"Reticent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... son's wife, now hastening over the snow to the house her husband had left under a cloud eight years before, had no fear of him, and, maybe, no deep regard for him. He respected her, as did all who knew her—a very reticent, thoughtful, busy being, who had been like a well of comfort to so many that had drunk and passed on out of her life, out of time and time's experiences. Seventy-nine years saw her still upstanding, strong, full of work, and fuller of life's knowledge. It was ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... considered a rich joke in that locality that a city woman who was trying to farm, had applied for these ducks just as they had completed their labors for the season of 1888-'90; they were also extremely venerable, and the reticent owner rejoiced to be relieved of an expensive burden at good rates. Knowing nothing of these facts in natural history, I pondered deeply over the double phenomenon. I said the hens seemed normal only as to appetite; the ducks proved ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... will have to plow through these pages if you have not already met him, but for his faults, they were printed all over him like cities on a map. He was stubborn, rather reticent, sometimes unreasonable, and carried with him that air of stolid self-confidence which is apt to be found in one who has surmounted obstacles and risen in spite of handicaps. It was often said in the troop that one never knew ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... also have some charming recollections, and although I cannot narrate them in words as fascinating and glowing as yours, yet they are engraved no less vividly on my mind, and, like beautiful genii, accompany me everywhere. Only before others they are bashful and reticent like myself." ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... good as told him," muttered the ruffled fair, too angry to be reticent, "that I had no one to drive me to-morrow; and I think it was real rude asking that Bluebell Leigh before my face,—a mere nursery governess—and not giving me so much as the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... of your bracing influence! Oh, the Polonaises . . ." And then he in his turn began to play, but not the melancholy fiery lyrics that had soothed Laura's unsatisfied heart. Val, a thorough musician, went for sympathy to the classics. Impulsive? There was not much impulse left in this quiet, reticent man, who with his old trouble fresh on him could sit down and play a chorale of Bach or a prelude of Mozart, subordinating his own imperious anguish to the grave universal daylight of the elder masters. Long since ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... shade. The roguish twinkle in his small piercing eyes contrasts strongly with the sombre, stolid expression of the Finnish peasants sitting near him. He has much to relate about St. Petersburg, Moscow, and perhaps Astrakhan; but, like a genuine trader, he is very reticent regarding the mysteries of his own craft. Towards sunset he retires with his companions to some quiet spot on the deck to recite evening prayers. Here all the good Mahometans on board assemble and stroke their beards, kneel on their little strips of carpet and prostrate ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... occasion had she been at home. She had then sought him out In his solitary villa, and of this visit, of this conversation with the old man so lofty of soul, so humble in heart, so ardent in spirit, so modest and reticent, she had retained an ineffaceable memory. He was dead, they wrote. He had passed away, bowing gently and humbly to the Divine Will. Shortly before his death he had dreamed continually during a long night, of the words addressed to the faithful servant ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... I found this type of angler to be remarkably reticent as to experience and method. Moreover, the tackle used was amazing to me. Stiff rods and heavy lines for little fish! I gathered another impression, and it was that bonefish were related to dynamite and chain lightning. Everybody who would listen to my questions ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... as in her body, there is always a reserve of energy, a dignified self-respect; there is never any self-abandonment. She has sung first in French, now she comes on in an Italian air, and afterwards is not too coyly reticent in taking an encore which is in English, to a piano accompaniment, and when that is over she hastens to bring the accompanist by the hand to her side before the audience, and bows, sweetly and graciously, with a gesture of the whole body, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... It is unfortunately impossible to give any trustworthy statistics of the position of banking in the United Kingdom extending back for more than forty or fifty years. Even the Scottish banks, who have been less reticent as to their position than the English banks, did not publish their accounts generally till 1865. The figures of the total deposits and cash balances in the Irish joint-stock banks were published collectively from the year 1840 by the care of Dr Neilson Hancock, but it is only of quite recent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... into power under the premiership of Lord Grey. Although he was pledged to parliamentary reform, his cabinet was composed entirely of noblemen, with only one exception. There was no greater aristocrat in all England than this leader of reform,—a cold, reticent, proud man. Lord Russell was also an aristocrat, being a brother of the Duke of Bedford; so was Althorp, the son and heir of Earl Spencer. The only man in the new cabinet of fearless liberality of views, the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand pounds ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... Hunter and Dyer and two staff captains. Hunter, compact and dark and reticent, walks about the empty chamber in full uniform, his bright buttons and sash and sword contrasting with his dark blue uniform, gauntlets upon his hands, crape on his arm and blade, his corded hat in his hands, a paper collar just apparent above ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... without kin; I am in a place that did not know me at birth. And so, when holidays come around, there is no place anywhere for me. I have friends, of course; I don't think I've been a very sulky, shut-in, reticent fellow; and there is many a board that has a place for me—but not at Christmastime. At Christmas, the dinner is a family gathering; and I've no family. There is such a gathering of kindred on this occasion, such a reunion of family folk, that there is no place for a friend, even if the friend ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the mocking man of the world. When suddenly observed, his face always had a sad, grave aspect, and it was often hard for him to throw off this seriousness and to put on his harlequin's mask. Upon religious matters he was always reticent, but reverent. Only upon rare occasions would he discuss serious subjects at all, and only with a chosen few. In one letter which has been published he departs from his usual ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... very reticent in his information. What was the use of telling this young man anything; he would not ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... again." Aunt Barbara rarely said that now, for with each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less, until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent, unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual. Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor, while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... she had not been reticent about her feelings made Tai-y unwittingly flush scarlet. Taking hold of her sleeve, she screened her face; and, turning her body round towards the inside, she pretended to be fast asleep. Pao-y drew near her. He was about to pull her round ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Mana, Annie, Mary, Alice, and Maggie, with bunches of small boys and girls on the floor. It was then that boxes of delicacies from home were opened and devoured. How grateful she was to all her friends! "The gifts," she would write, "are veiled in a mist of love, real Scottish love, reticent but deep and strong, full of pathos and prayer; the dear love inspired in our strong rugged Scots character by the Holy Ghost and moulded by our beloved Presbyterianism of the olden time; love that does not forget with the passing years." Two ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... with a duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or bring into the light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is difficult to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for any of us to be always talking of our own parentage. We may be generally reticent as to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even our brothers and sisters in our ordinary conversation. But if a man never mentions his belongings among those with whom he lives, he becomes mysterious, and almost open to suspicion. It begins to be known that nobody knows anything of such a man, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... young woman in the habiliments of sophisticated lands who sat here now, her heavy hair, piled high, lighted warmly in the illumination of the window. Her skin, clear white, had lost its sunburn in the moister climate between the two ranges of mountains. Quiet, reticent, reserved—cold, some said; but all said Molly Wingate, teacher at the mission school, was beautiful, the most beautiful young woman in all the great Willamette settlements. Her hands were in her lap now, and her face as usual was grave. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... riding in a locomotive cab, where, with the constant rattle and roar, conversation is very difficult, the engineman, Truman Stump, had become a most reticent man, who rarely spoke unless it was necessary. He had thus gained the reputation of being ill-tempered and morose, which was exactly what he was not. Everybody admitted, though, that he was a first-class engine-driver, and one who could always be relied upon to do exactly ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... way with my mother," stoutly said Anne, drawing up her dignified little head. And she kept her resolution, for though a little excited by her first taste of lively youthful companionship, she was naturally a thoughtful reticent child, with a character advanced by companionship with her mother as an only child, through a great sorrow. Thus she was in every respect more developed than her contemporary Lucy, who regarded her with wonder as well as ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has also been a resident during many winters, and his descriptions of the Valley, when wrapped in snow and ice, are intensely interesting. Though always ready to give information, he is naturally reticent, and never forces his stories or reminiscences upon visitors; indeed it requires some persuasion to hear him talk about himself at all. For some years Mr. Clark was postmaster of Yosemite; and he has made many trips on foot, both ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... you would like it, dear," said Dora absently; while her eyes grew dim and vague, and around her mouth settled the white, hard line, that, in her reticent nature, showed an emotion no less intense because it ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... that he might not be a man of taste, but, for his part, he thought she looked 'the jolliest girl' he had ever seen. In his heart he meant that he thought she looked like a goddess or an angel (for the Baby was a reverent youth), but he veiled his real feeling under this reticent phrase. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... did they do then? I was pardonably interested in the matter, and inquired of Madame de Kries. She was reticent, but I extracted from her the information that they were hurriedly married again. One could laugh if the matter had not been so terribly serious to them and to their boy. For by now those events had actually happened, and Mrs F. was not indeed in possession of but next in succession to a considerable ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... her room-mate each nightfall with eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late. ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... Borrow’s stepdaughter—which he seems not to have been able to do—it is pretty certain that she could have told him nothing of that mysterious seven years. For about this subject the people to whom Borrow seems to have been most reticent were his wife and her daughter. Indeed, it was not until after his wife’s death that he would allude to this period even to his most intimate friends. One of the very few people to whom he did latterly talk with anything like frankness about this period in his ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... beyond anything I ever saw," he said. "I meant to ask John about it. He used to talk to me and write to me often about her, and lately he hasn't; when I came I saw the reason, and so you see I felt reticent on the subject." ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of the arch-conspirators knew; they were blinded by self-interest. And the archbishop? The Marshal rubbed his nose again, not, however, because it was cold. Did any one know what was going on behind the smiling mask which the reticent prelate showed to the world? The Marshal poked his chin above his collar, and the wrinkles fell away ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... does seem very reticent. His father as good as said, as I think I told you, that this was a voyage of discovery, a search for something he wanted to take back, and which was to make his country very great. But he has ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... much conversation in the sign-language between the two parties. It was evident that Nalboon, usually stern and reticent, was in an unusually pleasant mood. The viands, though of peculiar flavor, were in the main pleasing to the palates of ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... ordinary politician, who can allow a former policy noiseless and forsaken to sink into the maelstrom of neglected and unrequited love. Prolific in schemes is the procedure of a minority party, not the least is the selection of a standard-bearer, who has been the most sparse and reticent in utterance, hence a record the least assailable, that extracts from his opponents the exclamation of one in Holy Writ, "Oh, that mine ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Alister is a devoted husband, but he comes no more to the Island. He has changed out of his old boat, and his late shipmates say vaguely that he has removed somewhere Sunderland or Cardiff way, and trades to the North Sea. Tom is very reticent about Maggie, though Miss Bell, the postmistress, might tell, if she were not a superior person, and as used to keeping a secret at a pinch as Father Tiernay himself, how many letters he receives with the post-mark of ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... season the corporal writes little, and articles by the regular staff, upon the height to which cantonment hedges should be allowed to grow, are apt to be dull. For news we depend on Tom. He appears reticent at first, but be patient. Let him put the soap on, and then ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... not one who was readily inclined to think evil of anyone, but in her own gentle heart she could not help feeling a repugnance for the man who had just left them. Jack was not so reticent. ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... return of Waldon with Edwards. Waldon seemed to realize without knowing just what it was, that something was about to happen. He drove his boat back to the Lucie again in record time. This was Kennedy's turn to be reticent. Whatever it was he was revolving in his mind, he answered in scarcely more than monosyllables whatever questions were ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... his office for a consultation with the members of his new Cabinet. Judah P. Benjamin, his chosen chief counselor as Secretary of State, was unusually reticent. The details of the inauguration were quickly agreed on and Davis hastened to return to his room at the White House to complete his ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... religious; and they sought entertainment with such of the passengers as were congenial, though in this Isaac Hecker was more ready than his companions. Father Walworth tells an incident characteristic of both himself and his transcendental companion. He was admonishing young Hecker to be more reticent among the crew and was asked why. "You wouldn't like to kneel down and kiss the deck before all those sailors," said Walworth. "Why not?" was the reply. "Then do it." And down dropped Hecker to the deck and kissed it ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... away, his cheery whistle floating up to them. The physician spoke with a depth of feeling he had never betrayed before, while Dan, troubled as he was, listened in wonder to his friend, who had always been so reticent in ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... was interrupted by our segundo and the trail foreman riding up to the cow pen. The two had been up the river during the afternoon, looking over the cattle on the range, for as yet we had not commenced gathering. Nancrede was very reticent, discovering a conspicuous lack of words to express his opinion of what cattle ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... friend or helper from whom I reserve no secrets has been rendered more impressive than ever by the Freud-Jung methods of relieving mental disorders through (in part) a sort of mental house-cleaning, or bringing into the open the patient's hidden distresses and even his most intimate and reticent desires. Into the psychology of the healings that are brought about by this psychoanalysis we need not go, except to note that one constant factor appears to be the turning of a private possession into a social possession, and particularly the consciousness that another understands. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... was reticent about was the story of his uncle. Poor, crack-brained visionary, he had gone to his account now, and what need was there to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... he wanted. Then he would shyly stammer out his request. Never would they accost me or otherwise disturb me while I was writing or reading; yet at other times they could be positively impertinent, especially if excited. The islander is very nervous; when he is quiet, he is shy and reticent, but once he is aroused, all his bad instincts run riot, and incredible savageness and cruelty appear. The secret of successful treatment of the natives seems to be to keep them very quiet, and never to let any excitement arise, a point in ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... not need to be always spoken. There is very little chance of us Northerners erring on the side of letting our hearts speak too fully and frequently. Perhaps we should be all the better if we were a little less reticent, but at any rate you and I can surely trust each other after so many years, and now and then, as to-day, let ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rhythm, style, and diction is the form of Bjrnson's verse: compact, reticent, suggestive, without elaborate verbal ornamentation, strong with "the long-vibrating power of the deeply felt, but half-expressed." It challenges and stimulates the soul of the hearer or reader to an intense activity of appropriation, which ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... to require of him any statement of his own beliefs. He does not conceive it to be his duty to furnish his students with any fixed conclusions as to doctrine but only to aid them in coming to conclusions for themselves. The apostle Paul was not so reticent. He was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but rather gloried in it. He even pronounced his anathema upon any who taught other doctrine. It is no wonder that our modern critics cry, "Back to Christ," ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... and what a long weary dream of misery I had passed through! I hardly knew even then how bad I had been. When I spoke to Esau he used to screw his face up full of wrinkles, and shake his head, while Mr Raydon was as reticent. ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... discovered, for the woman was not at all reticent, that she had been a low comedian and a dancer at Drury Lane Theatre, and like most comedians, high tragedy was her passion, and had ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... prison-born whelp, but as he grew out of cub-hood his character and his stature alike seemed to justify it. Influenced by the example of his gentle foster-mother, he was docility itself toward his tamer, whom he came to love well after the reticent fashion of his race. But toward all others, man and beast alike, his reserve was cold and dangerous. Toomey, apparently, absorbed all the affection which his lonely nature had to spare. In return for this singleness of regard, Toomey trained him with a firm patience which never forgot ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... doubt that Mr. Carson was in heart thoroughly a religious man. It is the element of religion alone, which, in the midst of such temptations, could form a character of such remarkable purity. He was too reticent to speak of his own feelings and there were but few, if any, of the thoughtless men around him who ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... of old china or a human being—whatever it might be, it was along the avenue of taste that he gently made his way up to it. His favourite word of commendation was pleasing, and if he ever brought himself to say (and he was not a man who scattered his judgments, rather was he extremely reticent of them) of a man, and still more of a woman, that he or she was unpleasing, you almost shuddered at the fierceness of the condemnation, knowing, as all Locker's intimate friends could not help doing, what the word meant to him. 'Attractive' ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... City. This gentleman had cordially united with his wife in offering Madge a home, and his manner toward the young girl, as far as his absorbed and busy life permitted, had been almost paternal. He was a quiet, reticent man, who had apparently concentrated every faculty of soul and body on the problem of commercial success. Trained to business from boyhood, he had allowed it to become his life, and he took it very seriously. It was to him an absorbing game—his vocation, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... boat in which you came here, and bid him come to me this time tomorrow evening. I would fain hear from him somewhat further details as to how you escaped from the Spaniards, for I observed that in this matter you were a little reticent as to your share in it. He may be able to tell me, too, more about the strength of the Spanish garrisons in Bergen and its neighbourhood than ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... nothing was affected but the liver; they multiplied and varied their prescriptions; the malady ignored those prescriptions, and went steadily on. Mr. Lusignan was terrified but helpless. Rosa resigned and reticent. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Aldrich applied to his later prose work that minute care in composition which had previously characterized his verse—taking a near, new or salient situation, and setting it before the reader in a pretty combination of kindly realism and reticent humour. In the novels, Prudence Palfrey (1874), The (Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), there is more rapid action; but the Portsmouth pictures in the first are elaborated with the affectionate touch shown in the shorter humourous tale, A Rivermouth Romance ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for them, and lunge home in spite of themselves. Besides, he began to be really interested in Madame Lescande—in her coquettish ways, at once artful and simple, provoking and timid, suggestive and reticent—in short, charming. ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... always, To regain favor with Papa. And this, Papa being what he is, gives a twist to all other problems the young man may have, for they must all shape themselves by this; and introduces something of artificial,—not properly of hypocritical, for that too is fatal if found out,—but of calculated, reticent, of half-sincere, on the Son's part: an inevitable feature, plentifully visible in their Correspondence now and henceforth. Corresponding with Papa and his Grumkow, and watched, at every step, by such an Argus as the Tobacco-Parliament, real frankness of speech is not ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... accusation of childishness by confessing her positive reason, so she answered, 'The man is a kind of man . . . I was not there long; I was glad to escape. He . . .' she hesitated: for in truth it was difficult to shape the charge against him, and the effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative, now that he had been spoken of, as to the detested doctor, reduced her to some confusion. She was also fatally anxious to be in the extreme degree conscientious, and corrected and modified her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of this outrage carried to my house, and, his wounds not proving serious, he was soon well, and able to think of resuming his journey. He was very reticent concerning the motive of his servant for attempting his life, and foolishly, to my mind, made no effort to trace the miscreant. When leaving he said that in all probability he would return this way a few weeks later. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... increased by half a dozen new families during the last few years, and the Mexicans had put up an adobe dance-hall, that looked exactly like one of their own dwellings, except that it was a little longer, and was so unpretentious that nobody in Moonstone knew of its existence. The "Spanish boys" are reticent about their own affairs. Ray Kennedy used to know about all their little doings, but since his death there was no one whom ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... indifferent to the beauties of life. No one would ever have called him emotional, or prone to enthusiasms of a weak kind, and yet he was by no means hard of heart. He had quiet fancies of his own about people and things, and many of these reticent, rarely-expressed ideas were reverent, chivalrous ones of women. The opposing force of a whole world could never have shaken his faith in Priscilla Gower, or touched his respect for her; but though, perhaps, he had never understood it so, he had never ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... romances.[15] Whether this feature be due to Rusticiano I cannot say, but I have not been able to trace anything of the same character in a cursory inspection of some of his romance-compilations. Still one finds it impossible to conceive of our sober and reticent Messer Marco pacing the floor of his Genoese dungeon, and seven times over rolling out this magniloquent bombast, with sufficient deliberation to be overtaken by the pen of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... an ideal being, he is still less a stolid mentally squalid brute. He is not reticent out of imbecility or mental weakness. He fails properly to understand much of what takes place around him, especially what happens within the circle of our modern civilization, but withal he is far from indifferent toward his surroundings. He observes, compares, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the instinct of justice which characterises the human beast, and especially the female, they were held responsible for Clerambault's ideas, though his wife and daughter knew little of them and disapproved what they knew. (Their critics did not understand them either.) The more polite were reticent, taking pains not to mention Clerambault's name, or ask after him,—you don't speak of ropes, you know, in the house of a man who has been hanged.... And this calculated silence was worse than open abuse. You would have said that Clerambault had done something dishonest or immodest. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... of motion which kept them both with heads bent forward and seemed to force back any utterance that rose to their lips spared Rose the obligation of conversation, and her companion was equally reticent. But it was evident to her that he half suspected she was running away from the Randolphs, and that she wished to avoid the embarrassment of being overtaken even in persuasive pursuit. It was not possible that he knew the cause of her flight, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... destroyed. Those men were selected for sacrifice because they had the very qualities which, when lost to the community, then it dies in its soul. They were candid with themselves, and questioned our warranty with the same candour, but were modest and reticent; they were kindly to us when they knew we were wooden and wrong, and did our bidding, judging it was evil. In France they subdued their insurgent thoughts—and what that sacrifice meant to them in the lonely night watches I have been privileged ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... was that four days and forty-one dollars would carry us to our first objective point. His helpers were a lively young half-breed, son-in-law of the murdered chief Hole-in-the-Day, another big mongrel, fat, plodding and reticent, and a young Indian who could speak a few English words, but was destitute of ideas in either English or Chippewa. Their motive-power was grazing on the open prairie back of the ragged village. The Reservation Indian, denied ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... fools ran away from her, and that because they were afraid she would expose their folly. If most people were fools, it was no fault of hers, and she was not obliged to indulge them by pretending to believe that they knew anything. She had once owned considerable property, but was reticent about her affairs, and told no one how much she was worth, though it was supposed that she had considerable ready money, besides her house and some other real estate. Mrs. Carteret was her nearest living relative, though her grand-nephew Tom Delamere had been a great favorite with ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... remarkably grave; he left the table early, having eaten little. The officers were reticent, as was their wont. Luke FitzHenry, it was remarked and remembered afterwards, alone appeared to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... case of Columbus we are spared this dilemma. The past is reticent enough about the man himself; and about his ancestors it is almost silent. We know that he had a father and grandfather, as all grandsons of Adam have had; but we can be certain of very little more than that. He came of a race of Italian yeomen inhabiting ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the resistance of obstacles. He rejoiced. He had been wise to leave the city for the fresh, unspoiled country—the city with all its mean little fears, its petty immoralities, and its very trifling great concerns. He did not analyse, more than to remember, once, that the not reticent German would approve his mood. He had sought the soothing quiet with the unfailing ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... at him blankly. There were things about Eustace lately that she did not understand. She knew nothing of Bob's maxim about looking at two sides of a question, so she could see no reason for the strange things he sometimes said, and he was far too reticent to ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... evening on which the name of Adelpha Leisler had been mentioned, Cora Waters had been strangely shy and reticent, so that Charles Stevens could not tell her of the interview with Mr. Parris, even if he would. Cora was a remarkable girl. She united in the highest perfection the rarest of earthly gifts—genius and beauty. No one possesses superior intellectual ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... rate they were not reticent: they told everything they knew and perhaps more. They gloried in the thought of the fighting to come, and seemed to take their own captivity very lightly, evidently thinking it only a matter of a few weeks before they could be exchanged or released—before their ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that George Eliot permits anything like meter in her prose, and she is usually very reticent of rhythm. There is fervor and enthusiasm, imagination and poetic insight, but all kept within the limits of robust and manly prose. This capacity of prose to serve most of the purposes of poetry may be seen in a marked degree in all of George Eliot's novels. In the account of Adam Bede's love ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... threshold of the cottage on Exchange Street was not darkened by our people. And when the big house went up—a palace for a country town, though it only cost John Markley $25,000—he, who had been so reticent about his affairs in other years, tried to talk to his old friends of the house, telling them expansively that he was putting it up so that the town would have something in the way of a house for public gatherings; but he aroused no responsive enthusiasm, and long before the big opening reception ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... the outbreak of war the various Powers grew remarkably reticent concerning the composition and enlargement of their respective aerial fleets. No official figures were published. But at the same time it is a well-known fact that during the year 1913 France augmented her flying force by no fewer than 544 aeroplanes. Germany was no less energetic, the military ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... instinct of all true Forsytes in anxiety and trouble, the corporate tendency which kept them strong and solid, made him choose to dine at Park Lane. He neither could nor would breath a word to his people of his intention—too reticent and proud—but the thought that at least they would be glad if they knew, and wish him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... two old chums rode away on a side scout of their own, it might well be expected that "Coyote" would be less reticent. The eyes of half the command had followed them appreciatively as the detachment started, Graham and Connell in the lead, Sergeant Drum, and his nineteen following in compact column of twos. No sooner did they ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... child is often kept in extreme ignorance of the liability of womanhood occurring to her at a certain age, and, hence, when she observes a flow of blood escaping from a part, the delicacy attached to the locality makes her reticent with regard to inquiry or exposure; she naturally becomes alarmed, and most likely attempts to stanch the flow by bathing or applying cold water to the part, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... his acquaintances about the trip, merely stating that he was going on a journey. Mr. Baxter, on his part, was equally reticent, so, aside from the immediate families, and Mrs. Stults and her lawyer, no one was aware ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... self-controlled, with hair of copper-red and face and neck browned and furrowed by the sun and mountain winds, enured to hardships and ready for them, this young mountaineer moved among his new-found companions at Camp Gordon. Reticent he seemed, but his answer to an inquiry was direct, and his quiet blue-eyes never shifted from the eyes of the man who addressed him. As friendships were formed, his moods were noted by his comrades. At times he was playful as a boy, using cautiously, even gently, the strength he possessed. ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... feeling spread to the German Government it is impossible to say. Nor it is easy to estimate how much official confidence was shaken by it. The government, even before the war, was singularly reticent about the Zeppelins, their numbers and plans. It is certain that orders were not withheld from the Count. Great numbers of his machines were built, especially after the war was entered upon. But he was not permitted longer ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... conventional and proper thing, and they who talked with him, with hardly an exception, led up to the matter of the watch and wished to know how he accounted for its being there on the post of No. 5. It was observed that, upon this topic and the stabbing of Private Mullins, Mr. Blakely was oddly reticent. He had nothing whatever to suggest as explanation of either matter. The watch was taken from the inner pocket of his thin white coat as he lay asleep at the pool, of this he felt confident, but by whom he would not pretend to say. ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... speeches and addresses to the various constituencies were, of course, looked to with much interest, as likely to indicate, or in some way foreshadow their future measures; but they were much more inclined to be reticent than communicative. Lord John himself, in his address to the citizens of London, dealt in those vague generalities under which politicians are accustomed to veil their intentions, or their want of definite plans. He told them they might feel assured that he would not desert in office the principles ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... indeed certain striking points of resemblance between these three; each in his own line surpassing all others of the same period. Their complexion, and their great physical strength, their deeply arched eye-brows, their genius for language, their reticent and contemplative habits, and especially a certain pregnant gloominess of expression, would seem to indicate a nearer unity than the general one of the Aryan races. Yet the case remains to ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... the last of the Puritans. He was indeed the incarnation of those qualities which led to eminence under the theocracy. A rigid Calvinist, reticent, cool, and brave, matchless in intrigue, and tireless in purpose, his cause was always holy, and therefore sanctified ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... thought that one so reticent and retiring, of such hasty temper and brusque manners, would scarcely be attracted to women. But Beethoven, it is said, was very susceptible to the charm of the opposite sex. He was however, most careful and high-souled in all his ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... it all, but something kept me silent. And so we hurried on, and on, and on, our course directed by my now wholly reticent companion. Where he was going, what his purpose was, I could not but vaguely surmise. I only recognized that his intentions were humane, which fact was emphasized by the extreme caution he took to avoid the two or three late pedestrians that passed us on our way as we stood crowded in ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... little disappointment, apparently, that she could not visit home. And as spring passed and the summer came on, the little girl budded and opened like a rose. To the pretty school-teacher she was a source of endless interest and wonder, for while the little girl was reticent and aloof, Miss Saunders felt herself watched and studied in and out of school, and Hale often had to smile at June's unconscious imitation of her teacher in speech, manners and dress. And all the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the iron railing, his gaze softening to a grave, peaceful smile as he looked over the vast, vaporous scene, laced with its moving and motionless lines of light, it was this, and its mysteries, its delicacies, its reticent radiance, that expressed him more truly than the commonplaces of the room behind him, accurately as these symbolized the activities of his life. The boy and youth, emotional and poetic, dreamy if also ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... spoil of the bow and spear of some red-cheeked lass; or he might walk on as an old bachelor, too cautious to be caught at all. But none believed that he would become the victim of a grand passion for a poor, reticent, high-bred, high-minded specimen of womanhood. Such, however, was now ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... of his black eyes, that abashed the woman's tantrums in the beginning, and therefore the possibility of any quarrel was excluded. He was new, and therefore immediately aroused her curiosity; he was reticent, and kept it awake. And lastly he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, the everlasting fountains ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... happen without making a slight stir in a family, especially such a quiet family as that at the cottage. Besides, the lovers were too childishly happy to be at all reticent over their felicity. Before David was turned away that night to the hotel which he and Mr. Roy both inhabited, every body in the house knew quite well that Mr. Dalziel and Miss Janetta were ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... did not mind being frank with her. Instances of this trait in men who are not without feeling, but are reticent from habit, may be recalled by all of us. When they find a listener who can by no possibility make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, reserved and even suspicious men of the world become frank, keenly enjoying the inner side ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... unquestionably possessed, Arthur advanced rapidly in the favour of the charming niece. She was, it is needless to say, perfectly well aware that he was in love with her, while he was himself modestly reticent on the subject—so far as words went. But she was not equally quick in penetrating the nature of her own feelings towards Arthur. Watching the two young people with keen powers of observation, necessarily concentrated ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... vain Andrew Scalp, "My initials, I guess, Are known, so I sign all my poems, A.S." Said Jerrold, "I own you're a reticent youth, For that's telling only two ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... only reproach he had uttered, though she had treated him so badly. And Horace did not care for her one bit now—she could see it, she knew it, he was tired of her, and she was not clever enough for him, and would never make him a good wife. All this our little-reticent Maria had sobbed out in answer to Mrs. Vavasour's sympathising questions, with many entreaties to know what she had better do next. Mrs. Vavasour could only advise her to say to Horace just what she had said to her, and she had sufficient confidence in Maria's courage and good sense to trust ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... frequently been puzzled by a peculiar change of manner in his friends. When he made a remark which showed how clearly he understood their point of view and how closely he was in agreement with it, they had a way of becoming reticent in the very moment of expansion. The current of sympathy was broken, and as often as not they turned the conversation altogether into a conventional and less interesting channel. That change of manner ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... herself pure, and when doubts had been thrown on that theory by others who believed in her less, she had closed their tattling mouths with language such as they were not accustomed to hear from her usually reticent lips. These gossip-mongers, who flourish in the quarters of the poor and rich alike, speedily learned that it was just as well not to mention the name of Liz Hepburn to Teen Balfour. One day a visitor, in the shape of a handsomely-dressed young lady, did come to the little seamstress's ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... Giovanni had been very reticent about his affairs, even with his own family, and during that last winter in Rome, when he had fallen in love with Angela Chiaromonte, Ugo had been stationed in Pavia and had known nothing of the affair. Ugo had a vague recollection that Giovanni was supposed to have been unduly ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... excitedly sympathetic and eager to comfort, she found a quiet mourner ready to talk with her more composedly than she herself was able to do. Martha, shocked though she was by the sudden call, was full of curiosity as to the return of John Leaver, and only Charlotte's reticent dignity of manner kept back a ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... be too hasty with the death sentence. What matters it what Tepti may think! He is a good embalmer, reticent of speech and his belief in death and nothingness if expressed would neither find believers nor corrupt our faith. The thought of non-existence is not acceptable to the Egyptians; it lacks enthusiasm, it lacks certainty, ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... any desire to be reticent, but simply because the details appeared to him to be altogether ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown, consciously awkward, homely and ill clad—he grew so rapidly it was impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his age. ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Hotspur, though she had been thus reticent and quiet in her joy, though she was resolved to be discreet, and knew that there were circumstances in her engagement which would for a while deter her from being with her accepted lover as other girls are with theirs, did ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... him now," said Hilda; "and yet, though you are very reticent on the subject, I have a shrewd suspicion, my darling, that you do not ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... this. He let his simple statement of fact stand without enlarging on it. His life of late years had tended to make him reticent. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... any moral compunction for any excess he committed. He was habitually more ready to glory over his conquests, than to deny or extenuate them. But in this case he had, to the surprise of Cadet, been very reticent, and shy of speaking of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... brought up and educated by my bachelor uncle. He was a reticent, moody man, and with his aged housekeeper and myself, led a solitary and unsocial life in the old rambling house which had ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... "abstract," "contents," and "synopsis." "This is not the sort of thing for me," he murmured, and turned his attention to a third bookcase, which contained books on the Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some by no means reticent mythological illustrations were contained, he set himself to examine these pictures. They were of the kind which pleases mostly middle-aged bachelors and old men who are accustomed to seek in the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... reverence went round the congregation. The social hierarchy was to some extent graduated by synagogal contributions, and whoever could afford only a little offering had it announced as a "gift"—a vague term which might equally be the covering of a reticent munificence. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... talking to a man who is a member of a traditionally reticent and unexpansive race; who says about one third of what he feels; who is obsessed by a mania for understating his country's case, exaggerating its weaknesses, and belittling its efforts; who is secretly shy, so covers up his shyness with a cloak of aggressiveness which is offensive to ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay
... The letters of Nelson to personal friends, to the Admiralty, and in his reported conversations, are all full of resentment at the viciousness of it, though he obviously struggles to curb the vehemence of his feelings. No one felt the dagger of the reticent stabber more quickly and sensitively than he. Invisible though the libeller might be, Nelson knew he was there. He could not hear the voice, but he ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... no more likely to have such a subject as Samuel Johnson than such a one as George Frederick Cooke; while both Boswell and Dunlap, had they written in our day, would probably have been much more reticent and much less amusing. We cannot therefore agree with Mr. Fitzgerald in thinking that the colorless character of the few theatrical biographies that have appeared in recent times is to be ascribed to the decay of the art of acting and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... told me a word about you—he's been so reticent." She laid her finger tips upon his arm in proprietory fashion while a sly malice shone through the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... artistic merit. It is only in the rare instance of a family collection, resulting from the slow accumulation by more than one generation of quilt enthusiasts, that a quilt collection at all worth while can be found. In such a case the owner is generally so reticent concerning his treasures that the community as a whole is never given the opportunity ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... stunned silence that followed this outburst from short-spoken, reticent Olive, there came a new voice; such a sweet, lovely voice with a tender ring that made every one ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... out into the country on business, she would go miles out of her way to call on some of the old people, or to see the women who seldom got to town. She was quick at understanding the grandmothers who spoke no English, and the most reticent and distrustful of them would tell her their story without realizing they were doing so. She went to country funerals and weddings in all weathers. A farmer's daughter who was to be married could count on a wedding present from ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... says to him," and "He says to me." But as evenings of the week went by, and other girls at Hilbert's, on leaving at the hour of seven, were met by courageous youths near the door, and by shyer lads at a more reticent spot (some of these took ambush in doorways, affecting to read cricket results in the evening paper), then Gertie Higham began to wonder whether the message had been communicated in the precise tone and manner that she had given it. The blue pinafored girls, stitching gold thread ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... appeared to be more ready to talk to little Jem than to any one else, and the two were constantly together. When I tried to find out from the boy what account Ned gave of himself, Jem was remarkably reticent. At length, however, one day he said, "He seems to be afraid of some of the men, sir. He thinks that they intend to do him harm, but I cannot find out why he has got that idea into his head. I told him that he might trust you and the first mate, ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... sat with the letter in her hand and the paper on her lap. She was meditating deeply, but what was in her mind Anson never knew. She had grown more and more reticent of late. She sighed, rose, and resumed ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... no danger of detection, or, if he did, it was very slight. Vincent was not the man to confide in more than one person; he had owned as much. He had been reticent enough to conceal his real surname from his publishers, and now he ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... me not with honey-sweet excesses, With passionate prodigalities of praise, With wreaths of daisied words and quaint caresses, Adore me not in charming childish ways. This pastoral is beautiful enough: But never shall it antidote my drouth: I want a reticent ironic Love With smiling eyes and faintly mocking mouth. Sweetness is best when bitterly 'tis bought: So in Love's deadly duel I would not be Victorious, and the peace I long have sought, Sure knowledge of his great supremacy, Would buy with pangs, like that bright cuirassier, The queen-at-arms ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... I read and re-read it, a cold, hard letter. I said as much to my aunt some days after this; but she wisely urged that my father was ever a reticent man, who found it difficult to let even his dearest see the better part ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Uncle Ben will judge for himself,' she said, reddening; thankful all the same to remember that among her uncle's reticent, old-fashioned ways none was more marked than his habit of destroying all but an infinitesimal fraction of his letters. 'He read all those speeches of yours, last year. You'll have to think—how you're going ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was instilled into me to be silent and reticent. This was one of the most important traits to form in the character of the Indian. As a hunter and warrior it was considered absolutely necessary to him, and was thought to lay the foundations of ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... attentively, "was as good as the best." Looking down the long table after they were seated, he smiled with satisfaction and expanded, a subtle suavity born of being host to distinguished folk unlocking his ordinarily reticent tongue, causing him even to joke with Mrs. Adams, whom ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... queen of the roads he seems to have been less reticent and more himself than with any other of his vagabond acquaintance, not excepting even Mr Petulengro. To the handsome, tall girl with "the flaxen hair, which hung down over her shoulders unconfined," and the "determined but open expression," he showed a more amiable side of his ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... wish to hoodwink you, my dear," Mr. Fenton answered quietly, "or to affect a happiness which I do not feel, any more than I wish to make a parade of my grief. It is natural for an Englishman to be reticent on such matters; but I do not mind owning to you that Marian Nowell is unforgotten by me, and that the loss of her will have an enduring influence upon my life; and having said as much as that, Belle, I must request that you will not expatiate any more upon this poor girl's breach ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... she had always yearned, and in which she was now to participate. The feeling of the beauty of the world, and of its catholicity and many-sidedness, returned to her. She gave play to her instincts. And, revelling in the self-confidence and the masterful ascendency which underlay Arthur's usual reticent demeanour, she resumed with exquisite relief her natural supineness. She began to depend on him. And she foresaw how he would reason diplomatically with Rose, and watch between Milly and Mr. Louis ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... he said, with an attempt at a smile, "Business, I suppose;" but the other replied, "No, I should gather that it was principally upon private affairs that he has gone to England; but Mr. Davidson is a very reticent man, and he gave me no particulars. I represent him here until he returns, and beyond that it is really no business of mine; but I certainly received the impression that some personal ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... to bring about the cruel persecution by which his whole life was embittered. But it must be admitted that the dishonesty of one of his own kinsmen—about which a chivalrous sense of honour caused him to be reticent during nearly fifty years—conduced to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... Mr. Belcher found the village quiet and very reticent, and having learned that a subscription had been raised without calling upon him, he laughingly expressed his determination to win the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... private chambers of the village. The principal grocery store, coal-yard, sail-loft, hotel and other institutions were conducted in its interests. His opinion was always foremost in the decision of the local authorities. He was still, reticent, unobtrusive. Once I saw him most considerately helping a cripple up the lane ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... out by inference and allusion rather than by direct information, while Michael, naturally reticent and feeling that his own uneventful affairs could have no interest for anybody, was less communicative. And, indeed, while shunning the appearance of inquisitiveness, he was far too eager to get hold of his new acquaintance to think of volunteering much himself. Here to him was this citizen of the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... refused to believe any good of the self-contained, reticent stranger. The nephew of somebody's brother-in-law, who lived in Lexington Avenue, was one. He had been promised, by the cousin of somebody else, the position of clerk with Otto Kling, and although Otto had never heard of it, he WOULD have heard of it and the nephew been duly installed but for ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... whatever, never mentioned your name again in my hearing. Mrs. Sutton did hint to me her fear that Mr. Aylett had heard something prejudicial to your character, which had greatly displeased him and shocked Mabel, but even she was unaccountably reticent. Intense as was my anxiety to learn the particulars of the story, and upon what evidence they were induced to believe it, I dared not press my inquiry into what it was plain they intended to guard as a ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Mayor. During dinner the conversation turned almost entirely on my father's flight, his narrow escape from drowning, and his adventures on his return to England; about these last my father was very reticent, for he said nothing about his book, and antedated his accession of wealth by some fifteen years, but as he walked up towards the statues with George ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... silent from his long training among savages, grew more and more reticent and watchful as we progressed, riding often at my side for hours without uttering a word, his keen eyes warily searching the dark openings upon every hand as if suspecting that each spot of gloom might prove the chosen place for an ambuscade. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... some gossip throughout the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his little moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs. Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was late when Cassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... a fitting place in which to speak of a side of Mr. Dodgson's character of which he himself was naturally very reticent—his wonderful generosity. My own experience of him was of a man who was always ready to do one a kindness, even though it put him to great expense and inconvenience; but of course I did not know, during his lifetime, that my experience of ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... over his paper, watching the languid breath that showed how deep the hurt had been, the maimed body, the face outwardly cool, watchful, reticent as before. He fancied the slough of disappointment into which God had crushed the soul of this man: would he struggle out? Would he take Miss Herne as the first step in his stairway, or be content to be flung down in vigorous manhood to the depth of impotent poverty? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... council of war considered the matter. After the members had delivered their opinions, Pelissier expressed himself thus: "I too have my plan, but I will not breathe it to my pillow." There is, however, no need to be so reticent with the reader. The French commander had learned that the relief of the troops in the works before him took place at noon, and that in order to avoid the great additional loss which would be caused by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... French market, the tumble-down buildings which house the courts of justice ceased to interest him. He was relieved when finally he felt it proper to turn up the old Esplanade, which wandered away with its rows of whitened trees, out among the dignified and reticent residences ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... facts, you don't need a detective. I'd rather have a suspect talk freely and never tell the truth than have him be reticent and stick ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... The three "Mormon" elders, reticent and quiet, had made few acquaintances. The Rev. Mr. Strong and his daughter, not being very well, had not been active in the social proceedings of ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... cross, for though grim of countenance, rough of speech, cold of manner, a keen observer would have soon discovered traces of a deeper, warmer nature hidden, behind the repellent front he turned upon the world. A true New Englander, thoughtful, acute, reticent, and opinionated; yet earnest withal, intensely patriotic, and often humorous, despite ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... discussion of the very matters of most moment to us; and they, on their part, not guessing my need, contented themselves with the vague generalities with which we seek to hide even from ourselves the poverty of our beliefs. But there were foolish voices about me less reticent; while the literature, illustrated and otherwise, provided in those days for serious-minded youth, answered all questionings with blunt brutality. If you did wrong you burnt in a fiery furnace for ever and ever. Were your imagination weak you could turn to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... out around them with the reticent hush of interrupted consciousness. They seemed to be on the verge of further revelations, and were withheld from a last definite whisper only by the ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... in which the Topographical Notes occur are in only a very few instances such diaries as may have been in use during a journey. These notes are mostly found in the MSS. books of his later and quieter years, and it is certainly remarkable that Leonardo is very reticent as to the authorities from whom he quotes his facts and observations: For instance, as to the Straits of Gibraltar, the Nile, the Taurus Mountains and the Tigris and Euphrates. Is it likely that he, who declared that ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... has mixed with a great number of refugees, many of whom are naturally very bitter against us. She is not reticent as to the tales which they told her. Not one of them all has a story of outrage. One woman, she says, was kicked by a drunken soldier, for which, she ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle |
