"Recluse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... squire, being the sort of recluse he is, has never seen the place, or, at any rate, not for years, and knows nothing ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... memory of Aesop. Maximus Planudes, a learned monk of Constantinople, made a collection of about a hundred and fifty of these fables. Little is known of his history. Planudes, however, was no mere recluse, shut up in his monastery. He took an active part in public affairs. In 1327 A.D. he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Venice by the Emperor Andronicus the Elder. This brought him into immediate contact with the Western Patriarch, whose interests ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... must acknowledge, that, amongst some instances of importunity and coarse expressions of low-bred curiosity, I witnessed, on the part of many people of rank, a most delicate sensibility to the condition of the aged recluse. On sending in their cards, they would generally accompany them by some message, expressive of their unwillingness to gratify their wish to see him at any risk of distressing him. The fact was, that such visits did ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... is conscious that he leads two lives, the one trivial and ordinary, the other sacred and recluse; the one which he carries to the dinner-table and to his daily work, which grows old with his body and dies with it, the other that which is made up of the few inspiring moments of his higher aspiration and attainment, and in which ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... sdruscito), was commanded by the Pope to found a monastery in expiation of some grave offence. He chose for his site the summit of the Monte Pirchiriano in the valley of Susa, being attracted partly by the fame of a church already built there by a recluse of Ravenna, Giovanni Vincenzo by name, and partly by the striking nature of the situation. Hugh de Montboissier, when returning from Rome to France with Isengarde his wife, would, as a matter of course, pass through the valley of Susa. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... afterwards became the first bishop of Saintes, and St. Eustelle lived a recluse in her cavern, where miracles were long afterwards performed by her, and where she expired at the same moment that her holy companion suffered the martyrdom which secured him a crown of glory ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... for a huntsman, sir," the girl replied with a smile; "but for your own sake I must urge you to go away at once. I live here with my father—a confirmed recluse who detests the sight of human beings; were he to discover me talking to one I should get into sad trouble, and with regard to you I could not say what ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... observed, to employ the language of Hume, "They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at his age, and under his circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work, as his History of the World." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Commission, will receive, as they deserve, the admiration of mankind. There was at the time, as would be expected, some anger and disappointment at the result. Occasionally some bigot who can find nothing but evil in the history and life of his country, generally some recluse who has little knowledge of affairs, charges the Commission with having wickedly deprived the majority of the people of the fruits of an honest and lawful victory. But, in general, wherever I go I find that intelligent men of both parties are satisfied with the righteousness of the decision, and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... 1310, which resulted in the capture of the Hindu capital, Dvarasamudra; but the portion of the force to which the brothers belonged suffered a defeat, and they fled to the mountainous tract near Anegundi. Here they met the holy Madhava, who was living the life of a recluse, and by his aid they established the kingdom ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... not vulnerable on that score. He was not, it is true, the drag-horse that Herkimer was, who lived like a recluse, shunning the cafes and the dance-halls, eating up the last gray hours of the day over his statues and his clays. But Rantoul, while living life to its fullest, haunting the wharves and the markets with avid eyes, roaming the woods and trudging ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... nights he was shut up in his office, plodding over his maps and papers, or smoking in dreamy comfort by the fire. He was seldom interrupted, for he had earned the character of a social ingrate and hardened recluse in the camp. He had earned it quite unconsciously, and was as little troubled by the fact as by its consequences. On the evening of New Year's Day he crossed the street to the Dyers' and asked for Miss Newell. She presently greeted him in the parlor, where she looked, ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... ancient Sextum, a pretty village between six mountains, pop. 2600, and 2985 ft. above the sea-level. From Seez the road passes the village of Villard-Dessus, and then crosses the Recluse by a lofty bridge near an escarpment of gypsum, called the Roche Blanche, supposed to be the place noticed by Polybius, where Hannibal posted himself to protect his cavalry and beasts of burden. 3m. beyond is St. Germain; the last inhabited village during the winter. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel[1337], and came to be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... excited way, "that I would enter that room to-night of all nights! Why, I should hear his angry voice pealing in every corner! It was a good room for echoes; and he could speak loudly if he chose. Come away! there is a door I always use that leads to my private apartments. I am no recluse; but in these moods I do not care to show myself to people. If you are not afraid, you may come with me, unless you prefer Miss ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... net laid for him! When the moon entered the shadow, four masked robbers (Jocrisse was their leader!) climbed into the Baroness Landsknechtsschild's windows. The hermit in his observatory beheld this incursion, and, being a knight as well as a recluse, what else could he do but rush to the rescue of his fair neighbor? His telescope had told him she was fair. Jocrisse played his part admirably. At the approach of the deliverer the "robbers" took to their heels, and the brave knight unbound the fettered and charming ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... attracted the eyes of Nicholas Bury so much as the facilities it offered for his purpose. Centuries before a pious Derby baker had retired to the self-same spot, and besides this hallowed memory there was the still more substantial cell to hand which the saintly old recluse had ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... before, he had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby. The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed, incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits or temper. The Professor of Greek at Cambridge had been heard to say that no one knew more of ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,—sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... birds frequent the tangled underbrush of ravines and mountain sides where they lead the life of a recluse. They nest at low elevations in the densest thickets, making them of twigs, strips of bark, grasses and feathers, compactly woven together and located in bushes from one to four feet from the ground. They lay from three to five plain, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... where Bowman had left it, he poured out his soul with all the fervour and abandon of which only the shy are capable. Williams was afraid of his own past. It was not a hideously criminal one, for his life had been that of a bookworm and recluse. But out of that past Williams would conjure up the slightest incident—a trifling breach of manners, a mere word out of place, a moment in which he had lost control of his emotions, and the memory of it would put him into a cold sweat ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... in the mill now. The peasants came no longer with their corn. She had enough to live on, and her long seclusion unfitted her for strange men in the mill, and people she must talk to. And so long was the habit of the recluse on her, that though her soul flew leagues her body never wandered more than a few hundred yards from her home. Some who had heard of her, and had glimpses of her, spoke to her when they met; but they could make no headway with this sweet, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... beautiful sequestered village churchyard that is supposed to have furnished the scene of his elegy.[1] The literary habits and personal peculiarities of Gray are familiar to us from the numerous representations and allusions of his friends. It is easy to fancy the recluse-poet sitting in his college-chambers in the old quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are ornamented with mignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but outside may be discerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a fire-escape, for he has a horror of fire. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... for two years, and during that time his friends heard much good of him. He lived the life of a recluse and a hard worker. He learned to know his own strength, and taught the world to ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to write to my dear recluse, intending at first to write only a few lines, as she had requested me; but my time was too short to write so little. My letter was a screed of four pages, and very likely it said less than her note of one short page. I told her her letter had saved my life, and asked her whether ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the adventurous little band not now accounted for is Peter Bell, the former recluse. Peter was forward in the smoking car enjoying his old black pipe, which was his delight and solace and Miss Prescott's particular abomination. Among Peter's other peculiarities, acquired in a long and solitary life, was a habit he had of sometimes making, ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... house The Watch Tower; for the Frenchman was always on the high balcony, telescope in hand, gazing seaward. No one knew his name. He dealt with the villagers through his servant, who could speak English, himself professing that he could not speak the language. He was a recluse, almost a hermit. At odd times, a brig would be seen dropping anchor in the offing. She was always from across the water, from the old country, as villagers to this day insist upon calling Europe. The manor during these peaceful invasions showed signs of life. Men ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Some of us feign for one matter, and some for other. I wis somewhat thereabout, child; for ere I came hither was I maid unto the Lady Julian [a fictitious person], recluse of Tamworth Priory. By our dear Lady her girdle! saw I nothing of ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... employers' favour, and even try to change my character if required to do so. Of course it is a sad and sorry thing to have to live among strangers, and to be forced to seek their patronage, and to conceal and constrain one's own personality— but God will help me. I must not remain forever a recluse, for similar chances have come my way before. I remember how, when a little girl at school, I used to go home on Sundays and spend the time in frisking and dancing about. Sometimes my mother would chide me for so doing, but I did not care, for my heart was too joyous, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Isocrates' advice—Study the people—and properly bore that precept in mind while he was shaping his own verses. The Odes and the Traveller are respectively characteristic utterances of their authors—of the academic recluse, and of the warm-hearted lover ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... whom, from the remissness of their porters, she obtained admittance, were satisfied at their servants' negligence when they heard the intelligence which Mrs Revel had to communicate. They were so delighted; Isabel was always such a sweet girl; hoped that Mrs Revel would not be such a recluse as she had been, and that they should prevail upon her to come to their parties! An heiress is of no little consequence when there are so many younger brothers to provide for; and, before a short month had flown away, Mrs Revel, to her delight, found that the cards and invitations ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the warlike preparations of Servia and Greece, Abdul Hamid looked on Russia's advice in a contrary sense as a piece of Muscovite treachery. About the same time, too, there were rumours of palace plots at Constantinople; and the capricious recluse of Yildiz finally decided to keep his best troops near at hand. It appears, then, that Nihilism in Russia and the spectre of conspiracy always haunting the brain of Abdul Hamid played their part in assuring ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... "Those of Montreal," pursues the worthy nun, "even outdid those of Quebec; for they bound themselves by oath to wear neither ribbons nor lace, to keep their throats covered, and to observe various holy practices for the space of a year." The recluse of Montreal, Mademoiselle Le Ber, who, by reason of her morbid seclusion and ascetic life, was accounted almost a saint, made a flag embroidered with a prayer to the Virgin, to be borne against the heretical ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... me almost my judge," she said, with a desperate air. "I must speak now, in virtue of the right that all calumniated beings have to show their innocence. I have been, I am still (if a poor recluse forced by the world to renounce the world is still remembered) accused of such light conduct, and so many evil things, that it may be allowed me to find in one strong heart a haven from which I cannot be driven. ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... our father's sister—Margaret's and mine; but I ought not to think of it, since a recluse should have no kindred out of her Order and the blessed saints. And there are three Sisters in the Priory named Alianora: wherefore, to make diversity, the eldest professed is called Alianora, and the second (that is myself) Annora, and the youngest, only last year professed, Nora. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... is holding the pen "for my Lord Bolingbroke," who is reading your letter between two haycocks, with his attention occasionally distracted by a threatening shower. Bolingbroke is acting the temperate recluse, having nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, beans and bacon, and a barndoor fowl. Whilst his lordship is running after a cart, Pope snatches a moment to tell how the day before this noble farmer had engaged ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... fatal effect on her pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake. She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse, and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the ceremony of her reclusion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Haydn and Mozart. Whatever I examined besides, told me, with the same consistency, the same strange tale. The owner of these possessions lived in the by-gone time; lived among old recollections and old associations—a voluntary recluse from all that was connected with the passing day. In Miss Welwyn's house, the stir, the tumult, the "idle business" of the world evidently appealed in vain to sympathies which grew no ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... by the name of Mark Rutherford is not the most popular novelist of his time by any means. There are writers with names which that recluse genius has never heard of, probably, whose stories give palpitations to thousands of gentle souls, while his own are quietly read by no more than as many hundreds. Yet his publisher never announces a new story by the Author of 'Mark Rutherford's Autobiography,' ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... that he had been practically a recluse these past several years, had, nevertheless, the metropolite's inborn indifference to the passerby. He had scarcely noticed the steadily increasing group before the steps. Now he ignored them all. He was hungry. That invitation to partake of ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Grace is on the threshold of young womanhood, she goes to stay with her grandfather in Ireland, with the trust from her mother of reconciling him and his son, Bertha's father. Bertha finds her grandfather a recluse and a miser, and in the hands of an underling, who is his evil genius. How she keeps faith with her mother and finds her own fate, through many strange adventures, is ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... fortunate in the preservation of his name is Polybus, the son-in-law of the physician of Cos. This person, who must not be confounded with the monarch of Corinth, immortalized by Sophocles in the tragic story of Oedipus, is represented as a recluse, severed from the world and its enjoyments, and devoting himself to the study of anatomy and physiology, and to the composition of works on these subjects. To him has been ascribed the whole of the book on the Nature of the Child and most of that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... been a recluse, a dreamer, a kind of isolated philosopher, easy-going, content with but little, harboring ill-feeling against no man, and without even a grudge against heaven. I have constantly lived alone; consequently, a kind of torture takes hold of me when I find myself in the presence of others. How ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... his family. The philosopher Euphranor, an elderly member of the Museum, had reached him through the garden gate, and, spite of Philotas's warning sign, told him what was occurring. But Didymus knew the old philosopher, who, a recluse from the world like himself, was devoting the remainder of his life and strength to the pursuit of science. So he only shook his head incredulously, pushed back the thin locks of grey hair which hung down on his cheeks over the barest part of his skull, and exclaimed reproachfully, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... close to each other, of Professor Knight's careful and elaborately annotated Selections from William Wordsworth, of Messrs. Macmillan's collected edition of the poet's works, with the first book of The Recluse, now published for the first time, and of an excellent introductory essay by Mr. John Morley, forms a welcome proof that the study of the [92] most philosophic of English poets is increasing among us. Surely nothing could be better, hardly anything more ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... smote him so on the helm, that it rove to the coif of steel; and had not the sword swerved Sir Percivale had been slain, and with the stroke he fell out of his saddle. This jousts was done to-fore the hermitage where a recluse dwelled. And when she saw Sir Galahad ride, she said: God be with thee, best knight of the world. Ah certes, said she, all aloud that Launcelot and Percivale might hear it: An yonder two knights had known thee as well as I do they would not have encountered with thee. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... in pride of earthly trust, His charger hurled him to the dust, And, by a base plebeian thrust, He died his band before. God judge 'twixt Marmion and me; He is a chief of high degree, And I a poor recluse; Yet oft, in Holy Writ, we see Even such weak minister as me May the oppressor bruise: For thus, inspired, did Judith slay The mighty in his sin, And Jael thus, and Deborah" - Here hasty Blount broke in:- "Fitz-Eustace, we must ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... been surprised to find waiting for him, when he had returned home at a late hour a few nights before his visit to Dr. Hall, a tall foreign gentleman, who had introduced himself as a friend of Mr. Bruce's (so the recluse chose to call himself), and as the bearer of a message from him, the purport of which was to ask whether he would accept Mr. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the governor, forcing a laugh; "who would believe that a mere recluse, a man almost dead, could have committed crimes so numerous, and so ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... meant in these lines to regather, and send To our old home, my life's scatter'd links. But 'tis vain! Each attempt seems to shatter the chaplet again; Only fit now for fingers like mine to run o'er, Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore Whence too far I have wander'd. "How many long years Does it seem to me now since the quick, scorching tears, While I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's premature Moans of pain at what women in silence endure! To your eyes, friend ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... George Bradford is that of a long life as serene and happy as it was blameless and delightful to others. It was a life of affection and many interests and friendly devotion; but it was not that of a recluse scholar like Edward Fitzgerald, with the pensive consciousness of something desired but undone. George Bradford was in full sympathy with the best spirit of his time. He had all the distinctive American interest in public affairs. His conscience was ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... answered the recluse. "Your young eyes will wax heavy with these midnight vigils. You must sleep, my boy, and to-morrow I will communicate my ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... ear have I to hear, no heart to heed The words of wisdom that might serve my need, Frown on my doctors, with the friends am wroth Who fain would rouse me from my fatal sloth, Seek what has harmed me, shun what looks of use, Town-bird at Tibur, and at Rome recluse. Then ask him how his health is, how he fares, How prospers with the prince and his confreres. If he says Well, first tell him you rejoice, Then add one little hint (but drop your voice), "As Celsus bears his fortune well or ill, So bear ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... hesitation in respect to his duty. It is said that he had a brother who was a monk, or rather hermit, who lived a life of reading, meditation and prayer, in a solitary place not far from Falaise. Arlotte's father sent immediately to this religious recluse for his spiritual counsel. The monk replied that it was right to comply with the wishes of so great a man, whatever they might be. The tanner, thus relieved of all conscientious scruples on the subject by this high religious ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... if they were the same with us. If I associate not with these people,— with mankind,— with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed through the kingdom, there would be no need for me to change its state [1].' About the same time he had an encounter with another recluse, who was known as 'The madman of Ch'u.' He passed by the carriage of Confucius, singing out, 'O phoenix, O phoenix, how is your virtue degenerated! As to the past, reproof is useless, but the future may be provided against. ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... anybody else. "He was always readin', when he wasn't goin' fishin' or off in the woods with his gun, and never made no trouble, and was about the easiest man to get along with she ever see. You mind your business and he'll mind his'n." That was the sum of Aunt Hepsy's delivery about the recluse, though no doubt her old age was enriched by constant "study" over his probable history and character. But Aunt Hepsy, since she had given up tailoring, was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had hoped that Bladen would clear up the mystery, for certainly it must have been some sinister tragedy that had cost the general his grip on life and for twenty years and more had made of him a recluse, so that the faces of his friends had become as the faces ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... days to a handsome young man, just admitted to the bar: no fortune, but said to possess talents. Poor La R. quite pale and emaciated; the fruit of dissipation. Celeste as heretofore, abating the influence of time, which is a little too visible; courteous even to flattery. La Planche a recluse. Miss Binney is to be married next week to Mr. Wallace, a young lawyer of this city of good character ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... in a well-ordered life. As with many other common blessings we forget its benefits. Nor are these benefits so evident until we see the blighting result in the life of the one who, for any reason whatsoever, has become a social recluse. We have known a few persons who have once been in society, but who have allowed themselves to remain away from all sorts of gatherings, for a number of years. In every case, the result has been openly noticeable. They have become ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... peculiar attractions for the hermits who fled from the world to embrace an ascetic life. Thus the islands each gradually got its hermit, and the great monasteries grew up by degrees, starting usually in the cell of some recluse. Guthlac, who lived in the seventh century, was of the royal House of Mercia, and voluntarily exiled himself in the Fens. This region was then, according to popular belief, the haunt of myriads of evil spirits, who delighted in attacking the hermits. They assaulted Guthlac in ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... well believe that to men who have never bathed in eastern moonlight, the description will sound hyperbolical and false. But when I think of those old days, how serene they were, how apart, I let the words stand: I am not artist enough to give them a more plausible simplicity. All conditions that a recluse might crave seemed now to be fulfilled for my benefit. The virgin forests and great hills were a perpetual joy, but there was a tranquil pleasure in the plantation which man's labour had reclaimed from these. That was a meet place indeed for ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... she visited a wonderful garden on the edge of the desert belonging to a Count Anteoni, a recluse who loved the Arabs and spent much of his time among them. There, standing with the count by the garden wall at the hour of the Mohammedan's prayer, she had seen Androvsky again. He was in the desert with a Nomad. The cry of the muezzin ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that Lady Eustace, during these summer weeks, was living the life of a recluse. The London season was in its full splendour, and she was by no means a recluse. During the first year of her widowhood she had been every inch a widow,—as far as crape would go, and a quiet life either at Bobsborough or ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the site of the present enormous edifice. It was torn down in 1812. Here for nearly a quarter of a century the tall form, and face pale and meagre from intense thinking, appeared each Sabbath before a people among whom his recluse habits rendered him almost a stranger. Here, having rested upon the desk, upon the elbow of his left arm, whose hand held a tiny book of closely written MS., he read with stooping form and low tones those solemn arguments and tremendous appeals which now thrill us from ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Newton's inspiration, was a series of sermons in verse, somewhat intolerant of all worldly enjoyments, such as hunting, dancing, and theaters. "God made the country and man made the town," he wrote. He was a moralizing poet, and his morality was sometimes that of the invalid and the recluse. Byron called him a "coddled poet." And, indeed, there is a suspicion of gruel and dressing-gowns about him. He lived much among women, and his sufferings had refined him to a feminine delicacy. But there is no sickliness in his poetry, and he retained a charming ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Pray, what's the use of our Reformation? What is the use of our Church and State? Our Bishops, Articles, Tithe and Rate? And still as he yelled out "what's the use?" Old Echoes, from their cells recluse Where they'd for centuries slept, broke loose, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... projects of vengeance entertained by the latter, but thought that the honour of the family was sufficiently cleared by what was evidently a flight. Paolo was disappointed and puzzled by the manner of the unfortunate recluse. Instead of bursting out into furious denunciations, he became as pale as ashes, and then hiding his face in his hands, wept aloud. His agony continued for more than an hour; after which he raised his head, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more securely ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... for all other human nature, save my father's, not to breathe an indignant anathema on the scheming head of the brother-in-law who had thus violated the most sacred obligations of trust and kindred, and so entangled an unsuspecting recluse. But, to give even Jack Tibbets his due, he had firmly convinced himself that "The Capitalist" would make my father's fortune; and if he did not announce to him the strange and anomalous development into which the original sleeping chrysalis of the "Literary Times" had taken portentous wing, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... story, that Milton might have known better than, with his puritanical connections, to have taken to wife a daughter of a cavalier house, to have brought her from a roystering home, frequented by the dissolute officers of the Oxford garrison, to the spare diet and philosophical retirement of a recluse student, and to have looked for sympathy and response for his speculations from an uneducated and frivolous girl. Love has blinded, and will continue to blind, the wisest men to calculations as easy and as certain as these. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... to hard labor will endure more fatigue, than those of sedentary or enervated habits, needs no argument to prove. That the arm of the blacksmith acquires strength beyond the arm of the literary recluse, is altogether obvious. ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... advice. On the 1st of July they reached England, and shortly afterwards went to London to consult Sir Andrew Clark and other eminent physicians. Mrs. Stevenson writes from there: "I suppose it comes from being so long a recluse, but seeing the few people I have seen has quite shattered my nerves, so that I tremble and can hardly speak. Louis, on the contrary, is quite calm, and is at this moment, after a hearty meal, resting quietly in ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... occurred to me how absolutely absorbed I had become in the Martian investigation. Ordinarily a sociable person, in the past week I had become a recluse. College friends that I had seen almost daily since my return to Paris, I now completely neglected, even shunned, lest they should call at my rooms some evening when I was in wave contact with Mars. It also occurred to me that, as surely as my friendship and necessity for ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... recluse,— Still less as one who hates mankind—, Do I thy peaceful precincts choose; But as a student, who can find No joys in Vanity's gay Fair That for an instant can compare With those thou ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... summers, I spent at a secluded haunt down in Camden county, New Jersey—Timber creek, quite a little river (it enters from the great Delaware, twelve miles away)—with primitive solitudes, winding stream, recluse and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs, and all the charms that birds, grass, wild-flowers, rabbits and squirrels, old oaks, walnut trees, &c., can bring. Through these times, and on these spots, the diary from page 76 onward ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "A recluse? What's his hobby: butterflies, stones, stamps, or coins?—No, girl; I don't mean that. I'm a little heavy to-night. Do you recollect the night you donned a suit of mine, bundled your hair under a felt hat, and visited the studios? ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... in his stead, the duty, when it arose, fell to his lot. Never relishing the idea, he would not have believed that it could become so odious. Ere it had taken shape, it loomed vexatious. Looking it in the face, he found it repulsive. No recluse could have been more reluctant to leave his hermitage. Major Anthony Lyveden felt ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... of this singular Greenland recluse was in keeping with his study. The walls were painted light blue, a blue carpet adorned the floor, blue curtains softened the light which stole through the windows, and blue hangings cast a pleasant hue over a snowy pillow. Although small, there was indeed nothing wanting, not even a well-arranged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... two sisters of these brothers Porter were even more distinguished. The younger of them, Miss Anna Maria Porter, became an authoress at twelve years of age; she wrote many successful novels, of which the most popular were the "Hungarian Brothers," the "Recluse of Norway," and the "Village of Mariendorpt." She died at her brother's residence at Bristol, on the 6th of June, 1832. The elder sister, Miss Jane Porter, the subject of this notice, was born at Durham, where her father's regiment was quartered at the time. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... of his castle; but under the hope of coming into the property, the baron set fire to the castle, intending thereby to kill the wife and her infant boy. When De Valmont returned and knew his losses, he became a wayward recluse, querulous, despondent, frantic at times, and at times most melancholy. He adopted an infant "found in a forest," who turned out to be his son. His wife was ultimately found, and the villainy of Longueville was brought to light.—W. Dimond, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... intrusion into secret transactions. The fact was notorious and indubitable; so easy to be proved, that no proof was desired. The act was base and treacherous, the perpetration insolent and open, and the example naturally mischievous. The minister, however, being retired and recluse, had not yet heard what was publickly known throughout the parish; and, on occasion of a publick election, warned his people, according to his duty, against the crimes which publick elections frequently produce. His warning was felt by one of his parishioners, as pointed particularly ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... New World—that is, if you do not disdain the company of strolling players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, though ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... than the smug propriety of print has revealed while he lived. We know, too, that his marriage with the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock proved unhappy, and that for many years he has resided, almost a recluse, with his daughter, in the idyllic retirement of Surrey. The privacy of Boxhill has been respected; next to never has Meredith spoken in any public way and seldom visited London. When he was, at Tennyson's death, made the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... know whence this sort of fellow gets his sulk? not from life; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to have seen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he sees on the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten to one, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of these fierce little notes is not the gentle recluse we are apt to imagine him. They show, on the contrary, that he was not wanting in spirit when occasion demanded. He was himself upright and honest in all his dealings. And he never forgot a kindness, as more than one entry in ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... be wondered that I became a recluse. The recluse is usually one cast up from such bleak experiences of sin and grief that he fears to launch upon life again, and only seeks to hide him in any cavern that may be found along the shore that has received him. Thus it was with me, at least. I dreaded to look one of my townsmen in the face,—they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... presupposes relations of kindness and cooperation with those other persons that form the immediate environment. But it is quite compatible with a neglect of those wider aspects of duty that we call public morality. The Stoics, the anchorites, some communities of monks, and many a well-to-do recluse today, are examples of those who have found a selfish happiness for themselves without taking any hand in forwarding the general welfare. Yet the greatest total good is not to be attained in any such way; if man is to win in his inexorable war with a hostile and grudging ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... Leroy, only son of Baron Barminster, was one of the most noted figures in fashionable society. His father, who since the death of Lady Barminster had lived almost as a recluse, spent the days in the old Castle, and had practically abdicated in favour of his son. So that the colossal income accruing from the coal mines of Wales, the rentals of the Leroy estates in the Southern Counties, and the ground rents of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... was the child of George's uncle, who was a recluse living at Tunbridge. He was a scholar and a pedant, and concerned himself but little about his only child, whose fortune was ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... the Stamp Act Congress, or when Princess Anne was not half a century old, the old church had taken its stand, backed up to the town, recluse from its gossip. Between its tall round doors, with little window-panes like spectacles let into their panels, the ivy vine arose in form like the print of The Crucified, reaching out its stems and tendrils wide of the one glorified window in the gable, in whose red ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the year 1687, when the "Principia" was published, Newton had lived the life of a recluse at Cambridge, being entirely occupied with those transcendent researches to which we have referred. But in that year he issued from his seclusion under circumstances of considerable historical interest. King James ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... will be the distinctive mark of no section of the community whatever. The coarser reasons for privacy, therefore, will not exist here. And that savage sort of shyness, too, that makes so many half-educated people on earth recluse and defensive, that too the Utopians will have escaped by their more liberal breeding. In the cultivated State we are assuming it will be ever so much easier for people to eat in public, rest and amuse themselves in public, and even work in public. Our ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... him to his present lonely life, but he spent his days in doing all the good that lay in his power, and doubtless many a passing traveller was the better in more ways than one for meeting the old recluse. ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... difficult to find out anything concerning him. The man who, a few years before, had delighted Paris with his daily feuilletons, with his duels, with his forty-two lawsuits, who had been the master of revels in the Latin Quarter, in New York lived almost as a recluse, writing a book on Buddhism. While he was in New York I was a reporter on the Evening Sun, but I cannot recall ever having read his name in the newspapers of that day, and I heard of him only twice; once as giving an exhibition ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... controversy became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an unfortunate use. The suspiciousness ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... in a letter to Hector, on March 7 of this year, described Congreve as 'very dull, very valetudinary, and very recluse, willing, I am afraid, to forget the world, and content to be forgotten by it, to repose in that sullen sensuality into which men naturally sink who think disease a justification of indulgence, and converse ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... win a Fellowship, but the weakness of his character led to his being deprived of it. He then went to London and wrote for magazines. From 1823 to 1828 he tried keeping a school at Ambleside, which failed, and he then led the life of a recluse at Grasmere until his death. Here he wrote Essays, Biographia Borealis (lives of worthies of the northern counties) (1832), and a Life of Massinger (1839). He is remembered chiefly for his Sonnets. He also ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... precious glasses did more to soothe the ruffled spirit of the recluse than anything else. He wiped them tenderly, and looking through them, observed that they were all right. Then he sat in profound silence, while Susan, under Katherine's directions, cleared up the hearth, and removed the heap of dust and ashes which had nearly put out ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... religious recluse whom Alexander found residing on Inchcolm is described by Fordun and Boece as leading there the life of a hermit (Eremita), though a follower of the order or rule of Saint Columba. The ecclesiastical writers of these ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... was amazed, disappointed, and disconcerted. For Jenny Atherly, the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in her sombre draperies at the funeral, was no longer to be recognized in the fashionable, smartly but somewhat over-dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her large features and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, she looked even pretty in her excitement. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... had said, "the Prince" was sure to break the spell, that fettered the life of the beautiful recluse. He had been on his way to her father, to seek his permission for himself and his fellow students to pass through his grounds, when all at once a new experience presented itself and he found himself talking all sorts of nice nonsense, to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... referred to as the 'nervous exhaustion' of his style. It were useless to pretend that Gissing belongs of right to the 'first series' of English Men of Letters. But if debarred by his limitations from a resounding or popular success, he will remain exceptionally dear to the heart of the recluse, who thinks that the scholar does well to cherish a grievance against the vulgar world beyond the cloister; and dearer still, perhaps, to a certain number of enthusiasts who began reading George Gissing as a college night-course; who closed Thyrza and Demos as dawn was breaking through ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... which, on a more minute inspection, he discovers to be, for the most part, the rock itself. There stands what is now described as the Einsiedlerstein,—that is, the stony dwelling of the hermit; a grievous misnomer surely,—for though the last occupant of that dwelling was doubtless a recluse, its original purpose, which for many ages it served, was that of a strong-hold, or castle. And perhaps nowhere, even in Germany, can a more perfect specimen be pointed out of the sort of nest which used, in the dark ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... he took the same view of the thing that another of the crew did; and had early resolved, so to conduct himself as never to run the risk of the scourge. And this it must have been—added to whatever incommunicable grief which might have been his—that made this Nord such a wandering recluse, even among our man-of-war mob. Nor could he have long swung his hammock on board, ere he must have found that, to insure his exemption from that thing which alone affrighted him, he must be content for the most part to turn a man-hater, and socially expatriate himself from many things, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches. I am half inclined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvellous and supernatural. He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader which lay on the tomb by the church ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... American. An early residence in Lower California, marriage with a rich Mexican widow, whose dying childless left him sole heir, and some strange restraining idiosyncrasy of temperament had quite denationalized him. A bookish recluse, somewhat superfastidious towards his own countrymen, the more Clarence knew him the more singular appeared his acquaintance with Flynn; but as he did not exhibit more communicativeness on this point than upon their own kinship, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... purchase, and their approaching departure for Rice Lake; and, observing this did not appear to have a very exhilarating effect on the Major, Colonel Rolleston continued,—"When will you come down and see us, Fane? We shall get very tired of our recluse life, and want some one ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... I cannot grope like a mole in the gloomy passages of experience. To the attentive spirit, the revelation contained in books is only so far valuable as it comments upon, and corresponds with, the universal revelation. Yet to me, a being social and sympathetic by natural impulse, though recluse and contemplative by training and philosophy, the character and life of Jesus have spoken more forcibly than any fact recorded in human history. This story of incarnate Love has given me the key to all mysteries, and showed me what path should be taken in ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... for the art, and his encomiums awakened all my ardor. What a blissful period of my existence was it that I passed beneath his roof. Another being seemed created within me, or rather, all that was amiable and excellent was drawn out. I was as recluse as ever I had been at the convent, but how different was my seclusion. My time was spent in storing my mind with lofty and poetical ideas; in meditating on all that was striking and noble in history or fiction; in studying ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... possessed of some medicinal qualities, which, of course, claimed the saint for its guardian and patron, and occasionally produced some advantage to the recluse who inhabited his cell, since none could reasonably expect to benefit by the fountain who did not extend their bounty to the saint's chaplain. A few rods of fertile land afforded the monk his plot of garden ground; an eminence well clothed with trees rose behind the cell, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... offended his new companions. Hay did not return more than twice, Pringle never at all, and there came a time when Archie even desisted from the Tuesday Club, and became in all things - what he had had the name of almost from the first - the Recluse of Hermiston. High-nosed Miss Pringle of Drumanno and high-stepping Miss Marshall of the Mains were understood to have had a difference of opinion about him the day after the ball - he was none the wiser, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... behold him at twenty-five, a student and scholarly recluse, delving all day in accounts and dispatches, grubbing in books at night, and walking an hour before sunrise in the park every morning. It was about then that he accepted the invitation of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... suicide looking very weak, sick, silly, and sheepish. He got well, and went on making pictures; but the picture of the fair, sweet girl, for love of whom he came so near dying, never faded from his mind. His face always wore a sad look, and he lived the life of a recluse, but he never attempted suicide again—he had had ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... and devote himself to the widow Hawkins and her daughters. It is true he rapidly made the acquaintance of the whole church. Some very pleasant seasons he enjoyed with the young ladies at the various gatherings connected with it. He was rallied on his being so much of a recluse. Arch hints were conveyed that doubtless his home was specially agreeable. Was it Louisa or Charlotte? Both these young ladies would simper and look conscious when they were attacked on the subject; for both candidly believed they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... spot I love to meditate, as I watch the sunset; it suits a recluse like me. And there, a little farther off, I have planted some of the trees ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often proposes no other reward to himself than praise, he is easily discouraged by contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and has never hardened his front in public life, or accustomed his passions to the vicissitudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixt conversation, will blush at the stare ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... shadowed by the same cloud of dismay. I smothered in small halls situated over saloons and livery stables, travelling by freight-train at night in order to ride in triumph as "Orator of the Day" at some county fair, until at last I lost all sense of being the writer and recluse. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... was somewhat of a recluse in her habits; she was a nervous, diffident woman, who made weak health an excuse for shutting herself out from society. Fay had lived with her ever since her father's death; but during the last year Miss Mordaunt had been much troubled by qualms of conscience, as to whether she ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... shore. The other passenger was a Roman Catholic priest, whose look and accent proclaimed him to be a Frenchman. He seemed about fifty years of age, and his bronzed faced, grizzled hair, and deeply-wrinkled brow, all showed the man of action rather than the recluse. Between these two passengers there was the widest possible difference. The one was almost a boy, the other a world-worn old man; the one full of life and vivacity, the other sombre and abstracted; yet ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... that which I proclaim my readiness, though not my willingness, to do, I can only say, that you are the first who has doubted the faith of Hugo de Lacy."—And while the proud Baron thus addressed a female and a recluse, he could not prevent his eye from sparkling, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the Brahmin or priestly class sometimes forsake their homes, renouncing their luxurious life, and fly to the jungle, where they wander about for years as ascetics, wearing a single garment, subsisting on the most elementary food, and developing their spiritual consciousness. John remained a recluse until he reached the age of about thirty years, when he emerged from the wilderness to preach the "Coming of the Lord," in obedience to the movings of the Spirit. Let us see where he was, and what he did, ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... pleasant kitchen, was tempted to linger. Sallie's conversation yielded, to the discerning, something of the rich essence of the past; and Agatha began to yearn for a better knowledge of the recluse who had been her friend, unknown, through all the years. But she remembered her industrious plans for the day and postponed her ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... he told me a lot of lies. A casual eye could see no change in the recluse: his head does not hang down on his breast, his locks are not long and matted, his sighs do not resound through the primeval forest and scare away the panthers. When you look closely at him, or have been with him long enough, you ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... and versatility of intellect, the charm or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he never attained during ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... in his power, preparing for his supersession by some more public administration. Modern religion admits of no facile flights from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort to the wilderness and sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts among scorpions in a cave as no better than a deserter in hiding. It unhesitatingly forbids any rich young man to sell all that he has and give to the poor. Himself and all that he has must ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... and misunderstood poet. There never was a man less like the popular idea of him than the writer of The Angel in the House. Certainly an autocrat in the home, impatient, intolerant, full of bracing intellectual scorn, not always just, but always just in intention, a disdainful recluse, judging all human and divine affairs from a standpoint of imperturbable omniscience, Coventry Patmore charmed one by his whimsical energy, his intense sincerity, and, indeed, by the childlike egoism of an absolutely ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... has not studied human nature so superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends you—so his card reads—'charged with an explanation of his unavoidable absence.' As ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... make this shy and furtive Recluse, this Wanderer in the shadow, the greatest of critics? Imagination, in the first place, and then that rare, unusual, divine gift of limitless Reverence for the Human Senses. Imagination has a two-fold power. It visualizes and it creates. With clairvoyant ubiquity ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... hurry and reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boy, made occasional visits to Hamilton, in the West of Scotland, where the descendants of his Covenanting ancestors still lived. One of them was an old bachelor—a recluse sort of man; and yet he had the Nasmyth love of cats. Being of pious pedigree and habits, he always ended the day by a long and audible prayer. My father and his companions used to go to the door of his house to listen to him, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... and thousands of the devout performed pilgrimages to his cell, which was situated on the sea-coast, about two miles from Ericeira. The frequency and severity of his penances gained him great celebrity, and at last it began to be rumoured abroad that the recluse was King Sebastian, who, by mortifying his own flesh, was atoning for the calamity he had brought upon his kingdom. At first he repudiated all claim to such distinction; but after a time his ambition seems to have been aroused; he ceased to protest against the ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... think her morbid, that, with his usual good sense, he would say there was no necessity for telling the squire anything; indeed, that to do so would be undignified. If the squire were indeed going to lead the life of a recluse as he proposed doing, he was not really a man to cause her any apprehension. If he had travelled about the world for forty years, without having his heart disturbed by any of the women he must have ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... heads that we might as well pull it down, and so form a mound over the skeleton. Jack, therefore, with his axe, cut down the other door-post, which, when it was done, brought the whole hut in ruins to the ground, and thus formed a grave to the bones of the poor recluse and his dog. Then we left the spot, having brought away the iron pot, the pistol, and the old axe, as they might be of ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... at midnight as Falstaff and Justice Shallow heard them of old. Here, where only a muffled murmur comes from the work-a-day world, a man in the last century might have dreamed away his life, lonely as Peter Wilkins on the island. One can imagine the amiable recluse composing his homely romance amid such surroundings. Perhaps it was the one labour of his life. He may have come to the Inn originally with the aspiration of making fame and money; and then the spirit of cloistered calm turned him ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... of opinion, and to overawe us by open acts of oppression. Here, one man has been thrown into prison on the charge of high treason; when all they proved against him was the remark, that if the king had signed the Quebec bill, he had broken his coronation oath. There, another, a poor harmless recluse, as I have ever supposed him, is dragged from his hut in the mountains and imprisoned to await his trial for an alleged murder, committed long ago, and in another jurisdiction; when his only crime, with his prosecutors, probably, is his bold denunciations ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... thoughts, and to enjoy himself with his princesses, and he strengthens the guards about the palaces. Four months later like circumstances recur, and the prince sees a leper, and after the same interval a dead body in corruption. Lastly, he sees a religious recluse, radiant with peace and tranquillity, and resolves to delay no longer. He leaves his palace at night, after a look at his wife Yasodhara and the boy just born to him, and betakes himself to the forests of Magadha, where he passes seven years in extreme asceticism. At the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... residenters" have recalled a murder which took place in the vicinity many years ago, when A.T. Stewart lived there and the street was one of the fashionable places of residence of the town. There was a wealthy old gentleman of foreign birth who lived in the street and was quite a recluse. He would pass the time of day with his neighbors when he met them in the street, but he was never known to enter into conversation with any one. The blinds were always drawn in his front windows, and at night there was not a ray of light to be seen about the house. His only servants ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Walter. I am glad to see you coming out of your recluse habits. You want the polish and ease that social life will ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... beasts." With this resolve I made the camels halt and tying up their forelegs ran back after the holy man and called out his name. He heard my loud shouts and awaited me forthright; and, as soon as I approached him I said, "When I had quitted thee a thought came into my mind; to wit, that thou art a recluse who keepest thyself aloof from earthly things, pure in heart and busied only with orison and devotion Now care of all these camels will cause thee only toil and moil and trouble and waste of precious ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... as keeper of the property, a genial recluse, Mr. Robinson Cruse, who for eight years had led an almost solitary life, his nearest neighbor on the island being the sergeant in charge of Fort Gaines, which officer, I was informed, was seldom seen outside of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... should do." "Dame," said the good man, "if it be so as thou sayest, ye must needs suffer it; for against thy lord and against his barons ye may do nought perforce." "Sir," said the good lady, "thou sayest sooth: but if it please God, I were fain to be a recluse nigh unto thee; whereby I may be at the service of God all the days of my life, and that I may have comfort of thee." "Dame," said the good man, "that would be over strange a thing, whereas thou ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... told me,—and soon formed ties elsewhere. Uncle John stayed with Grandfather till he died; then he went abroad, and was gone many years; and since he came back, he has lived here alone. I suppose he has grown a recluse, and does not care to see people. I know Papa often and often begged him to come and make us a visit, and once or twice the time was actually set; but each time something happened to prevent his coming, and he never did come. I think he would have come last year, when dear ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards |
