"Unassuming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and imposing for the parish, but it ran henceforward in our modest speech, "He's a cautious body." Cautious, with us, meant unassuming, kindly obliging, as well as much more; and I still hear Drumsheugh pronouncing this final judgment of the glen on Lachlan as we parted at his grave ten years later, and adding, "He 'ill be sair missed ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... with the art and dissimulation of one, he beheld the simplicity and gentleness of the other, the contrast became too striking not to fill him at once with surprise and admiration. He frequently conversed with Charlotte; he found her sensible, well informed, but diffident and unassuming. The languor which the fatigue of her body and perturbation of her mind spread over her delicate features, served only in his opinion to render her more lovely: he knew that Montraville did not design to marry her, and he formed a resolution to endeavour to gain her ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... a true judgment of them. They are, in general—I mean the lower order—divided into bucks and prigs; of which the first, though inconceivably ignorant, and sometimes indecent in their morals, yet I held them to be most tolerable, because they were unassuming, and had no other affectation but that of behaving themselves like gentlemen. The other division of them, the prigs, are truly not to be endured, for they are but half learned, are ignorant of the world, narrow-minded, pedantic, and overbearing. And now ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to the maestro, who insists on having discovered barriers in the "humoristic variations," so boldly do they seem to raise the standard of musical revolution; his title of the "Grand Valse" he finds too unassuming. "Surely a waltz with some angelic creature must have inspired you, Moscheles, with this composition, and that the title ought to express. Titles, in fact, should pique the curiosity of the public." "A view uncongenial ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... in amazement, staring at the door. Lubin enters: a man at the end of his sixties, a Yorkshireman with the last traces of Scandinavian flax still in his white hair, undistinguished in stature, unassuming in his manner, and taking his simple dignity for granted, but wonderfully comfortable and quite self-assured in contrast to the intellectual restlessness of Franklyn and the mesmeric self-assertiveness of Burge. His presence suddenly brings out the fact that they are unhappy men, ill at ease, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... is a man of pleasant manners, and of probity, courteous, moderate, and unassuming: it is by his being such that he arrives at the facts. Is not his way of arriving at things different from ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... him well spoken of. I have probably met a hundred of his acquaintances, but I have not yet seen one who pretended to be his friend.' Wilson defended the absent one, who, he said, was the mildest and most unassuming of men, and dissected a book for pleasure, without thinking of the feelings of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... whether all that has since been done, and which could not but have been done, by the eager science as much involuntarily as voluntarily applied to the task, has resulted in a more potent suggestion of what the Forum was in the republican or imperial day than what that simple, old, unassuming Cow Field afforded. There were then as now the beautiful arches; there were the fragments of the temple porches, with their pillars; there was the "unknown column with the buried base"; there were all the elements of emotion and meditation; ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... most valuable in Europe, and, of course, in the world. I found here, as at Joseph Bonaparte's, the same splendour, the same etiquette, and the same liberty, which latter was much enhanced by the really engaging and unassuming manners and conversation of the host. At Joseph's, even in the midst of abundance and of liberty, in seeing the person or meditating on the character of the host, you feel both your inferiority of fortune and the humiliation of dependence, and that you visit a master instead of a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... youth, perhaps, but sharing amicably the more moderate refreshment which middle-age requires,—without being at any particular pains to conceal the fact from anybody. Here was then, after all, the strong and sure salvation of Philistia, in this quiet, unassuming common-sense, which dealt with the facts of life as facts, the while that the foolish laws, and the academical and stercoricolous nonsense of Philistia, reverberated as remotely and as unheeded as harmless ...
— Taboo - A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius Nicanor, with - Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir • James Branch Cabell
... agreeable public gardens of Poplar The bushes are bright with buds, For this is the season of Clear Weather. There blossom the quiet flowers of this country: The timid lilac, The unassuming hawthorn, The dignified chestnut, And the girlish laburnum; And the mandarin of them all is ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... with unassuming simplicity and without cheap display. He is sincere, but without authority or distinction of style. His tone is warm and pleasing, but not large, his intonation is ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... which he adopted, was to send embassadors around to the neighboring states, soliciting alliances with them, and stipulations allowing of intermarriages between his people and theirs. The proposal seemed not unreasonable, and it was made in an unassuming and respectful manner. In the message which Romulus commissioned the embassadors to deliver, he admitted that his colony was yet small, and by no means equal in influence and power to the kingdoms whose alliance he desired; but he reminded those whom he addressed that great results came sometimes ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... native town as petty-governor (Municipal Captain). He is a man of small frame with slightly webbed eyes, betraying the Chinese blood in his veins, and a protruding lower lip and prominent chin indicative of resolve. Towards me his manner was remarkably placid and unassuming, and his whole bearing denoted the very antithesis of the dashing warrior. Throughout his career he has shown himself to be possessed of natural politeness, and ever ready with the soft answer that turneth ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... greatness, especially to the large number of those who are beneath him, since, as also the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 3), "it belongs to a magnanimous man to be great towards persons of dignity and affluence, and unassuming towards the middle class." In the fourth place, it is said that he cannot associate with others: this means that he is not at home with others than his friends: because he altogether shuns flattery and hypocrisy, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... unassuming Freshman, Thro' these wilds I wandered on, Seeing in each house a College, Under every cap a Don; Each perambulating infant Had a magic in its squall, For my eager eye detected Senior Wranglers in ...
— English Satires • Various
... his practice conform to his precepts; and while in the prime of youth inaugurated a wig in a fashion that defied the flight of time, not curly and hyacinthine, but straight-haired and unassuming. He looked five-and-thirty from the day he put on that wig at the age of twenty-five. He looked five-and-thirty now ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that there was the least pretension where there was the most acknowledged title to respect. I was particularly struck, for instance, with the family of a nobleman of high rank, consisting of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more simple and unassuming than their appearance. They generally came to church in the plainest equipage, and often on foot. The young ladies would stop and converse in the kindest manner with the peasantry, caress the children, and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. Their countenances were open and beautifully ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... beautiful animal—lay not far from the front door on a soft, white cushion, and played gracefully and gently with the ball of white yarn that had just fallen from the woman sitting at the window while she was eagerly engaged in knitting. This woman, in her plain and unassuming dress, seemed to be a servant of the house, but at all events a servant in whom entire confidence was reposed, as was indicated by the large bunch of keys, such as the lady of the house or a trusted ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... was both young and enthusiastic, and she thought here was an opportunity of benefiting one of her own sex in a quiet, unassuming way. She took care to observe closely, much that she would ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... photographed—was near the stove, and a Ruhmkorff coil was on the right. The lesson of the laboratory was eloquent. Compared, for instance, with the elaborate, expensive, and complete apparatus of, say, the University of London, or of any of the great American universities, it was bare and unassuming to a degree. It mutely said that in the great march of science it is the genius of man, and not the perfection of appliances, that breaks new ground in the great territory of the unknown. It also caused one to wonder at and endeavour to imagine ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... she said, "I had altogether forgotten that unpleasant incident. I wish you had not reminded me of it. He is a most respectful, modest, unassuming young man. I am sure he would be dreadfully uncomfortable if he were aware we had seen ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... There was always some new phase in the character of this quiet and unassuming German. A plumber who was familiar with the classics was not an ordinary person. He raised his stein and Hans extended his. After that they smoked, with a word or ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... order to get the Duke of Argyle to intercede to save her sister's life got up a petition and actually walked to London barefoot to present it to his grace. Helen Walker died in 1791, and on the tombstone of this unassuming heroine is an inscription ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... in luxuriant bloom, and a thousand other evergreens, on shore, vie with voluptuous aquatic flowers to bewilder and delight the astonished traveller, accustomed hitherto only to the more unassuming productions of the sober north. Everything here was new, strange, and solemn. The gigantic trees, encircled by enormous vines, and heavily shrouded in grey funereal moss, mournfully waving in the breeze—the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... the whole situation make him sought as a counselor and as a leader. As the older men, like Clough and Downie, pass away, Doctor Ferguson, by common consent, forges to the front. The present prosperity and harmony of the Telugu mission are largely due to his unassuming and welcome influence. He too is a man whose scholarship and character reflect honor upon the Rochester Theological Seminary, where he sat under my instruction ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... compunction to the story of Lord Erymanth's arrival at Arked House, and solemn assurance that he had been most hospitably received, and that his own observation and inquiry had convinced him that Mr. Alison was a highly estimable young man, in spite of all disadvantages, unassuming, well-mannered, and grateful for good advice. Dermot had shown his discernment in making him his friend, and Lucy had, in truth, acted with much courage, as well as good judgment, in remaining with him; "and that so horrified ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... takes time, this interpretation, this process of grafting one mind upon another. For he does not supply mere information. A fig for information. That would be easy to digest. He supplies character, which is tougher fare. His book, unassuming as it is, comes up to my test of what such literature should be. It reveals a personality. It contains a ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... will come right. You will see things in a different light, perhaps. Words may wound, but time will heal.' But even as she now looked closely into his colourless sunken face some distant memory seemed to well up irresistibly—the memory of eyes just as ingenuous, and as unassuming that even in claiming her love had expressed only ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... outline being preserved by a retreating forehead, an aquiline nose, and a chin sloping inward, combined to give him a cold, repulsive countenance, fraught with expressions denoting selfishness and insincerity. The other occupant of the same seat was, on the contrary, a young man of an unassuming demeanor, shapely features, and a mild, pleasing countenance. The remaining two gentlemen of the party were much older, but scarcely less dissimilar in their appearance than the two just described. One of them was a gaunt, harsh-featured man, of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... agent greets Mr. Spriggins in his usual gentlemanly and unassuming manner—a fact which is not lost upon the applicant. "Well, Mr. Agent, spose you'll think it a mighty queer business to see a feller comin' here without a bein' asked, so to make a long story short, I might as well till you all ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... (with wonder) into the reputation (of a man so unassuming), and few explained or understood (the true reason of his humble manner of life). Interpretarentur, not famam but the facts above mentioned, and the necessity A. was under of living as he did.—Viso aspectoque. On seeing him and directing their attention particularly ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... of my conditions for giving up the lease. I believe that there were few men in the kingdom who would have so acted as I did, but I valued the friendship of Sir Francis Burdett far above any pecuniary consideration. The Baronet was a most delightful visitor, a gentleman-like, easy, unassuming, cheerful inmate; and as we had every comfort at Rowfant compatible with the residence of a country gentleman, both he and his brother, but particularly Sir Francis, expressed themselves as well pleased with their reception as we were with ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... she had uniformly given to it her countenance and assistance; and dying, bequeathed to it a generous evidence of her attachment. Long will her memory be cherished in this community, as a model of the efficient but unassuming and lovely graces that constitute the character of the christian matron; long will it be cherished—and especially by you, Ladies, the present Managers of the Asylum, who have been witnesses of the fidelity, the courtesy, the discretion, the zeal, with which her duties as associated ...
— A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum for Destitute Orphans, September 25, 1835 • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
... Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, besides several modern European languages. She was also well read in science. She translated Epictetus 1758, and wrote a small vol. of poems. She was the friend of Dr. Johnson and many other eminent men. She was of agreeable and unassuming manners. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... fiend then, and in its stead give welcome to firm but unassuming self-respect. Arise! Shake torpor from you, and feel your strength! It is Atlean; made to bear a world! Cherish life, and become worthy of yourself! What! Would you kill a mind so mighty? Do you not feel it, now; possessing you, emanating, flaming, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Mrs. Patterson, and it gave satisfaction. I afterwards learned that both Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Stover were kindhearted, plain, unassuming women, making no pretensions to elegance. One day when I called at the White House, in relation to some work that I was doing for them, I found Mrs. Patterson busily at work with a sewing-machine. The sight was a novel ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... high blown ambition of the favourite courtier, the successful gallant, and the bold warrior than the submissive, unassuming mediciner, who seemed even to court and delight in insult; whilst, in his secret soul, he felt himself possessed of a superiority of knowledge, a power both of science and of mind, which placed the rude nobles of the day infinitely beneath him. So conscious was Henbane Dwining of this elevation, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... quickset by the tenant-farmers, the natural enemies of tree, bush, and brake. In the middle distance ahead of her she could see the summits of Bulbarrow and of Nettlecombe Tout, and they seemed friendly. They had a low and unassuming aspect from this upland, though as approached on the other side from Blackmoor in her childhood they were as lofty bastions against the sky. Southerly, at many miles' distance, and over the hills and ridges coastward, she could discern a surface like polished ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... in New York, on February 11, 1918, one who perhaps as worthily as any man in any age represented the peculiar traits and charms of the book-lover, a man whose personal loveliness was only equalled by his unassuming modesty, a man who was an honour to the fine old ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... dark clothes, preferably her old ones, an unassuming hat, and no jewelry, the lady traveller may render herself inconspicuous and not likely to attract masculine attention. In case of accident it is allowable to accept assistance from anyone, though the train officials ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... similar belt, but a much less powerful one, consisting of a single row of unassuming thorns. The belt is weaker still on the seventh segment; lastly, on the eighth, it is reduced to a mere rough brown shading. Commencing with the sixth, the rings decrease in width and the abdomen ends in a cone, the extremity of which, formed of the ninth segment, constitutes a weapon of a new kind. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... liked by Hazlitt, for they had mutual friends, and Mouncey had been intimate with most of the wits and men about town for twenty years before. 'He had in his time known Tobin, Wordsworth, Porson, Wilson, Paley, and Erskine. He would speak of Paley's pleasantry and unassuming manners, and describe Porson's deep potations and long quotations at the "Cider Cellars."' Warming with his theme, Hazlitt goes on in his essay to etch one memorable evening at the 'Southampton.' A few only were left, 'like stars at break of day,' the discourse and the ale were growing ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Perhaps it is best so. Lady Bellamy may have read a great many fine things in your face. Shall I tell you what I read there? I read that you will marry your Arthur, and become a happy wife and a happier mother; that your life will be one long story of unassuming kindness, and that, when at last you die, you will become a sacred memory in many hearts. That is what I read. The only magic you will ever wield, Angela, will be the magic of ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Hill, Esq., the secretary of the special magistrates' departments, of whom we have already spoken. He is a colored gentleman, and in every respect the noblest man, white or black, whom we met in the West Indies. He is highly intelligent and of fine moral feelings. His manners are free and unassuming, and his language in conversation fluent and well chosen.... He is at the head of the special magistrates (of whom there are sixty (sic) in this island) and all the correspondence between them and the governor is carried on through him. The station he holds is a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... friend and shrewd observer from Detroit, writes: "You ask how we like our new Governor. Very well. He is a well-informed plain man, unassuming in his manners and conciliatory, always ready for business, and accustomed to do everything en ordre. His wife is a fine-looking agreeable woman, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... of the finest figures, as an elderly gentleman (for he died at 82), that could possibly be seen. His stature was tall and frame robust; his gait was firm; his countenance was Roman-like; his manners were conciliatory, and his language was unassuming. His habits were simple and perhaps severe. He generally rose at five, and lighted his own library fire—and his health was manifest in his person and countenance. He was entirely an unpretending man—and may be ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... country-house, Rougham Rookery, and placed me in an extremely awkward position. Mr. Bevan was a Suffolk banker, a partner of Mr. Oakes. He was one of the kindest and most benevolent of men. His wife was gentle, unassuming, attentive to her guests. A friend of Borrow, the heir to a very considerable estate, had run himself into difficulties and owed money, which was not forthcoming, to the Bury banking-house; and ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... questions of his brief term of office were the proposed admission of California as a free State and the extension of slavery into the newly-acquired territory; was a man of strong character, a daring and skilful general, of unassuming manners, and loved by the mass of the people, to whom he was known as "Old Rough ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... agent, Major George Stouch, I found him to be a veteran officer of the regular army "On Special Duty," a middle-aged, pleasant-faced man of unassuming dignity whose crooked wrist (caused by a bullet in the Civil War) gave him a touch of awkwardness; but his eyes were keen, and his ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Hampshire Legislature. It provided that "ten hours of actual labor shall be taken to be a day's work, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties," and that no minor under fifteen years of age should be employed more than ten hours a day without the consent of parent or guardian. This was the unassuming beginning of a movement to have the hours of toil fixed by society rather than by contract. This law of New Hampshire, which was destined to have a widespread influence, was hailed by the workmen everywhere ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... return. Daniel immediately shrank into reserve, and this experience remained a check on his naturally strong bent toward the formation of intimate friendship. Every one, his tutor included, set him down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored and unassuming, as well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody called his reserve disagreeable. Certainly his face had a great deal to do with that favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty of the closed ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Ethics, in Politics, and Physics. In the latter, to specify a single example, compare his views of the animal economy, in his Timasus, with those of Mrs. Bryan in her Conversations on Chemistry, and weigh the science of the canonized philosopher against the good sense of the unassuming lady. But Plato's visions have furnished a basis for endless systems of mystical theology, and he is therefore all but adopted as a Christian saint. It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified. But to return ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... youths left who could take care of their own heads in case of emergency. It is a fine sight, that of a gentleman resolving himself into the primitive constituents of his humanity. Here is a delicate young man now, with an intellectual countenance, a slight figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, a mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan from between the ploughtails would of course expect to handle with perfect ease. Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his coat! Well, here he is, sure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... genial, unassuming, straightforward Hermit which touched the fellows on their soft side, and made them accept him with pride as a representative of the truest Templeton spirit. They might not, perhaps, love him as fondly as they loved dear old lazy Ponty, but there was not ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... having been written by a man capable of appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating than is the case ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... you will think me a very meddling person," she said, speaking to her young niece with the respect and unassuming diffidence of high breeding and good feeling; "but perhaps you know—how one fancies that one can do something—or say something—or that one ought to try to. I believe it is a comfort to one's self to be ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and worked till they nearly dropped, week after week, month after month, and year after year, but they were never too tired to whisper an encouraging word, or render some small service to a suffering lad. I wonder how many thousands of these lads owe their lives to those quiet, unassuming, patient little "decent bodies" in blue linen, and to the element of human sympathy which they supplied. And what of the occupants of the hospital beds themselves? We all know the splendid record of ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... his wife. He was apparently about thirty-five, tall, and of dark complexion, with a studious bend in his shoulders, and of irregular features strongly impressed with melancholy. His manners were particularly reserved, though as unassuming as they could well be. His exquisitely beautiful poem of 'Lillian' was among the pet treasures of the lady of the house, and we had all been indulged with a sight of it, in a choicely bound manuscript copy—but ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... corridor, lined with Chinese soldiers in their padded gray cotton uniforms, who stood at salute as the American minister passed. Immediately we found ourselves in another room, also plainly furnished, and the next moment were shaking hands with an unassuming little man clad in a frock-coat, the President, Li Yuan Hung. Through the interpreter the President explained that he would like us to pass into the room beyond, where he could speak with us one by one, personally. He waved his hand toward the other room, and my recollection is that ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... in many parts of the Continent as it seems to have been then. I have myself heard it more than once spoken of as an English town. At Nancy, where Father O'Leary was travelling, his native country happened to be mentioned when one of the party, a quiet French farmer of Burgundy, asked, in an unassuming tone, 'If Ireland stood encore?' 'Encore,' said an astonished John Bull, a courier coming from Germany—'encore! to be sure she does; we have her yet, I assure you, monsieur.' 'Though neither very safe, nor very sound,' interposed ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... command of language, and always imparted his thoughts in a peculiarly impressive and eloquent manner. Those who had the happiness to experience the delights of his conversation will long recollect with pleasure his unassuming modesty, and the rich stores of knowledge he poured forth on the most instructive topics. Even when his opinions were solicited, they were given, not as the dictates or admonitions of a superior, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... so unaffected and unassuming!' said Lady Elizabeth. 'I little expected Arthur Martindale's marriage to have turned ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drinking and was left at the depot. Some one stumbled against him, saying, "I did not know it was a man; I thought it was baggage." His companion spoke up and said, "It isn't a man; it's a nigger." Often their children are bright, cheery-looking children, well-behaved, unassuming and quiet. These poor mountain people might do well to take a few lessons from many of their ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 2, February, 1889 • Various
... that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of WILLIS GAYLORD was in all respects what might be expected from his writings; benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and the domestic arts, but by the acquisition and promulgation of knowledge ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... they have secured a place and developed a crown. Others look for light in roundabout ways, making use of every gap their neighbours leave, and rise upward in soft coils. All these form a high roof, under which younger and weaker plants lead a skimped life—hardwood trees on thin trunks, with small, unassuming leaves, and vulgar softwood with large, flabby foliage. Around and across all this wind the parasites, lianas, rotang, some stretched like ropes from one trunk to another, some rising in elegant curves from the ground, some attached to other trunks and sucking out their life with ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... dining-room where a big wood fire was burning, its gay flames shining like a ray of springtide amid the fine mahogany furniture of English make laden with silver and crystal. The room, of a soft mossy green, had an unassuming charm in the pale light, and the table which in the centre displayed the richness of its covers and the immaculate whiteness of its linen adorned with Venetian point, seemed to have flowered miraculously with a ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... was succeeded by his eldest son, the second Sir William, who was born in 1746, and was member for the county in three Parliaments. He was a man of great integrity, humanity, and charity, very affable and amiable, and unassuming in his manners, "and he died as he had lived, fearing God." He married Frances, daughter and co-heiress of John Thorpe of Embley, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... with a thin, sensitive face, bright blonde hair, and eyes of that peculiar blue which burns warm, instead of cold, under excitement,—in the few minutes of our interview the picture was fixed, and remains so. His manner was quiet, natural, and unassuming: he received us with the simple good-breeding which a gentleman always possesses, whether we find him on a throne or beside an anvil. Not a man to assert his claim loudly, or to notice injustice or neglect by a single spoken word; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... of the intimacy. He did in truth think better of the clerk because the clerk had known how to make himself a companion to a lord. He did not want anything for himself. He was too old and settled in life to be desirous of new friendships. He was naturally conscientious, gentle, and unassuming. But Roden rose in his estimation, and Crocker fell, when he became assured that Roden and Lord Hampstead were intimate friends, and that Crocker had dared to jeer at the friendship. A lord is like a new hat. The one on the arm the other on the head are no evidences of mental ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... better be off! Wander over the face of the earth, young sirs, and do not presume to remain in a spot which is hallowed by the grey hairs of the patriarchal gentleman to whose tottering limbs I have the honour to act as an unworthy, but I hope an unassuming, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rank, the Latin Quarter still retains many old buildings whose imposing architecture singularly contrasts with the unassuming habits of their present occupants. In some parts its general air is dreary and dim; monastic and theurgic. In those lonely narrow ways—long-drawn prospectives of desertion—lined with huge piles of silent, vaulted, old iron-grated ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... the ci-devant captain was a quiet, unassuming fellow, who wanted language to communicate with us freely. Nevertheless he managed to interest us much, with an account of the sufferings and trials of his youth. They were by birth Moreote Turks; and in the revolution of that country, when first the Greeks arose against their Turkish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... touching little sermon this morning," she went on, untying her bonnet strings, and taking off that unassuming head-gear—"It was just a homely simple, kind talk. Our parson's sorry to be going away, but he hopes to be back with us at the beginning of April, fit and well again. He's looking badly, poor soul! I felt a bit like crying when he wished us all ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... half-theatre half-saloon in the City Road, called indifferently the "Grecian" and the "Eagle," where he had danced and tumbled, and sung comic songs, and delivered the dismal waggeries set down for him, without any marked success, and almost without notice. He was a quiet, unassuming little man, this Robson, seemingly without vanity and without ambition. He had a wife and family to maintain, and drew his twenty-five or thirty shillings weekly with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... work at once, and in three feverish days completed the first draft of his parable. In this the Hyde aspect was only Jekyll's unassuming disguise, adopted at hours when he wished to be a little gay. Stevenson burned his first draft, and rewrote the whole ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... politics and served as Speaker of the State Legislature. He entered Congress in 1873 and devoted himself to the study of the tariff with such intelligence and thoroughness that his speeches are still an indispensable part of the history of tariff legislation. His habitual manner was so mild and unassuming that it gave little indication of the force of his personality, which was full of ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... white, which seemed to be chiefly flint; but the corners and settings of the windows and of the door-ways, and the chimneys, were of brick. There was something sombre about it, and many perhaps might call it dull of aspect; but it was substantial, comfortable, and unassuming. It was entered by broad stone steps, with iron balustrades curving outwards as they descended, and there was an open area round the house, showing that the offices were in the basement. In these days it was a quiet house enough, as Mr. Gilmore was a man not much given ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Janet's, and she nodded imperceptibly. She was relieved to think of Hastings—good, faithful, unassuming creature!—remaining on guard. The very desertion of the farm-houses on this great day might tempt marauders—especially that thief or madman who had been haunting their own premises. She hoped the police would not forget them either. But Hastings' ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and unassuming. I did not know for a long time how good a title he had to the appellation, 'Buffalo Bill.' I am apt to discount the claims of scouts, as they will occasionally exaggerate; and when I found one who said nothing about himself, I did ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... young poet; he describes her as "a pretty girl, and of good capacity." "Her hair," he adds, "was of a lightish brown, approaching to fair; her eyes were dark, and had a sweet and gentle expression; her temper was mild, and her manners unassuming." In 1823, Miss Morrison became the wife of Mr John Murdoch, commission-agent in Glasgow, who died in 1829. She has since resided in different places, but has now (Whitsunday 1856) fixed her abode in the vicinity of Stirling. She never met the poet in after-life, and has only ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... man who might be expected, at any moment, to break out in the disconsolate language of Bildad the Shuhite to the patriarch Job, "How long will it be ere ye make an end of words?" Let me say then, in conclusion, that, coming as I do from the unassuming State of Pennsylvania, and standing in the presence of the dazzling genius of New England, I wish to express the same degree of humility that was expressed by a Dutch Pennsylvania farmer in a railroad car, at the breaking ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... reduced the principle, "Put not thy trust in any child of man," to its very lowest and worst. He regards himself as simply born to be robbed and oppressed. Yet is he so mild and uncomplaining and unassuming about it all that no one, even the most persistent robber and oppressor, could ever find it in his heart to do him down. But even so his pessimism and readiness to be done are such that he must make it very hard for people to spare him sometimes. I have this story ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... arrived, but she entered the room about ten minutes afterwards. Sir Percival rose and paid his compliments with perfect grace. His evident concern on seeing the change for the worse in the young lady's looks was expressed with a mixture of tenderness and respect, with an unassuming delicacy of tone, voice, and manner, which did equal credit to his good breeding and his good sense. I was rather surprised, under these circumstances, to see that Miss Fairlie continued to be constrained ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... original proportions in order to widen a street. This was done, we are told, for the convenience of George IV., who used to pass in a coach along this street on his way from London to Brighton. The tower is low and unassuming, and is supposed to date from the time of King Stephen. The new church of St. Nicholas stands by the river, and Guildford also possesses another church built of brick. None of these churches have spires, and therefore some ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... purify the spirit and tone, either of work or of sport, and nowhere can a man discover more immediately the happiness of being of use. The recreation and the religion, the study and the play, of our associated life, are waiting for the dedication of unassuming Christian men to a life which offers itself, not to be ministered unto, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... his age and infirmities, refused. According to the rules of the code duello, Wigfall posted Brooks at Edgefield Court House, and guarded the fatal notice during the day with a loaded pistol. A relative of Brooks, a feeble, retiring, and unassuming young man, braved the vengeance of Wigfall, and tore the degrading challenge from the court house door in spite of the warning and threats of the Knight of the Code. A pistol shot rang out, and the young champion ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... was really the best of the Kirton bunch: a quiet, unassuming young man, somewhat delicate in health. Lord Hartledon was grieved for his accident, and helped to nurse him with the best ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... escape from the wreck of the Poolaski: what a brave, and gallant, and unselfish soul he must be! You never read anything more thrilling, in spite of the perfect modesty of this account of his. If I can obtain his permission, and squeeze out the time, I will surely copy it for you. The quiet unassuming character of his usual manners and deportment adds greatly to his prestige as a hero. What a fine thing it must be ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... three most delightful days and which will live for ever in my recollection, with Mr Sismondi, in whom I found an inexhaustible fund of talent and information, combined with such an unassuming simplicity of character and manner that he appeared to me by far the most agreeable litterary man that I ever met with. His mother, who is a lady of great talent and perfectly conversant in English litterature, resides ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... will tell you what it is, Mr. Orsini, and you will never be in danger of making any mistake. 'Society' in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant-voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... is increased by the total absence of all the "moving" letters found in the original work. The "lordly husband and father," "the imperious son," "the proud ambitious sister, Arabella," all combined to force the universally beloved and unassuming Clarissa to marry the wealthy Mr. Somers, who was to be the means of "the aggrandisement of the family." Clarissa, in this perplexing situation, yielded in a desperate mood to "the earnest entreaties of the ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... in another light, and say our exuberant protozoon has shed a daughter, and remains. In that case the amoeba I look at may have crawled among the slime of the Silurian seas when the common ancestor of myself and the royal family was an unassuming mud-fish like those in the reptile house in the Zoo. His memoirs would be interesting. The thought gives a solemn tint to one's meditations. If the dabbler wash him off this slide into his tube of water again, this trivial creature may go on feeding and growing and dividing, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... and too short for him in the body, skirt, and arms—a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition, sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... mighty France knelt at the feet of the unassuming chevalier,—a picture to the world forever of how that manhood which is without fear and without reproach is ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... by the wrong which had been perpetrated against him. He had been thoroughly and artfully deceived. Mrs. Bently—if indeed that was her real name, which he doubted—had seemed such a modest and unassuming woman, so frank, and sweet, and ingenuous, that he would have indignantly resented it had any one hinted to him that she was not all that ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... quieted their suspicions and jealousies, and at one time, when they were on the brink of open war, she effected a reconciliation between them by the most courageous and energetic, and at the same time, gentle and unassuming efforts. At the time of this danger she was with her husband in Greece; but she persuaded him to send her to her brother at Rome, saying that she was confident that she could arrange a settlement of the difficulties impending. Antony allowed her to go. She proceeded ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... school, is cited as an instance. He was engaged by a former management at a thousand francs a-month for eight months in the year, but, although much liked by the public, he was kept in the background, owing partly, it was reported, to his own unassuming character, and partly to certain green-room intrigues and jealousies. During his vacation he starred in the provinces, earning four or five times the amount of his Paris salary. In his native town he was carried in triumph, and treated to an interminable serenade, whose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... lines are in harmony with the simplicity of the surroundings. The architect has followed, in admirable proportions, the Swiss chalet and the Norway villa. Here are expressed a quiet dignity, an unassuming luxury, and an appreciation of outing needs. Not a Waldorf-Astoria—admirable as that type is for the city but a big, country clubhouse, where the traveler seeking high-class accommodations also finds freedom from ultrafashionable ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... either of company or of solicitude at the houses at which he puts up, led him into any irregularities. Neither has his elevation in the slightest degree inflated him. He is still the same temperate, industrious, modest, unassuming man, as when his good qualities first ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... for whom he had a high esteem, and whose talents and character afforded the fairest promise of what might one day be expected of him. Bonaparte was jealous of some generals, the rivalry of whose ambition he feared; but on this subject Desaix gave him no uneasiness; equally remarkable for his unassuming disposition, his talent, and information, he proved by his conduct that he loved glory for her own sake, and that every wish for the possession of political power was foreign to his mind. Bonaparte's friendship ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... startling truths until then hidden from her, and found the absence of Job created undreamed-of complications. At every turn she missed the man and discovered, very much to her own surprise, that this most unassuming person appeared vital to the success of her famous house. On every hand she heard the same words; all progress was suspended; nothing could advance until the return of Mr. Legg. 'The Seven Stars' were arrested in their courses while he ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... packages were got up, and he begged to purchase some sail-cloth for a tent, and some provisions, which of course were not refused. We had altogether fifteen prisoners. When Barwell, dressed in his brown suit, and looking perfectly the unassuming artisan he had pretended to be, had taken his seat, six of them were told off into the boat and carried on shore. The boat then returned for the remainder, and for the stores and provisions which Mr Barwell—for so I will still call him—had purchased. The mates added several more things, so that ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Trianon is a very small and very unassuming country house. Mme. de Maintenon describes it in June as "a palace enchanted and perfumed." Its pretty simple rooms are only interesting from their associations. The furniture is mostly of the times of Louis XVI. The stone stair has a handsome ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... began a quarrel with General Scott, which, by the first of November, drove the old hero into retirement and out of his pathway. The cabinet members who, wittingly or unwittingly, had encouraged him in this he some weeks later stigmatized as a set of geese. Seeing that President Lincoln was kind and unassuming in discussing military questions, McClellan quickly contracted the habit of expressing contempt for him in his confidential letters; and the feeling rapidly grew until it reached a mark of open disrespect. The same trait manifested itself in his making exclusive confidants ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... power, constructive skill and tact in managing men; but in 1893, at the height of his success and popularity, he died at Wellington of an intestinal disease after a severe surgical operation. Quiet and unassuming in manner, Ballance, who was a well-read man, always seemed fonder of his books and his chessboard than of public bustle; yet his loss to New Zealand political life was great. A statue was erected to his memory in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... pre-possessing appearance; about twenty-eight years of age. He appeared to be eminently qualified for the profession he had chosen, and entered with spirit and energy upon the various duties that now devolved upon him; his quiet and unassuming manner gained him the respect of the whole neighborhood. He read with a clear, distinct tone, and his sermons were such as had not been heard in Vellenaux for many years. He was always welcome whenever he visited his parishioners or attended the sick. He took a very great interest in ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... journey on his favorite dapple gray, or by rowing seven miles around the Dutch Gap peninsula, could make the journey in his barge. When not at his upper plantation or in attendance at the council, he was living the quiet and unassuming life of a planter at Curles, where he entertained his neighbors, and being by nature a lover of the divine rights of man, he boldly denounced the trade laws, the Arlington and Culpepper grants, and the governor for his lukewarmness ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Manor House. A vast weight of roof, with high gables; windows on the upper story projecting far over the lower part; a covered porch with a coat of half-obliterated arms deep panelled over the oak door. Nothing grand, yet all how venerable! But what is this? Close beside the old, quiet, unassuming Manor House rises the skeleton of a superb and costly pile,—a palace uncompleted, and the work evidently suspended,—perhaps long since, perhaps now forever. No busy workmen nor animated scaffolding. The perforated battlements roofed over with visible haste,—here with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these unhappy, but excellent people, be it said, that they have proved themselves worthy of being received in such a sanctuary. Our country has enjoyed the benefit of their unblemished morals, and their mild, polite, and unassuming manners, and wherever destiny has placed them, they have industriously relieved the national burden of their support by diffusing the knowledge of a language, which good sense, and common interest, should long since have considered as a valuable ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... art, but especially the young, this unassuming poem is most worthy of being committed to memory. It is a striking detection of the devil's sophistry. Strive, as you value your peace and happiness, to escape the depths of moral degradation and misery, by avoiding the FIRST overtures of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... those watchful thoughts 40 Which, seeing little worthy or sublime In what the Historian's pen so much delights To blazon—power and energy detached From moral purpose—early tutored me To look with feelings of fraternal love 45 Upon the unassuming things that hold A silent station ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... control he has over the local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we can't leave ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... by a property which is almost universally the concomitant of truly great men, and that is, a simplicity of manners. In conversation he was unaffected and unassuming; rather backward in pushing discourse; but obliging and communicative in his answers to those who addressed him for the purposes of information. It was not possible that, in a mind constituted like his, such a paltry quality as vanity could ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... their delivery, he hurried forth into the lamplit city. The last train was gone ere, after many deviations, he had reached the terminus. Attired as he was he dared not present himself at any reputable inn; and he felt keenly that the unassuming dignity of his demeanour would serve to attract attention, perhaps mirth and possibly suspicion, in any humbler hostelry. He was thus condemned to pass the solemn and uneventful hours of a whole night in pacing the streets ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the use of a dictionary; and many persons find it a source of great pleasure. The genealogy and biography of words are as fascinating to a devoted philologist as stamps to a philatelist or cathedrals to an architect. "Canteen" is quite an unassuming little word. Yet imperious Caesar knew it in its childhood. The Roman camp was laid out like a small city, with regular streets and avenues. On one of these streets called the "Via Quintana" all the supplies were ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... nine o'clock in the evening, was to convey me, in a couple of hours, to Nantes—an establishment remarkable for its great size and its air of tarnished splendour, its brown gilding and smoky frescoes, as also for the fact that it was hidden away on the second floor of an unassuming house in an unilluminated street. It hardly seemed a place where you would drop in; but when once you had found it, it presented itself, with the cathedral, the castle, and the Maison d'Adam, as one of the historical ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Erin, as First Lord of the Treasury, occupied the narrow, unassuming brick house which is the Treasury residence in Downing Street. Although the official head of the Church, with power to appoint its bishops and highest dignitaries, he was secretly a sceptic, if not openly a derider of spiritual ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... appetites perhaps scarcely less cruel which other men indulged with no such horrified denunciation from the rest of the world. Others, it is evident, shared with Cauchon that sharp sensation of dreadful pleasure in finding her out; young Courcelles, so modest and unassuming and so learned, among the rest; not L'Oyseleur, it appears by the sequel. That Judas, like the greater traitor, was struck to the heart; but the less bad man who had only persecuted, not betrayed, stood high in superior virtue, and only rejoiced that ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... talking of, my dears?" asked Miss Merivale from her seat by the fire. Pauline turned round with a little stare. Miss Merivale was so quiet and unassuming a personage that she had got into the habit of ignoring her. "Of Clare's new amusement, Miss Merivale," she said, with a laugh. Her laugh, like her voice, was a trifle hard. "It was scientific dressmaking when I was at Woodcote last, you remember, Rose ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... fairly alive with moving figures, all pushing hurriedly toward the other shore, where not a German could be seen. The bushes in that quarter lay there as unassuming as though every one did not conceal a foe with ready rifle waiting for the order to come to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... sad thing for an old rangeman to contemplate, but it is nevertheless the simple truth. Soon the merry crack of the six Footer will no more be heard in the land, its wild and woolly manipulator being driven across the last divide, with faint show of resistance, by an unassuming ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Louisa was one of the rare old sort—hard-working, and always ready; never complaining, but satisfied with any food there chanced to be; sensible and sturdy; a woman who could be thoroughly depended on. Her boxes were full of good dresses, of a solid, unassuming kind, such as would wear well—a perfect wardrobe. Her purse was always well supplied with money; she had money saved up, and she sent money to her parents: yet her wages, until late years, had been small. In doing her duty ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... owed to his foreign blood; he was irreproachable in appearance, in the simplicity of his dress, in the smoothness of his fair hair and well-trimmed mustache; he appeared thoroughly at home among his new-found relations, and anxious to please them all alike; he was modest and unassuming, for he did not speak of himself, and he gave no opinion saving such as should be pleasing to his audience. He had all this, and yet in the cold stare of his stony eyes, in the ungainly twist of his broad white hand, where the bones and sinews crossed and recrossed like ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... brushed back from the brows; he wore rather large side-whiskers. One of the witnesses at Saint Cloud said that Castaing looked more like a priest than a doctor; his downcast eyes, gentle voice, quiet and unassuming demeanour, lent him an ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have a row of pots of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a flaring orchid and produces on my retina ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... would have signed it." But France had no time, even if she had had the knowledge, to realize the greatness of the sacrifice that had been made for her. That will come later. One day France will know that this unassuming soldier ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... offended you, and your patriotic, not to say pious associates, that, for the Church's good, they resigned their stewardship in the Church, and were so offended at the course of the Presiding Elder, Rev. M. Goheen, than whom there is not a more modest, unassuming, conservative Christian gentleman in the Valley of Virginia, that, at a recent Quarterly Meeting there, they refused to attend church, or to hear him preach. This is just the spirit that ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... fidelity, little dreaming that the promise thus made would so soon be broken! Petted, caressed, flattered and admired, as she was in the circle of her sister's friends, how could she help growing worldly and vain, or avoid contrasting the plain, unassuming Walter, with the polished and gayly-dressed butterflies who thronged Mrs. Burton's drawing-room. When the summer came again, she did not return to us as we had expected, but we heard of her at Saratoga, and Newport, the admired of all admirers; while one, it was said, ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... Art drew near to him in the person of one of the most distinguished of portrait painters; but there was only one painter for Jocelyn—his own memory. All that was eminent in European surgery addressed him in the person of that harmless and unassuming fogey whose hands had been inside the bodies of hundreds of living men; but the lily-white corpse of an obscure country-girl chilled the interest of discourse with such a king ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy |
