"Discreet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dwell within their houses and buildings in the City, and in the suburbs aforesaid, on pain of forfeiture of their said houses and buildings, and more grievous punishment on them by us to be inflicted, if they shall contravene the same. And further, taking with you certain discreet and lawful men who have the best knowledge of this disease, all those persons, as well as citizens as others, of whatever sex or condition they may be, whom, upon diligent examination in this behalf to be made, within the city and suburbs ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... to the broad-sword, which was yet strapped to his thigh; and this, as he rose, he attempted to draw, not doubting that a single blow of the trusty steel would rid him of his brown enemy. But the Shawnee, as bold, as alert, and far more discreet, better acquainted, too, with those savage personal rencontres which, make up so large a portion of Indian warfare, had drawn his knife before he had yet regained his footing; and before the Virginian's sword was half unsheathed, the hand that tugged ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... truly! Thou hast the jacket, Gino, and thou mayest search in its pockets for an answer to thy letter, which I do not thank thee for having got the duca's secretary to indite. A maiden should be discreet in affairs of this sort; for one never knows but he may make a confidant ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... and fat shapeless arms crossed upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having no likeness either in heaven or on earth, could hardly be called an idol. As the islanders always maintained a discreet reserve with regard to my own peculiar views on religion, I thought it would be excessively ill-bred of me to pry ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... and sauntered over to my chair. Under cover of the hubbub, not yet subsided, he said: "I fancy you will shortly require a discreet friend." ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Baldy that threatened to break into open hostility at the slightest excuse, Dubby promptly ranged himself on the side of the newcomer with a firmness that impressed even Tom, Dick, and Harry with a determination to be at least discreet ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... to speak no ill; The best reformer is the man whose eyes Are quick to see all beauty and all worth; And by his own discreet, well-ordered life, Alone reproves the erring. When they gaze Turns it on thine own soul, be most severe. But when it falls upon a fellow-man Let kindliness control it; and refrain From that belittling censure ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... physically as others see them; but, judging from the remarks made, I am convinced that I must have afforded an entertaining spectacle to the party. They roared with laughter, and jeered me. I, however, preserved a silence discreet, and, I flatter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... qualification. It is like the other general assertion, that Browning had to live fifty years before he gained recognition—a statement as ludicrous when examined as it is unjust to the many discreet judges who awarded, publicly and privately, that intelligent sympathy which is the best sunshine for the flower of a poet's genius. If by "before he gained recognition" is meant a general and indiscriminate acclaim, no doubt Browning had, still has indeed, longer to wait ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... dissimilar secede discerning essential accede discipline messenger intercede discontent concede discreet necessary ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... was pegging out some towels in the yard she heard a discreet cough on the other side of the fence. Ada recognized the signal. It was her neighbour, the woman with the hairy lip, housekeeper to Aaron the Jew. It had taken Ada weeks to discover Mrs Herring's physical defect, which she humoured by shaving. Now Ada could ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... and domestic acquaintance with the work of two of the great departments of the Staff at G.H.Q. So much of these experiences of the work of the Staff and of the life of the Army in the field as it appears discreet to record is here set down. The writer desires to express his acknowledgments to his friends, Major E.A. Wallinger, Major F.C.T. Ewald, D.S.O., and Captain W.A. Wallinger, for their kindness in reading the proofs of some one or more of the chapters in this book. Nor would his acknowledgments ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... how thou art gaining credit because they are few who know thee! But do we suppose that God is better pleased when men account us wise and discreet persons? We think forthwith that there is but little edification given when people do not go about, every one in his degree, with great gravity, in a dignified way. Even in the friar, the ecclesiastic, and the nun, if they wear old and patched ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... such an offer from him,—him, William Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his county, at her feet, his eyes melting with the love he would throw into them, his tones subdued to their most sympathetic quality, and all those phrases on his lips which every day beguile women older and more discreet than this romantic, long-imprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise was an assertion of her womanhood and her right to dispose of herself as she chose. He had not lived to be twenty-five ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... listened to nor thought of. There was nothing to be ashamed of or troubled about in any of his relations with the school-girls. Elsie, no doubt, showed a kind of attraction towards him, as did perhaps some others; but he had been perfectly discreet, and no father or brother or lover had any just cause of quarrel with him. To be sure, that dark young man at the Dudley mansion-house looked as if he were his enemy, when he had met him; but certainly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... of three survivors of the ill-fated Graceby polar expedition, and as such he had been obliged to subsist for some days on whatsoever was set before him by the cook, a discreet but overpowering person who certainly would have been the sole survivor if the relief expedition had been delayed a few days longer. But that portion of Mr. Cannable's history sounds much better in whispers and it does not look pretty in print. He never repeated it of his own ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... de Listomere-Landon was an irreparable loss. The old lady died of joy and of an accession of gout to the heart when the Duc d'Angouleme came back to Tours, and the one living being entitled by her age to enlighten Victor, the woman who, by discreet counsels, might have brought about perfect unanimity of husband and wife, was dead; and Julie felt the full extent of her loss. Henceforward she must stand alone between herself and her husband. But she was young ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... can show yourself, to put an end to her torture, and unfold to her her glorious destiny. Speak to one another all that sighs, lips, and glances can speak. As a discreet confident, I know my duty, and ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... with tastes that way given, feel inclined to take up and devour on the spur of the moment; and when she liked her lion, she had a look about her which seemed to ask to be devoured. There are girls so cold-looking,—pretty girls, too, ladylike, discreet, and armed with all accomplishments,—whom to attack seems to require the same sort of courage, and the same sort of preparation, as a journey in quest of the north-west passage. One thinks of a pedestal near the Athenaeum as the most appropriate and ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... vintner had vanished. Carmichael agreed that it was the best thing for them to do. The vintner was no coward, but he was discreet. Somebody might ask questions. So Carmichael returned to the consulate, equally indifferent what the colonel did or where he went. Of the vintner he thought: "The hot-headed young fool, to risk his ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... restless, and Longmore very soon discovered that if she was not a brilliant beauty she was at least a most attaching one. This very impression made him magnanimous. He was certain he had interrupted a confidential conversation, and judged it discreet to withdraw, having first learned from Maggie's mamma—Mrs. Draper—that she was to take the six o'clock train back to Paris. He promised to ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... desires to live until justice triumphs. He sometimes feels assurance that all will be righted. It is difficult to restrain his curiosity within discreet bounds. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... of her satisfaction she had a rude shock. What on earth was the vicar doing? After they had got through better than any one could have hoped, thanks to a discreet silence and Sarah's makeshifts, there was the master of the house pouring the whole tale of his wife's aspirations and disappointment into Mrs. Seaton's ear! If it were ever allowable to rush upon your husband at table and stop his mouth with a dinner napkin, Mrs. Thornburgh could at ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the hose to a fireman, who promptly retreated with it to a discreet position, then followed his captors, who were ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... "Licentiousness in a house is as a worm in a pumpkin." This reappears as "Violence in a house is as a worm in a pumpkin." "Thy friend has an acquaintance, and the acquaintance of thy friend has also an acquaintance; be discreet." The unworthy child of a good father is called "vinegar, the son of wine." "If the opportunity fails the thief, he deems himself honest. The cock and owl await together the morning dawn. Says the cock to the owl, 'Light profits me, but how does it profit ...
— Hebrew Literature
... married to a discreet woman who managed him without ever letting him be aware of it, and having a sure and sufficient income, and never knowing that he had a stomach, he did his clerical work (with the help of a curate), and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... strong-minded, sensible man. I saw that thee was greatly taken with her at first, and no wonder. Besides, I couldn't help hearing what thee said when out of thy mind. Mother and I kept the children away then, and Doctor Bates had the wink from me to be discreet; but thee's been a sensible man since thee got up, and put the whole thing away from ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Christopher (my husband and ten-year-old Ted named him that very evening) didn't look at me and wink. Then he jumped down and followed, very dignified, very discreet. ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... lesson in deception, but I schooled lip and eye to obedience, so that Franklin suspected nothing, and, being a discreet servant, who never let his right hand know what his left was doing, especially when gold crossed the palm, I was sure of silence on the subject, at least until after ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... soon received enlightenment. First, there was the Laird of Balmawhapple,—"a discreet young gentleman," said the Baron, "much given to field sports." Next came the Laird of Killancureit, who cultivated his own fields and cared for his own cattle—thereby (quoth the Baron) showing the commonness of his origin. Added to these were a "non-juring" Episcopal minister—that ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... went on until there were twenty lines on the paper. The game was growing exciting and, under the stress of it, the counting on the old settee rose above the discreet whisper it was originally meant to be. "Twenty-one!" cried Amanda. Aunt Rebecca ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... hardness of the rock, but more often the frozen hardness of the ice, which the sun of human sympathies may melt again. The world, accustomed to judge them harshly, to see only their crime, and to see it without its palliations—to out-cast them, makes them what they become; when instead, a discreet humanity might have converted many, after a first transgression, into useful ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... them, and a man at his elbow informed him that his driver had thrown down the reins and jumped off before they were clear of the railway bridge. Archie swallowed the comment upon this discreet behaviour, that ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... exclaimed, when I had made a feint of setting the device into motion (for it need not be concealed from you, O discreet one, that I was really inadequate to the attempt, and, indeed, narrowly escaped impaling myself upon its sudden and unexpected protrusions), "the highly-burnished surface of your dexterously arranged window gave to this engine a ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... of the bush is called Jack the Painter—a very green tea indeed, its viridity evidently produced by a discreet use of the copper drying-pans ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... wonder who I am and where I came from. So I altered my plan, deferring our departure until now, which will afford me plenty of time to get into the city before daylight. Then I shall have the whole day before me, if I find that I require it, in which to look about me and make a few discreet enquiries; and as soon after dark as it is safe to return I will come back; reaching the boat, if all be well, in time to go out and rejoin the Adventure to-morrow night about this time. Now, I shall want you to go with me as far as the village, to help ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... his voice harsh. "Kinsman," added he, to Robin, "do you keep still tongue in the business, and tell your squire to be as discreet. I am outlawed in England and have no ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... words of formal introduction to the reader, since he is destined to make their better acquaintance. We have ventured hitherto only to take a few discreet and distant glimpses at them, as we found them loitering about the Boulevards on the morrow of their appearance in Paris. Mr. Cockayne—having been very successful for many years in the soap-boiling business, to the great ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... as to make a profit on them," answered Bobby, who, like a discreet merchant, was not disposed to be ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... habit of running in and out of each other's houses at all hours, that their various members inevitably found much to complain of in one another's conduct. These complaints were brought to Anne, who was treated with such confidence by all parties that if she had not been a very discreet young lady she might have considerably increased the difficulties of the situation. Mary she found as selfish, as querulous, as ready to think herself ailing, as lacking in sense and understanding, as unable to manage her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... matter stood, replied: "My brother, go your was quickly; then write to me, and have no further care about your things." I did as he advised. He was the most loyal friend, the wisest, the most worthy, the most discreet, the most affectionate that I have ever known. I left Florence and went to Rome, and from there ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... they get accustomed to her, they want to rule her, and the more one gives them the more exacting they become. If I decide now on taking a new lover, he must have three very rare qualities: he must be confiding, submissive, and discreet." ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... knows of food but bread of bran? Besides, if aught such ears Might e'er unclog, There lives but one, with tones for Sion meet. Behoveful, zealous, beautiful, elect, Mild, firm, judicious, loving, bold, discreet, Without superfluousness, without defect, Few are his words, and find but scant respect, Nay, scorn from some, for God's good cause agog. Silence in such a Land is oftenest such men's speech. O, that ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... wills its condition sweet, Having made love its mother, joy its quest, That its perpetual sequence might not rest On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet; ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... were discussed, amendments, forms of words. They met at discreet dinners. 'Nobody,' Lord Derby tells him, 'except Disraeli knows the length to which our communications have gone.' Nobody, that is to say, excepting also Mr. Gladstone's three personal allies; them he kept accurately informed of all that passed at every stage. On February ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the agency. Under Elizabeth he enjoyed the same appointment, to which was added that of queen's merchant; and it appears by the official letters of the time, that political as well as pecuniary affairs were often intrusted to his discreet and able management. He was also a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country, several of which owed to him their first establishment. By his diligence and commercial talents he at length rendered himself the most opulent subject in the kingdom, and the queen showed her sense ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... did not want to drink it was not discreet to press him, considering the mood he was in. The others took liberal doses, which seemed only to heighten the detail of the drama which they had witnessed. To Mary it had been all pantomime; to them it was dynamic with language. It was something beyond any previous contemplation ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... in a loud voice, as if desirous that his words should reach the assemblage outside. "I have done that which thou thyself should'st have done, Aveline. I have signified my abhorrence of this vain ceremonial. But wherefore do I find you here? This is no fitting sight for any discreet maiden to witness; and little did I think that daughter of mine would encourage such profane displays by her presence. Little did I think that you, Aveline, would look on and smile while these ignorant and benighted folk set up their idol, piping, dancing, and singing around it as the Gentiles ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... implored Miss Pole to spare her, saying, from a child upwards, she never could understand being read aloud to; and I dropped the pack of cards, which I had been shuffling very audibly, and by this discreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to perceive that Preference was to have been the order of the evening, and to propose, rather unwillingly, that the pool should commence. The pleasant brightness that stole over the other two ladies' faces on this! Miss Matty ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... river that issues from the bosky mountains of the Black Forest flowed, with an air of brook-like innocence, past the expensive hotels and lodging-houses; the orchestra, in a high pavilion on the terrace of the Kursaal, played a discreet accompaniment to the conversation of the ladies and gentlemen who, scattered over the large expanse on a thousand little chairs, preferred for the time the beauties of nature to the shuffle of coin and the calculation of chance; while the faint summer stars, twinkling above the ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... wanted it kept quiet till he could see his father, whom he knows, of course. I understand that the family belongs to this county—lives about twenty miles off." The lady felt so confident that she would be told the name that she seized the opportunity to show how discreet she was, and kept silence. She was quite incapable of mere vulgar inquisitiveness, you see. Her inmost core had the satisfaction of feeling that its visible outer husk, Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson, was killing two birds with one stone. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... be discreet. "Talk!" he shouted. "There's more underhand, sneakin' lies about you goin' around this flat-bottomed, leaky, gurry-and-bilgewater tub of a town than there is fiddlers in Tophet. I've denied 'em and contradicted 'em till I'm hoarse from ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... palette is never gorgeous, consisting as it does of cool grays, discreet blues and greens, Chardin-like whites and Manet-blacks. His procedure is all his own. His second manner is a combination of drawing, painting, and pastel. "He has invented a kind of engraving mixed with wash drawing, pastel ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... natural lightness of manner, "is the bane of married life, but marital felicity is impossible without discreet reserves. It wasn't my secret, you see, so I didn't feel at liberty to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... question him about the beauty and charms of the actresses; curling up the points of their mustaches as they did so with such an absurdly conceited, insolent air of imaginary triumph, that the worthy landlord could not help laughing in his sleeve at them as he gave his discreet, mysterious answers, accompanied by significant gestures calculated to turn the silly heads of these dandified young calves, and make them wild with curiosity ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... should die without heirs-male, he was sure that it would cost two hundred thousand men's lives; and that to avoid this mischief by a second marriage, he thought, would deserve heaven.' Too good reason for the assertion of Hall, that 'all indifferent and discreet persons judged it necessary for the Pope to grant Henry a divorce, and, by enabling him to marry again, give him the hope of an undisputed heir-male.' The Pope had full power to do this; in fact, such cases had been for centuries integral ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... crow caws, the hawk screams, the eagle barks, but the buzzard says not a word. So far as I have observed, he has no vocal powers whatever. Nature dare not trust him to speak. In his case she preserves discreet silence. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... them liberally,—nay, had been philosophical enough to make disappointment impossible, and open the opposite possibility of a pleasant surprise. I conceived that in this respect I had done the discreet and virtuous thing, and silently moralized, not without self-complacency, upon the folly of carrying through the world expectations which the fact, when seen, could only put out of countenance. "Make your expectations zero," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and so does ordinary prudence. Louise, I know, will be discreet, for it is her nature; but Patsy is such a little flyaway and Beth so deep and demure, that without a chaperone they might cause you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... the response that Aunt Basha vouchsafed, and the Bishop, feeling himself hopelessly in the wrong, withdrew in discreet silence. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a queer interview—at first very discreet and very misleading, so far as they were concerned. In the end, however, I had the pleasure of seeing my two letters to Monsieur le General attached to a long sheet of paper, full of writing,—my dossier, they called it. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... Mrs. Ansell and Justine with just the right shade of quiet deference, produced from his pocket a new puzzle-game for Cicely, and sat down beside her mother with the quiet urbanity of the family friend who knows his privileges but is too discreet to abuse them. ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... better chance in the field than cooped up in a wretched fortification. If defeated, he would defend the place to the last extremity, and then retreat to the Isle of Orleans, and wait for reinforcements. More brave than discreet, he attacked the vanguard of the enemy; the battle which took place was fierce and sanguinary. Murray's troops had caught his own headlong valor, and fought until near a third of their number were slain. They ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... whatever the emergency might be the men were ready and on the right of the Strangers was that Paris regiment under Bougainville. What a wonderful man Bougainville had proved himself to be! Fiery and yet discreet, able to read the mind of the enemy, liked by his men whom nevertheless he led where the danger was greatest. John was glad that the ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... when her plastic hand Left framing of these monsters, did display Past doubt her wisdom, taking from mad War Such slaves to do his bidding; and if she Repent her not of th' elephant and whale, Who ponders well confesses her therein Wiser and more discreet; for when brute force And evil will are back'd with subtlety, Resistance none avails. His visage seem'd In length and bulk, as doth the pine, that tops Saint Peter's Roman fane; and th' other bones Of like proportion, so that from above The bank, which girdled him below, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... knowledge, for art, he says, "is based upon laws as rigid and defined as those of the known sciences." Yet whereas "no polished member of society is at all affected by admitting himself neither engineer, mathematician, nor astronomer, and therefore remains willingly discreet and taciturn upon these subjects, still he would be highly offended were he supposed to have no voice in what clearly to him is a matter of taste." So to Whistler art has no more to do with the life of the ordinary man than astronomy or mathematics. His mention ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... now tell this lad here that I'm a friend of yours and a dead-head; and that he must be discreet and say nothing about this visit ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... strange man, and very peculiar to accuse so good and discreet a son. He lives like a saint, and is at prayers and in the house from morning to evening. It is a great untruth to say that he perverts the order of nature, and turns day into night! It is a horrible falsehood to state that upon several occasions he has shown no consideration for father ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... shuffling and scrambling into seats, till all was quiet and the whole coast clear. He spoke very ably for nearly two hours and a half, his speech not containing much oratory, but in a tone at once lofty and firm, yet discreet, calculated to inspire confidence and to make an impression on all who are impressible. There is no use in entering into details of speeches which are now reported with such perfect fidelity. This may not be without its effect on Stanley's meeting to-day, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... objects for choice here in college, for real choice, for discreet choice. I will mention only two. In the first place, choose those studies—there is a great range of them here—which will, through your interest in them, develop your working power. You know it is only through work that you ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... but only tells them he shall fear the less if they send a companion with him; whereby is intimated, that discreet foresight is Grecian and civil, but rash confidence is barbarous and evil; and the former is therefore to be imitated, and the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... called round for Susan Sharpe, and found that treasure of nurses ready and waiting. All through the long drive she sat by his side in his light wagon, never opening her discreet lips except to respond to his questions, and gazing straight ahead through her green glasses into the world of futurity, for ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Legislative Council were to be discreet persons, appointed by Royal authority for life; the members of the Assemblies were to be chosen by the people, once in four years, unless oftener called upon, by dissolution, to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... those surplus-steam persons—have to make an ass of myself constantly, indulging in the futility of blowing off steam. Oughtn't to do it publicly—creates false impression. Got to have a wife—no one else but a wife always available and bound to be discreet. Out with you. I'm too busy ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... made of this wicked instrument by the Spanish clergy, and which have resulted in the abandonment of the confessional by every educated, discreet, and intelligent man. Of those abuses we shall only point out four of the most important, and which have most efficaciously contributed to ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... standing at the door of an evening, very handsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for Sylvia to put on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Draper sat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet manager made no objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytime alone with Jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to the country-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperious ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... marvellous grudge in his inward conscience, that he had one day given his master a cause of anger in that, with his rude roaring before his master arose, he had wakened him out of his sleep and bereaved him of his rest. The fox, for that fault, like a good discreet confessor, charged him to do so no more, but to lie still and sleep like a good son himself until his master were up and ready to go to work, and so should he be sure that he should wake ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... mother, I will be as discreet as a judge," said Jack, who had thus succeeded as he desired in turning the thoughts of Lady Rogers and his sisters from the yellow fever and hurricanes of the West Indies, and the conversation for the remainder of ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Suspicious precautions, bolts and bars, make neither wives nor maids virtuous. It is honour which must hold them to their duty, not the severity which we display towards them. To tell you candidly, a woman who is discreet by compulsion only is not often to be met with. We pretend in vain to govern all her actions; I find that it is the heart we must win. For my part, whatever care might be taken, I would scarcely trust my honour in the hands of one who, in the desires which ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... stumbled upon it, for they had paid no attention to the paths they took. As they left the forest, twilight had fallen, and the moon was rising, round and yellow, between the black foliage. It was a delightful walk home through the park, with that discreet luminary peering at them through the gaps in the big trees. Albine said that the moon was surely following them. The night was balmy, warm too with stars. Far away a long murmur rose from the forest trees, and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... That might have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere beginners before him. If, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a higher sense. The deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen." And earlier in the same essay, he says of the novel: "For the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or like ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Butler," Martinson replied. "Depend on it, you'll have the best we have, and you can trust them. They'll be discreet. You can depend on that. The way I'll do will be to assign just one man to the case at first, some one you can see for yourself whether you like or not. I'll not tell him anything. You can talk to him. If you like him, tell him, and he'll do the rest. Then, if he needs any more ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... gave the boy's fingers, as they lingered under hers, first a discreet little pressure, and then a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of ours might well be questioned by any of the monks of Chadwater, to whom he might go to confess, as to what was passing in the house, and see no hurt in answering questions. Wherefore be very wise and discreet, and ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is said to be very discreet in raising his revenues by various means. For example, he confers honorary posts and appoints officials, for which he requires considerable sums of money; and— can it be believed!—he always finds fools ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... man, and devoted to his profession—but it is vanity in the extreme to attempt to describe the general admiration and estimation of his cara et dolce sposa: she is young, (twenty-three,) fair, beautiful,—lively, discreet, witty, affable,—in short, so engaging, or rather so fascinating, that neither the courier nor my paper will admit of my doing her justice; however, from what I have said it is necessary further to add and explain, that this ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... books and plays that pretend to teach morality by exposing vice in all its seductiveness. Over-sensitive and maudlin sympathy is as ridiculous as it is unhealthy; its tendency is principally to encourage and spoil. But a judicious, discreet and measured sympathy will lift up the fallen, strengthen the weak and help the timorous over many a difficulty. It will suggest, too, the means best calculated to insure freedom from slavery ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... though he was, had foreseen. How was political evasion to brave it? With a courage quite equal to the boldness of the Republicans, the Democrats took another tack and steered for less troubled waters. Their convention at Cincinnati was temperate and discreet in all its expressions, and for President it nominated a Northerner, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, a man who was wholly dissociated in the public mind from the ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... well enough to be quite sure I indulge no illusion when I imagine that I see you as I wish you to be; simple in manners, gentle in tone, proud without conceit, respectful to the old, courteous without servility, above all, discreet. Use your wit but never display it for the amusement of others; for be sure that if your brilliancy annoys an inferior man, he will retire from the field and say of you in a tone of contempt, "He is very amusing." Let ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... trade, Be grateful, Crape, and let me not, Like old Newcastle,[243] be forgot. But an affair, Crape, of this size Will ask from Conduct vast supplies; 1170 It must not, as the vulgar say, Be done in hugger-mugger way: Traitors, indeed (and that's discreet) Who hatch the plot, in private meet; They should in public go, no doubt, Whose business is to find it out. To-morrow—if the day appear Likely to turn out fair and clear— Proclaim a grand processionade[244]— Be all the city-pomp display'd, 1180 Let the Train-bands'—Crape ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... and mercy. By fulfilling the duties of the married life, they will cause the ways of God to be well spoken of. The desire of Paul was, 'That the younger women marry, be sober, love their husbands, love their children, be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God be not blasphemed' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... she reviewed the afternoon meeting, her heart was foolishly glad over his apology, and insistent determination to be friends. It was evident, she believed, that if she adhered to her resolute resistance of familiarity, she would be able to keep him at a discreet distance, and they might enjoy a really ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... friend of Dr Fillgrave; and was wont to regard anything that came from the Barchester doctor as sure light from the lamp of Aesculapius. He could not therefore be other than an enemy of Dr Thorne. But he was a prudent, discreet man, with a long family, averse to professional hostilities, as knowing that he could make more by medical friends than medical foes, and not at all inclined to take up any man's cudgel to his own detriment. He had, of course, heard of that dreadful affront which had been put upon his friend, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... well-being of society which led me to abstain from entering into particulars on the subject of Old Master-making, when I was apprenticed to Mr. Ishmael Pickup, now commands me to be equally discreet on the kindred subject of Half-Crown-making, under the auspices of Old File, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... trifle older than myself, of a steady, reserved nature, and a discreet and safe friend. This was the new member of our firm. How he came to be so I must explain. Up to this time, as the reader will have noticed, I was the only one of the party known at the bank, and, of course, was the only one who seemed to be taking any ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to see what was in those locked receptacles. Uncle Oldys turned to Mary. 'Mrs. Maple,' he said, and Mary ran off—no one, I am sure, steps like her—and soon came back at a soberer pace, with an elderly lady of discreet aspect. ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... is true that, here in France, one can find people as judicious, quiet, discreet, and religious, as any where in the world; with views of life as serious, and as earnest, not living for pretence or show, but for the most rational and religious ends. Now, when all this goodness is silvered over, as it were, reflecting like mother-of-pearl or opal, a thousand fanciful ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pleasure to do for his friend. He would put anything aside, at any moment, to walk, to talk, to discharge little businesses, to fetch and carry, to be in attendance. Moreover, Hugh found his tongue, but his anxiety to retain his friend's affection made him astonishingly tactful and discreet. He was always ready to sympathise, to enter into any suggestion; he suppressed himself and his own tastes completely and utterly; and he found too, to his vast delight, that he could be entertaining and amusing. The books he ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... trace of Italian influence. He is too thorough a Frenchman to be much of anything else. The emphatic statement and counter-statement of the great Primitives is not in his way. He prefers to insinuate. Even in his most glorious moments he is discreet and tactful, fonder of a transition than an opposition, never passionate. The new thing that came into his art about this time, and was to affect it for the next twenty years, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... all very well, but we may as well be sure," he replied cautiously. "You can find out much by a few discreet questions ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... himself wondering whether he were likely to be recognized in it. Apparently satisfied of his safety from detection, he turned to the table and wrote a beer-scented note to Frau Spritzkrapfen, explaining his sudden absence by some discreet fiction. He got along well enough till he reached the end, when, instead of his own flowing sign-manual, he tipsily scrawled the unfamiliar name of Hans Kraut. Tearing the sheet angrily across, he wrote another, and signed his name with an effort. He was about to seek a messenger ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... you could only drop hangelic speeches, an' that you 'ailed from the hangel spheres; but now I see ye're a gel—oh, quite the very purtiest I hiver laid heyes on. Now, as I've spoke my true mind, I'll hanswer yer questions in a discreet an' pious manner. My name is ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... have shown cause for the opinion that Dr. Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say whether I believe him, or in him,[46] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... iniquities multiply upon themselves—Richard turned towards her with a purpose of again outraging those little fingers with the burden of a fresh caress. The little fingers, grown wary, however, were in discreet retirement behind Dorothy, as, with her back to the window, she stood facing him. Defeated in his campaign against the fingers before it had begun, Richard was driven to discuss Dorothy's ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred days kills them all up by computation. And this will I venture my poor gentlemanlike carcase to perform, provided there be no treason practised upon us, by fair and discreet manhood; that is, civilly by ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... alert and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet—a most reserved, discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which he did at frequent intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... compliment and a little curiosity as to herself. But she met him in his own apparent mood, and said, "Now see how easily imposed upon your sceptical people are! I could palm myself off, like Portia, as a Daniel come to judgment, and by a little discreet silence gain a blue halo as a woman of deep research and profound reading. Just the contrary is true. I am not a very great reader on any subject, and certainly not on theology and kindred topics. The fact is I am largely indebted to my father. He is interested in the subjects and takes pains ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Dan, good fellow, was discreet. He decided to play the laggard in love, realising that any show of impetuosity might frighten Soosie. It came to be understood that in time she might see the wisdom of accepting him, and I, knowing both, and to whom mixed marriages are abhorrent, was convinced that no girl ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... studied drawing with Servin, who was thought a great draughtsman in academic circles. After that he went to Schinner's, to learn the secrets of the powerful and magnificent color which distinguishes that master. Master and scholars were all discreet; at any rate Pierre discovered none of their secrets. From there he went to Sommervieux' atelier, to acquire that portion of the art of painting which is called composition, but composition was shy and distant to him. ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... virtue yield assistance, And for one hour teach younger men their distance, Make them, in very spite, appear discreet, And mar the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... the sober and discreet age of forty years, he naturally and logically thinks he has earned, and is entitled to, an exemption from the petty teasing to which sophomores and sentimentalists are subjected. While I gratefully appreciate the compliment implied ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... fortune, who has not, at some time of his life, broken into his last guinea without knowing where he is to get another. But professional people generally keep their difficulties to themselves, I fancy, Hester: they are not often so frank as you. Mind that, Sophia. You will be discreet, Sophia." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... friend the sense of having made herself right for him so far as she had been wrong. He still had all her attention, just as previously she had had his, but, while he now simply gazed and thought, she watched him with a discreet solicitude that would almost have represented him as a near relative whom she supposed unwell. At the end he looked round, and then, obeying some impulse that had gathered in her while they sat mute, she put out to him the tender hand she might have offered to a sick child. They had been ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James |
