rather confidentially to Katharine, with a little nod in ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... means were very unjustifiable, although many (to use the language of the Earl of Chatham, when deprecating a similar course in the English House of Lords) considered that every means that God and nature had placed in their hands, were allowable in the endeavour to bring to a close a war that had cost the Federal Government an immense amount of blood and treasure. I am of opinion, however, from what ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... enough, Alice," said Julian, with sparkling eyes; "you have said enough in deprecating my urgency, and I will press you no farther. But you overrate the impediments which lie betwixt us—they must ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... tide of usurpation which was driving the Southern States into secession. This effort was set on foot by Virginia, the General Assembly of which State, on the 19th of January, 1861, adopted a preamble and resolutions, deprecating disunion, and inviting all such States as were willing to unite in an earnest endeavor to avert it by an adjustment of the then existing controversies to appoint commissioners to meet in Washington, on the 4th of February, "to consider, and, if practicable, agree upon some suitable ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Meryl with a deprecating air, as if asking for her support, and she smiled rather a tired smile and said, "It is only that she has had to bottle it all up for a long time, as you were not at hand. The next time you come she will be ready to smile ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... his hand rather shyly. She had put on her daintiest white frock in his honour, but the rosebuds savoured of vanity to her. She never disputed Malcolm's opinion on any subject, but as she adjusted the flowers she gave Mrs. Herrick a deprecating glance, which the latter met with an ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lack. So tremendous a news feature could not be kept out of print by the other dailies, all of whom now admitted the presence of the pestilence, while insisting that its scope had been greatly exaggerated, and piously deprecating the "sensationalism" of their contemporary. Thus the city administration was forced to action. An appropriation was voted to the Health Bureau. Dr. Merritt, seizing his opportunity, organized a quarantine army, established a detention camp and isolation hospital, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the top of the gangway, and I'll come. My name's Thomas," he said. He regarded Lydia inquiringly a moment before he added: "If you'd just as lives, I rather you'd call me Thomas, and not steward. They said you'd call me steward," he explained, in a blushing, deprecating confidence; "and as long as I've not got my growth, it kind of makes them laugh, you know,—especially ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... deprecating hand on her friend's. "Dear Judy! I'm sorry to have been such a bore, and you are very good to me. But you must have some letters for me to answer—let me at ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... jackals had all stopped howling, Jinks moved slowly forward, with a deprecating air, for he was not sure of his reception. And, indeed, had he known what sort of a reception he would get, it is doubtful whether he would ever have ventured forward at all. For the moment the jackals ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... exaggerated, and that no definite importance should be attached to it, until authoritative information, which would appear in the first ordinary issue of The Times on Monday, had been considered. It was all worded very pompously, and vaguely, in a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader to conclude that The Times supported the generally accepted hoax theory. And we found that all the daily papers of repute and standing had issued similar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our grave ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the financial agents of six Powers, [Footnote: The American Group at the last moment dropped out of the Sextuple combination (prior to the signature of the contract) after President Wilson had made his well-known pronouncement deprecating the association of Americans in any financial undertakings which impinged upon the rights of sovereignty of a friendly Power,—which was his considered view of the manner in which foreign governments were assisting their nationals to gain ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... His manner was soft and deprecating. And Miss Foster stood apart as though she liked neither it nor him. When he left them, to enter, the Convent, ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... house on his return from work, had come to open a door into the room where his wife was, with a deprecating and apologetic air. He gained confidence when, after a few minutes, the sore subject had not ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thing as self-depreciation, and to a certain extent I cannot but feel that we Jews have been more or less guilty of that in the past, have more or less, particularly in our college and university life, assumed a deprecating attitude, apologizing as it were for our existence as Jews, and, probably unconsciously, have kept the fact of our Judaism in the background, and suffered our education and our culture to influence almost everything but our Jewish knowledge ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... He had walked straight into it: another moment, and he might be dragged down, overwhelmed by numbers, torn limb from limb. All that was in him of quelling power he put hastily into his eyes, and manoeuvred his tongue to gentler discourse, deprecating his right to judge "this lady," and merely pointing the marvel, the awful though noble folly, of his resolve. He ended on a note of quiet pathos. "To-night I shall be among the shades. There be not ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... work went slowly forward that Pablo said to me, speaking in an insinuating and deprecating tone: "Up a stair such as this is, senior, the Wise One would ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... said Nora with a deprecating wave of her hand. "Every now and then I felt I couldn't put up with her any more. I forgot that I was dependent on her, and that if she dismissed me, I probably shouldn't be able to find another situation, and I just flew at her. I must say she was very nice about it; she used to look at me ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the crime of plagiarism in this particular I cannot say; neither, as far as that goes, do I care. My readers at least have no reason to complain, and I can count on you, Gerald, to join with me in deprecating the wrath ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... whole people, by the confessions of the very worst members of society. It is not fair, to cry down things which are harmless in themselves, because evil-disposed men may turn them to bad account. Who ever thought of deprecating the teaching poor people to write, because some porter in a warehouse had committed forgery? Or into what man's head did it ever enter, to prevent the crowding of churches, because it afforded a temptation for ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... [83] Written in reply to some very beautiful verses printed in the Evening Mail, deprecating and defying the assumed hostility of the Irish Celts ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... and the fortunate mislaying of a certain message deprecating any prompt action, the Governor General took a popular step in deciding to send every available man to the seat of war, and to render ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... for deprecating the adoption of foreign houses, furniture, and modes of living by the Japanese, is that the expense of living would be so largely, increased as to render early marriages impossible. At present the requirements of a young couple in the poorer classes are: ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... Martie's soul. But she had never been indulged so recklessly in personalities before, and she did not quite know how to meet them. She wanted to say the right thing, to respond absolutely to his mood; a smile, half-deprecating, half-charmed, fluttered on her lips when Rodney talked in this fashion, but even to herself her words seemed ill-chosen and clumsy. A more experienced woman, with all of Martie's love and longing surging in her heart, would have vouchsafed him just that casual touch of hand on hand, that slight, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... face, as he scanned it, melted—changed—became all soft sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, despairingly—"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, and ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... deprecating, appealing, leaning upon them: each woman thought of him as "her child," and when his love made a man of him, they ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... first and to think afterwards, a single one of his heart-cries may prove to the world of greater value as a moral agency than all the intellectual reflections that Leopardi contrived to utter. After examining this and that opinion and doubting over and deprecating them all, Arnold touched firm ground at last in a dictum of Mr. Swinburne's, the most pertinent and profound since those of Goethe, to the effect that in Byron there is a 'splendid and imperishable excellence which covers ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... coarse or casual, it is because they are not sufficiently convinced that they are the servants of the beautiful city and the agents of sweetness and light. Politeness is not really a frippery. Politeness is not really even a thing merely suave and deprecating. Politeness is an armed guard, stern and splendid and vigilant, watching over all the ways of men; in other words, politeness is a policeman. A policeman is not merely a heavy man with a truncheon: a policeman is a machine for the smoothing and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... now past hope. He had pledged himself to abandon the cause; and could he have forgotten the pledge, he had gone too far to retreat. He was now, this moment, sitting in Tom Towers' room with the object of deprecating any further articles in The Jupiter, and, greatly as he disliked the job, his petition to that effect ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... had been greatly extended, almost rebuilt, and its armament about doubled. Besides, the French were allowed to reconnoiter the city and castle and choose their positions of attack without the least resistance, the Mexicans deprecating the war with that nation, and hence ordered not to fire the first gun. Of that injunction the French were aware. When we approached, in 1847, the castle had the capacity to sink the entire American navy." Soon after the landing was ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... Other Societies were soon formed, and on 11th December there assembled at Edinburgh a General Convention of Delegates from the Societies of the Friends of the People throughout Scotland. Its proceedings were orderly, beginning and ending with prayer. Resolutions were passed deprecating violence whether in language or action; and the presence either of Lord Daer or Colonel Dalrymple in the chair showed that some, at least, of the gentry were for Reform. This was exceptional. A little later the gentlemen of several towns and counties asserted their loyalty in flamboyant ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... his danger and deprecating his exile; and the Princess was so much disturbed with the tumult of grief and indignation that she retired to her apartment. They continued with their kind inviter a few days longer, and then ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... must stop talkin' like that, or I'll send you home," reproved Mrs. Burke, looking severely at her son, and with deprecating side-glances ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... her eyes back to his and there was something indefinably touching in their soft, deprecating shyness. . . . Barry's ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and whine followed the receding paletot down the alleys. I put up some of my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited, involuntarily deprecating the creeping ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming the basis of the Christian philosophy."[863] Referring to the words of Paul, Origen says, the truths which philosophers taught were from God, for "God manifested these to them, and all things that have been nobly said."[864] And Augustine, whilst deprecating the extravagant claims made for the great Gentile teachers, allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so far as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as they were hindered by human frailty."[865] They had, as he elsewhere observes, "a distant vision of the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... to cross-examine a modest-looking young woman as to the speed of an electric car. The witness seemed conscious that she was about to undergo a severe ordeal, and Mr. Wellman, feeling himself complete master of the situation, began in his most winsome and deprecating manner: ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... quiet now. "You do not know, yet, what you have seen, but there was a tremendous potential there—an amperage I can't measure with my limited facilities." He waved a deprecating hand about the ill-furnished laboratory. "But you have seen—" His voice trembled and failed at the forming ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... with a deprecating smile, "the streets are broad enough for both? Thou art not so bad a republican as to arrogate ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... liquid gleam in Agatha's eyes, and added in a deprecating manner, "You see, I've now and then limped without a dollar into a British Columbian ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... know all about science, I know—" A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's chair. "This Einstein theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so worried about ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... for a long while," said Captain Jim, with a deprecating smile. "I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it must be Nathaniel, from his great height, and of course the prim-looking little widow in black, standing on the threshold, was Mrs. Barton. She had a nice, plaintive face, and spoke in a mild, deprecating voice. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a deprecating hand while Mr. Layton leaned back in his chair with the air of one ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... for Arlt, as well. Upon several occasions, he had met with marked favor, and the little touch of success had reacted upon his personality, rendering him more at ease, more masterful with his audience. To be popular, art must be modest; but woe betide it, if it be in the least deprecating! However, Arlt was learning to face his public with a fairly good grace, and his public showed itself willing to smile back at him in a ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... hospitality even to those studies which are strangers to me, and would speed them on their way,—therefore, as I have already been making overtures of reconciliation, first between Polite Literature and Religion, and next between Physics and Theology, so I would now say a word by way of deprecating and protesting against the needless antagonism, which sometimes exists in fact, between divines and the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... She is my aunt, I know, but he—" Bob spread deprecating hands. "They are both well, I believe. I think I heard that the fiftieth baby arrived last week. Is that your maid in ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... returned the young man, in a deprecating voice. "I told him how awfully jolly it always is here, and that he would be sure to meet a lot of nice people, but there was no persuading him: he wanted a walk and a talk about our fellows. That is the worst of Trevanion, he always ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... and deprecating, flickered for an instant over his lips. It gave the boyish face a patient and rather sweet ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... things I want to behave like a gentleman and to be recognized as such," the visitor began in an excess of deprecating and simple-hearted pride, typical of a poor relation. "I am poor, but ... I won't say very honest, but ... it's an axiom generally accepted in society that I am a fallen angel. I certainly can't conceive how ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that he was—anything. But at night, a 'Power' would be awakened by groans, and, hurrying to his room, find him huddled nose to knees, moaning. And now, every evening, as though craving escape from his own company, he would come to the little sitting-room, and stand with that deprecating smile, smoothing his jaw-bone, until some one said: 'Sit down, my friend, and have some coffee.' 'Merci, ma soeur—il est bon, il est bon!' and down he would sit, and roll a cigarette with his long fingers, tapering as any artist's, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that the posture ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the odd second mate, came up from below, and with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Hugh laughed heartily at the negro's forlorn appearance, as, regaining his feet, he assumed a most deprecating attitude, asking pardon for tumbling down, and charging it all to his shaky knees. "Look here, there's no other way, except for you to ride, and me to walk. Rocket won't carry double," and ere Sam could ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... contentedly enough and absorbed, to take his father's place among the violins of an orchestra, and to teach music. As he grew older his father's friends told him he was leading a wretchedly lonely life; that he ought to marry. And at this Haldane smiled his deprecating, affectionate smile—a smile that, somehow, convinced his advisers in their ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... and I was much comforted. 'We must remember they are the Lord's children,' said my Father. 'Even the Lord can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' said Miss Marks, who was considerably ruffled. 'Alas! alas!' replied my Father, waving his hand with a deprecating gesture. 'The dear child!' said Miss Marks, bristling with indignation, and patting my hand across the tea-table. 'The Lord will reward your zealous loving care of his poor, even if they have neither ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... a deprecating gesture. "Oh, it's really not difficult up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little known, and it's almost impossible to get ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... there was real enjoyment in a church social," he said, with a deprecating laugh, "to say nothing of the money raised to recarpet the church aisles. And I confess I rather enjoyed the party you gave in Oxford street when Dr. North got ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... sank to a whisper on the last words; and for a moment the room was very still. Then Carey leaned forward and laid one hand on the other's arm with a rather deprecating smile. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... save them from recapture; and, while the former kept close watch on the house to catch the first sign of pursuit that should be made, the latter gave vent to his feelings by railing, in his broken English, first at George for proposing such an expedition, and then by deprecating his own folly for yielding his consent to it. But there was no help now; regrets could not mend the matter, and nothing but rapid flight could ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... sincerely deprecating look. "Oh, you mustn't abuse Miss Elizabeth," said he. "It ain't cruelty, it's only proper pride. And she isn't hard. She has the kindest heart,—to ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... dark, angry expression of Mr Brooke's countenance repelled the Chinaman, and he stopped short and looked from one to the other in a pleading, deprecating way, ending ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the table with a document he pulled from his greatcoat pocket and shrugging his shoulders with a deprecating gesture of the hands, "if her crew feared sharks, they should have defended her against capture. Now—your prize must go back to New England and we lose the profit! Here," says he, "are orders from the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... would she have shone in any walk of life requiring brains. She was the exact opposite of her sister—tall, with big, round, blue, surprised-looking eyes, a weak chin, and a mouth that was generally set in a rather deprecating smile. She held a poor opinion of herself, and was more than willing to fill a secondary place; indeed, she would have been both alarmed and embarrassed if called upon to take the lead. For her elder sister she had an admiration and ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... was silence; and then, with a deprecating manner and in a voice from which all trace of resentment had disappeared, Mr. Brown resumed: "Hutch, old man, you and I have been friends these many years together, and you won't fail me in your friendship ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... "You've had an easy time with this Trust; your share of the work hasn't worried you, kept you awake nights, or interfered with your career. I understand perfectly," he continued, in reply to Hathaway's deprecating gesture. "I accepted to act as your proxy, and I HAVE. I'm not complaining. But it is time that you should know what I've done, and what you may still have to do. Here is the record. On the day after that ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... at the drawing-room door with a pen in his hand, and a deprecating air. He suspected no malice, and only ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... there's a thing I would say to you—before I leave, but it's sore to touch upon." Harry made a deprecating gesture. "No, it's best I tell you. I—I'll come back—never fear—it's my plan to come back, but in this life you may count on nothing for a surety. I've learned that, and to prove it, look at me. I made sure, never would I open ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... had said they would not talk till after church, but there was no deferring the matter then. She was prepared, however, when her niece came up to her in a tender deprecating manner, saying, 'Aunt Ursel, dear Aunt Ursel, it does ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of art and sincerity was too much for the guileless and inexperienced Zoe. She was grieved at the pain she had given, and rose to retire, for she felt they were both on dangerous ground; but, as she turned away, she made a little, deprecating gesture, and said, softly, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... his hands in a deprecating gesture. Could Mr. Wyant blame him? He was young, he was ardent, he was enamored! The young lady had done him the supreme honor of avowing her attachment, of pledging her unalterable fidelity; should he suffer his devotion to be outdone? But his purpose in ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... his head, deprecating all rashness. There is another pause. FARRANT, getting up ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... deprecating smile towards Elizabeth, held out his hand. He was tall and of rather a rugged type for the New York stage. Like the rest of the little party, his eyes were full of curiosity as he shook ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... something of a mystery. Probably it was his name rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether twenty-five dollars a ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... take on so, shepherd, and sit down!" said Henery, with a deprecating peacefulness equal to anything ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... in the room that want putting in order before a little box of beads," said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile that was half amused, half sorrowful. Gypsy cast a deprecating glance around the room, and ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... him. With a little deprecating cough, and a delicate tentativeness, he said, "About kissing, of course, now that you're my sister you have a right to kiss me sometimes; and—and—of course it's all right. But don't you think you could manage with once ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... against the streaming pane before he succeeded in attracting his attention, and then the painter only responded to the wonted signal by an impatient, deprecating flourish of the hand which held the palette. The tea was already simmering on the rickety table in the bow-window, when Oswyn, staggering under his impedimenta, climbed the staircase, and shouldered his ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Cecilia walked across the apartment and took a seat by the side of Alice Dunscombe, with whom she began to converse, in a low, soothing tone of voice. Mr. Dillon bowed with a deprecating humility, and having ascertained that Colonel Howard chose to give an audience, where he sat, to the prisoners, he withdrew to execute his mission, secretly exulting at any change that promised to lead ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... safety-valve. It might have been the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar cupped his billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight frown about his eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his freshly laundered face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture with which he consulted his watch: whatever it was, ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... implied that the flapper had waved a deprecating hand. "Why, I know about him in just the same way; you can't tell ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... The waiter raised a deprecating shoulder but Mary Louise broke in, "Oh, don't bother! This is all right, Joe." She had already seated herself and was drawing off her gloves. Her face looked hot and weary, and long wisps of hair were clinging damply ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... went delicately clothed in such pink and spangles? Hitherto we had known the outward woman as but a drab thing, hour-glass shaped, nearly legless, bunched here, constricted there; slow of movement, and given to deprecating lusty action of limb. Here was a revelation! From henceforth our imaginations would have to be revised and corrected up to date. In one of those swift rushes the mind makes in high-strung moments, I saw myself and Coralie, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... a deprecating movement of his hand. "Don't excite yourself, please," he said soothingly. "I felt bound to let you see there was a serious reason why I should press you to give an account of your movements to-day. Sit down quietly for ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... to meet a "strange girl," he sought a partial cover behind his grandfather's chair. Little "Johnnie" was flitting about impatiently, with her least mutilated doll upon her arm; while her uncle Burtis, seated on a low stool by his mother's sofa, pretended to be exceedingly jealous, and was deprecating the fact that he would now be no longer petted as her baby, since the child of her adoption must assuredly take his place. Webb, who, as usual, was somewhat apart from the family group, kept up a poor ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... sure I would never come to anything, magnanimously remarked, however, that as he bore me no ill will, he would be glad to find himself mistaken; nay, that it would give him "unfeigned pleasure to learn I had attained to the well-merited fame of even Mr. Thom himself." And another, after deprecating the undue severity so often shown by the bred writer to the working man, and asserting that the "journeyman mason" was in this instance, notwithstanding his treatment, a man of fair parts, ended by remarking, that it was of course not even ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... hesitated a moment, her eyes going from one eager face to the other with a deprecating glance. No one knew better than she how delightful this change of diet would be; but she quickly put aside her own ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... indeed in his heart of hearts he knew that this being to whom he had trusted his hopes of bliss was no heroine. She was a lovely, loveable girl, nothing more. How would she greet him when they met presently on the tennis lawn? With tears and entreaties, and pretty little deprecating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps; hardly with heroic resolve to act and dare ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... carefulness of preparation, and prescience with respect to probabilities, was not shown by the English general and his associates in arranging the mode of attack. When the orders were promulgated, on the 7th, many officers shook their heads doubtingly, and observed, in deprecating tones, 'This looks like another 18th of June.' It was generally observed that the attacking columns were not strong enough, that they were too far behind, and that the trenches did not afford room for a sufficient ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Lander safely to the brig. Captain Lake received the traveller pretty cordially, but declared his intention of making the king go back without so much as an obolus. Poor Boy was full of the most gloomy forebodings. His haughty manner was exchanged for an air of deprecating humility. An abundant meal was placed before him, but he scarcely touched it. Richard Lander, disgusted with the stinginess and bad faith of Lake, and unable to keep his promises, ransacked all his possessions; and finding, at last, five silver bracelets and a sabre of native manufacture, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... else. His musical tastes had become a monomania; he grew animated only on the one subject of music; he was miserable all evening until somebody begged him to sing. When he had bellowed one of his airs, he revived again; strutted about, raised himself on his heels, and received compliments with a deprecating air; but modesty did not prevent him from going from group to group for his meed of praise; and when there was no more to be said about the singer, he returned to the subject of the song, discussing its difficulties ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... young Hartly rapturously groaned; and Mrs. Armiger met Glennard's inquiry with the deprecating cry that really she didn't see what there was to laugh at. "I'm sure I feel more like crying. I don't know what I should have done if Alexa hadn't been home to give me a cup of tea. My nerves are in shreds—yes, another, dear, please—" and as Glennard looked ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... is for the august maiden who has found favor in your sight," replied Kano, with a deprecating gesture. "Here, Tatsu, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Therefore he said, humbly. "I beg your pardon. In my heart I believe you worthy of all trust. I will wait and be as patient as you desire, since I know that you cannot have failed to understand me." Then he added, with a deprecating laugh, "There are times, I suppose, when all men are a ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... upon Sibylla?" Lionel said to her one day that he had gone to Deerham Court. He spoke in a low, deprecating tone, and his face flushed; he anticipated he knew not what ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to, but the wind's changed into the north, 'n' I thought mebby you wouldn't want 'em out." Jase turned back aimlessly to the door. His voice was getting cracked and husky, and the deprecating note dominated pathetically all that he said. "You'll have to face the wind goin' home," he said to Billy Louise. "More 'n likely you'll be facin' snow, too. Looks bad, off ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... smiled upon Clara, and made a deprecating gesture with his left hand. Nothing seemed to pierce his ironclad composure. A moment afterward he returned to the theme, and recited some verses called "Stonewall Jackson's Way." He recited them very well. One stanza ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the deprecating expression with which he had felt constrained to discountenance such excesses, and set Mr Sharnall's tongue going again with ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... much,' said General Vincente with a deprecating little smile, 'but they did not fight much. Their pay was generally in arrear, and they were usually in the rear as well. What will you, my dear Conyngham? You are a commercial people—you keep good soldiers in the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... me from her in anger, and I turned and strode housewards without a word or glancing behind. I could hear grannie deprecating my conduct as I departed, and Harold quietly and decidedly ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Mr. Belcher was informed that Yates had breakfasted, and was awaiting orders. He descended to the basement, and stood confronted with a respectable-looking gentleman, who greeted him in a courtly way, yet with a deprecating look in his eyes, which said, as plainly as words could express; "don't humiliate me any more than you can help! Use me, but spare the little pride I have, if ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... return. Once in, she could not get out until, ultimately, the incommunicable name was uttered. The epic says that, in the interim, there was on earth neither love nor loving. In possible connection with which incantations have been found, deprecating "the consecrated harlots with rebellious hearts that have abandoned ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... Joan was promoted to an armchair in the verandah and there one afternoon, after the teas had been handed round, Nurse Taylor brought her a visitor. A tall, sad-faced, elderly woman, who walked with a curiously deprecating movement, seeming to apologize for every step she took. Yet kindliness and a certain strength shone at Joan from behind the large, round-rimmed glasses she wore, and her mouth was clean cut ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... saw it all but now. The grin That gnarled old Gardener Sandy's features; My father, scholar-like and thin, Unroused, the tenderest of creatures; I saw—ah me !—I saw again My dear and deprecating mother; And then, remembering the cane, Regretted—that I'd left ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Street like this in the full glare of day, with a knife and regalia proclaiming the dawn of Boxerism in the Capital of Capitals, and withal, was a very ugly sign. What did K—— do—go home and invite some one to write a despatch for him to his government deprecating the growth of the Boxer movement, and the impossibility of carrying out conciliatory instructions, as some of his colleagues, including my own chief, would have done? Not a bit of it! He tilted full ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... harm in being fat," said Ruby in a deprecating tone. "No, nor in being sleek. I may as well shine ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... prescribing the inches to be marked. Sisters, too, do a great deal of this kind of thing among each other; as all those who are intimate where there are large families of unmarried girls must have seen. The nudges, the warning looks, the deprecating "Amies!" and "Oh Lucies!" and "Hush Roses!" by which some seek to act as household police over the others, are patent to all ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... fervently deprecating a general resignation, an ill-omened purpose of this very course actually flitted across the mind of the young under-secretary himself. A scheme was on the anvil for the education of the blacks in the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Marionetta looked at him with a deprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'—'Let me alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first, and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left him immediately, and returning to ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... of Revolt. Its production brought upon the author a storm of furious denunciation. He had outraged both throne and altar, and his sacrilegious hand had not spared things the most sacrosanct. But a less passionate judgment, while still deprecating something of the author's violence, will recognize the fact that the core of the work is a noble idealism in both politics and religion, and will justify the hot indignation with which the author assails the shams that in modern society ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it;—in such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her." Pitt, then deprecating the conduct of those who judged the Americans with an eye of severity, said—"I acknowledge they have not acted in all things with prudence and temper; they have been wronged; they have been driven ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... began to talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice. For he was the genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor. He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was nothing in it—nothing, that is ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... her mouth curved downward, showing a number of large even white teeth, and made deep lines which suggested various things, according to the nature of the smile, on either side of her face. As a rule one might take them to mean a rather deprecating acceptance of life as it stands—they seemed intended for that—and then Mrs. Bell would express an enthusiasm and contradict them. As she came through the door under the "Entry into Jerusalem," saying that she really ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... his hat, shrugged his shoulders in a deprecating manner, and then quickly lifted his free hand to check the approach of the young man who was ominously near ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578, gave to the press his Theological Reminder of the New Comet. After deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to sinful man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the comet's real source ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the book display a good sense which even Lyly's style cannot conceal. Ascham and Lyly were alone in deprecating the excessive use of the rod, and in so doing were far in advance of the age. Cruelty seems to have been a common characteristic of the school-teacher. "I knew one," said Peacham, "who in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning whip his boyes ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... was left in a pine grove near the house, and following Komatsu along a rocky path they presently found themselves in this delectable little garden. Here they were met by an old man and his wife, a very aged couple whose gentle deprecating expressions almost moved Miss Campbell ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes |
