"Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the crowds. Before that time her muse had been sylvan, speaking of "Flow'rs of May," and hinting at thoughts that overcame her when she roved the woodlands thro'; but now the inspiration was become decidedly municipal and urban, evidently reluctant to depart beyond the retail portions of a metropolis. Her verses beginning, "O, my native city, bride of Hibbard's winding stream,"—Hibbard's Creek runs west of Plattville, except in time of drought—"When thy myriad lights are ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... novels—The Reluctant Lover, Sheila Intervenes and The Sixth Sense—were written and published before their author was 27 years of age! But Sonia, the story that made him widely known, was written entirely during the period of his activities on the staff ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... which was bounded by the river. The Trojans advanced upon him with loud shouts, yet the brave king would fain have resisted. As when a troop of hunters press upon a fierce lion, the savage animal, too courageous to fly, yet dares not face the numbers and weapons of his assailants, so Turnus with reluctant steps drew backwards; yet twice again he attacked the Trojans and twice drove them along the walls. At length gathering from all parts of the camp, the Trojans made a united advance and Turnus, no longer able to withstand the assaults of his foes, fled to ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... fascination. Along with them, there was a sensuously pungent air about her which does not escape men, her gestures had something flattering, her eyes glowed with a romantic fire. Disturbed, lending but a reluctant ear. Monsieur Seguret could, nevertheless, not wholly evade the witchery which took his guests captive. A power stronger than his resolve forced him to leniency; he took a timid share in the conversation, in spite of the heavy load upon his heart. The talk turned upon politics, books, art, hunting, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... an opportunity to communicate with our comrades and friends, for up to this time we did not know whether any of our letters had been received. Capt. Cook had a pair of good stout brogans. These shoes he urged me to take in exchange for my dilapidated ones. At first, I felt reluctant to do so, but finally made the exchange and he left us with a light heart, but his anticipations were not realized, for instead of going directly North he was detained in Libby Prison until just before the rest of us arrived, and when we reached Annapolis ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... principle of what Philadelphia in my youth called "a Jersey treat." I do not say that economy was invariably our rule. We could be, on occasions, so rash that before our week was up we had to begin to count our francs, put by for the boat sandwich and the reluctant tips of the return journey, and eat the last meals of all in the Duval, which, if admirable as a place to economize in, is no more conducive to gaiety than a London A.B.C. shop or Childs's in New ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... this reluctant acceptance of a child by adoption, to fill the vacant heart,—how real and formidable is all this rehearsal of the tragedies of maturer years! I knew an instance in which the last impulse of ebbing life was such a ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... honour of the Princess heiress presumptive to the Throne of Great Britain, they proposed to give the name Victoria; and they were thus the first to associate her with the Empire, which, in spite of reluctant politicians who did their best to restrict it, was destined to expand marvellously ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... not enough to be abreast of the world, I wanted to be a little ahead. In my solitude it was easy to cherish illusions concerning the value of my own work, to picture myself as a mighty and triumphant wrestler with Nature, capable, by his single strength, of forcing her reluctant secrets, to reveal them afterwards to an admiring world. But at Paris, with its enormous condensation of intellectual force, I could not flatter myself on the solitary greatness of my achievements, nor ignore ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... embittered, or preoccupied heart settles heavily into the saddle, and the poor beast, the body, breaks down the first mile. Indeed, the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart. Next to that, the most burdensome to the walker is a heart not in perfect sympathy and accord with the body,—a reluctant or unwilling heart. The horse and rider must not only both be willing to go the same way, but the rider must lead the way and infuse his own lightness and eagerness into the steed. Herein is no doubt our trouble, and one reason of the decay of the noble art ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... for convulsing England could have been devised. The marriage from which Mary sprang only stood on a reluctant and doubtful dispensation of the Pope's. Henry had entered into it at the entreaty of his ministers, contrary to a solemn promise given to his father, and in spite of the remonstrances of the Archbishop of Canterbury. No blessing seemed to have rested on it. All his children had died young, ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... pointing out to him the advantages of the match. It was not that Reggie disliked Maud. He admitted that she was a "topper", on several occasions going so far as to describe her as "absolutely priceless". But he seemed reluctant to ask her to marry him. How could Lady Caroline know that Reggie's entire world—or such of it as was not occupied by racing cars and golf—was filled by Alice Faraday? Reggie had never told her. He had not ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... much the soul departed, still May love to linger round this couch, My own heart tells me, even I Reluctant am to leave ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the bottom of much failure in religion. There is no success anywhere in life save through the constant pressure of the will driving a reluctant and protesting set of nerves and muscles to their daily tasks. The day labourer comes home from his work with his muscular strength exhausted, but he has to go back to the same monotonous task on the morrow: ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me, High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... you this information before, but papa and all the rest were anxious I should delay until we saw whether matters took a more settled aspect, and I myself kept putting it off from day to day, most bitterly reluctant to give up all the pleasure I had anticipated so long. However, remembering what you told me, namely, that you had commended the matter to a higher decision than ours, and that you were resolved to submit with resignation ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... alone, O Sons Of Song, The wings that float the loftier airs along. Whoever lifts us from the dust we are, Beyond the sensual to spiritual goals; Who from the MOMENT and the SELF afar By deathless deeds allures reluctant souls, Gives the warm life to what the Limner draws,— Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.* Recall the Wars of England's giant-born, Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in vain? Have all the meteors of the vernal morn But wasted light upon ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stopped, but it was evident that he was reluctant to leave his master alone with this villain. Eustace replied by drawing his good sword, and giving him a fearless smile, as he planted his foot upon the trap-door; and fixing his gaze upon Le Borgne Basque, made him feel that this was no ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nothing anomalous or dangerous in such a state of things; for an official like Sir John Maule, while ready enough to sanction the prosecution of an unpopular journal, which presumably has few friends, is naturally reluctant, as events have shown, to allow proceedings against a powerful journal whose friends may be numerous and influential. Fortunately, however, a Select Committee of the House of Commons has taken a more sensible view of the Public Prosecutor and the duties he has so ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... He was very reluctant to accept this appointment, but for none of the above reasons, as the average man might have been. Why he was doubtful of undertaking the responsibilities of such a position his letter of acceptance clearly shows. He considered the matter carefully and then wrote ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... that family, where each individual atom goes off by itself and absolutely refuses to unite even temporarily with any other atom. The nitrogen atoms will pair off with each other and stick together, but they are reluctant to associate with other elements and when they do the combination is likely to break up any moment. You all know people like that, good enough when by themselves but sure to break up any club, church or society they get into. Now, the value of nitrogen in warfare is due to the fact that all the ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... still: it was hateful to have cigarette-ends defiling the steps to her front-door, and often before now, when sketchers were numerous, she had sent her housemaid out to remove these untidy relics. She searched for it, but was obliged to come to the reluctant conclusion that there was ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... who were impatient and those who were half reluctant to attain it, the equal-handed hours brought the end of our exile. On one of our last evenings, April 6th, a reading was given in the school-room, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Mendelssohn's music; no unfit close, we said, to our annns mirabilis. ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... Paris with the Protestant nobles, and from all parts of France the Huguenots marched to assist him. Coligny, the greatest of the Huguenot leaders, hesitated; being, above all things, reluctant to plunge France into civil war. But the entreaties of his noble wife, of his brothers and friends, overpowered his reluctance. Conde left Meaux, with fifteen hundred horse, with the intention of seizing the person of the young king; but he had been ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... tremendous opposition and difficulties, he got together his reluctant Barons and a motley host, actually cutting down the trees with which to create a fleet, and then, depending upon pillage for subsistence, rushed to face victory ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... first vanquished them in turn and ravaged both that land and the territory of adjacent tribes which had taken part in the uprising. Immediately he reduced all of them to subjugation, gaining control of some with their consent, terrifying others into reluctant submission, and engaging in pitched battles with others. Later, when some of them rebelled, he again enslaved them. And for this thanksgivings and triumphal ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... act under my oath, I went out in search of Selim. He was not to be found in Murfreesboro, and a further search would have consumed time and thrown me back toward the Rebel lines. Overjoyed at my escape from the last danger, and not reluctant to make this contribution to the cause of my country, I turned my now buoyant steps homeward, under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. I rode into Nashville the 28th of June, with feelings widely different from those ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... reluctant admission of this fact, man heretofore has recognized one class of women as mothers; and has granted them a varying amount of consideration as such; but he has none the less insisted on maintaining another class of women, forbidden motherhood, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... out of Chris's surprised and reluctant fingers and began circling it over his head and giving it a sudden jerk. It didn't crack at first, but soon he got the knack of it and cracked it loudly as close to Celia Jane's ears and ankles as he could come without ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... grave." Jaralson was apparently a trifle reluctant to admit his ignorance of so important a point of his plan. "I have been watching about the place generally. A part of our work this morning will be to identify that grave. Here ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... explained, and the grandmother and aunt nodded a reluctant assent. Aunt Nan frowned. Elizabeth might have brought her friend along, and introduced him to Lizzie. Did Elizabeth think Lizzie wasn't ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... the never weary; Death, the friend of long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer, the sometime comforter—has gone away with empty arms and reluctant tread, and—Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... half of the allotted work, in the race to drive home the last spike and wedge into place the last scantling. For days now with a grave sort of satisfaction which he hardly understood himself, Young Denny had time after time put all his strength against a reluctant log, skidding timber back on the hillside, and watched the lithe pike-pole bend half double under the steadily increasing strain. Somehow he felt very sure that one or the other of the captains would single him out; they couldn't afford ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... a bad climb. The perspiration rolled off Scott's face and the veins stood out upon his forehead. Gasping for breath, he dug his toes into the soft earth and plugged ahead, pulling the reluctant animals after him. He had nearly gained the top, was within twenty feet, perhaps, of the end of the climb, when Jasper began to pull back. They were breaking through some brush, Scott being nearly through when Jasper began pulling. Scott gave the bridle an irritated jerk and spoke sharply ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... her unaffected naturalness and apparent sincerity. Not a word, not even a suggestion while they were dancing, of the matter of the cab; it was as though she were just an old friend. And her dancing was a delight—such a delight, indeed, that he was reluctant to have it end. Somehow, one gets to know quickly one's partner ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... had been hit, but one and all made light of their injuries, and after receiving attention had resumed their places in the defence. Over thirty villagers had been badly wounded, but these were receiving the attention of their fellows, since, for some unexplained reason, they were reluctant to have their wounds dressed by ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... Myers loaded his team for Tennessee, and with his reluctant boy set out on his long journey. David was exceedingly restless. He now hated the man who was so tyranically domineering over him. He had no desire to return to his home, and he dreaded the hickory stick ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... rejoicing. One need not have wondered if the acknowledgment of a fact, dead in the teeth of all his prejudices, and seemingly destructive of some profound convictions, had been somewhat grudging. Even a good, true man might have been bewildered and reluctant to let go so much as was destroyed by the admission—'Then hath God granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life,'—and might have been pardoned if he had not been able to do more than acquiesce and hold his peace. We are scarcely just to these early ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... from the castle. The latter replies in an aria ("O Day of Mourning, Day of Sorrow") marked by sorrowful lamentation. Sophie again hurls her imprecations, and a very dramatic dialogue ensues, which takes the trio form as the reluctant Seneschal consents to enforce the cruel order. Once more Elizabeth tenderly appeals to her in the aria, "Thou too art a Mother." Sophie impatiently and fiercely exclaims, "No longer tarry!" The scene comes ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Betty, wishing she had said nothing, yet reluctant now to let the opportunity slip ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... the skipper in an exultant tone, taking hold of the colonel's reluctant arm and placing it within his own, so as to lead him away and to give him the benefit of his support down the bridge-ladder. "Won't that satisfy you now, sir, and you see you'll lose nothing by going below for a spell? Come, come, my good friend, have the leg ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... man to refuse. A little over forty at the period of his marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood added the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an unreverend awe, but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and reluctant witness, bowed to his authority - ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the existence of vice and the possibility of crime among her own sex. You doubtless consider the Brinvilliers, Fredegonds, Fulvias and Faustinas, quite as fabulous as Centaurs, Sirens and Were-wolves; and I feel as reluctant to shake your fair faith in womanhood, as to dash the dew from a rose-bud, or rudely brush the bloom a cluster of tempting grapes; but the grim truth must be told, that our old friend was robbed and murdered ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the difference whether the thought of the name, or that of the will, of God be the prominent one. If men begin with the will, then their religion will be slavish, a dull, sullen resignation, or a painful, weary round of unwelcome duties and reluctant abstainings. The will of an unknown God will be in their thoughts a dark and tyrannous necessity, a mysterious, inscrutable force, which rules by virtue of being stronger, and demands only obedience. There is no more horrible conception of God than that which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the pursuing party were in readiness, Major Lee directed a change in the officer, giving the command to Cornet Middleton. His object was to add to the delay. He knew, moreover, that, from the tenderness of his disposition, Middleton would be reluctant to do any personal injury to Champe, in ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the appearance of Wallace's essay in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, both Hooker and Lyell urged Darwin to publish the result of his long and patient research. But he was still reluctant to do so, not having as yet satisfied himself with regard to certain conclusions which, he felt, must be stoutly maintained in face of the enormous amount of criticism which would arise immediately his theory was launched on ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... harassed with ambuscades, but we got through without having any men killed. One more night would carry us over the hostile frontier if we had good luck, and we saw the night close down with a good deal of solicitude. Always before, we had been more or less reluctant to start out into the gloom and the silence to be frozen in the fords and persecuted by the enemy, but this time we were impatient to get under way and have it over, although there was promise of more and harder fighting than any of the previous nights had furnished. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... these ideas are correct, and what steps are best to take, you will now be able to determine, and instruct me accordingly. The truth is, that instead of being unwilling and reluctant to suppress, they dare not publish the work without indemnity. I am anxious to know your opinion on the subject, and hope to hear from ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... was not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened. Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy. And if one's clothes and face and conversation are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognized her disabilities, what, at parties, is there ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in throwing her into Shanghai during the great Taiping conspiracy, and compelling her to be an eye-witness of the crimes which sullied it. Beneath her windows were carried every day the dead bodies of the poor creatures massacred by the Taipings, and she followed with reluctant gaze these sad "waifs and strays" as ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... consciousness. Another fortnight and he was sufficiently convalescent to be moved, and accordingly they started to travel by very easy stages to Lisbon, there to take ship for England, as the doctor ordered Tom as well as his brother to go home for a while to recruit. Tom was the less reluctant to do so, as it was evident that with the force at his command Wellington would not be able to undertake any great operation, and that the siege and capture of Badajoz was the utmost likely to be accomplished in that season's campaign. The mails in due course had brought ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... years of hard work that had converted her little shop into a freehold, her old pride in having her title made out on parchment, the hurry she had been in to get it let, to go home by a particular ship, and the obstinate way in which her tenant's wife insisted on a right of purchase, and her own reluctant admission of the clause, thinking that as the house was not new, 250 pounds was an outside value for it, and now to think of its being such a kingdom. The town had run up to her little suburban shop, and far past it; on every side the monster, Melbourne, had been adding to his ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... vogue, this art of the Mannerists can scarcely be judged out of place. When I divulge the names of Giorgio Vasari, Giuseppe Cesari (Cav. d'Arpino), Tempesta, Fontana, Tibaldi, the Zuccari, the Procaccini, the Campi of Cremona, the scholars of Perino del Vaga, I shall probably call up before the reluctant eyes of many of my readers visions of dreary wanderings through weariful saloons and of disconsolate starings up at stuccoed cupolas in Rome and Genoa, in Florence and Naples, and in all ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... ten years of his life, he seems to have made, at a small school in the neighborhood, some small and reluctant progress into the mysteries of reading, writing, and arithmetic; whereupon his father took personal charge of the matter, and conducted his further education at home, along with that of other children, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... more. Whatever he does is done under the pressure of events, under the pressure of the public opinion. These agencies push Lincoln and slowly move him, notwithstanding his reluctant heaviness and his resistance. And he a standard-bearer ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... so bulky but there it would lay, And naught so ethereal but there it would stay, And naught so reluctant but in it must go: All which some examples ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... kissed the reluctant cheek of her young friend, or patroness, and took her departure with the light and stealthy pace of one accustomed to accommodate her footsteps to the purposes ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... for the musical exercise of young ladies, and for the comfort of all at an hotel. We supposed, however, that its being Christmas-time was probably the cause of the nocturnal music, of which we were the somewhat reluctant and suffering listeners. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... Government is allowed to go on financing the war by increasing the currency with the very reluctant help of the bankers, the difficulties of maintaining our gold standard and keeping the exchanges in favour of London will be very greatly magnified when the war is over and our gold reserves are no longer protected by the submarines and the high cost of shipping gold that ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... have the best conformation possible. The fact that the short section falls, as it were, inside, indicates that a short fight and speedy death may be expected. The owner of a weapon that passes this test is reluctant to part with it unless very advantageous offers are made ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... in the negative. I believe America has as good a climate, and as good general digestion as commonly falls to the lot of mortals: more than this I do not claim for the country, and less than this I should be reluctant to maintain. I have travelled a little, gentlemen, not as much, perhaps, as the Messrs. Effinghams; but then a man can see no more than is to be seen, and I do affirm, Captain Truck, that in my poor judgment, which I know is good ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a peace now existing, they will find only one unbroken chain of argument in favor of a radical policy of reconstruction. For the omissions of the last session, some excuses may be allowed. A treacherous President stood in the way; and it can be easily seen how reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved so much of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that they should seek to save him by bending to him even when he leaned to the side of error. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... and of how she had stood the cold and how reluctant she had been at first to leave Carter Hall, especially at the Christmas season, and of the Colonel (not a word, of course, about the encounter with Klutchem—no one would have dared breathe a word of that to her), and then of the scrap of a pickaninny ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a sort of path down to the brook, and then they led the old General down. He seemed a little reluctant, at first, to step into the water. However, he soon went in, and walked over, and Oliver fastened him to a tree, so that he could stand upon the bare piece of ground. Jonas then pulled the sleigh out of the road, so that it ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... fantastic manifestations of regard on the one hand, and coldness, superciliousness, or indifference on the other. Courtesies, like more substantial kindnesses, are neutralized by delay, and, when slow, seem forced and reluctant. Attentions, which in their place are gratifying, may, if misplaced, occasion only mortification and embarrassment, as when civilities befitting interior home-life are rehearsed for the public eye and ear. Nor is there any department of conduct in which ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... reluctant to comply with this proposal, but after I had convinced him of the affection of the old ones, even towards their eggs, and the pains it had cost them to build the nest, he repented that he had taken it, and was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... inevitably be starved out. It was therefore agreed that Jim should try to reach Goodnight and bring aid. It was a forlorn hope, but the only one. The herds must be at least sixty miles back down the trail. Jim was reluctant to leave, but Loving urged it ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... to his own city. Sinful in all his purpose, this wretch, in order to obstruct the sacrifice of my father, stole the sacrificial horse of the horse- sacrifice that had been let loose under the guard of armed men. Prompted by sinful motives, this one ravished the reluctant wife of the innocent Vabhru (Akrura) on her way from Dwaraka to the country of the Sauviras. This injurer of his maternal uncle, disguising himself in the attire of the king of Karusha, ravished also the innocent Bhadra, the princess of Visala, the intended bride of king Karusha. I have patiently ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... d'Armes were calling the hour of midnight when the priest and I stole silently past amid the shadows of overhanging trees. I find it impossible, even now, after the lapse of years, to dwell upon my parting with her who despatched me on so strange an errand. My reluctant pen halts, while the tears, dimming my old eyes, bid me turn to other scenes. However, under God, the venture of that night might terminate, I firmly believed I was gazing into her dear face for the last time; yet, honor sealed my lips, holding back unspoken ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... church on the sabbath-day, and pass the time that had heretofore been spent in the place of worship, in roaming about the wharves of the city, or in excursions into the country. This influence was slightly resisted, Thomas being ashamed or reluctant to use the word "No," on what seemed to all the young men around him a matter of so little importance. Still, his own heart condemned him, for he felt that it would pain his father and mother exceedingly if they knew that he neglected to attend church at least once on the sabbath-day; ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... is echoed with so much affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known, that time I have never regretted. The poet may gaily describe the short hours of recreation; but he forgets the daily tedious labours of the school, which is approached each morning with anxious and reluctant steps.' See ante, p. 44, and post, under ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... century came to regard as the age of prose. Of his three great Lives we feel that those of Dryden and Pope express the pleasure he spontaneously and unconsciously felt, while that of Milton is a reluctant tribute extorted from him by a genius he could not resist. Among the few poets in his long list for whom the nineteenth century cared much are Gray and Collins; and of Collins he says almost nothing in ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... animal at bay. With revolver pulled round to the front ready to hand, and half expecting occasion to use it in defence of my life, I grimly speculate on the number of my cartridges and the probability of each one bagging a sore-eyed Celestial ere my own lonely and reluctant ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... cruel fane, Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain, Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows, My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows Anointed with perpetual weariness. Long have I borne thy service, through the stress Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights, ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... on his side, with the constraint which always fell upon him in her presence more marked than ever. His eyes were on the ground. He seemed reluctant ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... was so extraordinarily strong that others hastened to his aid, for the capture was beyond the capabilities of one man kneeling in a tucked-up sheet of bark. The whole fleet of canoes barely succeeded in towing the massive and reluctant creature to the nearest beach, and Tom was wont to tell that it took eight strong men to turn it on its back. It was "kummaoried" on the sand, and Tom oft pointed out the very spot as proof of the most famous feast within the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Sophist has fallen on its members. Their feigned ardours and unreal rhetoric are delightful. They can make the worse appear the better cause, as though they were fresh from Leontine schools, and have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakeably innocent. But they are briefed by the prosaic, and are not ashamed to appeal to precedent. In spite of their endeavours, the truth will out. Newspapers, even, have ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... initial advantage. The Lacaedemonians, on their part, seem to have endeavoured to assume the defensive both by land and sea; while their foot-soldiers were assembling in the neighbourhood of Corinth, their fleet sailed as far as Delos and there anchored, as reluctant to venture beyond as if it had been a question of proceeding to the Pillars of Hercules. Athens, which ran the risk of falling into the enemy's hands for the second time through these hesitations, evinced such marked displeasure that Mardonius momentarily ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... anointed the future king he assembled the whole nation together, through their deputies, at Mizpeh, who confirmed the divine appointment. Saul, who appeared reluctant to accept the high dignity, was fair and tall, and noble in appearance, patriotic, warlike, generous, affectionate—the type of an ancient hero, but vacillating, jealous, moody, and passionate. He ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Kennedy filled his lungs with air as if reluctant to leave the drive. "Our constitutional," he remarked, "is ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... in their revenge, and sparkle with joy, as the sun shines upon their victory. That keel, which, with the sharpness of a scythe, has so often mowed its course through the reluctant wave, is now buried;—buried deep in the sand, which the angry surge accumulates each minute, as if determined that it never will be subject to its ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... customs, obstacles and absurdities, enraged myself, limited myself, gave myself to occupations I saw with the clearest vision were dishonourable and vain, and at last achieved the end of purblind Nature, the relentless immediacy of her desire, and held, far short of happiness, Marion weeping and reluctant in my arms. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... repeated his demand for yet more money, and this time it was received not, as heretofore, with reluctant submission, but with acclamation. At last people saw what the minister was driving at; only the few who would have disowned the name of Italian voted with the minority. The fifty million francs were quickly subscribed, chiefly ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... whom fortune's ray Illumined still with beams of cloudless day; Yet fail'd to chase the darkness of the mind, That brooded still on loftier hopes behind. From him a nobler line in two degrees Reduced Numidia to reluctant peace. Crete, Spain, and Macedonia's conquer'd lord Adorn'd their triumphs and their treasures stored. Vespasian, with his son, I next survey'd, An angel soul in angel form array'd; Nor less his brother seem'd in outward ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... us down its rocky steep, so we had to walk. I admired this lonely valley far more than before. It was full of infinite depths of blue—blue smoke in lazy spirals curled upwards; it was eloquent in a morning silence that I felt reluctant to break. Against its dewy greenness the beach shone like coarse gold, and its slow silver river lingered lovingly, as though loth to leave it, and be merged in the reckless loud-tongued Pacific. Across the valley, the track I was to ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... wilder minuets, lashed each other with infatuated glee, mocking the whistle of the wind with an angry swish of their tall bodies. Around the cornices of the Inn of the Hawk and Raven scurried the singing breezes, reluctant to leave a playground so pleasing to the fancy. Soon the night became a cauldron, a surging, hissing, roaring receptacle in which were mixing the ingredients of disaster. Night-birds flapped through the moaning ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... miserably. She was crushed by the immensity of the difficulties confronting them. Expedients which looked simple beforehand were found lamentably deficient to cope with wild nature on the stupendous scale of this gloomy land. Suarez, too, was very reluctant to leave the boat, but the American adopted a short cut in the argument, offering him the alternative of climbing ashore or of being ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... defenceless, and the shrieks of women struggling with their murderers; while through all, and above all, boomed out the deep-toned bells of the metropolitan churches—one long burial-peal; and amid this ghastly diapason it was the pleasure of the tiger-hearted Charles to accept the reluctant and informal recantation of his two horror-stricken victims; after which he compelled them without remorse to the agony of seeing their friends and ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... door, recoiled for a second as the gale swept angrily against him, then plunged blindly across the street. He clambered into the seat of his cab, depressed the starter, and eventually was answered by the reluctant cough of the motor. He raced it for a while, getting the machinery heated up preparatory to ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... library privileges suspended or revoked. But many librarians are uncomfortable with approaching patrons who are viewing sexually explicit images, finding confrontation unpleasant. Hence some libraries are reluctant to apply the ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... she said, with a reluctant smile— "I suppose it was the strange yacht that had the music on board last night. It kept me awake. I thought it was some tiresome person out in a ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... having nothing else to do, I decided to make the long- projected visit; that is, if I could persuade Mademoiselle to accompany me. After my experience in the Rue St.-Arnaud the other day I did not venture to drive, so we started off to walk (with Mademoiselle's reluctant consent) to the Boulevard de Courcelles, where Delsarte ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... and looked at each other. Each had his or her own opinion on the subject which was uppermost in their minds, but each was equally reluctant to express it, till that of the others had been got at. So each of the three said "Well?" to the other two, and stood waiting, as if they were playing the old game of "Who speaks first?" It got tiresome, however, after a bit, and ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... Slim was reluctant to release the telegraph key. However, as Joe began folding the paper in such a way that only the last sentence showed, their aroused curiosity brought both of them to ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... establishment! It was the same story when I asked them to open the schools at night and let in the boys to have their clubs there. The saloon was bidding for them, and bidding high, but the School Board hesitated because a window might be broken or a janitor want extra pay for cleaning up. Before a reluctant consent was given I had to make a kind of promise that I would not appear before the Board again to argue for throwing the doors wider still. But it isn't going to keep me from putting in the heaviest licks I can, in the campaign that is coming, for turning the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... even in Petit Jehan itself; for, after all the gracious courtship of the earlier part, the dame des belles Cousines, during an absence of her lover on service, falls a by no means, as it would seem, very reluctant victim to the vulgar viciousness of a rich churchman, just like the innominatas of the nouvelles themselves. But the earlier part is gracious—a word specifically and intensively applicable to it. It may be a little unreal; does not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... education, for in the autumn after his visit she entered the Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage and her going produced in me a desire to accompany her. I said nothing of it at the time, for my father gave but reluctant consent to Harriet's plan. A district school education seemed to him ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... requisites for a manufacturing point. The Cuyahoga river, though giving abundant water power along a considerable portion of its course, enters Cleveland as a slow moving stream, winding its sluggish way in so tortuous a course that it seems reluctant to lose its identity in the waters of the lake. Water power, under such circumstances, is out of the question, and, as with no coal, and a rapidly decreasing supply of wood, steam cannot be economically used for manufacturing purposes, the people of Cleveland ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... the Treasury. 'Where is it,' said the President, quickly, his eye lighting up in a moment. 'I brought it with me,' said Chase, taking the paper from his pocket. 'I wrote it this morning.' 'Let me have it,' said the President, reaching his long arm and fingers toward Chase, who held on seemingly reluctant to part with the letter which was sealed and which he apparently hesitated to surrender. Something further he wished to say, but the President was eager and did not perceive it, but took and hastily opened ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... on that morning he found himself reluctant to leave, all his ties binding him to his master's home, this was the custom among them. He would say to his master, "I don't want to leave you. This is home to me. I love you and the mistress. I love the place. All my ties and affections are here. I want to ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... that Restoration House which, under another name, he assigned to Miss Havisham, and so round by Fort Pitt to the Chatham lines. And there—who can doubt?—if he seemed to hear the melancholy wind that whistled through the deserted fields as Mr. Winkle took his reluctant stand, a wretched and desperate duellist, his thoughts would also stray to the busy dockyard town and "a blessed little room" in a plain-looking plaster-fronted house from which dated all his early ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... dispensation from above. He often paused, seemed to find a difficulty of breathing, was at a loss for words, of which, however, he never failed to find the most pungent at last; and assumed, in a remarkable degree, the appearance of speaking only from a strong compulsion, a feeling of reluctant duty, a sense of moral necessity urging him to a task which burdened all his feelings. I will acknowledge that, when he had made his way through this difficult performance, I followed him with unequivocal delight, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... tests by which single mental functions are measured approximately in short quick examinations, has been much discussed in psychological circles. For a long while the thorough scholars remained very reluctant to accept such an apparently superficial scheme, when these tests were proposed especially for the pedagogical interests of the schoolroom. It was a time in which the scientific efforts were completely devoted to the ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... wear it, with the love of a grateful old man." He turned and abruptly walked away as Helen untied the box, but he could not so escape from those swift feet. There was a cry as the girl peered beneath the papers, and then a swift rush toward him. So it happened that it was not Zaidos' reluctant and unaccustomed shoulder on which the happy tears were shed, and it was not to Tony that Helen's last tender girl-kisses ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... had some interest in scientific agriculture. Both the owner and the vine-dresser in this parable were out for agricultural efficiency. The owner hated to see soil and space wasted; the vine-dresser was reluctant to sacrifice a tree, and proposed better tillage and more fertilizer. Taking this parable in connection with what precedes, we see that Jesus was concerned about the future of his nation and its religion. Both would have to validate ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... that we do not have to return to it again, or permit any of them to do so. In fact, we shall not hereafter consider, with any ulterior material or spiritual motive, any more of such disparaging, denigrating matter, in the two MSS. before us, as has to pass through our reluctant hands "touchin' on and appertainin' to" the great City of Manhattan and its distinguished denizens. For our part, we have had enough of this painful task. And truly, we have never before undergone such trials ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... The vintagers were going forth to their toil; the wine-press was busy in the shade, and the clatter of the mill kept time to the miller's song. I loitered about the village with a feeling of calm delight. I was unwilling to leave the seclusion of this sequestered hamlet; but at length, with reluctant step, I took the cross-road through the vineyard, and in a moment the little village had sunk again, as if by enchantment, into the bosom of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... window, with the reluctant conviction that he had been nursing an untenable theory, a last ray of sunshine shot through the open window, causing the dust he had raised by his entrance to quiver and gyrate like a host of mad bacilli dancing a jig. The shaft of light, falling ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... to think that a man might buy an election and yet not be entirely bad. Second only to Pell, was his whilom enemy, the former District-Attorney, now a state senator, who battled himself into Peter's reluctant admiration and friendship by his devotion and loyalty to the bills. Peter concluded that he had not entirely done the man justice in the past. Curiously enough, his chief antagonist ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... especially averse to lending. Dr. Guhrauer's assertion respecting Leibnitz, that "his library was numerous and valuable, and its possessor had the peculiarity that he liked to worm in it alone, being very reluctant to let any one see it," applies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... or a shoe-binder. She is really of use, for its working is by no means ideal, and with her wider knowledge she has suggested improvements and expedients for making both ends meet which were sometimes so reluctant to meet. She has kept a conscience against subsidising the Union from her own means; and she even accepts for her services a small salary, which its members think they ought to pay her. She owns this ridiculous, like all the make-believe ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... are thinly attended; I'm the only resident clergyman, and I'm sorry I must confess that some of our people are indifferent: reluctant, or perhaps half afraid, to interfere. They want a clear lead; if we could get a big determined meeting it might ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... our college professors are fixtures. Such local college attachments are not known in Germany; and the promotions which are frequent in Germany are less thought of here. When we think of calling foreign teachers, we encounter other difficulties. Many are reluctant to cross the sea; and others are, by reason of their lack of acquaintance with our language and ways, unavailable. Besides we may as well admit that London, Paris, Leipsic, Berlin, and Vienna afford facilities ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... the father bird for all this time, though I have mentioned it but casually, was of course a subject of continual remark. How was it to be explained? My own opinion is, reluctant as I have been to reach it, that such absence or desertion—by whatever name it may be called—is the general habit of the male ruby-throat. Upon this point I shall have some things to ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... of her devotion to Zillah, and some further conversation followed, all of which resulted in this—that Hilda wrote the letter in Zillah's name, and signed that name in her own hand, and under Zillah's own eye, and with Zillah's half-reluctant, half-pettish concurrence. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... in by their fathers and presented without any interruption to her flow of talk. She let fall a question here and there that was presumably directed to one or the other of her sisters, but their faint, reluctant answers apparently did not disturb her. She was treating them as though they were dingy frumps; and they revolted against all this prattle about Paris. It was distinctly unbecoming in a woman whose sins were so grievous to ripple on so light-heartedly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... will be done, Holy and righteous One! Though the reluctant years May never crown my throbbing brows with white, Nor round my shoulders turn the golden light Of my thick locks to wisdom's royal ermine: Yet by the solitary tears, Deeper than joy or sorrow,—by the thrill, Higher than hope or terror, whose quick germen, In those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... your two uncles from India," said Aunt Lucy, taking Bobbie's reluctant hand. "They have come on purpose to see you, so you must leave the guinea-pigs for a minute—Jerry can stay with them, and come down as soon as ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... haste and got from the side of my bed the only chair in the room, placed it in the window, sat down before the reluctant instrument, and gave it a third swing. Then, my elbows on the sill, I sat and watched it with growing awe, but growing determination as well. Once more it showed signs of refusal; once more the forefinger of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... where the hill was bare Woke a reluctant breeze. Dimly I knew My Day was come. The wind-blown blossoms threw Their breath about me, and the pine-swept air Grew to a shape, a mighty, formless thing, A phantom of ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... year when, from May 1 till snow flew, his fleets of rafts of pine lumber were not running over the dam at Grand Rapids. With the business men along the river his relations had been close and friendly. They were, therefore, not reluctant to do him a favor. Among these I will mention but two, though there were many others who were ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... is, the blame, if it rests upon any one, should rest upon Carlyle. He collected the letters. He wrote the lines which burn and scorch with self-reproach. It is he who pressed upon the reluctant Froude the duty of printing and publishing a series of documents which, for the most part, should never have been published at all, and which have done equal harm to Carlyle, to his wife, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... they were apart. Mahony urged and pleaded, but could not get Polly to name the wedding-day. He began to think pressure was being brought to bear on the girl from another side. Naturally the Beamishes were reluctant to let her go: who would be so useful to them as Polly?—who undertake, without scorn, the education of the whilom shepherd's daughters? Still, they knew they had to lose her, and he could not see that it made things any easier ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... town, Hal declared, that, if he and Ned could remain behind the train for a few hours, he knew they could capture one; becoming so urgent in his appeal, that I finally yielded a reluctant consent to the project, cautioning them under no circumstances, to remain away from the train more than two or three hours. This they faithfully promised not to do, and departed; notwithstanding Jerry pronounced ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... his studies at a place far inland, at the proposal of his tutor, to recover, as the tutor suggested, a certain loss of robustness, something more than that cheerful indifference of early youth had passed away. The learned man, who held, as was alleged, the doctrines of a surprising new philosophy, reluctant to disturb too early the fine intelligence of the pupil entrusted to him, had found it, perhaps, a matter of honesty to send back to his parents one likely enough to catch from others any sort of theoretic light; for the letter he wrote dwelt much on the lad's ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... had little connection with each other; they were the outcome of individual daring, mere boat's-crews from one or another of the Northern fiords. A few of the more persistent gradually grew reluctant to retreat with their booty to the frozen north, and tried to gain a footing on the shores of the fertile and wealthy island they had discovered. They made temporary camps on the beach, always beside the best harbors, and threw up earthworks round them, or perhaps more lasting forts of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... Conference has now been in session fifteen days. While I have felt reluctant to do any thing which should have the appearance of precipitating our action, of cutting off or limiting debate, I have all the time been pressed with this conviction; that if we are to save this country we must act speedily. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... known and the knower is threefold. Cognition is incomplete and lacks the free co-operation of the knower when God merely pervades (durchwohnt) the creature, as is the case with the devil's timorous and reluctant knowledge of God. A higher stage is reached when the known is present to the knower and dwells with him (beiwohnt). Cognition becomes really free and perfect when God dwells in (inwohnt) the creature, in which case the finite reason yields itself freely ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... crown his passion! Ah, every utterance from the depths of feeling The timid lips have stammeringly expressed,— Now failing, now, perchance, success revealing,— Gulps the wild Moment in its greedy breast; Or oft, reluctant years its warrant sealing, Its perfect stature stands at last confessed! What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit: What's genuine, shall ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... deference, he had been briefly told the outward circumstances of the case, which he knew already; for these two had been formerly members of his congregation, and gossip had not been reluctant in telling their story. Hosmer, of course, had drifted away from his knowledge, and in late years, he had seen little of Fanny, who when moved to attend church at all usually went to the Redemptorist's Rock Church with her friend Belle Worthington. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... neither mail-carrier nor any one else, save in some life-or-death emergency, with licence from the Northwest Mounted Police, may take out horse or dogs to start a journey when the temperature is lower than 45 deg. below zero; but I have seen a reluctant mail-carrier chased out at 60 deg. below zero, on pain of losing his job, on the American side. Moreover, between the seasons, when travel on the rivers is positively dangerous to life, the mail must still be despatched and received, although so great is ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... reluctant yielding of theologians to the existing conditions. In order to maintain any hold whatever upon the people and retain a semblance of the old faith, they have revised and modified beliefs and interpretations, ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... thereafter Seward went to Cuba for his health and on the way saw St. Thomas. He then became resolved to buy and asked Denmark to name a price, but she refused. The plan, however, was laid before the Danish Cabinet in 1866. The Danes were reluctant to alienate these islands because they loved the colony. They believed, too, that the sale would offend England, France, and Spain. Mr. Seward and Mr. Yeamen, our minister at Copenhagen, however, pushed it and the Danish government finally offered the United States the three islands for $15,000,000. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... following this advice; and he urged it upon Maud, as the safest and most prudent course they could pursue. Our heroine, however, was so reluctant even to assuming the appearance of happiness, so recently after the losses she had experienced, that the lover's task of persuasion was by no means easy. Maud was totally free from affectation, while she possessed the keenest sense of womanly ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... it, he saw he was botching it just like everything else. He had come too close, and his heavy boot was pressing on the tip of her shoe; and he had not quite landed square on her lips. But still, he was close to her. He was reluctant to break it up, but he felt she was only half-responding, not giving anything of herself while he had given all. ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... to take breath, and picking up her knitting to inspect it for a moment, seemed somewhat reluctant ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... meantime how Maezli had proposed to visit the sick Castle-Steward and how she had at first been reluctant to go, till Maezli had made her feel that she was wrong. She related everything that had happened and all the questions he ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... under Janet's fixed and unshakable delusions. She saw that high-sounding titles were no more part of the personalities bearing them than the mass of frankly false hair so grandly worn by Aristide's grand-aunt was part of the wisp-like remnant of natural head covering. But that other self of hers, so reluctant to be laughed or frowned down and out by the self that was Hiram Ranger's daughter, still forced her to share in the ancient, ignorant allegiance to "appearances." She did not appreciate how bored she was, how impatient to be back with Dory, the never monotonous, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... told the villagers to resume relations with Marget and Ursula in a private and unostentatious way, and keep both eyes open. They were told to keep their own counsel, and not rouse the suspicions of the household. The villagers were at first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place, but the priest said they would be under his protection while there, and no harm could come to them, particularly if they carried a trifle of holy water along and kept their beads and crosses handy. This satisfied them and made them willing to go; envy ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the guessing and conceits of a multitude of writers, most trustworthy of whom are the early Christian Fathers, who, to the end that they might arouse the attention of the sleeping nations, yielded a reluctant, but impartial and graceful, tribute to the long-forgotten creeds of Chaldea, Phenicia, Assyria, and Egypt. Nevertheless, they would never have appealed to the doctrine of Buddha as being most like to Christianity in its rejection of the claims of race, had they not found in its simple ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... had given her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing up you ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... way to his dressing room, he found her in a cloud of finery which her skilful hands were forcibly compressing into a last portmanteau. He had never seen anyone pack as cleverly as Susy: the way she coaxed reluctant things into a trunk was a symbol of the way she fitted discordant facts into her life. "When I'm rich," she often said, "the thing I shall hate most will be to see an ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... evidently made in good faith, and Gilbert hesitated, reluctant to accept it, and yet unwilling to reject it in a ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... her lips and chin, and fell on the silk collar round her neck. She could not take her own handkerchief from her pocket, sitting as she was with my arm round her. I drew out mine and dried the wet eyes, and then pressed the soft reluctant head against my shoulder. Once there, it remained, too weary to lift ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... scarcely passed ere he heard the tramp of Sherman's army sweeping victoriously across the State, and beheld the once proud and haughty Charleston in possession of the Union legions. As he saw the starry flag again waving aloft in triumph, he hastened, with reluctant footsteps, to place himself once more under its protecting folds, thus renewing, in 1865, his oath of allegiance to the government whose authority he had defied ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer
... we reserve the name "conscience" for the vaguer and more elusive restraints and leadings, the sense of reluctant necessity whose purpose we do not clearly see although we feel its pressure, the accumulated residuum of long inner experience and many influences from without. Our minds retain many creases whose origin we have forgotten; we veer away from many a pleasant inclination ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... which made for the alliance with France and through it for the Triple Entente. It is well known that even after the termination of the Russo-German secret treaty of mutual neutrality in 1890, the Tsar Alexander III remained for a long time reluctant to come to terms with Republican France. Towards the end of 1890 there was a fresh outbreak of official anti-Semitism in Russia, and the bitter cry of the persecuted Jews was heard all over Europe. At that moment it happened that negotiations for a large ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... politely protested that we should rather stay in the library; Mrs. Endicott was not to be resisted. "Your father and my mother enjoy looking at books more than anything else," she said pleasantly, as we made our reluctant way back; "but I know that young people like to be where there are life and gaiety,—and you haven't even had a cup of chocolate. Come this way, and I'll introduce you to ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... mother. They had incessant recourse to her advice; and her simplest words were as a law to them, her conduct their example. She assumed no power, and disclaimed all authority; but the sovereign empire of love was forced into her reluctant hands. They insisted on being governed by one they held in such affection, and gave up every pleasure for the sake of being with her, and sharing ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... cutlery with which he had been so kindly presented, should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them many merry Christmases, and many ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... any kind about etiquette. You eat, drink, and are merry, or, if you prefer, are sad; just as you please. You may wear uniform, or you may not, it's your own affair; and consequently, it may be imagined how insensibly such privileges gain upon one, and how very reluctant we become ever to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... steamer. The more I thought of catching the steamer, the less I cared to do so; the more I thought of leaving home, the less I cared to do so. It was not that I was going away from Sylvia that made me thus reluctant to start. It was because I was going away without taking leave of her,—without a word or even a sign from her. I ground my teeth as I thought of how I had lost the only chance I had had of bidding ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... unconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary one to the other (which God forbid), as the impious heretics say, but His human will follows, not as resisting or reluctant, but rather therefore as subject to His divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the will of the flesh should be moved, but be subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as His flesh ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... "'Yes,' I says, reluctant like, 'I s'pose it's fair. But how will it work out? will there be enough to make it worth ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... lived upon the hope to meet with the lost again. At last, and most recently, it was my fate to discover that the object of this unconquerable affection lived,—was still free in hand if not in heart: you behold the lover of your mother in Ernest Maltravers! It devolved on me (an invidious—a reluctant duty) to inform Maltravers of the identity of Lady Vargrave with the Alice of his boyish passion; to prove to him her suffering, patient, unsubdued affection; to convince him that the sole hope left to her in life was that of one day or other beholding him once again. You know Maltravers,—his ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton |
