"Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... constituting a kind of advance guard, through which an Indian enemy would have to penetrate, before they could reach the interior, others were less reluctant to occupy the country between them and the Alleghany mountains. Accordingly various establishments were soon made in it by adventurers from different parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and those places in which settlements had been previously effected, received ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... I said icily, "after that there is no more to be said. Was it for this that, at the age of four, I was borne by two reluctant goats along the Hastings strand? Pardon me, those last six words comprise an iambic line—a fact which is itself the best evidence of my agitation. It is a little winning way I have. Most criminals when charged make no reply. When I am arrested, I shall protest in anapaests. As I ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... sidelong looks at the game; but he said nothing. It was not worth while having a row with men who were so overbearing. Even when money appeared in connection with these postprandial games, into which more and more people were being drawn, he still refrained from raising the question; he was reluctant to draw unduly the attention of "plain Mr. Jones" and of the equivocal Ricardo, to his person. One evening, however, after the public rooms of the hotel had become empty, Schomberg made an attempt to grapple with the problem in an ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... obtaining horses, harness, and other equipments, which had to be wrested from reluctant and ill-supplied quartermasters and ordnance-officers. At last, however, all difficulties were overcome. A few weeks of active drilling, and Fenner's Battery was ready for the field. On August 20, 1862, it received marching-orders ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... into line; to smooth the rough, link the severed, subdue the untamed, and carry prosperity to the waste places. The men who cope with strange, deadly diseases; who fight fever swamps, and compel them to carry a railroad across their reluctant bosoms, though the swamps in turn exact a heavy toll of human life; who make the paths that the women and children will presently pass over, though no such soul-stirring ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... body but of his soul. He recognized his sorrow for the sin which had caused the sickness, and the anguish of remorse and immediately he spoke the word of pardon and of peace. Thus Jesus voiced the message which the world seems reluctant to accept. He declared that physical ills and social evils are less serious than the moral and spiritual maladies of which they are the symptoms and the results; and further, he expressed his claim of divine power to pronounce pardon and ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... inferring the self-denial of its votaries, and at the same time exposing them to persecution. When the cross became triumphant, and its cause no longer required the direction of inspired men, or the evidence of miracles, to compel reluctant belief, it is evident that the converts who thronged into the fold must have, many of them, entered because Christianity was the prevailing faith—many because it was the church, the members of which rose most readily to promotion—many, finally, who, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... acquaint his host with so much; but the worthy Bruce was not so easily satisfied; and not conceiving there was any peculiar impropriety in indulging curiosity in matters relating to his old major, however distasteful that curiosity might prove to his guest, he succeeded in drawing from the reluctant young man many more particulars of his story; which, as they have an important connection with the events it is our object to narrate, we must be ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... carried their caution and watchfulness so far, that for a long time they would not suffer us to approach the shore. However, as we pleaded hard to be allowed to do so, because we could walk so much easier on the wet sand, they at last gave a reluctant consent, taking care to keep between us and the water, even where they were obliged to wade in it. When, also, they allowed us to smoke pipes, they held them with both hands, or fastened to the ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... circumstances, the only thing we can do is to wait," MacRae assented, and I fancied that there was a reluctant quiver in his usually steady voice. "It's going to be smoky at daybreak, but we can see their camp from this first point, I think. There's a big rock over here—I'll show you—you and Sarge can get under cover there. I'll lie up on the opposite side, so they'll have to come between ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... seated herself on the bank of the river, and followed the downward course of the stream, with her eye, to gain the earliest notice of his approach. Thus time passed on. The second year the father greeted a son, and obtained his squaw's reluctant consent to take their daughter with him on his return voyage to the country of the white people. But, no sooner had he commenced his voyage, and although she had another charge upon which to lavish her caresses, than her maternal fondness overpowered her, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Impregnation of queens. Dangerous for queens to mistake their own hives, 158. Precautions against this. Proper color for hives. Time of laying eggs. None but worker eggs, the first season, 159. Directions for hiving. Hives should be painted and well dried. Bees reluctant to enter thin warm hives in the sun, 160. Management with the improved hives, 161. Drone combs should never be used as guide comb. Pleasure of bees in finding comb in their new quarters. Bees never voluntarily enter empty hives. ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... now, Hepzibah!" murmured he, with a torpid and reluctant utterance. "Do with me as you will!" She knelt down upon the platform where they were standing and lifted her clasped hands to the sky. The dull, gray weight of clouds made it invisible; but it was no hour for disbelief,—no juncture this to question that there was a sky above, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... towards me. Had he sought to make me a proselyte to his ruined cause, violence and compulsion were arguments very unlikely to prevail with any generous spirit. But even if such were his object, of what use to him could be the acquisition of a single reluctant partisan, who could bring only his own person to support any quarrel which he might adopt? He had claimed over me the rights of a guardian; he had more than hinted that I was in a state of mind which could not dispense ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... with the whole Gothic army and thought that they should make war in the open field. Belisarius, however, considering that the difference in size of the two armies was still very great, continued to be reluctant to risk a decisive battle with his whole army; and so he busied himself still more with his sallies and kept planning them against the enemy. But when at last he yielded his point because of the abuse ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... thrusting the money into Joe's reluctant hand, "when I make a bargain, I generally keep it. I wish all my money had been spent to ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to sing;—he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet ...
— Laws • Plato
... The late Mr. Richardson, even to a comparatively late period in his professional career, was afflicted with the usual bashfulness about having his work published. We well remember the solicitations, the refusals, the renewed appeals, and, finally, the reluctant and conditional assent to have a single gelatine print from one of his perspectives published. This was the drawing, we think, of the Woburn Library, and was accompanied by a plan. Finding that he had suffered no severe injury from this exposure of his design to the gaze of the cold ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... failed to make provision for the care of British troops in accordance with the terms of the Quartering Act. Parliament therefore suspended the assembly until it promised to obey the law. It was not until a third election was held that compliance with the Quartering Act was wrung from the reluctant province. In the meantime, all the colonies had learned on how frail a foundation ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... point. At Steynham Nevil was sure to be howling all day over his tumbled joss Shrapnel. Once away in the heart of the downs, and Cecilia beside him, it was a matter of calculation that two or three hours of the sharpening air would screw his human nature to the pitch. In fact, unless each of them was reluctant, they could hardly return unbetrothed. Cecilia's consent was foreshadowed by her submission in going: Mr. Romfrey had noticed her fright at the suggestive formalities he cast round the expedition, and felt ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Christ, as Eisler remarks: "Orpheus is connected with nearly all the mystery, and a great many of the ordinary chthonic, cults in Greece and Italy. Christianity took its first tentative steps into the reluctant world of Graeco-Roman Paganism under ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... the night in the valley below. Peter was reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched forward after Roger. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... "All right if you don't stay long," he said. But, to Kent's surprise Krell seemed reluctant to endorse ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton
... robin's note, like the wind's in a tree: The infant morning breathes sweet breath, And with it is blent The wistful, wild, moist scent Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth: And behold! The last reluctant drop of the storm, Wrung from the roof, is smitten warm And turned to gold; For in its veins doth run The very blood of the bold, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dominant personality, the reluctant applicant for work now made his way. He cut an absent-minded figure upon the street, did Mr. Queed, but this time he made his crossings without mishap. Undisturbed by dogs, he landed at the Post building, and in time blundered into a room described as "Editorial" on the glass-door. A ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... When he returned, reluctant and disappointed, with alienated feelings, to his native home, he found that his father was dead, and his mother a solitary widow. By selling the little farm which had served them for a support, and restricting ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... having up there,' she said. 'Somebody asked Mr. Neigh to tell a story which he had told at some previous time, but he was very reluctant to do so, and pretended he could not recollect it. Well, then, the other man—I could not distinguish him by his voice—began telling it, to prompt Mr. Neigh's memory; and, as far as I could understand, it was about some lady who thought Mr. Neigh ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... whom he communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... have no authority to say what: enough that the messenger departed and our friend remained. But, alas! a second envoy followed and proved to be of sterner composition; and with a basket full of food, kava, and tobacco, the reluctant hero proceeded to the wars. I am sure they had few handsomer soldiers, if, perhaps, some that were more willing. And he would have been better to be armed. His gun—but in Mr. Kipling's pleasant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were packed away by reluctant hands, boxes tied up and labelled hopefully for the next dance, while heads that had been curled for the big occasion bore testimony to the skill of many willing fingers (not a few of the fingers bearing blisters to still further testify to such achievements), ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... unsheathed the reluctant Sword of Freedom against his Friend, Humanity must suppose that his Heart was wrung with Compunction, while his Country enjoined and impelled ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... corner now to the South panel again, there are two figures representing Lust trying to embrace a reluctant woman. Then one comes to Vanity once more, and the story of life on earth is done. Again there is a gap, and the scene leaves the earth for the unknown world after ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... 1688, and in a book entitled The Guardian's Instruction, a Mr. Stephen Penton gave the world a pleasing and lifelike little narrative—superior, in my opinion, to anything in Verdant Green— telling us how a reluctant father was persuaded to send his son to Oxford; what doubts, misgivings, hesitations he had, and how they were overcome. I take the story to be fictitious. It is written in the first person, professedly by the hesitating parent: but the parent can hardly have been ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their half of the allotted work, in the race to drive home the last spike and wedge into place the last scantling. For days now with a grave sort of satisfaction which he hardly understood himself, Young Denny had time after time put all his strength against a reluctant log, skidding timber back on the hillside, and watched the lithe pike-pole bend half double under the steadily increasing strain. Somehow he felt very sure that one or the other of the captains would single him out; they couldn't afford to pass ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had placed in the middle of the living-room floor. "I'll do my best to sell everything," he said, "but it's going to be difficult going till we get a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place to shop until the local markets ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... in heavy vapor, threw an eldritch shimmer upon the little group that silently bore the body of the martyred Lazaro from the old church late that night to the dreary cemetery on the hill. Jose took but a reluctant part in the proceedings. He would even have avoided this last service to his faithful friend if he could. It seemed to him as he stumbled along the stony road behind the body which Rosendo and Don Jorge carried that his human endurance ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... universally referred to their Anglo-Saxon blood, while the transcendent influence of the Scandinavian element is entirely overlooked. The so-called Anglo- Saxons were a handful of people in Holstein, where they may still be found in inglorious obscurity, the reluctant subjects of Denmark. The early emigrants who bore that name, were, it is true, from various portions of Germany; but even if the glory of our English ancestry be transferred from Anglen, and spread over the whole country, we find ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... from dispatching by the vigour of the Prussian Queen of Greece and by the veto of the King. Possibly there was precipitation, for the naval attack did not await the arrival of the military forces, which were before long on the way, extorted, it would seem, by impetuous pressure from a reluctant and unconvinced authority. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... time,' and she had heard his expressions of remorse. He had blabbed to many witnesses of a precious something hidden aboard the 'Worcester;' to Anne he said that he had now thrown it overboard. We shall see later what this object was. Anne was a reluctant witness. Glen, a goldsmith, had seen a seal of the Scots East India Company in the hands of Madder, the inference being that it was ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... of Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at Pagan spiritualistic seances, with the usual accompaniments of darkness and fraud. His perplexed ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... took a metal cup between his teeth and began to go the round of the "distinguished audience." When a spectator failed to drop a coin in, he put his two fore paws upon the reluctant giver's pocket, barked three times, then tapped the pocket with his paw. At this every one laughed and ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Columbus seized two of them to act as guides in his journey further down the coast. Weighing anchor on October 5th he worked along the Costa Rica shore, which here turns to the eastward again, and soon found a tribe of natives who wore large ornaments of gold. They were reluctant to part with the gold, but as usual pointed down the coast and said that there was much more gold there; they even gave a name to the place where the gold could be found—Veragua; and for once this country was found to have a real existence. The fleet anchored there on ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... been reluctant to take sides in the contest and in answer to John Allan's solicitations they said, with quiet dignity, "We do not comprehend what all this quarreling is about. How comes it that Old England and New England should quarrel and come to blows? The ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... butterfly, flits before the face of beauty. There is the rapid flirt which signifies scorn, another motion is the graceful wave of confidence, an abrupt closing of the fan indicates vexation, and the striking of it into the palm of the hand expresses anger. The gradual opening of its folds intimates reluctant forgiveness, and so on. In short, the fan can be more eloquent than words, if in the hands of a Mexican senorita, stimulated by the watchful eyes and the adoration of an ardent Romeo. But this is only preliminary. All parents are presumed to be implacably and absolutely opposed ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... were most dangerous to those who drank distilled liquors; so that temperance, which was every where commendable and salutary, would be absolutely necessary to preserve health. Finally, they were plainly told that if they were distrustful, or reluctant at putting forth their strenuous exertions, they must not engage ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... often mistaken, and so productive of mischief in goading reluctant authorship to the publication of unwise, immature, or feeble literature, prevailed upon Mr. Reed to give the world the present book; and we have a real pleasure in saying that for once this affectionate counsel has done the world a favor and a service. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... strengthened her gentle hold upon Peter's reluctant arm. Her bright eyes were a trifle blurred. "Last night, when we met on the bund," she went on in a small voice, "I knew immediately—immediately—what you were. A chivalrous gentleman! A man who would shelter and protect any helpless woman ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... or three years the children's librarian has herself gone after each book long overdue, and with each visit she has seized the opportunity not only to recover the book, but to become acquainted with the mother and to gain her often reluctant confidence. Most of the readers live in tenements, many of which open into one common yard. The appearance of the library assistant usually causes much commotion, and she is received often not only by the mother of the negligent child but also the mothers ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... them amiably, with a secret smile over the memory of a time when they had purloined the Little Doctor's pills and had made reluctant acquaintance with a stomach pump. "Where's the ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... from the moment when she met him in her husband's office. She had guessed, but not certainly, that it was still inimical at least to John, and the exact words of Uncle Meshach's warning had recurred to her time after time as she met his reluctant, cautious eyes. Nevertheless, it was by the sudden uprush of an instinct, rather than by a calculated design, that she, in her home and surrounded by her daughters, began the process of enmeshing him in the web ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Daunted by what fear Stayed ye me sacrificing to the God[2] Who guards this deme Colonos? Let me know What cause so hastened my reluctant foot. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... be offending any prejudices of theirs, for we believe they would be as unwilling to throw impediments in the way of Institutions of Learning not intended to belong exclusively to their Church, as they would be reluctant to admit the interference of others in the management of their own valuable Seminaries where the exclusive maintenance of one form of doctrine and worship tends to secure in all respects the advantages of unity ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... West bitterly, as they led their reluctant ponies along the bed of the stream, fortunately for them too stony for any discoloration to be borne down to show the keen-eyed Boers that someone had passed that way, and at the same time yielding no impress of the footprints of ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... The doctor seemed reluctant to leave. Ernestine was alone with him for a minute in the hall, and she was sure he started to say something once and then changed it to something else. But when he did leave, it was with merely ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... the confirmation of the title of augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius, and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from his choice a praetorian prefect ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... unerring skill, O'erlooks the busy, crowded mart, And, like a kingly domicile, Its burnished dome and sculpture thrill With admiration every heart; And strangers pause beyond the rill To view its grandeur, lingering still, And with reluctant ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... recovering, could the pleasure have been thus purchased. The truth is that within a few days he had been conscious of a feeling of which he had never before suspected himself, and it was this feeling that made him so reluctant to depart. And yet, when, in the silence of his chamber, and away from the blue eyes of Anne Bernard, he reflected upon his position, he was obliged to confess, with a sigh, that prudence required he should leave a society as dangerous as it was sweet. To be in the same ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that that visit will be marked by the same independence of their help as the others had been. And then he just lets a glimpse of his pained heart peep out in the words of my text. 'I seek not yours, but you.' There speaks a disinterested love which feels obliged, and yet reluctant, to stoop to say that it is love, and that it is disinterested. Where did Paul learn this passionate desire to possess these people, and this entire suppression of self in the desire? It was a spark from a sacred fire, a drop from an infinite ocean, an echo of a divine voice. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... pay for the outfit, himself, but this Will would not hear of; and Captain Mayhew was the less reluctant to let the lad have his own way as he had, in the course of the interview with the agent, agreed that the lad's services deserved a handsome recognition from the firm; and that the sum of one hundred guineas should ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... luggage had by this been put on Odo's carriage, and the latter advanced to Fulvia. He had drawn a favourable inference from the concern she had shown for his welfare; but to his mortification she merely laid two reluctant finger tips in his hand and took her seat without a word of thanks or so much as a glance at her rescuer. This unmerited repulse, and the constraint occasioned by Cantapresto's presence, made the remainder ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Wister wrote: "I sent you back the photo. from the youthful miniature of Maj. Butler & regret very much that I have no copy of the other left; but four sets were made of wh. I sent you one & gave the others to his few living descendants. I regret this all the more as I am reluctant to trust the miniature again to a photographer. I live out of town so that there is some trouble in sending & calling for them; (I went personally last time, & there are no other likenesses ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... cloth-merchant, were early in their habits, and the house was already open. With heavy and reluctant step, Luis ascended the stairs, and then paused, irresolute and unwilling to enter the Count's apartment. At last, summoning resolution, he was about to lift the latch, when it was raised, and Count Villabuena, completely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... husband was killed in an accident and she was left rather badly off. People out there were very kind to her. She had been hurt in the accident and was laid up for months. Then this rich German asked her to marry him, and as she was reluctant to return home and face grandpa, she said 'Yes.' But perhaps it ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... should really like to do would be to translate in extenso Dr. Sommer's re-edition of the Vulgate Arthuriad. But I should probably die before I had done half of it; no publisher would undertake the risk of it; and if any did, "Dora," reluctant to die, would no doubt put us both in 'prison for using so much paper. Therefore I had better be content with the divine suggestion, and not spoil it by my human ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... III., for his part, was but little touched by the shouts of Long live the king! that he heard as he left the palace; he was too much disquieted to be rejoiced at them. He did not return the greeting of the municipal functionaries or of the mob that blocked his way. "You see how reluctant he is to embroil himself with the Huguenots," said the partisans of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... resource in arms, the most quiet, the most passive, the most timid of the human race rose up in an universal insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments of the tyranny, who in several places were massacred. The insurrection began in Rungpore, and soon spread its fire to the neighboring provinces, which had been harassed by the same person with the same oppressions. The English Chief in that province had been the silent witness, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... cleaning my rifle,' which would be another thing altogether, he probably had not yet begun cleaning it when he heard Miss Byrne coming and went out to speak to her; it is possible some feeling akin to shyness might make him reluctant to confess this afterwards in public. Indeed I now feel quite sure that this is the explanation of the matter. Later on, when I questioned her again, she did not appear certain which of the two forms ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the steps. They took their way to the stables. A dim light shone from the open door of the motor-house. The Duke went into it ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... started with reluctant steps. He became reminiscently aware as he hastily reviewed the events of the day, that in carrying out one or two measures for the good of the house, he had laid himself open to an investigation ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... happy confidence the governor set out for Nauvoo on the morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers who accompanied him told him that he was apprehensive of an attack on the jail because of talk he had heard in Carthage. The governor was reluctant to believe that such a thing could occur while he was in the Mormon city, exposed to Mormon vengeance, but he sent back a squad, with instructions to Captain Smith to see that the jail was safely guarded. He had apprehensions of his ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... supplying hints for the removal" of a difficulty, and with full acknowledgment "that in minor points, whether in question of fact or of judgment, there was room for difference or error of opinion," and that I "should not be ashamed to own a mistake, if it were proved against me, nor reluctant to bear the just blame ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... it came to pass that Lily Dale and Emily Dunstable were soon very intimate, and that they saw each other every day. Indeed, before long they would have been living together in the same house had it not been that the squire had felt reluctant to abandon the independence of his own lodgings. When Mrs Thorne had pressed her invitation for the second, and then for the third time, asking them both to come to her large house, he had begged his niece ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... after Rockingham's death, gossips noticed that Fox and Burke continued, long after the Speaker had taken the chair, to walk backwards and forwards in the Court of Bequests, engaged in earnest conversation. According to one story, Burke was very reluctant to abandon an office whose emoluments were as convenient to him as to his spendthrift colleague. According to another and more probable legend, it was Burke who hurried the rupture, and stimulated Fox's jealousy of Shelburne. The Duke of Richmond disapproved of the secession, and remained ...
— Burke • John Morley
... indefinable flavor of absurdity that pervaded his courtly bearing. She would never love him as she loved Capes, of course, but there are grades and qualities of love. For Manning it would be a more temperate love altogether. Much more temperate; the discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending wife. She had been quite convinced that an engagement with him and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromise which distinguishes the ways of the wise. It would be the wrappered world almost at its best. She saw herself building up ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Scip, booted and spurred, standing in the center of the room. Softly Cummings approached the picture, his finger found the spring through the canvas and, pressing it hard, the frame swung slowly forward as if reluctant to give up ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... month of August, it having become evident that General Harney was reluctant to proceed to Utah, anticipating a brighter field for military distinction in Kansas, Colonel Johnston was summoned from Texas to Washington and there ordered to hasten to take command of the expedition. On the 17th of September, he left Fort Leavenworth, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... other Spartan king, was at this time in the Phokian territory at the head of an army. The Ephors now at once sent orders to him to cross the Theban frontier, while they assembled a force from all the allied cities, who were most reluctant to serve, and objected strongly to the war, yet dared not express their discontent or disobey the Lacedaemonians. Many sinister omens were observed, which we have spoken of in the life of Epameinondas, and Prothous the Laconian openly opposed the whole campaign; ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the white heat of the city had scorched upon itself. By midday, when I rode forth with half a dozen of my men, the streets were packed, and more reluctant than ever were the folk to give way before me. If looks could kill I should have been a dead man that day. Openly they spat at sight of me, and, everywhere ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... French occupation of Rome—he could only bestow upon the arduous task the scanty leisure available from more engrossing duties. The work was therefore so imperfectly done that the cardinal himself was reluctant to publish it; and the learned and honest Barnabite under whose editorial auspices it appeared was obliged to append a formidable list of errata, and to make a gentle apology in his preface for his friend's inaccuracies. But, with all its defects, the five quarto volumes ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... surrounding the basin of the Wash were being rapidly drained and converted into rich alluvial districts. The unreformed condition of the poor-law, under which the support of the poor fell upon each individual parish, instead of a union of parishes, made landlords reluctant to erect cottages on the reclaimed land for the benefit of their tenants. Labour had to be obtained for the cultivation of these new lands, and that of women, girls and boys, being cheaper than the labour of men, was consequently very largely employed. The tendency to moral and physical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... but one joy for the hills to him—the Blight was coming back to them. All those weary waiting months he had clung grimly to his work. He must have heard from her sometimes, else I think he would have gone to her; but I knew the Blight's pen was reluctant and casual for anybody, and, moreover, she was having a strenuous winter at home. That he knew as well, for he took one paper, at least, that he might simply read her name. He saw accounts of her many social doings as well, and ate his heart out as lovers have done for all time gone ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... cutlery with which he had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, and many ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... fires—a luxury which even wealthy people cannot always command. Miss Maitland made it Moses' business to see that the Mansion wood-piles were high and broad, long before the autumn came, and the hardship of splitting smaller sticks for kitchen and kindling fell upon the reluctant Montgomery. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... resolved upon. Lord Wharncliffe said to me yesterday morning that the real obstacle to the Tories coming into office was the Queen. This was the only difficulty; but her antipathy to Peel rendered him exceedingly reluctant to take office, and there were many among the party who felt scruples in forcing an obnoxious Ministry upon her. This is, in fact, the real Tory principle, but I doubt many of the Tories being ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the most disturbed and impoverished parts of Ireland are those in which the farms are largest; while the two most prosperous and best ordered counties—Armagh and Wexford—are the counties in which small farms most abound. I call a reluctant witness, Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish tenant, be his holding ever so small, gets common justice and is not subjected to caprice, he gives no trouble. That gentleman informs us that there are 650 estates of all magnitudes, from 100 ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... since I parted from thee? But things that are wasted, and full of ruin, All unworthy, even of me. Yet, it was to me that the gift was given, No greater joy have the Gods above,— That night of nights when my only lover, Though all reluctant, granted ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... sighed Anne, sitting down on the top step of the veranda. "I'm too lazy to look at my books to-night." The four girls had reached Wayne Hall and the beauty of the autumn night made them reluctant to go into the house, where an evening of hard study awaited them. "I'd like to stay out here for hours ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Strangely reluctant to leave the house, I went downstairs again, looked into the living-room, and passed on to the dining-room. I contemplated the sideboard, in front of which Randolph Schuyler had met his death. Many pieces of silver and glass stood upon ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... grave the question, however essential the answer to their well-being, there does not seem to be even now on the part of the multitude an earnest desire for the truth. Their wishes and emotions cloud their vision and they are reluctant to have those clouds brushed aside lest the truth thus revealed be harsh and condemnatory. The truth often causes pain. As said by the Preacher, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." People generally give much the ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... before," she said, "and I can do what others cannot do, what, indeed, medical opinion would not allow them to try. No one meddles with me, and I can slip along and do my work with less expenditure of strength than any," Had there been some one to fill her place she would have gone, but she was very reluctant to shut the doors of the stations for so long a period. How she regarded the idea may be gathered from a letter to a friend who had ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... from the table and stood irresolute with it in his hand. He was hungry, but his essential Puritan fastidiousness, combined with that pride of race which he knew to be un-Christian, rendered him reluctant to dip into the common pot or to eat on equal terms with these people. Besides, the sun and his amazing introduction to the island had given him a raging headache: he could not think clearly nor rid himself ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... thee not, thus afflicted, for a God; And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 60 Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands Scorches and burns our once serene domain. O aching time! O moments big as years! All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth, And press it so upon our weary griefs ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... had a moment's chance of life; so far from being ratified by nine States as a condition precedent to going into effect, it would have been summarily rejected by a majority of the States. In the language of John Adams, the Constitution was "extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people." The theory of State sovereignty was successfully ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... year following the appearance of Wallace's essay in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, both Hooker and Lyell urged Darwin to publish the result of his long and patient research. But he was still reluctant to do so, not having as yet satisfied himself with regard to certain conclusions which, he felt, must be stoutly maintained in face of the enormous amount of criticism which would arise immediately his theory was launched on the scientific world. And thus the event was ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... of forty or fifty men were at work. They clamped their peavies to the reluctant timbers, heaved, pushed, slid, and rolled them one by one into the current, where they were caught and borne away. They had been doing this for a week. As yet their efforts had made but slight impression on the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... victory. He also believed that there was only one man in the party whose leadership would surely win, and that man was Horatio Seymour. But Seymour had higher ambitions than the governorship of New York and was very reluctant to run. Nevertheless, he could not resist Richmond's insistence that he must sacrifice himself, if necessary, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... mother kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer." ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward downright sort ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... 1809, when he was near forty; after that he dwelt in retirement in Berlin until he was called to the throne of the Netherlands. At that time he had exchanged his German possessions for the grand duchy of Luxemburg; and was therefore naturally reluctant to be deprived of the latter. The old soldier survived his abdication only a few years, dying ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... complaining of the unwarrantable and illegal interference by her son on behalf of a slave who was being very properly punished for gross misconduct; and of the personal assault upon his son. The writer said that he was most reluctant to take legal proceedings against a member of so highly respected a family, but that it was impossible that he could submit to such ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... distinguished visitor. Then Madame Moronval, who had been summoned, made her appearance. She was a small woman, very small, with a long, pale face all forehead and chin. She carried herself with great erectness, as if reluctant to lose an inch of her height, and perhaps to disguise a trifling deformity of the shoulders; but she had a kind and womanly expression, and drawing the child towards her, admired his ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... light which shone from Heaven: and by this great light above him, as Jurgen mounted higher and yet higher, the shadow of Jurgen was lengthened beyond belief along the sheer white wall of Heaven, as though the shadow were reluctant and adhered tenaciously to Hell. Yet presently Jurgen leaped the ramparts: and then the shadow leaped too; and so his shadow came with Jurgen into Heaven, and huddled dispiritedly at ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... and she took up her theme again with visible and painful effort. A sickening familiarity, a weariness of it all before she had begun, showed in her voice and in her pale, reluctant smile. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Reluctant as he had been to go, the change was good for Peter. The dawn grew rosy, promised sunshine, fulfilled its promise. The hurrying crowds at the depot interested him: he enjoyed his coffee, taken from a bare table in the station. The horizontal morning sunlight, ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was beside himself, for he still remained with that evil companion with whom he had lived, nor did he seem to have feeling or thought for any other thing. It pleased our Lord that by serious conversations and arguments he was induced not to visit his wicked companion; and after a reluctant "yes" had been drawn from him, almost by force, he did afterward abandon her, so entirely that it seemed as if he had never known her. He made a general confession, and began a new life, to the wonder of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the guessing and conceits of a multitude of writers, most trustworthy of whom are the early Christian Fathers, who, to the end that they might arouse the attention of the sleeping nations, yielded a reluctant, but impartial and graceful, tribute to the long-forgotten creeds of Chaldea, Phenicia, Assyria, and Egypt. Nevertheless, they would never have appealed to the doctrine of Buddha as being most like to Christianity in its rejection of the claims ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... shown," wailed poor Dulcie piteously, clinging to the reluctant Paul; "I know. Don't fight with him, Dick. I say you're ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... as marching "without orders" from right to left with his own brigade and the Michigan brigade. In the text the words "without orders" have been omitted. This is not because my own recollection of the events of that day is not the same now as then, but for the reason that I am reluctant to invite controversy by giving as statements of fact things that rest upon the evidence of my ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... everything had turned out as David had calculated, you would have seen that his plan was worthy of his talents. The guineas would have lain safely in the earth while the theft was discovered, and David, with the calm of conscious innocence, would have lingered at home, reluctant to say good-bye to his dear mother while she was in grief about her guineas; till at length, on the eve of his departure, he would have disinterred them in the strictest privacy, and carried them on his own person without inconvenience. But David, you ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... reluctant good-bye to my kind entertainers, took a last longing, lingering look at lovely Margarita, and mounted my horse. Scarcely was I in the saddle before Marcos Marco, who was also about to resume his journey on the fresh ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... and representing so earnestly her desire that their marriage should be unknown till his return to England, upon a thousand motives of delicacy, propriety, and fearfulness, that the obligation he owed already to a compliance which he saw grew more and more reluctant, restrained him both in gratitude and pity from persecuting her further. Neither would she consent to seeing him in Suffolk; which could but delay his mother's journey, and expose her to unnecessary suspicions; she promised, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... during his anxious seat upon the throne of the East, reduced to use a base and truckling course of policy—if he was sometimes reluctant to fight when he had a conscious doubt of the valour of his troops—if he commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage—his expedients were the disgrace of the age, rather ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... consequences of the wrath. To have inserted the battle at the ships, in which Sarpedon breaks down the wall of the Greeks, immediately after the occurrences of the first book, would have been too abrupt altogether. Zeus, after his reluctant promise to Thetis, must not be expected so suddenly to exhibit such fell determination. And after the long series of books describing the valorous deeds of Aias, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Menelaos, the powerful intervention of Achilleus appears in far grander proportions than would ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually fixed directly upon the eyes of the person ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... our cravings; the very beauty of the day and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty setting a keener edge upon them! How faint and languid, finally, we would return toward nightfall to our desired morsel, half rejoicing, half reluctant, that the hours ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... nest their home hung over the village on the unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart Brenner and his kin. The village said that he—and all those who belonged to him as well—were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster had truly written itself through-out their history. His mother was mad, a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... laughter died on stiffened lips. There was not a smile left among all the ship's company. Not a word was spoken. Many turned their backs, trying to look unconcerned; others, with averted heads, sent half-reluctant glances out of the corners of their eyes. They resembled criminals conscious of misdeeds more than honest men distracted by doubt; only two or three stared frankly, but stupidly, with lips slightly open. All expected James Wait to say something, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... second visit to Boston I was asked to invite him to attend an evening meeting of a scientific club, which was to be held at the house of a distinguished member. I was very reluctant to ask him to be present, for I knew he could be easily bored, and I was fearful that a prosy essay or geological speech might ensue, and I knew he would be exasperated with me, even although I were the innocent cause of his affliction. My worst fears ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future. Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where we belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She, apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at least. At ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... two yards of each other; and even so, shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary passenger had reached the journey's end. The swirl of snow and sleet screaming out of the blackness at the end of the station-building enveloped the porter in an instant, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sleeps, and all night sings; There in cold remote recesses That nor alien eyes assail, Feet, nor imminence of wings, Nor a wind nor any tune, Thou, O queen and holiest, Flower the whitest of all things, With reluctant lengthening tresses And with sudden splendid breast Save of maidens unbeholden, There art wont to enter, there Thy divine swift limbs and golden. Maiden growth of unbound hair, Bathed in waters white, Shine, and many a maid's by thee In moist woodland ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... through all the long drive, and finally the jangling bells which had so recalled that last joyous day at home—at home—had brought her to a point where this meeting between mother and son—these two stony, unpleasant creatures exchanging a reluctant rub of uninviting cheeks—as two savages might have rubbed noses—proved the finishing impetus to hysteria. They were so hideous, these two, and so ghastly comic and fantastic in their unresponsive glumness, that the poor girl lost all hold ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lethargy, speaking no word, making no sign that he had noticed a different attendant. When she had quite finished, he breathed a long sigh of relaxation; his quivering, weak little body went suddenly limp, and Miss Beaver had a good scare as she bent over him, trying to bring back that weary and reluctant spirit to ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... exercised an extensive authority; being termed, by Lord Dacre, "chief maintainer of all misguided men on the borders of Scotland."—Letter to Wolsey, July 18. 1528. The Earl of Angus, with his reluctant ward, had slept at Melrose; and the clans of Home and Kerr, under the Lord Home, and the barons of Cessford, and Fairnihirst, had taken their leave of the king, when, in the gray of the morning, Buccleuch and his band of cavalry were discovered, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... those views and hopes that pointed to future improvement, it was not a matter of triumph or exultation to the lecturer or any body else, to the young or the old, the wise or the foolish; on the contrary, it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt |
