"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indecent attitudes she was called upon to assume, but noticing a score of young women, many of them from the best homes in the town, all yielding to the vulgar embrace, she cast aside that spirit of modesty which had been the development of years of home-training, and setting her face against nature's protective warnings, gave herself, as did the others, to this prolonged embrace set to music. Having learned to dance, its fascinations led ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... back; upon which the men pursue them violently, overtaking them before they get to their places, and throwing their tobes around them: but there is nothing indelicate in all this. On the contrary, the whole dance is quite a pattern of modesty to the Europeans, the Arabs, and the Moors,—to these latter especially, whose dance, as introduced here, is of the most lascivious and beastly description. This entertainment takes place every night; it is the great solace and delight of the people: they have no other amusement. They ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... looked upon me as their deliverer and friend; they loaded me with presents, and offered more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is often only a more refined species of pride. But to ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... pre-eminently a life of the mind, as this is of the body. Preoccupations of food, money, lust, pain, etc., are of the body and are gone. Music, the Arts, intellectual and spiritual knowledge, and progress have increased. The people are clothed, as one would expect, since there is no reason why modesty should disappear with our new forms. These new forms are the absolute reproduction of the old ones at their best, the young growing up and the old reverting until all come to the normal. People live in communities, as one would expect if like attracts like, and the male ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... never remitted; where grace was always spoken. In this home her looks were seldom alluded to in any way, and vanity was not in her. She had her lovelinesses; her hair was long and fair, her eyes were beautiful, and her skin was of exquisite purity, like her eyes. Her charm lay in her modesty and quaint dignity, her grave and gentle gaze, ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... and all doubt, and devote yourself in patience and trust to helping me along my path as no one else could. I know what I ask, and the sacrifice I demand, and if this were the time to use false modesty, I should say how little I ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her. She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of soul which is the true nobility of birth. When the painter had taken his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which will please you. The original is in ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... as the third {in order}, after these; fiercer in disposition, and more prone to horrible warfare, but yet free from impiety. The last {Age} was of hard iron. Immediately every species of crime burst forth, in this age of degenerated tendencies;[30] modesty, truth, and honor took flight; in their place succeeded fraud, deceit, treachery, violence, and the cursed hankering for acquisition. The sailor now spread his sails to the winds, and with these, as yet, he was but little acquainted; and {the trees}, which had long stood on the lofty ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the beautiful; but in Mr. Arnold there is no trace of any such tendency; pure, without effort, he feels no enjoyment and sees no beauty in the atmosphere of the common passions; and in nobleness of purpose, in a certain loftiness of mind singularly tempered with modesty, he continually reminds us of his father. There is an absence, perhaps, of colour; it is natural that it should be so in the earlier poems of a writer who proposes aims such as these to himself; his poetry is addressed ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... mind as he exercised his body, twisted himself into everything and out of everything, imitated work and fun and shirking, and learned how to puff himself up into a very devil of a fellow where his surroundings were yielding, and to make himself almost invisible with modesty when they were hard. He was training himself to be that little ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was laughter, and profaneness wit; And such the guest and manners of the hall, No wedded lady on the 'Squire would call: Here reign'd a Favourite, and her triumph gain'd O'er other favourites who before had reign'd; Reserved and modest seemed the nymph to be, Knowing her lord was charm'd with modesty; For he, a sportsman keen, the more enjoy'd, The greater value had the thing destroyed. Our 'Squire declared, that from a wife released, He would no more give trouble to a Priest; Seem'd it not, then, ungrateful and unkind That he should trouble ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... nephew retired and, after a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little girls, she came back pouting and blushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. The young lady showed no mock modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... we descend, the shores become bolder; the rugged hills, at first barely visible on the right, come near and nearer the water: low rocks begin to lift their heads above the surface of the stream, while others have their innate modesty overpowered by wooden fixtures lifting their heads above the highest tides to warn the mariner of his danger. At length a gigantic cone of rock rises out of the water on the right of the channel to a height of fifty or sixty feet, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... hundred were taken or destroyed. A sixth announces a great capture of stores and provisions, though all the boats were empty. A seventh reports that the Canadians killed about three hundred, and would have killed more but for the bad quality of their tomahawks. An eighth, with rare modesty, puts the English loss at fifty or sixty. That of Villiers is given in every proportion of killed or wounded, from one up to ten. Thus was Canada roused to martial ardor, and taught to look ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... it was more from conviction than policy, though that policy was surely the most prudent in the world, that the great Duke always spoke of his victories with an extraordinary modesty, and as if it was not so much his own admirable genius and courage which achieved these amazing successes, but as if he was a special and fatal instrument in the hands of Providence, that willed irresistibly the enemy's overthrow. Before his actions he always had the church service ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... and who are pledged to the observance of rigid vows, who are possessed of great learning and eloquence, who are fully conversant with the Vedas and their branches as also with sacrifices, who have piety and modesty, whose souls are devoted to virtue, who possess fame, and who have enjoyed the grand rites of coronation, all wait upon and worship Yudhishthira. And, O king, I beheld there many thousands of wild kine with as many vessels of white copper for milking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... they assented indifferently, which injured my egotism. But I was too adroit to show it. I still demurred with mock modesty. Penton would have ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... be brought to look upon her exploit as in any way remarkable, and when by-and-by honours and distinctions were showered upon her, and people came from long distances to see her, she kept through it all the dignity of perfect simplicity and modesty. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... doctor's spirit there, under all that exterior of meekness and modesty, I saw at a glance, and liked her none the less for it, if truth were told. And now we were nearing the gate, with its gray-stone pillars, on one of which, that from which the marble ball had rolled, to hide in the grass beneath, perchance, until the end of all, I had seen the joyous ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... frankly and truthfully explained by a girl's mother at the moment her interest and curiosity seeks satisfaction. That she gets on as well as she does, results, of course, from the essential soundness of the girl's nature, the armor of modesty, right instinct, and reverence with ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... the o'-lag does not seem to weaken the boys or girls or cause them to degenerate, neither does it appear to make them vicious. Whereas there is practically no sense of modesty among the people, I have never seen anything lewd. Though there is no such thing as virtue, in the modern sense of the word, among the young people after puberty, children before puberty are said to be virtuous, and the ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... Gipsy vagabond class have worn the champion's belt of the world; and, on the other hand, this mixture of English and Gipsy blood has produced some fine delicate Grecian forms of female beauty, dove-like, soft in eye, hand, and heart—the flashy fire in the eye of a Gipsy has been reduced to the modesty and innocence and simplicity of a child. Our present race of Gipsies, under the influence of education, refinement, and religion, will, if properly and wisely taken in hand and dealt with according to the light of reason and truth, produce a class of men and women well qualified to take their share, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the bounds prescribed to modesty itself, were I to neglect availing myself of the authority of others, who were not only far from being professors of this art, but who hold the highest rank in the public opinion for solidity of understanding, and purity of morals, and who yet did not disdain to give their opinion in favor ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... the condition of the human mind in a country, where such a wretched thing as this has thrown the State into convulsions, and how must we bless our own situation in a country, the most illiterate peasant of which is a Solon, compared with the authors of this law. There is modesty often, which does itself injury; our countrymen possess this. They do not know their own superiority. You see it; you are young, you have time and talents to correct them. Study the subject while in Europe, in all the instances which will present themselves to you, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... say, this one may be allowed to do it with impunity, the other may not; not that the thing {itself} is different, but that he is who does it. I see {signs} in them, so as to feel confident that they will turn out as we wish. I see that they have good sense and understanding, that they have modesty upon occasion, {and} are affectionate to each other; you may infer that their bent and disposition is of a pliant nature; at any time you like you may reclaim them. But still, you may be apprehensive ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... work, and the girl's ringlets swept lightly over his cheek. Their hands met and their breaths mingled. For an instant Evariste tasted an ecstatic bliss, but to feel Elodie's lips so close to his own filled him with fear, and dreading to alarm her modesty, ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... her face a new emotion was visible which found expression now in a musing smile, now in a stray tear. Her face was shadowed with the consciousness of a new life, of a far stretching future with unknown duties, a new dignity and a new happiness. Vikentev wore an expression of modesty, almost of timidity, and was ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... Schubert and some of his friends,—feelings which, however, are by no means rare among the impulsive youth of South Germany,—but his naive simplicity, cheerful and eminently sociable disposition, insensibility to envy, and incorruptible modesty, were qualities calculated to transform the respect due to his genius into a strong personal liking. Schubert was, in truth, a child of nature, one whom to know was to love; for his faults might be summed up into a general incapacity to understand his own interests, and it might ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... hung about their chairs and cracked jokes with them. One evening while they were thus employed there came among them a stranger, a young lady beautifully clad and carrying an ivory spinning-wheel. With becoming modesty she asked to be allowed to join the company, which permission the simple youths and maidens readily accorded. None was more eager to do honour to the new-comer than the son of their host. While the others were still gaping in awestruck fashion, he quietly fetched her a chair and performed ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... great ladies and gentlemen. As may be easily imagined, the little Pierre's education had not been neglected. He did not fail to array himself in a manner befitting the occasion; and at the banquet he served his father's guests with so much modesty and grace that he drew forth praise ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... positive fact that the notorious Eric Haeberlein was actually in London last week in connection with the disgraceful Kellner business. ON DIT that he escaped detection through the instrumentality of one of the fair sex, whose audacity outweighed her modesty." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... ancients, and confirmed by the submissive verdict of modern imitation." This is unphilosophical, unsatisfactory; nor is that of grace less so—"that artless balance of motion and repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest, that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little grace. It is evident that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... of the moonlight, beautiful and kind and full of peace. She moved now around the water, in a measured cadence that by some unfathomable witchery of her devising conveyed a thought of maidenhood and modesty. It dawned on Tess, who watched her spell-bound, that there was not one immodest thought in all Yasmini's throng of moods, but only a scorn of all immodesty and its pretensions. And whether that was ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... simple-minded as himself, took it in kindliness, and journeyed with the Indian to a large village about three days away. Arrived there, all the inhabitants of the place sat in a circle round the missionary. They appeared (he says) in so much modesty and silence 'that I seemed to behold statues, and not live Indians.' To awaken their attention he played upon the viol d'amore, and, having thus captured their ears, began to preach to them. The good priest ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... of the gay apparel of the young women of Boston, and their lack of plainness and modesty in the manner of wearing and ordering their hair; and said he could in no wise agree with some of his brethren in the ministry that this was a light matter, inasmuch as it did most plainly appear from Scripture that the pride and haughtiness of the daughters of Zion did provoke the judgments ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... partial ignorance, will instantly be treated as more or less incapable, by the ordinary man who has already gained a partial knowledge, or is capable of assuming a knowledge which he does not possess. But, for God's sake! let the honest and modest man stick to his honesty and modesty, cost what ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... he would acquiesce in one more sacrifice, severe as it might be, to the desires and interests of his country. With the letter Madison sent a draft of an address, and in reference to it remarked: "You will readily observe that, in executing it, I have aimed at that plainness and modesty of language which you had in view, and which indeed are so peculiarly becoming the character and the occasion; and that I had little more to do, as to the matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... have been permitted to look over a series of nine letters, which were addressed by her to Mr. Bronte, during the brief term of their engagement in 1812. They are full of tender grace of expression and feminine modesty; pervaded by the deep piety to which I have alluded as a family characteristic. I shall make one or two extracts from them, to show what sort of a person was the mother of Charlotte Bronte: but first, I must state the circumstances under which this Cornish lady met the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Of a "retiring modesty and habitual reserve," his ambition was no more than the consciousness of his power, and was subordinate to his sense of duty; he took the foremost place, for he knew from inborn magnanimity that it belonged to him, and he dared not withhold the service required ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... explain the word Pastern as meaning the knee of a horse, he replied at once, "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance," so in his books he made no attempt to be thought wiser or more learned than he was. And this modesty which he showed for himself he showed for his author too. The common notion that he depreciated {33} Shakespeare is, indeed, an entire mistake. There were certainly things in Shakespeare which were out of his reach, ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... The amount of discretion, modesty, and reserve which Francis put into these two syllables gave Aaron to think that he had two real young ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Four Peaks country like the rumor of an Indian uprising and every man rode into Hidden Water with an eye out for calico, some with a foolish grin, some downcast and reserved, some swaggering in the natural pride of the lady's man. But a becoming modesty had kept Lucy Ware indoors, and Kitty had limited herself to a furtive survey of the scene from behind what was left of Sallie Winship's lace curtains. With the subtle wisdom of a rodeo boss Jefferson Creede had excused himself to the ladies ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... hesitation and stammering which usually characterized Ramsden Waters's utterances. Eunice was puzzled. She was also faintly resentful. True, there was not a word in what he had said that was calculated to bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty; nevertheless, she felt vaguely that Ramsden Waters had exceeded the limits. She had been prepared for a gurgling Ramsden Waters, a Ramsden Waters who fell over his large feet and perspired; but here was a Ramsden Waters who addressed her not merely as an equal, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece. "At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... touching his birth and quality, I was confirmed in an opinion of his integrity and moderation, and looked upon him as a man of honour, in despite of the lowness of his pedigree. Nevertheless, he was at bottom a most perfidious wretch, and all this modesty and self-denial were the effects of the most villanous dissimulation, a cloak under which he, unsuspected, robbed me of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to speak on the subject at all. Silence was the better part when a man was situated as he was. There were some exquisite lines ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... Thornton's expressed desire, that she would ask for whatever they might want in the progress of her mother's illness. Mrs. Thornton's brow contracted, and her mouth grew set, while Margaret spoke with gentle modesty of her mother's restlessness, and Dr. Donaldson's wish that she should have the relief of a water-bed. She ceased. Mrs. Thornton did not reply immediately. Then she ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... so soft and mild. And at the royal banquet spread for all It chanced Yasodhara sat next the prince— An accident by older heads designed— And the few words that such constraint allowed Were music to his ears and touched his heart; And when her eyes met his her rosy blush Told what her maiden modesty would hide. And at the dance, when her soft hands touched his The music seemed to quicken, time to speed; But when she bowed and passed to other hands, Winding the mystic measure of the dance,[3] The music seemed to slacken, time to halt, Or drag his limping moments lingering ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... all things quickly, had already learned that the silences frequently observed among his new acquaintances were not necessarily restrictive or resentful. It was, as one might say, the silence of expectation, of modesty. They were all standing round his sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibition of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to imply that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in gauze and ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... amiable young man of fortune, who has for some time past paid his addresses to her, I think that we may consider ourselves fully justified in attributing the slightly equivocal nature of her answer to a pardonable girlish modesty and coyness, and that I shall not be premature in offering you my hearty congratulations on the successful issue of your suit—a-hem I—" And so saying, Mr. Coleman rose from his seat, and taking Lawless's unwilling hand in his own, shook it with ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... integrity. Pelistes had brought with him to the camp his only son, who had never drawn a sword except in tourney. When the young man saw that the veterans held their peace, the blood mantled in his cheek, and, overcoming his modesty, he broke forth with a generous warmth: 'I know not, cavaliers,' said he, 'what is passing in your minds, but I believe this pilgrim to be an envoy from the devil; for none else could have given such dastard and perfidious counsel. For my own part, I stand ready to defend my king, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... from that time forward, he became the hope and promise of his native land. As a proof of this high regard, he was offered the command of the regiment to be raised: which, however, he refused to accept; for his modesty told him that he was too young and inexperienced to be intrusted with a matter of such moment to his country. To Col. Fry, an officer of some note in the province, the command of the regiment was therefore ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... One of my sex! no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,— The jewel in my dower,—I would not wish Any companion in ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... exceeding plain: for if a Roman poet might have liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty but seldom, and with modesty; how much more justly may I challenge that privilege to do it with the same prerequisites, from the best and most judicious of Latin writers! In some places, where either the fancy or the words were his, or ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... enshrined upon my mantelshelf, scanning the carriage windows as the train rolled up. He recognized me as infallibly as I had recognized him; he appeared to know by instinct how a young American of an aesthetic turn would look when much divided between eagerness and modesty. He took me by the hand, and smiled at me, and said: "You must be—a—you, I think!" and asked if I should mind going on foot to his house, which would take but a few minutes. I remember thinking it a piece of extraordinary affability that he should give directions about the ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... was decided that marriage should be left to the younger and more fruitful. Wherefore, if it is said that trouble has come, Hazael answered, we should be sorry for our weak brethren, and if stories reach us, he continued, we should receive them with modesty: we should not go out to seek stories of the misfortunes of those who have not been as wise as we, and of all we should not wish to go down to Jordan to inquire out the truth of these stories; Caleb and Benjamin ask betimes for leave to visit them. Eleazar, too, has asked; but ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... time when eminent prelates of the older Church were eulogizing debauched princes like Louis XV, and using the unspeakably obscene casuistry of the Jesuit Sanchez in the education of the priesthood as to the relations of men to women, the modesty of the Church authorities was so shocked by Linnaeus's proofs of a sexual system in plants that for many years his writings were prohibited in the Papal States and in various other parts of Europe where clerical ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of Fanfar, which we have completed, for Fanfar's modesty was too great to allow him to say what we have said ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... in the sweatshops, may be inferred from the fact that men and women to the number of twelve have been found sleeping together in one of these workrooms. The tenement-house factories are so crowded that no such thing as privacy or modesty, on the part of men or women, is possible; the usual water-closet is a wooden bucket upon every landing, which fills the air with its ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... hand, everybody liked him. It was amusing to me, in my sick room, three hundred miles off, to hear of the impression he made, with his innocence, his fresh delight in his new life, his candor, his modesty, and his bright cleverness,—and then, again, to learn how diligently he had set about learning what I, his correspondent, was really like. In his dreams he had seen me very aged,—he thought upwards of eighty; and he had never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... offer. Even then, in the flush and vigor of his youth, he was led. So was it always. He was never a leader, but always a follower. Nature made him very large, but so stinted him in propelling force, that it is doubtful if he had ever emerged from obscurity if his friends had not urged him on. His modesty in these innocent days is most touching to witness. After a long internal conflict, he resolved, in his twentieth year, to "make one more trial" at ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... modesty declines attempting that perfection, and assigns him a lower place. He must still seek definite uses, though this use be to lend imagination or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... country which he had too cruelly oppressed to be able to hold even an inferior rank in it. His last letter to the Suliots opened the eyes of his followers, but under the influence of a sort of polite modesty these were at least anxious to stipulate for the life of their vizier. Kursheed was obliged to produce firmans from the Porte, declaring that if Ali Tepelen submitted, the royal promise given to his sons should ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Danton, Collot d'Herbois, and Robespierre allege against her? What savage greatness did they discover in stirring up a whole nation to avenge their quarrel on a woman? What remained of her former power? She was a captive, a widow, trembling for her children! In those judges, who at once outraged modesty and nature; in that people whose vilest scoffs pursued her to the scaffold, who could have recognised the generous people of France? Of all the crimes which disgraced the Revolution, none was more calculated to show how the spirit of party ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... my beloved and the darling of my beauty! Where is his grave, that we may make there a guest-house?" The chamberlain said, "That youth is yet alive. When the king commanded his death, I was about to kill him, but he said, 'That queen is my mother. Through modesty before the king, she revealed not the secret that she has a tall son. Kill me not; it may be that some day the truth will become known, and repentance profiteth not, and regret is useless." The king commanded them to bring the youth; so they brought him forthwith. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... which they wrapped themselves, like the female Moors of Granada, and the men had cloths of cotton round their loins. Both sexes appeared more particular about these coverings, and to have a quicker sense of personal modesty than any Indians ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... clip our pinions let them try, Not having heart themselves to fly. It was the hour when devotees Breathe pious curses on their knees; 50 When they with prayers the day begin To sanctify a night of sin; When rogues of modesty, who roam Under the veil of night, sneak home, That, free from all restraint and awe, Just to the windward of the law, Less modest rogues their tricks may play, And plunder in the face of day. But hold,—whilst thus we play the fool, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... than egoism; for egoism may be conquered by nature, whereas only by reflection do we get the better of vanity. It does not seem, indeed, as if men were ever born modest, unless we dub with the name of modesty a sort of purely physical bashfulness, which is nearer to pride than is generally supposed. True modesty can be nothing but a meditation on vanity. It springs from the sight of others' mistakes and the dread of being similarly deceived. ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... various sizes adapted to the respective ages of a dozen small children of one family which he made part of his story of Great Expectations, though, with the reserves always necessary in copying nature not to overstep her modesty by copying too closely, he makes the number that appalled little Pip not more than half the reality. About the whole of this Cooling churchyard, indeed, and the neighbouring castle ruins, there was a weird strangeness that made it one of his attractive walks in the late year or winter, when from ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Sprague answered with palpably assumed modesty. "My plans, naturally, call for a great deal of research work, a large expenditure of money, a ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Simontault," said Parlamente; "you forget yourself. Have you laid aside your accustomed modesty to don it ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the matter up in despair, when, on the twenty-seventh day of his visit, he was suddenly confronted with the person whom he sought. The first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away from kirk on some pretext of indisposition, which was more truly modesty; the pleasure of beholding Archie seeming too sacred, too vivid for that public place. On the two following, Frank had himself been absent on some of his excursions among the neighbouring families. It was not until the fourth, accordingly, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which conditions and regulates the State, that it was then necessary to explain politics and history by economic relations, and not to proceed inversely."[4] "This discovery which revolutionized historical science was essentially the work of Marx," says Engels, and, with his customary modesty, he adds: "The part which can be attributed to me is very small. It concerned itself directly with the working-class movement of the period. Communism in France and Germany and Chartism in England appeared to be something more than mere chance which could just as well not have existed. These ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... Perkins, in graceful peroration, "that I have done poor justice to the eloquence of this gallant sailor. My unhappy translation cannot offer you that voice, at times trembling with generous emotion, and again inaudible from excessive modesty in the presence of this illustrious assembly—those limbs that waver and bend under the undulations of the chivalrous sentiment which carries him away as if he were still on that powerful element he daily battles with ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... President of the Royal Council of that Country even while he was very young, an Honour the greatest of the Nobility were well pleased to see him adorned with, and made no Scruple to sit below him: His distinguish'd Modesty and Humility in all his publick Appearances, recommends him to the Affections of the whole Country; and tho' the Fortunes of his Family have suffered by the Disasters of the Times, yet he supports a handsome Figure ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... the high sense universally entertained of his services was conveyed, manifested the warmth of feeling which animated the American bosom. This unexampled tribute of voluntary applause, paid by a whole people to an individual no longer in power, made no impression on the unassuming modesty of his character and deportment. The same firmness of mind, the same steady and well-tempered judgment, which had guided him through the most perilous seasons of the war, still regulated his conduct, and the enthusiastic applauses of an admiring nation ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... battling desperately to save the stabbed constitution from howling demagogues and fanatics, who raved and ranted where Washington, Webster, and Calhoun had once swayed a free and happy people. The old venerated barriers and well-guarded outposts, which decorum and true womanly modesty had erected on the frontiers of propriety, were swept away in the crevasse of sans souci manners that threatened to inundate the entire land; and latitudinarianism in dress and conversation was rapidly reducing the sexes to an equality, dangerous to morals and subversive of all chivalric ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... with colours very lively. I thought they were. As to the rest of her toilet, I am at a loss for words. The overskirt was lute-string silk, I was told. The hoops were vast; the dress cut square, with a "modesty-fence" of stiff lace. A huge high cap "with wings is the last thing," cried the lady, turning round to be seen, and well pleased at my admiration. She was an immense and an amazing figure. I did wonder, so big she was, where she meant ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... my blushes, young gentleman, draw it a little milder!" cried the delighted manager, almost bursting with mock modesty. "Greatest actor in Europe—oh, very funny, very good indeed! Off the stage, too! Oh dear, dear, dear, what wags there are in the world! And pray, young gentleman, from whom did you ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... that the alchemists of old were not the foolish and superstitious people we supposed them to be. We have given far too little credit to past civilizations and we are coming to understand now that we have rated them too low. Our modesty must necessarily increase as it becomes clearer that much of our supposed contribution to the world's progress is not invention but rediscovery. We are beginning to see that it is not safe to put aside without careful examination ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... woman to possess one, foretells she will observe modesty and kindness in her deportment, and thus win the love of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... soft lingering rays kissing the fleecy clouds, o'er which a blush came and went, now deepening as the rose carmine, giving place to the most delicate tinge that e'er sat upon a maiden's cheek,—born of pure modesty. The scent of the delicate jasmine perfumed the air, while the pensive strains of some fair one, soft and clear as the tones of a wind-harp, was borne on the stillness of evening to the ear of the lovely Sea-flower, who, reclining upon ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... praised by Virgil would have put me in Elysium while I was alive. But I know your modesty will not suffer me, in return for these encomiums, to speak of your character. Supposing it as perfect as your poems, you would think, as you did of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... personally and had visited his home and experimental grounds at Bell, Maryland, some of us more than once. Few of us knew his varied and high attainments in many other fields than plant breeding, though a moment's thought would have made a discerning person see that his modesty, self-effacement, kindliness and sympathy were things that most often come to those whose experiences of life have been the widest. His accomplishments in plant breeding and other fields, a bibliography of his writings, and the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... a woman, to see a feeling of repulsion on the faces of others, when her true destiny is to move all hearts about her to emotions of grace and love. One result of this inward trouble is that an old maid's glance is always oblique, less from modesty than from fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for their false position because they never forgive ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... overtook the grandmother and several of her grandchildren. She was pleased at his noticing her, and answered his enquiries with modesty and propriety. She corroborated what her daughter had said, and in her answers discovered not only an acquaintance with the general truths of the Gospel, but a feeling sense of their importance. She said, 'I love to go to church, and do go now, sir, when ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader. And ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv. For these causes we all know the Bible itself put by the Papist must be next removed, as Clement ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... read, and pretended to be intellectually and poetically inclined, as ladies not specially favoured by Apollo sometimes do—before they marry. Cold she always was; nobody ever heard of Lady Honoria stretching the bounds of propriety; but Geoffrey put this down to a sweet and becoming modesty, which would vanish or be transmuted in its season. Also she affected a charming innocence of all vulgar business matters, which both deceived and enchanted him. Never but once did she allude to ways and means before marriage, and then it was to say that she was glad that they should be so ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... apparel" seem to have been an infinite source of anxiety; there must be only one slash on each sleeve and one in the back. Men also must be prohibited from shoulderbands of undue width, double ruffs and cuffs, and "immoderate great breeches." Part of the solicitude was for modesty, part for gravity, part for economy: none must dress above their condition. In 1652, three men and a woman were fined ten shillings each and costs for wearing silver-lace, another for broad bone-lace, another for tiffany, and another for a silk hood. Alice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Almost as with a blush, her long, brown eyes were illumined, as she bridged the years to her lover near half a century dead and dust. With the gentleness of modesty so innate in the women of Hawaii, she covered her spontaneous exposure of her heart with added ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Sark lifted a green bosom above her perpendicular cliffs, with the pride of an affluent mother among her brood. Dowered by sun and softened by a delicate haze like an exquisite veil of modesty, this youngest daughter of the isles clustered with her kinsfolk in the emerald archipelago between the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... never to be unfair to friend or fellow-combatant or ally, but always to fix his eyes on justice and rectitude, he believed he could induce others to keep from base actions and walk in the paths of righteousness. [27] And he would bring more modesty, he hoped, into the hearts of all men if it were plain that he himself reverenced all the world and would never say a shameful word to any man or woman or do a shameful deed. [28] He looked for this ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... between them strengthened every day. Susan, watching him when Ella's friends gathered about him, watching the honest modesty with which he evaded their empty praises, their attempts at lionizing, could not but thrill to know that HER praise stirred him, that the deprecatory, indifferent air was dropped quickly enough for HER! It was intoxicating to know, as she did know, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... claims, to one of my age and fortunes, I pressed that noble hand, half raising it to my lips,—an action of respect that would have misbecome neither; but he gently withdrew the hand, in the instinct of his natural modesty. I had then no heart to speak further on such a subject, but faltering out that I would go and see my uncle, I took up the light and ascended the stairs. I crept noiselessly into Roland's room, and shading the light, saw that, though he slept, his face was very troubled. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he not struck his hand against a tree, I shouldn't be here at the present moment." "Here! here!" said the landlord, "now that's just as it should be; I like a modest man, for, as the parson says, nothing sits better upon a young man than modesty. I remember, when I was young, fighting with Tom of Hopton, the best man that ever pulled off coat in England. I remember, too, that I won the battle; for I happened to hit Tom of Hopton, in the mark, as he was coming in, so that he lost his wind, and falling squelch ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... referred to the surprising interiors of the city in the Fifties. What I meant was this: there was not an alley so miserable and so muddy but somewhere in it there was pretty sure to be a cottage as demure in outward appearance as modesty itself. Nothing could be more unassuming: it had not even the air of genteel poverty. I think such an air was not to be thought of in those days: gentility kept very much to itself. As for poverty, it was a game that any one might ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... gesture, Shakespeare's advice is all-embracing. "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance that you overstep not the modesty of nature." And here comes the consideration of a very material part of the actor's business—by-play. This is of the very essence of true art. It is more than anything else significant of the extent to which the actor has identified himself with the character ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... inmost shade of the forest her mind had become calmer, and better able to unravel the confusion of thoughts that surged like troubled waters through her brain. The dominant idea was, that her self-respect had been wounded; the shock to her maidenly modesty, and the shame attendant upon the fact, affected her physically, as if she had been belittled and degraded by a personal stain; and this downfall caused her deep humiliation. By slow degrees, however, and notwithstanding this state of abject despair, she felt, cropping up somewhere ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... toward the edge of the brilliant jungle. She seemed to be without false modesty, for I saw her glancing with evident admiration at Ray's lithe and powerful white-skinned figure. We followed her into the giant mushrooms, glad to escape the overpowering ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... Java and Amboyna, Penang, Ceylon, and even Mauritius. The elaborate review of their position, signed by the three faithful men of Serampore, at the close of 1817, amazes the reader at once by the magnitude and variety of the operations, the childlike modesty of the record, and the heroism of the toil which ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... eagerly came forward to see them. "If it is not my rose herself," I thought, "it maybe some relation—cousin, sister, friend: I am interested in the whole town since she lives here." The girls came nearer. They walked without affectation: you could imagine that the spirit of Modesty herself had taught them that quiet demeanor. Suddenly they looked up and saw me. Am I Mephistopheles, to produce such a dire effect? They looked down, they simpered, they laughed a laugh that was not natural: their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... debates in the House are usually the playground of cranks of all varieties, and the plain common-sense man seems to shrink from being vocal in such company. It is a pity. The plain common-sense man should believe in himself a little more. The result would perhaps startle his modesty. And he should begin instantly on the resumption of Parliament. He will of course be told that he is premature. But no matter. When he gets up and makes a row he will be told that he is premature, until Sir Edward Grey is in a position to announce in the icy cold and impressive tones of omniscience ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... peace over lasting and uniform, but such as they failed not to nourish. A conduct which proved more pleasing than secure; since treacherous is that repose which you enjoy amongst neighbours that are very powerful and very fond of rule and mastership. When recourse is once had to the sword, modesty and fair dealing will be vainly pleaded by the weaker; names these which are always assumed by the stronger. Thus the Cheruscans, they who formerly bore the character of good and upright, are now called cowards ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... was the page, and he was sent to the New World to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... compelled to hear the same statement, and she left nothing undone to arrogate to herself the glory of any future advantages which it might be the good fortune of the duke to realize. Her own merits, as something which did not admit of a doubt, but was at the same time a burden oppressive to her modesty, she laid at the feet of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... He showed similar modesty and simplicity in his deportment and conversation. He made no allusion to the stirring scenes in which he had been so gloriously engaged; and, if others made any, turned the discourse into some other channel, particularly ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... Modesty might have directed her hasty action of enwrapping her shoulders, but it was scarcely likely, considering Miss Aldclyffe's temperament, that she had all her life been used to a maid, Cytherea's youth, and the elder lady's marked treatment of her as if she were a mere child or plaything. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... going through similarly miserable, narrow, low passages, to magnificent palaces and astoundingly beautiful and luxurious courts and gardens. I asked what was the reason of the poor outward appearance of these otherwise luxurious dwellings. Was it modesty,—was it to deceive ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... think modesty becomin' to a youngster," replied Stevens. "I hate a brag. An' I've no use fer these four-flush cowboys thet 're always lookin' fer trouble an' talkin' gun-play. Buck, I don't know much about you. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... with exquisite fishes (amongst them salmon), seeds, and pinole. I had opportunity of visiting them four times and found them always as friendly as the first time, noticing in them polite manners, and what is better, modesty and retirement in the women. They are not disposed to beg, but accept with good will what is given them, without being impertinent, as are many others I have seen during the conquest. This Indian village ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... imaginable kind end degree of obstacle end difficulty. He showed them how to maintain the bearing of gentlemen, in the moments of hottest exasperation and provocation which can arise in forensic warfare. He taught them how to look on success undazzled—to bear it with modesty of demeanour, and subordination of spirit. He exhibited to them the inestimable value of early acquiring accurate and extensive local knowledge—of being thoroughly imbued with the principles of jurisprudence, and habituating the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various |
