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More "Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grace," wrote King Ferdinand, "and of the most miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with our army entered the sacred city of Rome, so lately profaned by the impious, who now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross and of my arms. Leave then, your Holiness, your too modest abode, and on the wings of cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend upon the Vatican, to purify it by your sacred presence." A letter to the King of Piedmont, who had already been exhorted by Ferdinand to encourage his peasants to assassinate French soldiers, informed him that ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... (old) Portsmouth Road, and had earlier been an inn frequented by lovers of that game and patrons of cockfighting. After enlargement it had been converted into a gentleman's abode which well suited the modest requirements of Pitt and of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.[774] There, not far from the scenes of his youthful frolics with Wilberforce, and only a quarter of a mile from the dell where he fought the duel with Tierney, he found solace from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... fortnight the townfolk had all been agog With a party, the finest the season had seen, To be given in honor of Miss Pollywog, Who was just coming out as a belle of sixteen. The guests were invited: but one night before, A carriage drew up at the modest back-door Of Brown's lab'ratory; and, full in the glare Of a big purple bottle, some closely-veiled fair Alighted and entered: to make matters plain, Spite of veils and disguises,—'twas ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... admired her subtlety. A young girl has no need of being instructed in diplomacy, nature and her own heart are her teachers, and she never blunders. At supper I studied the young man, and found him eminently suitable for Mariuccia; he was handsome, modest, and intelligent, and whatever he said was spoken ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... indifference with which he suggested that he did not ask for favours, but if he were to ask for anything, it would be the release from the Inquisition galleys of a few poor sailor prisoners. The apparently modest request was granted. Hawkins had risked his life to accomplish this, and now he writes a letter to Cecil beginning "My very good Lord." I do not give the whole of the letter. Suffice it to say that he confirms ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... intellect to every human emotion; no event could have given heightened expression to their feelings. Shy, self-engaged, critical and controversial, nothing surprised them and nothing upset them. We were as zealous and vital as they were detached and as cocky and passionate as they were modest ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... blow at the roots of all his conscious existence. The Sandals had always married in their own county, Cumberland ladies of honorable pedigree, good daughters of the Church of England, good housewives, gentle and modest women, with more or less land and gold as their dowry. Emily Beverley would have been precisely such a wife. And in a moment, even while Harry was speaking, the squire had contrasted this Beatrice Lanza with her;—a foreigner,—an Italian, ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... earned was for then, and not for now. But she very rarely thought of this remote period; and when she did, it was with absolute vagueness. A lot of money would be required for the children; and eventually she and Will would be old, feeble, unable to go on working, and then a modest amount of money would ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... For, modest as the young inventor was, he felt, in justice to himself, that he must acknowledge the fact that his craft was a success. For it rose and sailed almost as silently as a bat, and a few hundred feet away no one, not seeing it, would have believed a ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... Parmlee's presence; but the Doctor quietly retorted that if Crawford's hands smelled of soap-grease, that was better than to have soap-grease inside his head and pomatum on the outside. They were a little more modest after this, but they could not forbear allusions that kept Dudley under fire. His mother, who was very proud of her son's independence, could not but feel sorry that he was subject to such persecutions. "Ah, ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... replied, is not noisy and ostentatious; it is modest and private in its nature; it resides in a man's own bosom, and shuns the observation of the multitude. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... have all the pride to herself?" said Bernardo, not inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. "However, it is well that in one way Tito's demands are more modest than those of any Florentine husband of fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for you; ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... diffusion of knowledge among the community, an objection is often urged that they can teach nothing thoroughly, but only superficially, and that modest ignorance is better than presumptuous half-knowledge. How frequently is it said that "a little learning is a dangerous thing." This celebrated line is a striking instance of the vitality which may be given to ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... his debts and incarceration in the Bastile. The Marquis did not hesitate long. He sold all his property with the exception of this chateau and paid his debts. But when this plebeian duty was accomplished, it left him in receipt of an extremely modest income. Poverty had fallen upon this house at the very time that the favor of the king was withdrawn from it, and this two-fold misfortune was quickly followed by the birth of a son and the loss of ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... had come to speak the language like a native, and, indeed, the dialect of the different provinces varied so widely, that, even had he spoken the language with less fluency, no suspicion would have arisen of his being a foreigner. Arrived at Prague, his first care was to hire a modest lodging, and he then set to work to discover the house in which the Count of Mansfeld was lying as ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... have remained true to Seward, possibly because Seward kept him out of state's prison, although, in the contest for United States senator in 1851, Hamilton Fish was the candidate of the Seward Whigs. Fish had grown rapidly as governor. People formerly recognised him as an accomplished gentleman, modest in manners and moderate in speech, but his conduct and messages as an executive revealed those higher qualities of statesmanship that ranked him among the wisest public men of the State. Thurlow Weed had ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Hermitage did the honors of Florence with modest pride and a certain glibness. Before the early old masters, Aurora ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Opinion of himself, she knew her self incapable of saying any thing to beget one. Aurelian did not know well what to make of this last reply; for he always abhor'd any thing that was conceited, with which this seem'd to reproach him. But however modest he had been heretofore in his own thoughts, yet never was he so distrustful of his good behaviour as now, being rally'd so by a Person whom he took to be of judgment: Yet he resolved to take no notice, but with an Air unconcerned ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... belts and boots. To the left the women, with red silk 'kerchiefs on their heads, shag caftans with bright red sleeves, and blue, green, red, striped and dotted skirts and iron-heeled shoes. Behind them stood the more modest women in white 'kerchiefs and gray caftans and ancient skirts, in shoes or bast slippers. Among these and the others were dressed-up children with oiled hair. The peasants made the sign of the cross and bowed, disheveling their ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... at Yale, as you know, Merriwell. You must do things exceptionally well. You are altogether too modest. If something had not brought you out, nobody could have known you could do anything at all. You have been pushed in various ways by others, but you fail ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... person, who has but a few minutes ago escaped from his shell, yet hanging to a dead rose leaf long since forgotten as it lay there on the window, has not, as I have, four beautiful black streaks on his corselet. The white spots on his back offend the eye; I prefer the modest color of my brown rings, and the soft shade of the color of the faded leaf on a portion of my wings does not contribute less to the majesty of my aspect than the colored feathers which ornament my antennae. As for me, I am the ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... studied under the divine Plato; but the disciple and the master could not possibly agree in their doctrines: they were of opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect, and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them; his "Republic" is as chimerical as Rousseau's ideas, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Immediately upon his arrival he rented a cheap back office, a desk and some chairs, and for the time being announced himself to the world, through the medium of a modest sign on his office door, as The Desert Development Company. The following ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... because he had gathered his whole establishment to dress him, including the old groom, who wished him to go in corduroy breeches and top boots, and Speug was polished to the extent of shining. He was also so modest that he would not speak, nor even look, and when Nestie began to discourse on his goodness he cast glances at the door and perspired visibly, on which occasions he wiped his forehead with a large red handkerchief. Amid all his experiences on land and water, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... "It is true, O Queen; I also was of the plot, and because Harmachis scorned me I betrayed him; and because of my great love for him I have remained unwed." And she glanced up at me and caught my eyes, then let the modest lashes veil ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... weapons to his liking, was soon well armed. The pouches of the warriors, containing strips of dried venison and stores of parched corn, Nathan appropriated in the same way, taking care, from the superabundance, to reward the services of little Peter, who received with modest gratitude, but despatched with energetic haste, the meal which his appearance, as well as his appetite, showed was not a ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... nothing. The Independents—from what I know of them—will be too modest to claim credit or to ask office. They were actuated by pure principle. They did what they did to purify the party, so that they could stay in it. Now that it has been purified they will remain, and hate the Democratic ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... this Giant. His neighbors say it is a fortune to him. It is averred that he was offered $5,000, $10,000 and even $20,000 for it; that a clergyman offered his farm in exchange for the monster—but these offers were all declined. We talked freely with Mr. N. He was quiet and modest, and we doubt if he has received any such proposals, except perhaps jokingly. He indicated no such thing. Yet he seemed anxious to have the "thing" brought out all right if possible, be it what it may, and therefore guards it ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... all, Bob; it is too modest you are, entirely. It is yourself is the boy who has done the business, this time; and it is a silver tay service, or some such trifle as that, that the owners will be sending you, and small blame to them. Captain Lockett ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... Lord John Russell's outward aspect. We know from his boyish diary that on his eleventh birthday he was "4 feet 2 inches high, and 3 stone 12 lb. weight;" and though, as time went on, these extremely modest dimensions were slightly exceeded, he was an unusually short man. His massive head and broad shoulders gave him when he sate the appearance of greater size, and when he rose to his feet the diminutive stature caused a feeling of surprise. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... modest fortune does not go about playing Monte Cristo. He gives away a few guineas in charity; but he keeps the bulk of his fortune to himself. The death sentence, I vow, has compensations. It enables a man to play Monte Cristo or any other ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... fallacious and deceitful arguing of the Pharisee, thus to speak before God in his prayer: I am righteous, because I have not hurt my neighbour, and because I have acted in ceremonial duties. Nor will that help him at all to say, he gave TITHES of all that he possessed. It had been more modest to say, that he had paid them; for they, being commanded, were a due debt; nor could they go before God for a free gift, because by the commandment they were made a payment; but proud men and hypocrites, love so to word it both with God ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... But I know this, that you ought to be ashamed of me. I think Adela Gauntlet is my friend; that is, if in our pig-headed country a modest girl may love a man who is neither ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... youthful human seems to become exposed to curious and violent attacks of sentimentality? It's a fact. All the world recognizes that the Summer Girl is especially a prey to this insidious complaint; that no matter how modest, reserved and circumspect she may be as a Winter Girl, when she breaks her Summer chrysalis all the butterfly nature within her is given wing, inward and outward restraints drop from her almost as inevitably ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... for its premises the great moral principles restored to their place, and the multitude at last restored to theirs—will force the newspapers to confess all their resources. By means of a young language, simple and modest, it will unite all foreigners—those prisoners of themselves. It will mow down the hateful complexity of judicial procedure, with its booty for the somebodies, and its lawyers as well, who intrude the tricks of diplomacy and the ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... words far more eloquent than the following, he sings "This honor is greater than I deserve but duty calls me—(what, not stated)... If elected, I shall be your servant" ... (for, it is told, that he believes in modesty,—that he has even boasted that he is the most modest man in the country)... Thus he has the right to shout, "First, last and forever I am for the people. I am against all bosses. I have no sympathy for politicians. I am for strict economy, liberal improvements and justice! I am also for the—ten commandments" (his intuitive ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... arrival, received a cordial welcome from all the competitors for the honours of the day, and, among the village maidens, many a bright eye beamed with a tender but modest delight on his manly form, shown to advantage in the national costume. Still he gave no sign of an intention to take any part in the sport for ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... unexplained reason of spite and mischief; and who, when called to account for it, broke out into senseless and idle rebellion. This was the end. But he was not always thus. He began life with great gifts and noble ends; he was a serious, modest, and large-minded student both of books and things, and he turned his studies to full account. He had imagination and love of enterprise, which gave him an insight into Bacon's ideas such as none of Bacon's contemporaries had. He was a man of simple and earnest religion; he sympathized ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... a sweet-tempered, arch, modest, sensible, and well-bred girl, that had received a far better education than her father's means would have permitted him to bestow, through the liberality and affection of a widowed sister of her mother's, who was affluent, and had caused her to attend the ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... bosom friend of Arago, and he was the man who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest position at the court of Berlin, that of the secretaryship of public instruction, preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the society of all those illustrious men, who then made Paris the centre of intellectual culture. It was there where he became one of that Societe d'Arceuil, composed of all the great ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... himself in a wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search he was discovered and brought home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... expands over the whole landscape; his eye glances to the sky; he thinks of the Almighty Being above him, and though without any capacity to analyze his own feelings—love—the love of some humble, plain but modest girl—kindles by degrees into the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Elsie was very modest, and rather timid, too, but also very polite; so she said, "No excuse is necessary; but will you not take a seat, sir? though I fear my music will not afford you any pleasure, for you know I am only a little girl, and cannot ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... this year? Yes," said Blathers, "but not next year, or the year after that, as we shall be retrenching. They are quite modest trifles, yet at the mere sight of the envelope each recipient will, cheerfully, I hope, pay twopence towards the sinews of war. One hundred of these contributions will amount, I am told, to sixteen shillings and eightpence; not much, but it is my little ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... of bones buried in the trenches of Waterloo think of this? England has been too modest to herself in her treatment of Wellington, for making him so great is making herself small. Wellington is merely a hero, like any other man. The Scots Grays, the Life Guards, Maitland's and Mitchell's regiments, Pack's and Kempt's infantry, Ponsonby's and Somerset's cavalry, the Highlanders ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... Kay had always talked about her "New York home," which made it sound rather small and modest, so I was surprised when we stopped before a huge, square pile, built of rich-looking, rough brown stones, so nearly the colour of a Christmas plum pudding that it made me hungrier than ever to look at it. The house is trimmed with ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... way of cleared lands and population the fief of La Durantaye had made very modest progress. Its nearest neighbour, Bellechasse, contained two hundred and twenty-seven persons, living upon three hundred and twenty arpents of cultivable land. With an arsenal of sixty-two muskets it was better equipped for self-defence. The census everywhere took ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... is that he's so modest. He doesn't know what a smart thing he's done," went on Stanley. "It isn't to be wondered at that the kids of the Third and Fourth have been cheering him like mad. Why should we be left out in ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... her delicate, modest way, for never did I know anyone who could seem quite so modest as Mameena, and with a swift glance of her shy eyes at the tall and splendid Umbelazi, "nothing. Only," she added, "I was passing with the milk of one of the few cows my father gave ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight. A caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling mass within; in the voice of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... expected it to come out on the following Sunday. He conceived that it would be fine to let that event apprise Ruth of his return. Then, Sunday afternoon, he would call and see her. In the meantime he was occupied by another idea, which he prided himself upon as being a particularly sane, careful, and modest idea. He would write an adventure story for boys and sell it to The Youth's Companion. He went to the free reading-room and looked through the files of The Youth's Companion. Serial stories, he found, were usually published in that weekly in five instalments ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... brush and comb, collar, cuffs and handkerchiefs, a little necessary linen, a pair of shoes, and perhaps a ribbon for my hair if I meant to be very smart. On this occasion we all found that our skates occupied a terribly large proportion both of weight and space in our modest kits, but still we were much ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... on pink clouds of glory! I asked for a fellowship and got it. I announced my plan of studying in Germany, but Harvard had no more fellowships for me. A friend, however, told me of the Slater Fund and how the Board was looking for colored men worth educating. No thought of modest hesitation occurred to me. I ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... hadn't a word to say to me on the subject, but that he would call and consult with me to-morrow. I found it in vain to question him, and I suspect it is a hoax. But what a rural monster you have sent me! "Cujum pecus?—an Melibei?" He cannot possibly herd with Eusebius; he had no modest bearing about him. I had just opened your letter, and found you called him a friend of yours, who had many observations to make about poetry—so, as we were just going to tea, he was invited. It was most fortunate ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... holding the command of the centre—either nominally or actually the second in command. Upon his judgment and military skill every commander of that army depended, and no movement was made without his approbation. Yet so modest was he that his face would color with blushes when his troops cheered him, which they did at every opportunity; and so diffident, that, prior to the battle of Chickamauga, he doubted his ability to handle large bodies of troops upon the battlefield, and for this reason refused to accept the command ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... way or other, after the company had been a few days on the road, Prince Florizel, who watched over the company as carefully as a good captain does over his soldiers, became aware of the bravery, trustworthiness, and modest bearing of Florian, the little page, and promoted him to be his own personal squire. Alas! no sooner had he been advanced, than Florian the little page, though remaining outwardly a page, became at heart the runaway girl, Isabella. Though she fought as hard as she could against ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... dazzling splendour of imperial virtues for the more tranquil, but not less fascinating appearance of retired and modest merit. ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... to the river on it glides, Its tributary drop to bear, Its modest head a moment hides, Then ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... and Gravelot, or Stothard and Blake, in the last century. Or you may be so old-fashioned as to care for Aldine classics, and for the books of the Giunta press. In fact, as many as are the species of rare and beautiful books, so many are the species of collectors. There is one sort of men, modest but not unwise in their generations, who buy up the pretty books published in very limited editions by French booksellers, like MM. Lemerre and Jouaust. Already their reprints of Rochefoucauld's first edition, of Beaumarchais, of La Fontaine, of the lyrics attributed to Moliere, and other ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... house of Colonel Gordon, one of the principal flats of a house in the High Street. After they had dined, William gave a distinct account of his birth and the death of his mother, and a modest outline of himself. His hearer listened to him with the greatest interest, only interrupting him at the account of his mother's death ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... and modest held the road, Nor feared the Shadow of the Dust; And saw the whole world rich with joy, As ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... which the waters of lake T'ai Hu now run to modern Soochow, and thence to Hangchow. Ever since that date the unfortunate man in question has been a popular "god of the waters" in those parts. It follows, therefore, that the Wu founder's modest canal must have been from time to time extended, at least in an easterly direction. It was only after the conquest of China by Ts'in, 250 years later, that the First August Emperor extended this system of canals northwards and westwards, from Ch'ang-thou Fu ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... Virgin of an altogether new order. A turbaned Roman beauty of superb, Juno-like physique, she does not belong to the idyllic character of her surroundings. It is as if some brilliant exotic had been transplanted from her native haunts to quiet fields, where hitherto the modest lily had ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... streams of water, that vanished under the brown leaves of the forest. Thus the Spirit of Winter departed, and where he had melted away, there the Indian children gathered the first blossoms, fragrant and delicately pink,—the modest Spring Beauty. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... fresco, succeeded by the transformation scene—the red robbers becoming white ones—to all of which he was witness. After that the card-playing by the camp fire, during which the chief came to his tent, and did what he could to draw him. In this part of his narration, the mulatto with modest naivete, hints of his own adroitness; how he threw his inquisitor off the scent, and became at length disembarrassed of him. He is even more reticent about an incident, soon after succeeding, but referred to it at an early ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Ryan showed signs of mental activity which gave promise of one day producing substantial and lasting results. He evinced rare aptitude for knowledge, and made rapid progress in its attainment. His thoughtful mien and modest look soon won for him the respect and friendship of his teachers and the esteem and affection of his companions. It was noticed that he had an instinctive reverence for sacred things and places, and a rich and ardent nature which bespoke deep spirituality. Discerning eyes ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... Boston, represented the textile industry and is well posted in that line. He was the modest man of the commission, rarely asserting himself and deferring too much to the views of his companions. He is possessed of rare good common sense, but, as stated, kept himself too much in the background, thereby lessening his influence in the work of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... But Mrs. Markland persisted. 'I have had all sorts of teachers,' she went on, 'but the best of all, the most intelligent and the most attentive, was a Mr. Hartright. If you ever take up your drawing again, do try him as a master. He is a young man—modest and gentlemanlike—I am sure you will like him. 'Think of those words being spoken to me publicly, in the presence of strangers—strangers who had been invited to meet the bride and bridegroom! I did all I could ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... over her, the living incarnation of my long drawn out hopes and dreams. She had changed her dress to a light dinner-silk. The bodice was modest—I mean by that, it was unobtrusive—very. Excess of nervous excitement, the wealth of evening sunlight, and her fashion of dressing made her dazzling to look upon, and I stood ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... peace, sober and modest. She had not necklace or coronal or women with ornamented shoes or girdle which was more to be looked at than the person. Nor yet did the daughter at her birth give fear to her father, for the time and dowry ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... recognised this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... considerable conceit of his own, he eventually presents an aspect which is not pleasing, and assumes (towards those who are not voters in the Constituency) a manner which can scarcely be described as modest. ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... magpie soon every bird went And in modest terms made their request, That she would be pleased to consent To teach them to build ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... over-admired marble women would have tried in vain to do. Yes, she was no closer to him than she was necessary to him. He began to look forward to the time when he might take her by the hand, restraining such modest impulse as she was now showing to move on to the next room, and reproduce that blush by telling her all she was to him and must be ever. Only the wills, the whims, the prejudices of a few unenlightened old men stood in his way; these ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... small-scale hydroelectric power development of rivers mainly missed the Potomac, though at one time a power company acquired land at Great Falls in anticipation of such development. Other modern water projects in the Basin have been relatively modest or have run afoul of strong opposition. Therefore, today a sprinkling of small channel power dams and water intake structures, some levees and improved creek channels, and a few unimposing reservoirs of various sizes and types high up on small tributaries ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... now, with a master's certificate and a raised salary; it was time to make a home. So while she nursed the baby in Sandridge—with the aid of a devoted friend, the landlady's cousin—Guthrie Carey busied himself across the way at Williamstown, fixing up a modest house. He also had a devoted friend, in the person of a Customs officer, whose experienced wife took charge of the operations. Lily was to see nothing until all was ready for her. It was ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... instinct, and love the cheery old fellow, whose heart is as soft as his muscles are hard. They talk to him as to an elder brother, come to him for his advice, and, which is perhaps even more strange, like it, and follow it. Withal, the General is the most modest of men. In his youth he was a mighty man of war. It was only the other day that I heard (not from his own lips, you may be sure) the thrilling stories of his hand-to-hand conflict with two gigantic Russians in the fog of Inkermann, and of his rescue of a wounded Sergeant at the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... lady and a gay, The daughter of Marsilius, king of Spain, And feigning, veiled in feminine array, The modest roll of eye and girlish strain, With her each night the amorous stripling lay, Nor any had suspicion of the twain: But nought so hidden is, but searching eye In the long run ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... go on in your own sweet, modest way of kindness and goodness; but you have done it, you see. You have won every one of them over; and what is more, gained pardon for me, for your sake. No, don't struggle against my saying so, for it is ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... between these two logical correlatives a difference in rank. Form is superior, nobler, the higher in dignity, nearer to the perfect entity; matter is inferior, more modest, more distant from perfection. On account of its hierarchical inferiority, matter is often presented as the second, or correlatum, and form as the first, or relatum. This difference in rank is so strongly marked, that these two correlations are ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... Watts McHurdie,—little Watts McHurdie, with his grizzled beard combed, with his gold-rimmed Sunday glasses far down on his nose so that he could see over them, and—wonder of wonders, they saw a high shiny new silk hat wobbling over his modest head. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... scarcely have improved, for how could it be better than it then was? I love to think on thee, pretty, quiet D—-, thou pattern of an English country town, with thy clean but narrow streets branching out from thy modest market-place, with thine old-fashioned houses, with here and there a roof of venerable thatch, with thy one half-aristocratic mansion, where resided thy Lady Bountiful—she, the generous and kind, who loved to visit the sick, leaning on her golden-headed cane, whilst the sleek ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... determination,—"one good thing is, I have begun to have an effect on my father. He does not like her any more. He was distinctly bored at the prospect of her visit this time. He did not resent it at all when I called her an upholstered old lady. I really think," she added, with modest justice, "that I am rather good at poisoning people's minds against their undesirable friends." She paused, debating how long it would take her to separate Mathilde from the Wayne boy; and recalling that this was no topic for an invalid, she smiled ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... see the light much better and even make out that it came from a certain window of the coquina shack—up to then Perk acknowledged to himself that he had not known whether the modest little building boasted of windows or not, having discovered no ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... parties in the streets; and though Abundantius, the military prefect, gave the weight of his name, if not the strength of his cohort, to the party of Timotheus, yet his rival conquered, -and Cyril was carried into the cathedral with a pomp more like a pagan triumph than the modest ordination ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... bells had not sounded, and, though hammocks had been given out, neither watch could turn in. It was with particular glee, therefore, that we welcomed the news that "Steve" had composed an up-to-date verse to his "Tommy Atkins" song. After some persuasion—for he is a modest chap—he consented to sing it ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... in the kitchen during that halcyon time would stir up blank rebellion. Dancing and music are their favourite Christmas recreations; they manage both with a will. In the city suburbs there are many modest little frame-houses inhabited by the blacks; now and then a homely inn kept by a dusky landlord. Here in Christmas time you will witness many jolly and infectiously pleasant scenes. There is a 'sound of revelry by night.' You are free to enter, and observe ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... first long, appraising gaze at the modest home. No change, indeed! The paint on the house was peeling, gutters had rusted out, some of the porch flooring had rotted through, the yard was an unkempt tangle of matted grass and weeds and neglected ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of God's, and that his heart was in the hand of Jehovah, to mould as He would. The consciousness of dependence on God and the habit of communion with Him give a man a clear sight of the limitations of earthly dignities, and a modest boldness which is equally remote ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the eagle and lamb of temporal and spiritual idealism that form the "head" of this coin, the craftsman and anvil but the modest "tail." The ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... was Sir ROBERT PEEL with JAMES GRAHAM at his right elbow. In modest retirement at the end of the Bench sat a young man, of full height, and good figure, with a mass of black hair crowning a large, well-shaped head. Remember noticing how carefully the hair was parted down the middle, in a fashion then unusual with men. His ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... genius like Mr. Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction. [I utter these sentiments from no feelings of private friendship to that estimable philosopher, to whom it is my regret to be almost unknown, and whose modest and retiring merit, I may, perhaps, have the misfortune to offend by these remarks. But Mr. Dalton was of no party; had he ever moved in that vortex which has brought discredit, and almost ruin, on the Royal Society of England;—had he taken part with ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... more than her beauty to recommend her. She was sweet-tempered, gentle, and high principled. Mrs Brigadier Bomanjoy declared that she was puritanical and prudish; but she was in reality truly religious and modest, without a particle of nonsense in her composition. Captain Hawkesford, generally supposed to be indifferent to female charms,—at least, to those of his own countrywomen,—paid her more attention than he did to any one else, although she evidently ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... rich old men left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of linen, and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred and long prevailed among the old men there. On the contrary, a modest style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common people. They also set the example of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the distance; on the horizon one may however distinguish the towers of the castles of Geroldseck and Hoh- (High) Barr, in the vicinity of Zabern; then nothing more is seen but meadows, forests, fields, from the centre of which you see now and then the modest church-steeples of the numerous villages that cover the fine ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... that is to say, 'Regent Anne' and 'Generalissimo Anton Ulrich,' now ruled, with Munnich for right-hand man; and these were high times for Anton Ulrich, Generalissimo and Czar's-Father; who indeed was modest, and did not often interfere in words, though grieved at the foolish ways his Wife had. An indolent flabby kind of creature, she, unfit for an Autocrat; sat in her private apartments, all in a huddle of undress; had foolish notions,—especially had soubrettes ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself was not mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and oftentimes deprecating praise ere ever he received it. And so I brought Mrs. Hockin back at last to talk about the lady who ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... of Miss Wells' pen that one wonders if she possesses a dual personality or is it merely extraordinary versatility, for she can certainly write detective stories just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece with whom the detective promptly falls ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... So on they went, most of the time in gales of merriment, as some house or modest little shop suggested some character or happening in the books of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... don't know much," was the modest answer. "I just wanted to learn what I could while I had the chance. You can't help being curious when you work so long in one room. Bryant saw I was interested and he's explained all the things I wanted ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... taken in April last, when the Commander-in-Chief agreed to allow the Chamber of Mines to open three mines with 50 stamps each. Up till now permission has been granted for the working of 600 stamps, but only 450 have actually been started. This is slow work, but even this beginning, modest as it is, has made an immense difference in the aspect of Johannesburg since first I ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... helped to clear away the rubbish that impeded the progress of the student, was the learned and modest CONRAD GESNER; at once a scholar, a philosopher, and a bibliographer: and upon whom Julius Scaliger, Theodore Beza, and De Thou, have pronounced noble eulogiums.[101] His Bibliotheca Universalis was the first thing, since the discovery of the art of printing, which enabled ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... basket ball, previous to the opening of the season. But Mignon herself was counted a powerful adversary. The sympathy of the boys lay for the most part with Marjorie's squad. The Weston High lads were decidedly partial to the pretty, brown-eyed girl, whose modest, gracious ways had soon won their boyish approbation. Among the girls, however, Mignon could count ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... rural districts was in some measure counterbalanced by the power of the yeomanry, an eminently manly and truehearted race. The petty proprietors who cultivated their own fields with their own hands, and enjoyed a modest competence, without affecting to have scutcheons and crests, or aspiring to sit on the bench of justice, then formed a much more important part of the nation than at present. If we may trust the best statistical writers of that age, not less than a hundred and sixty thousand ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Haughty appear, subservient, Obsequious or indifferent! What languor would his silence show, How full of fire his speech would glow! How artless was the note which spoke Of love again, and yet again; How deftly could he transport feign! How bright and tender was his look, Modest yet daring! And a tear Would at the proper ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... to be at ease, And 'twas agreed the lucky thought to seize That like a chambermaid he should be dress'd, And then proceed to execute the jest, Attend upon the wily, wedded pair, And offer services with modest air And downcast eyes; the husband on her leer'd, And in her favour prepossess'd appear'd, In hopes one day, to find those pleasing charms Resign'd in secret to his longing arms. Such pretty cheeks and sparkling eyes he thought, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... vixi; it was a pleasant season; and that noiseless hamlet lying close among the borders of the wood is for me, as for so many others, a green spot in memory. The great Millet was just dead, the green shutters of his modest house were closed; his daughters were in mourning. The date of my first visit was thus an epoch in the history of art: in a lesser way, it was an epoch in the history of the Latin Quarter. The Petit Cenacle was dead and buried; Murger and his crew of sponging vagabonds were all at rest from their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pruderies, you mean," he answered, bridling. "The proprieties face any necessity for discussion with modest discretion, however ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... own "society." The best that can be said for this institution is that it is not, as a rule, dictated to by mere money. It is made up of people with incomes mostly ranging from L500 to L2,000, with a sprinkling of bachelors of even more modest means. Ladies and gentlemen too poor to entertain others will nevertheless be asked everywhere if they have either brightness or intellect, or have won creditable positions. You see little social arrogance, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the monotony of the ride; a sudden gush of song from a spotted thrush, the rustle of a pheasant in the brake, perhaps the modest greeting of a rare keeper patrolling his beat—nothing more. He went armed; he carried a long Colt's six-shooter in his holster, not because he feared for his own skin, but he thought it just as well to be ready in case of trouble at the Chateau de Nesville. However, he did not fear ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... childhood had been, to what disastrous home influences they had been subjected to bring them to such degradation as this. Most of them were coarse and vulgar-looking wantons, with rouged cheeks and pencilled eyebrows, but others seemed to be modest girls, refined and well bred. These were plainly in their novitiate. Surely, he pondered, such a shameless calling must be revolting to them; the better instincts of their womanhood must rebel at ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Andrea Tafi was considered "an excellent, nay, a divine artist" in his specialty. Andrea, himself more modest, visited Venice, and deigned to take instruction from Greek mosaic workers, who were employed at St. Mark's. One of them, Apollonius, became attached to Tafi, and this is how he came to accompany him to Florence. The work on the Baptistery was done actually in ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... whose owner in old days obtained a license from Pope Urban VI. to build a chapel on his own land, "by Reason of the Floods at some time, especially in Winter, which hindered his Accesse to the Mother-Church." In the garden of this hall, a modest country-house, a type of the ordinary run of English homes, stands a chapel—not the original one, but built on its site—and from it one has a view of the level ground, the village and the river, evidently still liable to floods. The part of the county that joins Gloucestershire is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... kind of society which Lord Monmouth had always preferred to the polished and somewhat insipid circles in which he was born, had rendered him the prime favourite of his great patron. Villebecque's step-daughter Flora, a modest and retiring maiden, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... universally derided scholasticism travelled along the whole line of modern thought: from the "realism" of Thomas, which leaves the universals as yet unassailed by doubt and occupying the very heart of knowledge, past the first and, to our view, very modest doubts of the nominalists, to the agnosticism of Bacon, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... the story of the return of Captain Bartlett in detail; his Esquimo boys were incapable of telling it, and Captain Bartlett is altogether too modest. ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... her foe's face. By the time that she had completed it her eyes were turned upon the ground, but there was an ineffable amount of scorn expressed in the lines of her month. She spoke no word, and retreated, as modest virtue and feminine weakness must ever retreat, before barefaced vice and virile power; but nevertheless she was held by all the world to have had the best of the encounter. The duke, as he begged her pardon, wore in his countenance that expression of modified sorrow which is common to any ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... this modest little flower;— It comes in desolation's hour The barren landscape's face to cheer, When none beside it ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... But what follow'd? 3 At length, her Grace rose, and with modest paces Came to the Altar, where she kneel'd, and Saint-like Cast her faire eyes to Heauen, and pray'd deuoutly. Then rose againe, and bow'd her to the people: When by the Arch-byshop of Canterbury, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... companion of the lamented Franklin, and himself one of the great men of the earth. Sir John first regarded this bear, though very doubtfully, as a variety of the ursus americanus, or American black bear. Later observations influenced him to change this opinion; and again with modest doubtfulness—characteristic of the man—he suggests his being a variety of the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... ambassador belonged. The show of coolness on the part of the imperial family evidently vexed the French pretender. He was, indeed, allowed to enter the room behind the imperial train; but he was not permitted to sit at the imperial table, being relegated to a distant and very modest seat. I was informed that, though the Emperor could, and did, have the prince to dine with him in private, he felt obliged, in view of the relations between Russia and the French Republic, to carefully avoid any special recognition ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... struck the cordon of picket-posts which surrounded the surrendered army. It was the first exercise of authority by the Federal army. A sergeant, accompanied by a couple of muskets, stepped into the road, with a modest air examined the paroles, and said, quietly, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... late in March, 1897, Jeff opened the door of Mr. Palmer's modest home, near the northern suburb of San Francisco, and with his pipe between his lips, sat down in the chair to which he was always welcome. In truth, the chair was considered his, and no one would have thought of occupying it when he was present. As he slowly puffed his pipe he swayed gently backward ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... his main meanings. They rather steal on you as springtime does. You catch his meaning because you are not blind nor deaf. He hints at things as lovers do, and is as one who would not thrust his company upon you, so modest and reticent is he; yet we do not mistake him. Love is always close at hand, and in some form is never absent. "Mariana," "Lady of Shalott," "Locksley Hall," "Maud," "The Sisters," "The Talking Oak," "Edward Gray," "The Miller's Daughter," "Harold," "Queen Mary," "Enoch Arden," and "The Idyls of ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... indicative of the severe piety and self-sacrifice of an age and a people remarkable for one of the simplest professions of faith that has ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The rigid discipline, contempt for form, and sustained humility of the old Covenanters are written deeply in the modest stones which mark the green graves of their faithful dead during a period of fully two hundred years. The vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imperfect men and women was to them a forbidden ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... in France early in February, 1915, and for three weeks we were put into the hands of an Imperial battery, the Warwicks. They had taken part in the battle of Mons, and the tales of the veterans of this world's memorable retreat, told in their own modest way, gave me my first clear impression as to what the boys of the Imperial Army really had endured for ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... childishly-mocking indifference to the results of comparison. Mrs. Acton was an emaciated, sweet-faced woman of five and fifty, sitting with pillows behind her, and looking out on a clump of hemlocks. She was very modest, very timid, and very ill; she made Eugenia feel grateful that she herself was not like that—neither so ill, nor, possibly, so modest. On a chair, beside her, lay a volume of Emerson's Essays. It was a great occasion for ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Intact remained the virtue of Blanche, and by the quintessence of instruction drawn by her from the natural reservoir of women, she recognised how necessary it was to be silent concerning the venial sin with which her child was covered. So she became modest and good, and was cited as a virtuous person. And then to make use of him she experimented on the goodness of her good man, and without giving him leave to go further than her chin, since she looked upon herself as belonging to Rene, Blanche, in return for ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... from Asa Gray to show how hotly the battle rages there. Also one from Wallace, very just in his remarks, though too laudatory and too modest, and how admirably free from envy or jealousy. He must be a good fellow. Perhaps I will enclose a letter from Thomson of Calcutta; not that it is much, but Hooker thinks ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... in the line of human advancement; some of them were projected, primarily at least, for diversion. He was likely at any moment to organize a club, a sort of private club, and at the time of which we are writing he proposed what was called the "Modest" Club. He wrote to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... good fellow, Dick Vaughan was now a full man, a man handled and made; a strong, disciplined man, decently modest, but perfectly conscious of his strength, and easily able to control other men. This was what Canada and membership of the Royal North-west Mounted Police had done for Dick Vaughan ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... is due to the fact that Reuchlin's sympathizers wrote him many letters of encouragement, which he published under the title, Letters of Celebrated Men to John Reuchlin. The humanists then pitched upon the modest title, Letters of Obscure Men, for the supposed correspondence of the admirers of the monks. The following is an example of the "obscure men's" poetry. One of them goes to Hagenau and meets a certain humanist, Wolfgang Angst, who, the writer complains, struck him in the eye ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled, now the poor old man's gone. He will only have his mother to keep in future, and I've a notion that there's a kindness between him and that nice modest girl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old Jonathan one day when I was talking to him. But when I mentioned the subject to Adam he looked uneasy and turned the conversation. I suppose the love-making doesn't run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Peter pondered it as he went back to the Pension Schwarz. About himself he was absurdly modest, almost humble. It had never occurred to him that women might care for him for himself. In his struggling life there had been little time for women. But about himself as the solution of a ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... endurance and self-denial it was the poor fellows who had to keep, or endeavour to keep, blockade-runners if not slavers from communicating with the stormy shores of Florida and South Carolina. They are too modest now to tell us what they went through. Perhaps forty years hence they will do as I am doing, and recount some of their adventures, which I am convinced would quite put into the shade anything I or my ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... polished, red lacquer has disappeared from his hands and feet, for Binzuru is a great medicine god, and centuries of sick people have rubbed his face and limbs, and then have rubbed their own. A young woman went up to him, rubbed the back of his neck, and then rubbed her own. Then a modest-looking girl, leading an ancient woman with badly inflamed eyelids and paralysed arms, rubbed his eyelids, and then gently stroked the closed eyelids of the crone. Then a coolie, with a swelled knee, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... lady, there was a great and notable assemblage of company: my Lady of Chelsey having sent her lackeys and liveries to aid the modest attendance at Kensington. There was Lieutenant-General Webb, Harry's kind patron, of whom the Dowager took possession, and who resplended in velvet and gold lace; there was Harry's new acquaintance, the Right Honorable Henry ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... reality could be more gentle than the loving disposition of the slave. Her natural character was all tenderness and modest diffidence, but she had now been touched at a point where she was most sensitive. Aphiz, without the shadow of guilt, save that he was true in his love to her, had been murdered in cold blood, and the announcement of the fact by the Sultan had chilled ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... account of the rewards which, having promised, he did not make good. Is it for this thou dost now gratify the people? Why dost thou not strive along with us, that the treaty-breaking Trojans may basely perish from the root, with their children and modest[687] wives?" ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... a few years senior to Crosbie, and was in truth a man of better parts. But he was less ambitious, less desirous of shining in the world, and much less popular with men in general. He was possessed of a moderate private fortune on which he lived in a quiet, modest manner, and was unmarried, not likely to marry, inoffensive, useless, and prudent. For the first few years of Crosbie's life in London he had lived very much with his friend Pratt, and had been accustomed to depend much on ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Napoleon whom I had ever seen, and it was with admiration and curiosity that I looked upon men who had won a world-wide reputation for their discipline and their gallantry. Their appearance was by no means gorgeous, and their dress and equipment was much more modest than that of the East Kent Yeomanry, which rode every Saturday through Ashford; but the stained tunics, the worn leathers, and the rough hardy horses gave them a very workmanlike appearance. They were small, ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her other things. Before three months were over, she was a necessity in the house, and to part with Dawtie seemed impossible. A place about that time turning up, Alexa at once offered her wages, and so Dawtie became an integral portion of the laird's modest household. ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... eyes and eye-lashes I never, beheld before. She is the favourite Queen at present, and has only been married a month or two, her age, about fourteen; and such a little creature, with the smallest hands and feet, and the most timid, modest look imaginable. You would have been charmed with her, she was so graceful and fawn-like. Her dress was of gold and scarlet brocade, and her hair was literally strewed with pearls, which hung down upon her neck in long single strings, terminating in large pearls, which ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... and fair— Who to these modest pages turn, To raise a smile, to soothe a care, Or some moot point of duty learn,— Forget not this: that whilst you live, Your hearts may yield to pride or sin, Take, then, the warning ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... in simplicity, and yet fervour—in solemnity, and in truth—He who breathed forth the patriotic words which tell of the glories of Wallace, and immortalize alike the poet and the hero—He who culled inspiration from the modest daisy, and yet thundered forth the heroic strains of "The Song of Death"—He who murmured words which appear the very incarnation of poetry and of love, and yet hurled forth the bitterest shafts of satire—a Poet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... hated, and that was the reason I was so violent about them. I had always supposed that I hated other people's cruelty because I was merciful, and their meanness because I was magnanimous, and their intolerance because I was generous, and their conceit because I was modest, and their selfishness because I was disinterested; but after listening to Brother Peck a while I came to the conclusion that I hated these things in others because I was cruel myself, and mean, and bigoted, and conceited, and piggish; and that's why I've hated Brother Peck ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... be, by the display of a little envy among rival beauties—owing to the assiduous homage of her admirer. At length, prudence whispers that he is to her, as yet, but a comparative stranger; and with a modest reserve she endeavours to retire from his observation, so as not to seem to encourage his attentions. The gentleman's ardour, however, is not to be thus checked; he again solicits her to be his partner in a dance. She finds it hard, very hard, to refuse him; and both, yielding at last to the ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... was modest, and without affectation. He possessed a certain gravity of manners, but he was nevertheless affable, and courteous, and civil beyond the usual ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... Lucille peculiarly developed, had already inexpressibly linked her compassionate nature to the lot of the unfortunate traveller. With ardent affections, and with thoughts beyond her station and her years, she was not without that modest vanity which made her painfully susceptible to her own deficiencies in beauty. Instinctively conscious of how deeply she herself could love, she believed it impossible that she could ever be so loved in return. The stranger, so superior in her eyes to all ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all sentiment, it suspended frivolity, it scattered reverie, it paralyzed action. It was omnipotent. More wonderful and characteristic than all, the very existence of this tremendous organ was unknown to the camp for six months after the arrival of its modest owner, and only revealed to them under circumstances that seemed to point more conclusively than ever ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... 'Think you,' he said, 'that the blessed Angelico obtained the grace to set forth our Lady in such heavenly wise by gazing about the streets on mincing women tricked out in all the world's bravery?—or did he not find her image in holy solitudes, among modest and prayerful saints?'" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... we pray, to our modest appeal: With kindness more proud of our work we should feel; And if those fierce blows you still ruthlessly deal, You'll make our flesh horrible stuff; For though steaks are good beaten, that's done when they're cold, ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... it would seem modest to assert that Meredith is as bracingly wholesome morally as he is intellectually stimulating. In a private letter to a friend who was praising his finest book, he whimsically mourns the fact that he must ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... indicating great powers of endurance. Though not technically beautiful, her dark expressive eye is attractive, and she possesses, evidently unconsciously to herself, great powers of fascination. Her voice is soft, low, and of extraordinary sweetness of tone. As we have said she is modest, quiet and retiring in manner, and is extremely reticent in speaking of anything she has done, while she is ever ready to bestow the full meed of praise on the labors of others. Her devotion to her work has ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... things in my travels. 'Twas as if the thing had been set by some one, just to show you off to your best. Here you were, a slip of a lass, straight as a bulrush, and your head hangin' proud on your shoulders; yet modest too, as you can see off here in the North the top of the golden-rod flower swing on its stem. You were slim as slim, and yet there wasn't a corner on you; so soft and full and firm you were, like the breast of a quail; and I mind me how ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... very gentle, modest, and fearful examinations, your evident musings over my words, and the bright look now and then that told ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... overstepped the mark at all. Miss Fraenkel was very nice, but—it has nothing to do with my story. It is a point of honour with me to put Miss Fraenkel in her place, if I may express it so without discourtesy, and that place is certainly modest and inconspicuous. Miss Fraenkel's light was very clear and very bright, but illuminated only a small area. She wrote an admirable paper and read it clearly and impressively at the Women's Club on ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... backward. At this however my manly pride revolted, and I obstinately kept my seat, notwithstanding her very obliging intreaties. The phrase raw traveller I did not think quite so politely and happily chosen as the rest; but then it fell from such a pair of modest lips, that it ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the little, narrow, ill-paved street, through the deserted plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of dust before the only remaining tower, with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined Mission church. A new dormitory and school-building had been extended from its walls, but in a subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual glaring white-pine glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to himself bitterly. Some of his money ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... sitting an hour to talk we broke up, all leaving Pelling to talk with my wife, and I walked towards White Hall, but, being wearied, turned into St. Dunstan's Church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... according to the testimony of his comrades—the surest and most clearsighted of testimony—for no one can deceive his peers? Would it be the cold and calm Dorme, who went to battle as a fisher goes to his nets, who never spoke of his exploits, and whose heart, under this modest, gentle, kind exterior, was filled with hatred for the invader who occupied his own countryside, Briey, and for six months had held in custody and ill-treated his parents? In the Somme battle alone his official victories numbered ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... passing away. The spirit travels in vain into the land of phantoms; nature performs her modest functions without caring for the ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... taken Mary Anderson through the South with great profit to himself. In this she had had no direct pecuniary interest beyond her modest salary. She had, of course, greatly enriched her reputation if not her purse. She had become at home in her parts, and even added to her repertoire, the manager's daughter, with whom she played Juliet ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... your Drunken fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so Mad, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the girl's last day in the old home; her modest outfit had been prepared and packed, and the old waggoner was to call on the morrow to convey Mary and her uncle (who was to be her escort to the wonderful, far-off "London town") to Exeter; whence, by slow and tedious stages, the travellers would ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... that's a very pretty reason, I must say; but I'm not so modest as that. No: it wasn't ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... to lawyer Grey, and laid the case before him. He told the lawyer what his modest demands were, and gave instructions that if, at any time before the suit came off, his cousin would compromise, an arrangement avoiding publicity ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... for the patience, persistence, and skill of the leader of armies, as evidenced in the brilliant campaigns that culminated with Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge, and Appomattox, but for the sturdy integrity of character, modest bearing, and sweetness of nature ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight—always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... garment that they do in the Gilberts, the fashion varying from time to time: now it is swung very jaunty from side to side, now it's low and now it's high, and sometimes it's thick and sometimes it's thin, and sometimes the modest-and-quiet is the dressy way of it. She took care of the house very nice, and what few clothes and things we had were arranged most tidy in three chests with bell locks. I never hear a little bell ting-a-ling to-day but what it brings those days back to me, with her so busy ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... with the sincerest affection and most profound esteem for the illustrious house of the Corvini Krasinski; I have always ardently desired that the modest arms of Polkozie might be united with the glorious and illustrious arms of Slepowron. My happiness is at its height on beholding that your highnesses will deign to grant me this great honor. Your daughter Barbara is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... needn't be afraid that Bream will drop it. He isn't clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I think it's so splendid," said Billie, "when men can do things like that. I'm always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for people, but he's so modest, he won't." ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... pride; but you will find things pretty comfortable. I regret to say we'll have to do our smoking out of doors; but it is generally warm enough for that. If we are noted for anything, it is for modest contentment, unassuming virtue, and cheerful candor—just as you see them in me. Each face reflects the genuine emotions and guileless innocence of the heart connected therewith; more than that, they reflect one another, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... call that an act of exclusion, and an act of state, which is only, in our language, called a bill; for Henry III. could never be gained to pass it, though it was proposed by the three estates at Blois. The Reflectors are more modest; for they profess, (though I am afraid it is somewhat against the grain,) that a vote of the House of Commons is not an act; but the times are turned upon them, and they dare speak no other language. Mr Hunt, indeed, is a bold republican, and tells you the bottom of their meaning. Yet ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... not only famous but modest," said Maimie; "but that is an old characteristic of his. I knew Mr. Macdonald a very long ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... for educating such a boy as Friedrich; but the native worth of his parents did more than compensate for the disadvantages of their worldly condition and their limited acquirements in knowledge. The benevolence, the modest and prudent integrity, the true devoutness of these good people shone forth at an after period, expanded and beautified in the character of their son; his heart was nourished by a constant exposure to such influences, and thus the better part of his education prospered well. The mother was a woman ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... with it unquestioned social prerogative. Yet there must be some clannishness based upon birth, for your true Filipino never repudiates his poor relations or apologizes for them. At every social function there is a crowd of them in all stages of modest apparel, and with manners born of social obscurity, asserting their right to be considered among the elect. I am inclined to think that Filipinos concern themselves with the present rather than the past, and that the parvenu finds it ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... less than this" said Algernon within his lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and a frothing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... little errands she does for me and the children. What I wished to elucidate," added the speaker, energetically, "is this—that no one can't put me down, knowin' as I do my own rights. In fact, I may say, knowin' that I'm a sharer in the success that P. Crandall has achieved in a modest way, and that I heartily dispise aristocrats, who want to walk over everybody that is what they call self-made, and that make such a fuss about ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... any of them to earn his living, only in some very modest capacity and on a very modest plane might they have done so. Of the entire company only one—the youngest—could claim even the celebrity that attached to his little volume ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... excitement and bustle, Mr. Chrysler also sometimes fell into the modest society of Josephte. The girl seemed sad at these times, and to be losing the serene peace which at first seemed her characteristic. He remarked this to Madame Bois-Hebert one day as he met her sitting in the shades of the pine-walk reading a ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... not understood. These are glaciers? How they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty, modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... say that though by nature little disposed towards the attitude of the courtier, I wrote my modest tribute of regret ex animo. I was not only not writing a conventional article of condolence, not even writing dramatically, but sincerely. When, however, the leader was finished, I, of course, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... its amusing side," said Florimel: "and one likes to feel, of course, that one is not wholly out of touch with things, and is even, in one's modest way, contributing to the suppression of folly. But even so, your majesty, the calls that are made upon one! the things that young men expect of you, as the price of their bodily and spiritual ruin! and the things their relatives say about you! ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... comes for long skirts, parties, balls, and late hours, for lace, jewelry, and gold watches, threatens to rob our homes of one of their sweetest charms,—the bright presence of joyous, gentle, and modest lasses, willing to be happy children for as many years as their mothers were, on their way to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... which impart their own peace and 516:12 permanence. Love, redolent with unselfish- ness, bathes all in beauty and light. The grass beneath our feet silently exclaims, "The meek shall inherit the 516:15 earth." The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath to heaven. The great rock gives shadow and shelter. The sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the 516:18 prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... raillery of his companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. The object of his love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel. It is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces. She must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... the branching antlers. With dogged disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up the hill with sullen slowness; thus furnishing still surer aims to the muskets which bristled on the redoubt. Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an inexperienced marksman; hinting, that every shot which the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would, upon a different occasion, have procured him a deerskin. And like stricken deers ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... my friend's previous life and occupation. He was of very good family, had enjoyed an excellent university education, and had the finest prospects of a prosperous career at home, when, as far as I could ascertain, he took a sudden freak to emigrate. He had inherited a modest fortune, and now maintained himself as cashier in a large tea importing house in the city. He read the newspapers diligently, apparently with a view to convincing himself of the universal wretchedness of mankind in general and the American people in particular, had a ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that their sister had said rather too little than too much of Terry's abilities. Not only had he brought home a huge pile of prizes, but no sooner was the seance after dinner broken up, than he detained Julius, saying, in a very meek and modest tone, "Rose says you know all the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the room, inattentively. His stomach was fasting, his head light with rapid travel; above all, he had a sense of wonder that all this should be happening to him. For, albeit a distinguished officer, he was a modest man, and by habit considered himself of no great importance; albeit a brave man, too, he shrank at the thought of the message he carried—a message to explode and shake millions of men in a confusion of wild ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ingenious artist, M. Caffieres, sculptor to Louis XVI., king of France, under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. The monument is of white marble, of the most beautiful simplicity and inexpressible elegance, with emblematical devices, and the following truly classical inscription, worthy of the modest but great mind ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... alone at Upfold Farm; and I wish you to come here—to make your home with me till you are of age. It would be a great pleasure to me, and I would take care you should have every opportunity for self-improvement. I know you are not a fine young lady, my dear, but you are sensible, modest, and sweet-tempered, and we should get on well together. If you were happy with me I should regard you as my adopted daughter, and provide accordingly for you. Think of it for a few minutes while I look over these letters. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... hey? Modest as ever, I see. Well, here's luck to you. You needn't be afraid of the guy, Natalie; we got his gat before we brought him up here, and if he makes any break, I'll be out in the hall ready to take a hand. You're still ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... The most significant are debt-related: the government's largely domestic debt increased steadily from 1994 to 2003, straining government finances, while Brazil's foreign debt (a mix of private and public debt) is large in relation to Brazil's modest (but growing) export base. Another challenge is maintaining economic growth over a period of time to generate employment and make the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... malum minatum, by the drummer. In 1662 the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, F.R.S., visited the house, and, in the bedroom of Mr. Mompesson's little girls, the chief sufferers, heard and saw much the same phenomena as the elder Wesley describes in his own nursery. The "little modest girls" were aged about seven and eight. Charles II. sent some gentlemen to the house for one night, when nothing occurred, the disturbances being intermittent. Glanvil published his narrative at the time, and Mr. Pepys ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... had warmly espoused the extreme opinions of that religious party who looked on Popery as antichrist, and the Church of England as little better than Popery in disguise, as the same scarlet lady in a somewhat more modest attire. He was one of a class occasionally met with in the most quiet walks of life, men who torment their spirit on some public question till it becomes a personal grievance, or rather a corroding passion. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... them in their incessant and insolent attempt to sit in judgment upon their European sister. We certainly think that the recollection of the Affghan war, the bombardment of Copenhagen, of the splendid exploits of Whig policy and Whig non-intervention in Spain, might make England a little more modest, and a little less inclined to declaim against the wickedness of other nations—and as to France, her whole history, from the Republic to the present day, is nothing but a succession of lessons which might teach la grande nation to abstain from exhibiting herself in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... method of their ascertainment and validity, not to mention their significance, such lists can easily do—and probably have done—more harm than good. One simple and reasonable criterion would reduce this catalogue to fairly modest proportions, so far as social science is concerned: Which ones have an obvious or even probable social significance? Over and above that, while such contrasts may be of speculative interest, they lead imaginative people to argue from ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... sight, strong-limbed, erect, and full-bosomed, appeared a girl. Her face was like a rain-wet rose—a splendid, unexpected flower set in this dim and gray and desolate place. Fearlessly she fronted me to ask the way, a laugh upon her lips, her big gray eyes confident of man's chivalry, modest and sincere. I had been so long among rude men and their coarse consorts that this fair woman lit the mist as if with sudden sunshine—just a moment and was gone. There were others with her, but they passed unnoticed. There in the gloom, like a ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... her to this, she could not have believed him capable of such harshness, she felt sure the apprentice must have shamefully calumniated her. And so indeed he had, for feeling jealous of the praise which his master bestowed upon this modest and industrious young girl, he took this means of removing her, envious at the idea of her sharing in the Christmas presents, which his master intended ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... "No? You will be modest? Well, well! But talking of that old place, I assure you, Miss Kavanagh, it worries me—it does, indeed. It sounds like one's duty ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... man of letters, a real philosopher, retiring, industrious, and modest. He spends all his winters in Warsaw, and lives every summer in the country. He permits neither society nor coteries, nor interests of any sort, to snatch away time from him, or influence his convictions. He goes about as he chooses, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... sank deep in a congenial soil. Under the influence of the two motives, she applied herself to gain, and did gain, a certain degree of external niceness and self-control. Her affection for Greville made her willing, for his sake, because he was not rich, to live quietly, to accept modest surroundings, and to discard whatever was coarse in associates, or unbecoming in her own person or conduct. He, while relaxing none of his requirements, repaid her with courtesy and increasing admiration, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... friends of the County Scientific Association, For this modest boulder, And its little tablet of bronze. Twice I tried to join your honored body, And was rejected And when my little brochure On the intelligence of plants Began to attract attention You almost voted me in. After that I grew beyond ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... of Hard Knocks. All kinds of verse made to order with efficiency and dispatch. Satisfaction guaranteed or money returned. A trial solicited. In Memoriam Odes a specialty. Ballads, Rondeaux and Sonnets at modest prices. Try our lines of Love Lyrics. Leave orders ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... backed horses, through the old firm, for small sums. The fact of his being a man of large independent means both he and Phineas (to his credit) had kept a close secret, his clerkly origin divined and promulgated by Mo Shendish being unquestioningly accepted, so the bets proposed by Taffy were of a modest nature. Once he brought off a forty to one chance. Taffy rushed to him with the news, dancing with excitement. Doggie's stoical indifference to the winning of twenty pounds, a year's army pay, gave him cause for great wonder. As Doggie showed similar equanimity ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... anxious, almost a grieved look. They alone appeared discontented with their master. Their pride knew no bounds; their irritability was extreme. Nothing seemed good enough, for them. In the way of honors privileges, and when we recall their father's modest at Ajaccio, it is hard to keep from smiling at the vanity of these new Princes of the blood. Of Napoleon's four brothers, two were absent and on bad terms with him: Lucien, on account of his marriage with Madame Jouberton; Jerome, on account of his marriage with Miss Paterson. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... felt the propriety of this arrangement. She herself abandoned the old habitation of the Comte de Tecle, to install herself near her daughter in the modest chateau which belonged to the maternal ancestors of M. de Camors, and which we have already described in another place, with its solemn avenue, its balustrades of granite, its labyrinths of hornbeams and the black ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to spend the dog-watch, according to their wont, in a game of ungodly poker. They were flush, for it had been pay-day in the afternoon, and under the reckless impulse of the holiday the jack-pot, ordinarily modest enough for cause, grew to unheard-of proportions. It contained nearly fifteen dollars when Rudie opened it at last. Amid breathless silence, he then and there made the only public ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... mind to go as simply dressed as possible. She wanted to be modest and humble, as it befitted a woman who, rich herself, envied everyone who was poor. While she was still in the midst of her preparations, she received through the post (Margari went to the nearest post-office once ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... in 1832, he was the recipient of almost national honors. He had received the medal of the Royal Society of Literature and the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University, and had made American literature known and respected abroad. In his modest home at Sunnyside, on the banks of the river over which he had been the first to throw the witchery of poetry and romance, he was attended to the last by the admiring affection of his countrymen. He had the love and praises ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... stand in need of so elaborate proof, that we can only know, of the universe, what we can see and understand, went on to state that the laws of Nature "were not objective realities, any more than they were absolute truths."[176] Which decision, it seems to me, is as if some modest and rational gnat, who had submitted to the humiliating conviction that it could know no more of the world than might be traversed by flight, or tasted by puncture, yet, in the course of an experiment on a philosopher with its proboscis, hearing him speak of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... thing to praise one's self. Be it as foolish as they would make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself, unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though yet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering orator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that is to say, mere lies; and yet, composing ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... always at Manor Cross in possession of a fine old house in which they could have entertained half the county, and a magnificent park,—which, however, was let for grazing up to the garden-gates,—and a modest income unequal to the splendour which should have been displayed by the inhabitants of ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... on comparing the varnish of a very red old master of Italy, say a Landolphi, with some made with a fairly strong solution of resin and dragon's blood, the violence of colour in the latter will be very apparent. At a little distance off the old master will look very modest while the other will seem ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... her youngest sister draweth nigh, 'Neath modest starlight and with noiseless feet, Whom thousands flock to greet— Thousands of every age, who fain would know, As in her face each peereth wistfully, What ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... I have read Aright Johanna's soul, her modest heart's Her fairest jewel. She deserveth well The homage of the great, but her desires Soar not so high. She striveth not to reach A giddy eminence; an honest heart's True love content's her, and the quiet lot Which with this hand I ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... soon arrive at that distinction," returned the other, "if his Majesty's ministers have any just conceptions of modest merit; unless, indeed you ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Veiled their Diana with some drapery, And when they represented Venus naked They made her by her modest attitude, Appear half clothed. But I, who am a Christian, Do so subordinate belief to art That I have made the very violation Of modesty in martyrs and in virgins A spectacle at which all men would gaze With half-averted eyes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... too modest, my father. But I will help you out, if you insist." He turned to the others, who were gathered around him, ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... business in a great engineering firm. But literature was his goal, and the appreciation of the editors of a few magazines and journals to some extent satisfied his ambition. In point of fact, Mr. Milliken, in respect to his work, is the most modest and retiring of men; and the only contribution to which his name appeared, for years before or after, was the set of memorial verses to Charles Dickens which were printed in the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... free state, as the representatives of the nation, as advisers of the King, as men of integrity and honor. The only weapons they had used to oppose the encroachments of the court had been remonstrances, modest complaints, petitions. They had never allowed themselves to be so far carried away by a just zeal for their good cause as to transgress the limits of prudence and moderation, which on many occasions are so easily overstepped by party spirit. But all the nobles of the republic did ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... not one of those to whom conviction comes in a day; and, when convinced, he did nothing sudden. Little more than a boy in age, singularly modest, and constitutionally averse to any course that appeared pretentious or theatrical, he began by a sincere attempt to make the best of his calling. For some years he contented himself with doing what he could, (so he writes ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... consent of modest Linnaeus himself, Dr. Gronovius selected this typical woodland blossom to transmit the great ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... English lady must live there. Cecile again, with renewed hope and confidence, walked down the street. At the sixth house she stopped, and a cry of joy, of almost rapture, escaped her lips. Amid all the countless foreign words and names stood a modest English one on a neat door painted green. In the middle of a shining brass plate appeared two very simple, ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... is fair to see and sweet, Dainty from her head to feet, Modest, as her blushing shows, Happy, as her smiles disclose, And the young man at her side Nervously attempts to hide Underneath a visage grim That ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... Said the modest flowers, "Though the sun we scarcely know, Happiness is ours. Moon we have, and sparkling stars (Each a heavenly gem), And their light so gentle is, We ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... pillar that carried regally her high-cheeked, high-browed, high chiefess face and head; Bella's hair, high-piled, intact, sparkling the silver of the years, ringleted still and contrasting definitely and sharply with her clean, slim, black brows and deep brown eyes. And Martha's glance, in modest overwhelming of modesty by what she saw, dropped down the splendid breast of her and generously true lines of body to the feet, silken clad, high-heeled-slippered, small, plump, with an almost Spanish ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... cloth was to impart to fustian the advantages it possessed in the way of reading, singing, fiddling, or what not; and that not gratuitously, which would have offended the working man's dignity, but for the modest sum of one penny, which, whilst Lazarus was not too poor to afford, Dives condescended to accept, and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... appeared before 1839? Gifford gives an extract from it in Massinger's City Madam, Act II., where the daughters of Sir John Frugal make somewhat similar stipulations from their suitors. When speaking of this letter as "a modest and consolatory one," Gifford adds, "it is yet extant." The editor of a work entitled Relics of Literature (1823) gives it at length, with this reference, "Harleian MSS. 7003." The property of Lady Compton's father, Sir John Spencer, is stated variously from 300,000l. ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... to his Brooklyn home, and, after a period of saving, had his reward in the first purchase from his own earnings: a set of the Encyclopedia. He now read about all the successful men, and was encouraged to find that in many cases their beginnings had been as modest as his own, and their ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... of these speculations, he was destined not to eat any supper at all that night. Something happened that so upset him as to make him forget the meal altogether. It began to happen when he reached the modest home of P. Gafford, adjoining the Gafford stables, on Locust Street, and found sitting on the lowermost step of the porch a young man of untidy and unshaven aspect, who hailed him affectionately as Uncle Paul, and who showed ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... customers who stay too long and drink too little—in spite of these discouragements, the villagers still cannot believe that what was good enough for their fathers is not good enough for themselves. It might not be equally good if they wished to be "superior persons," but for the modest needs of people like themselves they think it should serve. So they go to the public-house just as their fathers did, content to miss the approval of the cultured, so long as they can do as well as those worthies. Of course, if they ever analyzed their impressions, they ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... on his sick bed in Rome, he said: "I feel the flowers growing over me." In February, 1821, he died, at the age of twenty-five years and four months. On the modest stone which marks his grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, there was placed at his request: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His most appropriate epitaph is ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies was consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make known grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this modest function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the 18th of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... from her French blood, I know not, but it amounted to genius, and might have made her a pre-eminent cordon bleu, if she had not been the wife, and cheffe, of a poor professional gentleman, whose moderate means were so skillfully turned to account, in her provision for his modest table, that he was accused by ill-natured people of indulging in the expensive luxury of a French cook. Well do I remember the endless supplies of potted gravies, sauces, meat jellies, game jellies, fish jellies, the white ranges of which filled the shelves of her ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the Far East, to find people who are persuaded they can remember previous births in this way, but I have never met anyone who professed to recall more than two or three. There is no room in these modest modern visions for the long vistas of previous lives seen by the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... have seen the look on her face, too, when I shows up with Professor Hinckley. He's a perfectly good highbrow, understand—pointed face whiskers, shaggy forelock, wide black ribbon on his eyeglasses, and all—sort of a mild-eyed, modest appearin' gent, but kind of distinguished-lookin', at that. And you'd never guess how nervous ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... you you were modest, Professor. It would have taken me weeks or months to do that. I've been working on rather an ambitious project with these tubes, you may laugh when I tell you; I was well on the way with it when," once more his features clouded, ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... says she, and tell me who you are, otherwise you shall not live one moment longer. I cannot believe you to be honest men, nor persons of authority or distinction in your own countries; for, if you were, you would have been more modest ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... proud, but without arrogance; to abjure every sentiment of hatred and revenge; to show himself magnanimous and liberal, without ostentation and without profusion; to be the enemy of vice; to pay homage to wisdom and virtue; to respect innocence; to be constant and patient in adversity, and modest in prosperity; to avoid every irregularity that stains the soul and distempers the body—it is by following these precepts that a Mason will become a good citizen, a faithful husband, a tender father, an obedient son, and a true brother; will ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... quite impossible to be retiring, or even modest, in the mid-Victorian sense, in flats. A bedroom cannot remain an inviolate sanctuary when it affords the only means of access to the bathroom or is a short cut to the kitchen. Olive had had some experience ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... talk to this incomparable woman without bursting into tears. I have a thousand obligations to her, and I love her more than her whole sex, if not all the world put together. She has a delicacy," &c., &c. And after reciting a frigid epitaph which he had written, "expressive of her modest worth," he winds up with—"Say all that is kind of me to thy mother; and believe me, my Lydia, that I love thee most truly." My excuse for quoting thus fully from this most characteristic letter, and, indeed, for dwelling at all ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... literally meaning, cleansing virtues]; thirdly, there are perfect [*Virtutes purgati animi: literally, virtues of the clean soul] virtues; and fourthly, there are exemplar virtues.'" [*Cf. Chrysostom's fifteenth homily on St. Matthew, where he says: "The gentle, the modest, the merciful, the just man does not shut up his good deeds within himself . . . He that is clean of heart and peaceful, and suffers persecution for the sake of the truth, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the modest Liberty I have here and there taken of animadverting on my Author, but that I was willing to obviate in time the splenetick Exaggerations of my Adversaries on this Head. From past Experiments I have reason to be conscious in what Light this Attempt may be placed: and that what I call a ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... and delighted with her husband's success. She canvassed for him in a modest way, making herself pleasant to the wives of his supporters in a unique manner of her own which was not perhaps quite dignified considering her position, but yet was found very captivating by those good women. She ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... was brought before Archbishop Arundel. Both judge and accused played their several parts with dignity. Arundel without angry reviling asserted the necessity of accepting the teaching of the Church. Oldcastle with modest firmness maintained the falsity of many of its doctrines. In the end he was excommunicated, but before any further action could be taken he escaped, and was nowhere to be found. His followers were so exasperated as to form a plot ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... pheasant astonishingly well and basted it successfully with cucumber sauce. I was obliged to acknowledge that, but for him, I should have had to remain on a dry-food diet. A bottle of Kakhetian wine helped us to forget the modest number of dishes—of which there was one, all told. Then we lit our pipes, took our chairs, and sat down—I by the window, and he by the stove, in which a fire had been lighted because the day was damp and cold. We remained silent. What had we ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... change of sensibility. When Louis V. issued from the crisis of transfer with its minute of anxious expression and panting breath, he might fairly be called a new man. The restless insolence, the savage impulsiveness, have wholly disappeared. The patient is now gentle, respectful, and modest, can speak clearly, but he only speaks when he is spoken to. If he is asked his views on religion and politics, he prefers to leave such matters to wiser heads than his own. It might seem that morally and mentally the patient's ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... dead away, in which condition she remained, to the great anxiety and distress of Captain Lee, until the "Flying Dutchman," after doing seventy-eight miles in one hour and a half, glided as softly up to the platform of the station in the great Metropolis as if it were a modest young train which had yet to win its spurs, instead of being a tried veteran which had done its best for many years past to annihilate space and time. But, after all, it resembled all other tried veterans ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... This is only Berlin's modest way of saying that not one in ten successful song-writers know anything about the art of music, and that very few are well enough educated to err on the side of involved language and write other than simple lyrics. He drew the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... help. And it was not until he had appealed, in vain to all his social friends to relieve him of the necessity of my aid, not until he realized that I was his only hope of escaping a sharp comedown from luxury to very modest comfort in a flat somewhere—not until then did his wife send me an invitation to dinner. And I had not so much as hinted that I ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... the flowers, however, was the December greenness, especially of the humbler sorts: St. John's-wort, five-finger, the creeping blackberries,—whose modest winter loveliness was never half appreciated,—herb-robert, corydalis, partridge-berry, checkerberry, wintergreen, rattlesnake-plantain, veronica, and linnaea, to say nothing of the ferns and mosses. Most refreshing of all, perhaps, was an occasional ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... and one of his friends, little Mr. Bouncer, were lounging in the gateway of Brazenface, when a modest-looking young man came towards them. He seemed so ill at ease in his frock coat and high collar that he looked as if he were wearing these ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
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