"Reticent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Weircombe fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David" concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... deliberately, having received it from an unquestioned and unquestionable authority." It would seem that this authority could be none other than the authority of the Acting Secretary of War and General of the Army of the United States, who, reticent as he is, does not pretend to withhold his opinion that the country is in imminent peril, and in peril from the action of the President. But it is by some considered a sufficient reply to such statements, that, if Mr. Johnson should overturn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... have been with are all passing on by rail from Wady Haifa, and when we land there we go in the afternoon to see them off at the station. They are a keen, hard-bitten crew, and make us feel proud of our countrymen; they are reticent mostly, bearing the unmistakable stamp of responsibility. Men who "build the Empire" are little apt to "slop over" or demand sympathy. The boyish vigour remains with them later than with most men, but it is tempered by a certain hardness outside. The train is particularly comfortable ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... scarcely remind you that although you told me some little of the story of yourself and a young lady to whom you were deeply attached, you were very reticent as to the cause of her dementia; and your story ended with her disappearance in Wales. I, for my part, had not the smallest doubt that she had fallen down a precipice and was dead. Everything—especially the fact that you last saw her on the brink ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... matters much. In his letters to his two most intimate friends, he recalls her brilliant promise, her happy marriage, her] "faculty for art, which some of the best artists have told me amounted to genius." [But he was naturally reticent in these matters, and would hardly write of his own griefs ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... him news of Brian. He was healthy and happy and wrote no word of coming in. There, Whitaker felt himself, Brian was over-reticent. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... published interview, Mackaye expressed his concern for the case; but he likewise was reticent about making theatre capital out of it. He ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... embittered by some cross, for though grim of countenance, rough of speech, cold of manner, a keen observer would have soon discovered traces of a deeper, warmer nature hidden, behind the repellent front he turned upon the world. A true New Englander, thoughtful, acute, reticent, and opinionated; yet earnest withal, intensely patriotic, and often humorous, despite a touch ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... came to herself and realised where she was, and found out from her attendant the circumstances under which she had been brought to the hospital, she was still more reticent. For her first thought related to the annoyance Archie would feel at her detention in a public hospital; her second, to the unmerciful use Madame would make of the circumstance. She could not reason very clearly, but her idea was to find her cousin and gain her ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... Sempland was ordinarily a reticent and a quiet man, but this possibility awoke him into action. He pleaded so long and so hard, and so determinedly that he overbore the other man, and finally wrung from him a grudging assent ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... talk about this period of her life with entire openness. She has, however, written me a letter in which she tells the essential truth, although clothing it with a certain pathetic attempt to conceal the one episode in her life about which, to me, she was perhaps unreasonably reticent. She did not say that she and Gertrude were separated from Terry for a time, but she wanted to convey the impression that she and Terry, from the start, struggled along together, which was essentially, though not literally, true. Continuing her account, from the time the two families cast her and ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... late years has talked to me so much, and with such affectionate admiration, of "Julia Countess," as he called her, never happened to have mentioned this interview; he was very reticent about his love-makings, especially about any love that ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... his early life, but learned only that his father had been "engaged in the express business." He was ably reticent. ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... exhibited no trace of confusion, assuring the sergeant that he had not seen the man Cohen for several days. Cohen had come to him with an American introduction, which he, Huang, believed to be forged, and had wanted him to undertake a shady agency, respecting the details of which he remained peculiarly reticent. In short, nothing had been gained by this official interrogation, and Huang blandly denied any knowledge of an attempted burglary of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... assimilation, digestion, can never be intermitted. Out of these we descry a well-begotten selfhood—in youth, fresh, ardent, emotional, aspiring, full of adventure; at maturity, brave, perceptive, under control, neither too talkative nor too reticent, neither flippant nor sombre; of the bodily figure, the movements easy, the complexion showing the best blood, somewhat flush'd, breast expanded, an erect attitude, a voice whose sound outvies music, eyes of calm and steady gaze, yet capable also of flashing—and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... near the middle of the afternoon, when Waukko, who was the leader of the little group, suddenly showed great excitement, which speedily communicated itself to his companions. All three of these scamps were sullen and reticent, frequently riding for hours at a time without exchanging a word, so that this excitement meant something. The three halted simultaneously, and talked loudly and excitedly, so that Fred suspected that some cause for a quarrel ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... very reticent, and consequently but little was heard of the proceedings in Albemarle Square. A good many loiterers had stopped to stare at the darkened windows of the great mansion; but as two coffins had been borne from the place, it was forgotten outside that another still remained. What might have been ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... she can hardly do into her task-work; and there she is taught,—how she shall learn to love; how she shall receive the lover when he comes; how far she should advance to meet the joy; why she should be reticent, and not throw herself at once into this new delight. It is the same with the young man, though he would be more prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship. But he too will there learn either to speak ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... expected a brother of Rodgers Warren's to look. Oddest of all, if he was such a brother, why had neither Caroline or Stephen mentioned his existence? According to his story, Graves, the Warren lawyer, had warned the children of his coming. Caroline had been very reticent concerning her father's will, the amount of his estate, and the like. And Mrs. Dunn had repeatedly, though discreetly, endeavored to find out these important details. Neither hints nor questions had resulted satisfactorily. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... murmured the local duchess to Lady Northgate. "I don't wonder at Lord Angleford's losing his heart. Half the men in the room would fall in love with her if she were free. And I like that quiet, reticent manner of hers; not a bit shy, but dignified and yet girlish. Yes, Lord Angleford is ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... that he had heard the book attributed, on private authority from Morus, to "a certain French minister," no name was given. Farther, in the Fides Publica, published some months afterwards, Morus was still almost chivalrously reticent. While declaring that the real author was "alive and well," and while describing him negatively so far as to say that he was not in Holland, nor within the circle of Morus's own acquaintances, he still avoids naming him, and only appeals to himself to come forward and ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... to spare their adversaries, sometimes they find habit too strong for them, and lunge home in spite of themselves. Besides, he began to be really interested in Madame Lescande—in her coquettish ways, at once artful and simple, provoking and timid, suggestive and reticent—in short, charming. ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... men, Jeanne's life and death were surrounded by marvels and mysteries. Many had from the first doubted her having perished by the hand of the executioner. Certain were curiously reticent on this point; they said: "the English had her publicly burnt at Rouen, or some other woman like her."[2632] Others confessed that they did not know ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... an entrance into the dressing room; he, moreover, alleged that he sat upon the throne, that he saw the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal cry, but his story was such a romance, that no reliance could be placed upon it. He was extremely reticent as to the cause of his intrusion into the Palace, the only explanation which he vouchsafed, on being arrested, was, that he wanted to see what was going on in the Palace, that he might write about it, and, if discovered, he should be as well off ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... itself to hideous war on the very day after Lyman Teaford had wed beyond the purple. It was awful, yet somehow fitting. Anything less than a World War would have appeared inconsequent, anti-climactic, to these two so closely concerned in the preliminary catastrophe, and yet so reticent that neither ever knew the other's wound. Wilbur Cowan may have supposed that the entire Penniman family, Winona included, would rejoice that no more forever were they to hear the flute of Lyman Teaford. Certainly ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... stammer out his request. Never would they accost me or otherwise disturb me while I was writing or reading; yet at other times they could be positively impertinent, especially if excited. The islander is very nervous; when he is quiet, he is shy and reticent, but once he is aroused, all his bad instincts run riot, and incredible savageness and cruelty appear. The secret of successful treatment of the natives seems to be to keep them very quiet, and never to let any excitement arise, a point in which ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... of furs. She was so white-skinned that she startled La Hontan as an apparition of Europe. He got but one black-eyed glance. She drew her blanket over her head. The group had doubtless heard the conference outside, but ignored it with reticent gravity. The hunter of the lodge was on his heels by the embers, toasting collops of meat for the blanketed princess; and an Etchemin woman, the other inmate, took one from his hand, and paused, while dressing it with salt, to ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... been pleasant to exchange even these few friendly words, for of late the habit of silence had been forced upon Pierce Phillips. For weeks now he had toiled among reticent men who regarded him with hostility, who made way for him with reluctance. Haste, labor, strain had numbed and brutalized them; fatigue had rendered them irritable, and the strangeness of their environment had made them both fearful and suspicious. There was no good- fellowship, no consideration ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... bring into the light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is difficult to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for any of us to be always talking of our own parentage. We may be generally reticent as to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even our brothers and sisters in our ordinary conversation. But if a man never mentions his belongings among those with whom he lives, he becomes mysterious, and almost open to suspicion. It begins to be known that nobody ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... out of pieces of words, or compounded words. Besides this difficulty, no language can be taught successfully by means of a dictionary, until the human memory acquires more power. Three years of hopeless struggle with the mighty debris of his symbols left him, although in the main reticent, a mighty man of words. But his labors were not lost. Through that heroic, unaided struggle he gained the first true glimpses into the elements of language. It is a startling fact, that an uneducated man, of a race we are pleased to call barbarians, attained in a few years, without books or tutors, ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his little moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs. Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was late when Cassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was no fault of HIS, and they had to ride ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... reticent in his manner with strangers, (but this is readily explained by his imperfect command of English, and his reluctance to expose his deficiency) though voluble to the last degree when he falls in ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... in such a small minority. But probably not the saints alone will be saved, and it is some such hope that Mr. White has constantly in mind when making his constant appeal to conscience. It is, of course, a dramatic, not a didactic appeal. He preaches so little and is so effectively reticent that I could almost with he had left out the preface of his book, good as it is. Yes, just because it is so good I could wish he had left it out. It is a perfect justification of his purpose and methods, but they are their own justification with all who can think about them, and the others ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mrs. Ansell, with her usual calm precision, proceeded to measure the tea into the fluted Georgian tea-pot. She could be as reticent in approval as in reprehension, and not for the world would she have seemed to claim any share in the turn that events appeared to be taking. She even preferred the risk of leaving her old friend to add half-reproachfully: "I told Amherst what you ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... an example to set, was she fit for that? She was so quaint, so original, there were such depths of passionate thought and feeling side by side with such strange shallows of social and intellectual ignorance—though reticent she was so direct, though tenacious so simple, her love, if difficult to win, had such marvelous vitality when won—that he felt as if she spoke a language sweeter and purer in many of its tones than the current speech of society, but a language with which neither his own people nor that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Wainwright Mr Watkins was less aggressive, and explained that the green was intended to be the first coating of his picture. It was, he admitted in response to a remark, an absolutely new method, invented by himself. But subsequently he became more reticent; he explained he was not going to tell every passer-by the secret of his own particular style, and added some scathing remarks upon the meanness of people "hanging about" to pick up such tricks of the masters as they could, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... me, as I read and re-read it, a cold, hard letter. I said as much to my aunt some days after this; but she wisely urged that my father was ever a reticent man, who found it difficult to let even his dearest see the ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... interference was impossible. There were men among them, however, who watched his course warily, and who were not indisposed to follow the example he had set by revolt against hated institutions, but for the most part they went their way, quietly reticent and content to wait for time to demonstrate the truth or error of their convictions. But for the most there was ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... in Europe could give a man cause for pride. He was apparently the only individual in the Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose. A purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain. Reticent, often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... such minds that the war-mongers condemned and destroyed. Those men were selected for sacrifice because they had the very qualities which, when lost to the community, then it dies in its soul. They were candid with themselves, and questioned our warranty with the same candour, but were modest and reticent; they were kindly to us when they knew we were wooden and wrong, and did our bidding, judging it was evil. In France they subdued their insurgent thoughts—and what that sacrifice meant to them in the lonely night ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... not been reticent about her feelings made Tai-yue unwittingly flush scarlet. Taking hold of her sleeve, she screened her face; and, turning her body round towards the inside, she pretended to be fast asleep. Pao-yue drew near her. He was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... from any desire to be reticent, but simply because the details appeared to him to be altogether uninteresting to ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... often in after-years with a sense of thankfulness that for once she, who was so reticent, had let Hester see how ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the children in regard to the money. She was naturally reticent, and dreaded the gossip of the little town, which made a nine-days' wonder of every small happening; and had besides that self-respecting pride which dislikes to thrust its misfortunes on a careless world. But perhaps more than all, a certain loyalty to the dead mother closed her lips. She ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... as were congenial, though in this Isaac Hecker was more ready than his companions. Father Walworth tells an incident characteristic of both himself and his transcendental companion. He was admonishing young Hecker to be more reticent among the crew and was asked why. "You wouldn't like to kneel down and kiss the deck before all those sailors," said Walworth. "Why not?" was the reply. "Then do it." And down dropped Hecker to the deck and kissed it ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... reticent to a degree. With great difficulty I found my way to his insides, and then found that he had practically none to speak of at all. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... pause of wonder and doubt, then a low cry from Hannah, as she flew into her husband's arms; and in another second the whole family had closed around the father and brothers, and for once the hardy, stern, reticent New England nature, broken up from its foundations, disclosed its depths of tenderness and fidelity. There were tears, choking sobs, cries of joy. The madam held her lace handkerchief to her eyes with real need of it; ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... him deeply that he must so greatly disappoint his parents. But the consideration that weighed most with him was this: they urged upon him in every possible way that hopes had been raised in the heart of the young lady herself, and although he was always very reticent in regard to her. I think she seconded the family scheme, for the marriage would have joined two very large estates. Although my heart often stood still with fear while he apparently wavered a little, I can ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... which makes Corio, Allegretti, Infessura, and Matarazzo so amusing. He gossips as little as Machiavelli, and has no profundity to make up for the want of piquancy. The interest of his chronicle is greatest in the part which concerns Savonarola, though even here the peculiarly reticent and dubitative nature of the man is obvious. While he sympathizes with Savonarola's political and moral reforms, he raises a doubt about his inner sincerity, and does not approve of the attitude of the Piagnoni.[1] In ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... of Africa, a little below the equator; that their name was Billings, and that they had no friends in the little settlement for which they were bound. Upon the point of their purpose in visiting the place Condon found the boy reticent, and so he did not push the matter—he had learned all that he cared to know ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the removal of cancers, tumors, etc. The doctors were quite willing to answer questions, within certain limits; but when I asked them about the composition and properties of their drugs they became reticent at once and said that they were secrets. They do not use chloroform in operations, but they all asserted, and their assertions were corroborated by Mr. Ng Choy, that they possess drugs which throw their patients into a profound sleep, during which the most ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... was she reticent. Her father, she said, had come to this country on an errand for the rebels, but what that errand was she did not explain. "He is General Moreto now," she remarked; "and if ever Senor Zayas becomes President and our party comes into control ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... salons, he cannot have been altogether unable to hold intercourse with his brother-artists. And, lastly, who are the pianist friends that were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his aristocratic worshippers? The fact that Chopin became subsequently less social and more reticent than he had been in his early Paris days, confined himself to a very limited number of friends and families, and had relations of an intimate nature with only a very few musicians, cannot, therefore, be attributable to ill-health alone, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... answering the old woman in monosyllables, when she questioned him as to his camp for the night and his movements on the following day. Possibly he may have thought it unwise to take old Durham's wife into his confidence, but if so the men under him were not so reticent, and when they came in a few moments later, chatted freely on their preparations for the night, and half in jest roughly warned the old woman that the ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... far as it went. She could pronounce between three and four thousand Martian words, and she couldn't assign a meaning to one of them. Selim von Ohlmhorst believed that she never would. So did Tony Lattimer, and he was a great deal less reticent about saying so. So, she was sure, did Sachiko Koremitsu. There were times, now and then, when she began to be afraid that they ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... sure of it," answered his wife, "sure that something is troubling her very much, and I was about to speak of it to you. She is such a reticent, reserved child, that I did not like to try and force her confidence, although I have opened the way for her to give it to me if ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... but the complements of each other. Fisk was bold, unscrupulous, dashing, enterprising, ready in execution, powerful in his influence over the lower and more sensual order of men. Gould was artful, reticent, long-headed, clear of brain, fertile of invention, tenacious of purpose, and no more burdened with unnecessary scruples than his more noisy and flashy companion. They were not long in joining fortunes. At ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... great men or great nations become illustrious. His home was singular, and singularly calculated to nurture into greatness any child born as John Herschel was with natural gifts, capable of wide development. At the head of the house there was the aged, observant, reticent philosopher, and rarely far away his devoted sister, Caroline Herschel, whose labours and whose fame are still cognisable as a beneficent satellite to the brighter light of her illustrious brother. It was in the companionship of these remarkable persons, and under the shadow of his father's ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... slightly, then, with admirable self-command, he recovered himself and became as tight-lipped and reticent as ever. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... the Puritan is to be censured chiefly for the rigidity of his conscience. He will not let us enjoy such "natural" pleasures as mirth, love, drinking, and idleness without a bitter antidote of remorse. He keeps books dull and reticent, makes plays virtuously didactic, and irritates all but the meek and ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... of riding in a locomotive cab, where, with the constant rattle and roar, conversation is very difficult, the engineman, Truman Stump, had become a most reticent man, who rarely spoke unless it was necessary. He had thus gained the reputation of being ill-tempered and morose, which was exactly what he was not. Everybody admitted, though, that he was a first-class engine-driver, and one who could ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... father, when he heard of this performance, lost all self-command. In his ordinary temper the most humane of men, he simply raged at Gumbo. He would teach him, he said, to destroy his papers. And it appeared, from what we could piece together (for old Tom was very reticent and my father very incoherent), that he actually branded or tattooed a copy of what Gumbo had burnt ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... greater or less degree, all the Northern nations. The average Frenchman or Irishman excels the average Englishman, German or American in courtesy and ease of manner, simply because it is his nature. They are more social and less self-dependent than men of Teutonic origin, more demonstrative and less reticent; they are more communicative, conversational, and freer in their intercourse with each other in all respects; while men of German race are comparatively stiff, reserved, shy and awkward. At the same time, a people may exhibit ease, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Flaxen sat with the letter in her hand and the paper on her lap. She was meditating deeply, but what was in her mind Anson never knew. She had grown more and more reticent of late. She sighed, rose, ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... always reticent. We avoided publicity; didn't want Mister John Q. to know about our affairs. You surely remember how reluctant our father was when it was found that his private bank must be nationalized. One little share ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... here, defective powder, deficient artillery, and the like; but not a word did he say about the Cooper[855] and Boudinot intrigues. It was too early to commit himself on matters so personal and yet so fundamental. The Indians were not so reticent. The evil influence that Cooper had over them, due largely to the fact that he professed himself to be interested in Indian Territory to the exclusion of all other parts of the country, was beginning ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... little in common with his lodger, who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the impression of actual, physical deformity. I remember that during our short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding apparently ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strange lady was residing at Beaumanoir. He was too thoroughly a libertine of the period to feel any moral compunction for any excess he committed. He was habitually more ready to glory over his conquests, than to deny or extenuate them. But in this case he had, to the surprise of Cadet, been very reticent, and shy of speaking of this lady even ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... she could have laid on a little heavier the brush that traced Elsie's eyebrows, and continued them a little longer at the temples. Then, her upper lip was, if anything, the least bit too short. Yet what a sweet, concentrated little mouth it was,—reticent and pure, and not over-ready with smiles, though the hidden teeth were small, flawless, and of baby whiteness! Yes, the mother sighed, just a touch or two,—and she knew just where to put those touches,—and the girl had been a beauty. If nature would only consult ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... collection, resulting from the slow accumulation by more than one generation of quilt enthusiasts, that a quilt collection at all worth while can be found. In such a case the owner is generally so reticent concerning his treasures that the community as a whole is never given the opportunity to profit ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... real sob at parting, Julia had a swift vision of her little sister years ago sitting on that same stair weeping from a fall, and herself comforting her; and she put her arms around Ellen, and kissed her for the first time in many reticent years. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... inheritor, as you know—for I'm sure nobody has been reticent upon the subject—of these broad lands," with a sweep of the hand towards the plains outside. "Captain Monk is now pleased to inform me that he thinks of substituting for ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... much that was stern and hard and reticent in the Puritan character, there was also an innate delicacy concerning the inward life. They made few appeals to each other's sympathies. Perhaps this very reserve gave them strength to endure trials heroically ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... mind for a space. "I don't know," he said at last. Billy had always been rather reticent about his people. She demanded descriptions. She demanded an account of Billy's furniture, Billy's clothes, Billy's form of exercise. It dawned upon Benham that for some inexplicable reason she was hostile to Billy. It was ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... generally reticent about telling their names; and when they do tell, the name given is usually the one borne in childhood; an old man will generally answer " am-a'-ma," ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change, so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her ma ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... the Emperor Alexander called upon Hortense, little Louis Napoleon, who was naturally very retiring and reticent, took a ring which his uncle Eugene had given him, and, stealing timidly over to Alexander, slipped the ring into his hand, and, half frightened, ran away with all speed. Hortense called the child to her, and asked ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... days that followed, Mrs. Peck's honest soul was both vexed and anxious concerning her charge. She found Columbine extraordinarily reticent. As she herself put it, it was impossible to get any sense ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... their compartment, Rossiter offers David a cigar but the young man prefers smoking a cigarette. By this time they have exchanged names. D.V.W. however is reticent about the South African War—says it was all too horrible for words, and should never have taken place and he can't bear to think about it and was knocked out quite early in the day. Now all he asks is peace and quiet and the opportunity of studying law in London so that he may ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... more of him now," said Hilda; "and yet, though you are very reticent on the subject, I have a shrewd suspicion, my darling, that you ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... them altogether, and consigning them to the limbo of inventions and lies. In spite of certain anecdotes which are, to say the least of it, ridiculous, there may be found in these texts some accurate details and authentic narratives which the Evangelists, cautiously reticent, did not think proper to record. The Middle Ages by no means lent themselves to heresy when they ascribed to these purely human Scriptures the value of probable legend and the interest ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... thought - Slurred by those added braveries; So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure, - From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demurenesses, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture should subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,—Thou'rt fair even so, But better Fair I use ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... about their own affairs. He came of a secretive, suspicious stock; and had no mind at any time to part with unnecessary facts about himself. As talkative as you please about art and opinion; of his own concerns not a word! London had made him all the more cautious and reticent. No one knew anything about him except as an artist. He always posted his letters himself; and he believed that neither his landlady nor anybody else suspected him ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... obligation to any kind of restlessness. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, but as he did none there was nothing for it but that the kingdom of heaven should yield to his leisure. The delicate, the abstinent, the reticent graces were his in the heroic degree. Where shall I find a pen fastidious enough to define and limit and enforce so many significant negatives? Words seem to offend by too much assertion, and to check the suggestions of his reserve. That reserve ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... the colonel was in his happiest vein, and by the time the coffee was served, had succeeded not only in entertaining the table in his own inimitable way, but he had drawn out from each one of his guests, not excepting the reticent Fitz, some anecdote or incident of his life, bringing into stronger relief the finer qualities of him who ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... not told you. I so dread the possibility of losing your friendship that I will never tell you unless you promise me beforehand to forgive me. I know that is unfair, but it is the only way I can see out of a difficulty that my foolish reticence has led me into. Few people, perhaps, consider me reticent, but in some cases I am afraid I am even deceitful. Won't you make it easy to "'fess" so I ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... is, in the vast majority of cases, a person easily persuaded to talk, and not disposed to be reticent in keeping secrets. Father Benwell began to see his way already to the necessary information. "Is Mrs. Eyrecourt ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Praise from her usually reticent husband never failed to deepen the tint of pink on Aunt Sarah's still smooth, unwrinkled, youthful looking face, made more charming by being framed in waves of silvery gray hair, on which the "Hand of Time," in passing, ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... my word and honour, Lady Chiltern," Gerard Maule said to his hostess, "I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide." Mr. Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern, and came to her habitually in ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... matters attentively, "was as good as the best." Looking down the long table after they were seated, he smiled with satisfaction and expanded, a subtle suavity born of being host to distinguished folk unlocking his ordinarily reticent tongue, causing him even to joke with Mrs. Adams, whom he ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... became of Mookerjee? Soothly, who can say? Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way, Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute. But the belts of all of them simply ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... point alone caused a little—in certain quarters not a little—shaking of heads, we are told by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre. The distinguished professor was a friend of "Hume the atheist"; he was himself ominously reticent on religious subjects; he did not conduct a Sunday class on Christian evidences like Hutcheson; he would often too be seen openly smiling during divine service in his place in the College chapel (as in his absent way he might no doubt be prone to do); ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Vladimir Ulianov, and that's what he called himself. He had proved to be reticent, secretive, deceitful, diligent, and utterly unhuman. His lower lip was shaped as though something dripped from it. Blood, perhaps. His eyes were brown and not entirely unattractive. But God makes the eyes; the mouth ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... I found this type of angler to be remarkably reticent as to experience and method. Moreover, the tackle used was amazing to me. Stiff rods and heavy lines for little fish! I gathered another impression, and it was that bonefish were related to dynamite and chain lightning. Everybody who would listen ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... of dismay. He had meanly ignored the note, with the intention of cheating Mrs. Barclay. He had supposed it was lost, yet here, after some years, appeared a man who knew of it. As Mr. Barclay had been reticent about his business affairs, he had never told his wife about having deposited this sum with Squire Davenport, and of this fact the squire had meanly ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were over, John Jay, the quiet, the modest, the reticent, was known as a safe and competent lawyer—Kissam having pushed him forward as associate counsel in ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... two considerations,—a glimpse into heaven, and a parable. Fair interpretation can scarcely deny that Christ here teaches that His children are under angel-guardianship. We should neither busy ourselves in curious inferences from His reticent words, nor try to blink their plain meaning, but rather mark their connection and purpose here. He has been teaching that pre-eminence belongs to the childlike spirit. He here opens a door into the court of the heavenly King, and shows us that, as the little ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... characteristically reticent mood. Already had he observed that he would have endured another Valley Forge with greater pleasure than the ordeal of a wedding ceremony. Still he was nicely dressed for the occasion, wearing for the first time a new full dress uniform ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... and arms, and swung violently against a gate, was usually part of this ceremony, and it no doubt still exists, although I have no particular information, which indeed is rather difficult to obtain, as boys, while they remain boys, are reticent concerning ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the spot; then the poor girl fell on his dead body screaming in a distracted manner. She was arrested and brought to jail at Medicine Lodge; and was there six months. Being Jail Evangelist I went to see her, sometimes twice a week. When I first saw her she was reticent, and did not seem glad to see me. She was so nice, that I fell in love with her and I asked the ladies of the W. C. T. U. to visit her, but they thought her a hopeless case. She bought a Bible and we would read ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... her husband was a Roman Catholic, and would not go with her to St. Mark's Church. True, she had known him to be a Catholic when she married him; but she had not known or dreamed that these Catholics were so set and obstinate in their religion. He had been so reticent upon the subject that she had supposed him quite indifferent. Once married, she could convert him; O, that would be a very easy matter. He need go to St. Mark's but once to be so delighted that he would wish to go there ever after. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... who educated himself in solitude, was reticent in society, serious and discreet in his personal life and conduct toward others, he was free and unconstrained in his letters, in which he often reveals himself, without hesitation, just as he felt. We see him worried, troubled, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... works he was reticent on the matter of religion, and what he has left on the subject was not written with a view to publication. (As an exception may be mentioned, a few words of concurrence with Dr. Abbot's 'Truths for the Times,' which my father allowed to be ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Alan's reply to their applications for particulars of his life and career was of the most meagre nature. Although in common with the majority of other distinguished men, averse to giving publicity to the incidents of his life, he was otherwise than reticent with his friends, and was never happier than when surrounded by them. His house in Gloucester Place was a rendezvous during many years for his companions in arms, and his "Highland cousins" (as he fondly termed them) were always received ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... had come upon the happy home. Guillaume was becoming more and more annoyed about Salvat's affair, not a day elapsing without the newspapers fanning his irritation. He had at first been deeply touched by the dignified and reticent bearing of Salvat, who had declared that he had no accomplices whatever. Of course the inquiry into the crime was what is called a secret one; but magistrate Amadieu, to whom it had been entrusted, conducted it in a very noisy way. The newspapers, which he in some degree ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... underlying the words that were said, that she should not spend too much on his clothes, she knew nothing. Indeed, after the first week or two Horace was very reticent about what passed at school, rarely mentioned a schoolfellow by name, and seemed absorbed in his lessons all the evening. He talked sometimes to Fred about his mysterious idea, which she knew was connected with chemistry; but beyond this she knew ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... of New York City. This gentleman had cordially united with his wife in offering Madge a home, and his manner toward the young girl, as far as his absorbed and busy life permitted, had been almost paternal. He was a quiet, reticent man, who had apparently concentrated every faculty of soul and body on the problem of commercial success. Trained to business from boyhood, he had allowed it to become his life, and he took it very seriously. It was to him an absorbing game—his vocation, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the little city which had been handed over to us by the French Government for a naval base, one of the ports where our troops and supplies are landed. Those who know provincial France will visualize its narrow streets and reticent shops, its grey-white and ecru houses all more or less of the same design, with long French windows guarded by ornamental balconies of cast iron—a city that has never experienced such a thing as a real-estate boom. Imagine, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... greatest difficulty in getting pupils to recite well or to talk naturally. Perhaps before and after school and at recess they will converse freely and delightfully, but as soon as their classes are called they become reticent and ill at ease. Not all of this lack of spirit is due to the teacher, but some of it is. In any event it is an unfortunate condition, and the teacher ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was it of the utmost importance that neither one of them should play out. At half past twelve a telephone message had reached me, after having passed through three different channels, that my little girl was sick; and over the wire it had a sinister, lugubrious, reticent sound, as if the worst was held back. Details had not come through, so I was told. My wife was sending a call for me to come home as quickly as I possibly could; nothing else. It was Thursday. The Sunday before I had left wife and child in perfect health. But scarlatina and diphtheria ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... Cavagnari to the superficial observer appeared as phlegmatic as he was habitually taciturn. This sententious imperturbability was only on the surface; whether it was a natural characteristic or an acquired manner is not easy to decide. Below the surface of measured reticent composure there lay a temperament of ardent enthusiasm, and not less ardent ambition. In subtlety he was a match for the wiliest Oriental, whom face to face he dominated with a placid dauntless masterfulness that was all his own. The wild hill tribes among whom he went about escortless, carrying ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... to the other. He let his blue eyes rest upon them calmly as they peacocked across to St. George's Hospital, still laughing, and evidently discussing him. He did not know them, but he was accustomed to being known. His life had never been a cautious one. He was too modern to be very reticent, and he liked to be wicked in the eye of the crowd. Secret wickedness held little charm for him. He preferred to preface his failings with an overture on the orchestra, to draw up the curtain, and to act his drama of life ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... I know no one more reticent on such subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand pounds ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... claim too unreservedly. I will merely take courage to confess that Landor very frequently bores me. So do a good many writers whom I thoroughly admire. If any courage be wanted for such a confession, it is certainly not when writing upon Landor that one should be reticent for want of example. Nobody ever spoke his mind more freely about great reputations. He is, for example, almost the only poet who ever admitted that he could not read Spenser continuously. Even Milton ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... had an air of distinctive superiority, a cold straight glance of his black eyes, that abashed the woman's tantrums in the beginning, and therefore the possibility of any quarrel was excluded. He was new, and therefore immediately aroused her curiosity; he was reticent, and kept it awake. And lastly he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... one highly distinguished, who lived and died so recently, should have almost entirely escaped observation until he had reached middle life. From fragments of his early history which have been collected, we learn that he was a peculiar boy,—shy, reticent, fond of solitary walks, without playfellows, and utterly insensible to the attractions of home and social life. He was born with inflexible reserve; and the love of retirement so manifest in in later life mastered all his instincts even ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... of Matanga, but Drake was reticent on the subject, through sheer disinclination to talk about himself, a disinclination which the girl recognised, and gave him credit for, shooting ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... modulated movements, now of her arms, now of her whole supple body. In her voice, as in her body, there is always a reserve of energy, a dignified self-respect; there is never any self-abandonment. She has sung first in French, now she comes on in an Italian air, and afterwards is not too coyly reticent in taking an encore which is in English, to a piano accompaniment, and when that is over she hastens to bring the accompanist by the hand to her side before the audience, and bows, sweetly and graciously, with a gesture of the whole body, yet again with a certain reserve, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... life. No one would ever have called him emotional, or prone to enthusiasms of a weak kind, and yet he was by no means hard of heart. He had quiet fancies of his own about people and things, and many of these reticent, rarely-expressed ideas were reverent, chivalrous ones of women. The opposing force of a whole world could never have shaken his faith in Priscilla Gower, or touched his respect for her; but though, perhaps, he had never understood it so, he ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bachelor living in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal future removed, and rushes madly into love—and housekeeping! What wonder that I, a long-suffering and patient master, who have been served by the reticent but too imitative Chinaman; who have been "Massa" to the childlike but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of the brotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, and have been proudly disregarded by the American ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
