"Undemonstrative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could hardly be considered genial. "He's like some people whose natures are immobile—inexpressive. It's going to take a little while to find out if it's because there is nothing to express, or because he is undemonstrative, and has to show by his conduct rather than by his manners what there is ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... he may be, since his aim is to reach the very fount of laughter and tears. The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. They are worthy of respect, too. And he is not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob, and of a smile which is not a grin. Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... is one of those undemonstrative, self-contained men in whom some of the coloured, cautious metaphysicians find a congenial soul. Therefore is he a compendium of much ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of her husband was splendidly urbane. Rowland remembered that the Cavaliere Giacosa had told him that Mrs. Light's candidate was thoroughly a prince, and our friend wondered how he relished a peremptory accent. Casamassima was an Italian of the undemonstrative type, but Rowland nevertheless divined that, like other princes before him, he had made the acquaintance of the thing called compromise. "Shall I come back?" he ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... in the delivery of his argument. He made a deep impression, not only on the members of the Senate but on all who had the privilege of listening to him. His manner was quiet and undemonstrative, with no gestures, and with no attempt at loud talk. His language expressed his meaning with precision. There was no deficiency and no redundancy. He seldom used a word more or a word less than was needed to give elegance to his diction, explicitness to his meaning, completeness ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... was that when people were married they could be so blind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to wife that dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully practical and undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother were. The most extraordinary thing was, that all the fathers and mothers he knew were just as ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... delegated to his body-servant, who in turn transferred them to their ultimate destination, through runners, alert Spanish boys or slave boys, like pages or pilot-fish within easy call continually hovering round Don Benito. So that to have beheld this undemonstrative invalid gliding about, apathetic and mute, no landsman could have dreamed that in him was lodged a dictatorship beyond which, while at sea, there ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... aunt's. He was certainly the least to be pitied in the children's somewhat lonely life, for his sisters were devoted to him, and their affection made up to him for the absence of other love. Yet this sounds too severe on Miss Mildmay, who in her own undemonstrative way did love her nephew and nieces. But she had mapped out her life on lines independent of home ties, and she had not the breadth and nobility of nature to recognise that the charge unexpectedly ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... townsman is therefore the source of the outward impassiveness of the Puritan, as well as of the intensity of his inner experience: the continued impact of noble or priestly contempt had crusted his nature with a manner that was rigid and resistant and undemonstrative, beneath which smouldered the explosive forces of thwarted ambition and the sense of unrecognized intellectual and moral excellence. Conscious of a worth which society ignored, he transformed his qualities into ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... hair; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, somewhat compensated by its breadth; beardless; of the middle height, but thick-set; broad, muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious; unambitious; impassive; undemonstrative; with a dull imagination and little superstition; with no definite idea of a Supreme Being, few tribes having a name for God, though one for the "Demon;" with no belief in a future state; and, excepting civility, with virtues all negative. The semi-civilized along the Lower ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... been put to him by his father. There was something in the old Prince's nature, something warmer and more human, which appealed to his own. Sant' Ilario was, and always had been, outwardly cold, somewhat measured in his speech, undemonstrative, a man not easily moved to much expression or to real sympathy except by love, but capable, under that influence, of going to great lengths. And Orsino, though in some respects resembling his mother rather than his father, was not unlike ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... share of the estate somewhat modified her grief in this instance. She had but slightly known her father; he had been home but seldom, and for brief visits. He was an austere man, very fine-looking, but silent and undemonstrative. She should not miss him so much, still his death was such a shock—as she was fond of repeating to her friends; she should never recover from the effects of two ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... not awful?' whispered Gladys, which questions sent the undemonstrative Teen off into one of her silent ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... tried to realize the whole truth. He sat down in the midst of dressing, and for one moment buried his face in his hands. Balsamides looked on quietly. He knew how much even that simple action meant in a man of Paul's proud and undemonstrative temper. In a few seconds Paul rose from his seat and ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... latest possible moment, and having dressed himself in ten minutes. As there was no one present but the family, Lady Amaldina kissed her future husband,—as she might have kissed her grandfather,—and his lordship received the salutation as any stern, undemonstrative grandfather might have done. Then Mr. Greenwood entered, with the Mayor and his wife, and the party was complete. The Marquis took Lady Amaldina out to dinner and her lover sat next to her. The Mayor and his wife were on the other side ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... support, adding that Mr. Parsons was a person of sudden and strong fancies, and that if he were to take a fancy to Wilbur, the desired result would be apt to follow. Selma quickly decided that Mr. Parsons must be made to like her, for she feared lest Wilbur's quiet, undemonstrative manner would fail to attract him. Evidently he admired the self-confidence and manly assertion of Gregory Williams, and would be liable to regard Wilbur as lacking in force and enterprise. The reflection that she would thus be working—as necessarily ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... been really miserable except when he had the toothache. And now, also, the custom of years made it impossible for him to be miserable for long. He had had no real talk with Maggie since the inquest. Maggie came into his study that afternoon. Their conversation was very quiet and undemonstrative; it happened to be one of the most important conversations in both their lives, and, often afterwards, Paul looked back to it, trying to retrace in it the sentences and movements with which it had been built up. He could never recover anything very much. He could see Maggie sitting in a way ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... of Heart rises on the Mount of Saturn the subject will be rather selfish in all questions of affection (4, Plate XVI.). These people are not self-sacrificing, like the previous type. They are inclined to be cynical, reserved, undemonstrative but very insistent in trying to gain the person they want. They will let nothing stand in their way, but once they have obtained their object they show little tenderness ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... Sir Victor, in the calm, courteous character of a perfectly undemonstrative suitor she tolerated. Sir Victor in the role of Romeo was excessively distasteful to her. She drew herself out of his arms ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... respectably-dressed few, they accuse him of being a Eussiau; and then all eyes are turned towards me, as though they quite expect to see me rise up wrathfully and make some warlike demonstration against him. My undemonstrative disposition forbids so theatrical a proceeding, however, and I confine myself to making a pretence of falling into the trap, casting furtive glances of suspicion towards the supposed hated subject of the Czar, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... his inmost heart; but he had been himself devoted from early life to one condition of things, which were in some strange way in accordance with his natural constitution, or with which he had become identified till they grew into a necessary part of his existence. He was a self-contained man—an undemonstrative man, whose mind was attuned to respectable solitude, and who, without being a misanthrope, regarded his fellow creatures through a ground-glass medium, which made them seem shadowy and unapproachable. ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... pleasure as, after the guests were gone, she would lean over the back of his chair and caress for a moment his dark, soft hair tinged here and there with grey. He would always adore her, in that distant, undemonstrative way of his that would never be tiresome or exacting. They would have children. But not too many. That would make the house noisy and distract her from her work. They would be beautiful and clever; unless all the laws of heredity were to be set aside for ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... each other good-by in the undemonstrative manner of elderly men who have long been friends, Master Jacobus strolled down the main street of Albany and took a long look at a substantial house standing in fine grounds. Then he shook his head several times, and, walking on, met its owner, whom he greeted with marked coolness, although ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... upon the representation of Adrienne, and on the applause of the fashionable audience, usually rather undemonstrative. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... cold-mannered and undemonstrative Scotch father, evangelical, a total abstainer, with a horror of tobacco—surely the austerest dealer in French wines that ever was—a puritanical hater of bar sinisters, and profligacy, and Rome, and rank, and the army, and especially the stage—he always lumped them together more or less—a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... unsuspicious of others, for him to attribute his father's discomposure to any source but surprise at his unexpected appearance. If Maurice noted an absence of pleasure in the count's constrained greeting, he was too much accustomed to the formal and undemonstrative manners of the aristocracy to dwell upon ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... dismay, which made him recollect that she was a strangely undemonstrative girl; but before she had recovered the shock so as to utter more than a long 'Oh!' they were interrupted by the cup of tea that had been ordered for Dolores, and in a minute more, steps were heard, and the two aunts were in the room. 'Seven ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... child. Well nursed and carefully guarded as I had always been, it was the first time in my life I ever knew the meaning of that rare thing, tenderness. A quality different from kindliness, affectionateness, or benevolence; a quality which can exist only in strong, deep, and undemonstrative natures, and therefore in its perfection is oftenest found in men. John Halifax had it more than any one, woman or man, that ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... unshapely shingle structures, blistering in the sun and glaring with windows, were evidently never reared by the spell of pastoral harmonies, as the walls of Thebes rose at the sound of the lyre of Amphion? That the habits of our people are too cool, cautious, undemonstrative, to furnish the warp and woof of song and pastoral, and that their dialect and figures of speech, however richly significant and expressive in the autobiography of Sam Slick, or the satire of Hosea Biglow and Ethan Spike, form a very awkward medium of sentiment and pathos? ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... her reflections was her blindness to the real state of her own feelings. Now everything was clear to her of the manner in which George Iredale had steadily grown into her daily life, and how her own friendly liking for him had already ripened into something warmer. He was so quiet, so undemonstrative, so good and kind. She saw now how she had grown accustomed to look for and abide by his decisions in matters which required more consideration than she could give—matters which were beyond her. She understood the strong, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... and burst out laughing. Marmaduke, who had set him down as a cool, undemonstrative man, was surprised at his hilarity for a moment, but presently joined in it. Whilst they were both laughing a hansom appeared, and Conolly, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... local borough council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour members of Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, with the result that in the House of Commons they are grave, business-like, and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect the rules of the House and the dignity of the National Assembly, partly because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and they ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... away and was lying out there in a new-made grave in bleak and dreary Woodland. She thought how her own bairns would be as motherless and forlorn as the child before her, and yet not quite, either, for they had a father who loved them in his own quiet undemonstrative way. This should have consoled her in the sorrows she had conjured up, but, like a woman, she thought of the father helpless and lonely when she had gone, with the children huddled cheerlessly about him, and a veil of tears came between ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... duties, and for the rest he was left very much to himself and to that interior Master of whose stress and constraint upon him he grew more intimately conscious as he grew in years. The force of this inward pressure showed itself in many ways. Outwardly it made his manner undemonstrative, and fixed an intangible yet very real barrier between him and his kindred, even when the affection that existed was extremely close and tender. From infancy he exhibited that repugnance to touching or being ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of Bath and of Griseldis, had rough-sketched a kind of modern love, the love which is to become that of Romeo and Hamlet, in his story of Palemon and Arcite. Among the poetic material which existed in England at the close of the sixteenth century was the old, long-neglected, domestic love, quiet, undemonstrative, essentially unsinging, of the early Northern (as indeed also of the Greek and Hindoo) epics; a domestic love which, in a social condition more closely resembling our own than any other, even than that of the Italian democracies, which had preceded ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... nothing to do with Isabel or her friends. She was the typical Puritan, the salt of a somewhat dour earth, and how Isabel ever came into her household would be difficult to say. The mother had much undemonstrative affection for her daughter, but no understanding and less sympathy. She could never accustom herself to the girl's habit of facing every problem when it had to be faced but not before; she herself was ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... filled Susie's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother's passion for this hateful stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed as she believed that the sun would rise each morning over there in the Bad Lands, to warm her when she was cold. She buried her face in her mother's lap and ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... she had taken her fair share in the household work, had been fed and clothed—coarsely indeed, for her aunt was comparatively poor, but sufficiently—and she had been allowed a reasonable number of holidays, and had not been scolded, except when she deserved it. Though her aunt was an undemonstrative woman, who never gave her an endearing word or a caress, yet life with her was Elysium compared with present circumstances. But beyond even this, far back in early childhood, Agnes could dimly recollect another life again—a life which was love ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... have seen the general cry,' said a group of men from Ladysmith at the Cambridge Hospital the other day. It was their way of putting the case. The apparently stolid, dogged, undemonstrative Englishman broke down completely, as he gazed upon the sights around him. And no wonder! He had come not a moment too soon. But he had come in time. 'Thank God,' said Sir George White, 'we ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... momentary murmur among the officers all round. But British sailors are undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the deck with a cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and making comments; but he discerned no particular emotion nor anxiety in what they said, nor in the grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... tears to shed. Love, in bygone days, and the Terror at a later time, had familiarized them with extremes of joy and anguish in such a sort that, amid the perils of life, they preserved their dignity and coolness, a capacity for sincere but undemonstrative affection which never disturbed their well-bred self-possession, and a dignity of demeanor which a younger generation has done very ill ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Usually so undemonstrative, Phil was taken aback at Jim's behaviour; and Jim, immediately ashamed for his outward show of emotion, sat down beside Phil and looked at ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... was a matter of development, and took time. Next in his regard, after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two reasons, possibly, for this. First, he was evidently a valuable possession of the master's, and next, he was undemonstrative. White Fang liked to lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read the newspaper, from time to time favouring White Fang with a look or a word—untroublesome tokens that he recognised White Fang's presence and existence. But this was only when the master was not around. ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... woman of strong character, very dignified, honest almost to an extreme, and perfectly self-controlled where control was necessary. She possessed very strong affections, but her self-control was such that she was undemonstrative. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... as remote from us as if they were foreign or ancient. Already, alas! even in farmhouses, backlog and forestick are obsolescent words, and close-mouthed stoves chill the spirit while they bake the flesh with their grim and undemonstrative hospitality. Already are the railroads displacing the companionable cheer of crackling walnut with the dogged self-complacency and sullen virtue of anthracite. Even where wood survives, he is too often shut in the dreary madhouse ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... retreat, her father had seen her. He called her over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible to make of a wholly undemonstrative man. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... his chair back involuntarily. He found conversation with detectives as lively as playing at skittles with bombshells. They got on his nerves terribly, these undemonstrative gentlemen with no sense of ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... gazing at the chateau, I had a feeling that the man at the other table was gazing at me. I glanced at him, but seemed to have been mistaken. He was looking absently at the sky over my head. I now took thought of what a very silent, motionless, undemonstrative man this was. He was thin and oldish, and of moderate stature, with a narrow face, pale eyes, and a very long nose. He was dressed in dull brown cloth, and was in all respects—save his length of nose—one of those persons of whom nobody ever takes much note. And he in turn did not seem ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert Chalmers Fordyce—by the way, I think we know him well enough now to call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his third birthday—and his household, being Scottish and undemonstrative, made little or no reference to ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... strangely undemonstrative; but in his own grave little fashion he conducted life with no small intelligence, and learned, with an almost uncanny quickness, each man's uses from the Kaviak point of view. The only person he wasn't sworn friends with was the handy-man, and there came to be a legend current ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... felt like saying 'you marvelous child,' but never said it; to my sorrow I remember it now. But I come of an undemonstrative race." ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... anything more. That is settled," said he, taking up his cap, as if in preparation for departure. Dolly was a little bewildered by the quiet, decided manner, just like what she remembered of Mr. Shubrick; unobtrusive and undemonstrative, but if he moved, moving straight to his goal. She ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... misled at first by the forwardness of Zeke Watkins and the apparent backwardness of Jarvis. Actual service had changed his views very decidedly. When Zeb appeared he had watched the course of this bashful suitor with interest which had rapidly ripened into warm but undemonstrative goodwill. The young fellow had taken pains to relieve the older man, had carried his tools for him, and more than once with his strong hands had almost rubbed the rheumatism out of the indomitable cobbler's ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate gesture, or a ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... usually so undemonstrative, bent down, took the pistol from his hand, put it back into the drawer, and, slightly blushing, kissed the old ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... sunshine, surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... points for the Brunai specimen, except that the nose, as well as being small, is, in European eyes, deficient as to "bridge," and the legs cannot be described as weak, indeed the Brunai Malay, male and female, is a somewhat fleshy animal. In temperament, the Malay is described as "taciturn, undemonstrative, little given to outward manifestations of joy or sorrow, courteous towards each other, kind to their women and children. Not elated by good or depressed by bad fortune, but capable of excesses ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... Almost immediately, however, she dried her tears; already the heroic element was reasserting itself in that silent woman, so frail, so gentle, yet of a spirit so indomitable that she could suffer martyrdom for the faith, or the love, that was in her. She knew not fear; her quiet, undemonstrative courage was lofty and invincible. When her distress was deepest she had summoned up her resolution, devoting her reflections to how she might recover her husband's body, so as to give it decent burial. Her first project was neither more nor less than to make her way back to Bazeilles, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... peculiar effect upon the soldiers. Even those who were usually undemonstrative gave vent to their feelings in hearty curses on the rebellion, and every thing connected with it. The wish was freely expressed that Lee might intercept us, and bring on the final battle between civilization and barbarism. Up ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... into it, saw how heavy her eyes were, and endeavoured to brighten them. She was in that wretched state of mind which leads a woman to move mechanically onward in what she conceives to be her allotted path. Mr. Humphrey had, in his undemonstrative way, been adhering all along to the old understanding; it was for her to do the same, and to say not a word of her own lapse. She put on her bonnet and tippet, and when he arrived at the hour named she was at ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... bashful and retirin', which made him some times in company a little awkwud in his manners, and most offish where he wanted to please most. But he had a good mind, and his heart wuz pure gold, and he loved Rosy with the deep earnest love, such undemonstrative men often cherish for the one woman in the world for them. His calm gray eyes would light up with the pure light of deathless love when they rested on the sweet face of little Rosy. And he wuz always tryin' to help her in some way, lookin' out for her interest, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... never of his own. He had read well, and was fond of talking of his reading when he felt in the vein of talking, which was not always; but John had invariably found him ready with comment and sympathy upon the topics in which he himself had interest, and there was a strong if undemonstrative affection ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... rise, but Letty followed her friend into the hall. She had been very silent and undemonstrative; now she embraced Adela tenderly. There was still something of the old diffidence in her manner, but the effect of her motherhood was discernible. Adela was childless—a circumstance in itself provocative of a gentle sense of protection ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... literature. He was timid and retiring in disposition. "His walk was quick and nervous," says Dr. J. Dickson Bruns, "with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never a moody ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... play,—solid, well-knit, and true; a noble, quiet nature, with that highest of all qualities, judgment, always sane and prompt; who never drags his anchors for any wind of opinion or fortune, but grips all the closer to the reality of things. He seems one of those calm, undemonstrative men whom we love and admire without asking to know why, crediting them with the capacity of great things, without any test of actual achievement, because we feel that their manhood is a constant quality, and no mere accident of circumstance and opportunity. Such ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... were muddy from recent rains and much cut up by the Confederate Army. Grant was dressed, to all appearance, in a tarpaulin suit, and he was, even to his whiskers, so bespattered with mud, fresh and dried, as to almost prevent recognition. He then, as always, was quiet, modest, and undemonstrative. A close look showed an expression of deep ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... concluded, Helen thought the adventure almost worthwhile for the spontaneous expressions of good will it had drawn forth from her adherents. Mrs. Winslow and Nora had taken her to their arms and wept and laughed over her in turn, and in their silent undemonstrative way she had felt herself hedged in by unusual solicitude on the part of her riders. It was good—none but she knew how good—to be back among her own, to bask in a friendliness she could not doubt. It was best of all to sit ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... about her waist, but when she had left the room I should have shaken the bed, if that had been my style of laughter. Robert is a great wag in his way, though we do not see so much of his fun, as, having been used to the house in "Secesh time," he is utterly undemonstrative before white people and is only gradually thawing into a little more communicativeness. But we overhear him sometimes talking with the others. A most entertaining but not quite so pleasant exhibition of it (and C. and I could not help laughing at Rose ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... of Evelina's servants was the woman who had nursed her mother, and she was naturally subdued and undemonstrative, and rendered still more so by a ceaseless monotony of life. She never went to meeting, and was seldom seen outside the house. A passing vision of a long white-capped face at a window was about all the neighbors ever saw ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... eyes are black, and seldom oblique like those of the Tartar races of Eastern Asia, which are supposed to have sprung from the same original stock as the American red man. The features exhibit scarcely any mobility of expression; this is connected with the excessively apathetic and undemonstrative character of the race. They never betray, in fact they do not feel keenly, the emotions of joy, grief, wonder, fear, and so forth. They can never be excited to enthusiasm; but they have strong affections, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... following year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not without some misgivings on the part of Washington, who had observed his ward's somewhat flighty disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious thought to his future. At home as abroad he was an undemonstrative man, but he had abundance of that real affection which labors for those to whom it goes out more unselfishly and far more effectually than that which bubbles and boils upon the surface like a ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... plaintive queries went up from scores of throats, answered by gluttonous mumblings from goats that had been fortunate enough to snatch a morsel of the delectable vegetable. Down from the tips and up from the bob-pit they came, singly and in sets, undemonstrative matrons with weak-kneed twins at their heels, skittish kids and bearded veterans, and joined the ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... their appearance! The Plynck was so surprised that she crowed like a rooster; and then apologized to everybody (half-laughing and half-crying) for being so unladylike. The Teacup fluttered, the Snimmy sniffed; and the Snimmy's wife—that grim, undemonstrative woman—rushed out from the prose-bush and gathered her darling, and ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus. Individual Elephants vary in temperament far more than do rhinoceroses or hippopotami, and the variations are wide. In a wild state, elephants are quiet and undemonstrative, almost to the point of dullness. They do not domineer, or hector, or quarrel, save when a rogue develops in the ranks, and sets out to make things interesting by the commission of lawless acts. A professional rogue is about everything that an orthodox elephant should not ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... looked to me, with his brown complexion, more like an Indian officer than a wealthy banker. There was nothing commercial in his appearance; but I should have admired him more if he had been less cold and repressive in manner; but he was an undemonstrative man, even to ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... but a name. I love no one—not even my brothers; Joseph perhaps a little. Still, if I do love him, it is from habit, because he is the eldest of us. Duroc? Ay, him, if any one, I love in a sort—but why? He suits me; he is cool, undemonstrative, unfeeling—has no weak affections—never embraces ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... back from that first desperate onslaught in Belgium, and had so grandly supported and succoured our hard-pressed Allies in their splendid defence, was a very quiet, undemonstrative, spare little figure of at least 60 years of age. He appeared hard and fit, and showed no sign of the tremendous strain he had already undergone. On the contrary, he was smart and dapper, and looked like the light-weight ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... character to her passion. The absence of anything like the common expressions of love made the transcendent power of what moved her stand out in magnificent grandeur. Never in his life had he dreamt that her quiet and undemonstrative affection was capable of anything but a calm and beautiful development. He had not guessed the existence of such resistless force as blazed from her eyes, he had believed her only capable of receiving, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... words, that he does not want to be taken at a false valuation. The Island brogue is a notice that the user of it meets you man to man. So it reflected Mac, and it reflected his people, unspoiled, unvarnished, true as steel, full of rigid honesty; but undemonstrative, with the wells of affection hidden, yet full to the top, of pure, bright, ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... settling himself into a comfortable, easy position in the cross-trees, somewhat to the secret trepidation of Miss Stanhope, who was watching his movements with a great deal of undemonstrative interest, and who every moment dreaded that the young man's careless attitude, coupled with the pitching of the ship, would result in a fall. Nothing of the kind, however, happened; and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... creature than the horse; but I have never found a person, who was well acquainted with both animals, who hesitated to place the mongrel in the intellectual grade above the pure-blood animal. There is, it is true, a decided difference in the mental qualities of the two creatures. The mule is relatively undemonstrative, its emotions being sufficiently expressed by an occasional bray—a mode of utterance which he has inherited from the humbler side of his house in a singularly unchanged way. Even in the best humor it appears sullen, and lacks those playful capers which give such expression ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... you—ah, you were our pride, our treasure, Care-free child of a kingly race. Undemonstrative? Yes, in a measure, But every movement replete with grace. Whiles we mocked at the monkeys' tricks Or pored apart on the apteryx; These could yield but a passing pleasure; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... the Darleys arrive. Henry Darley, tall, refined, undemonstrative; Mrs. Darley, small and silly, with flaxen hair, blue eyes, pink and white complexion, and a general wax-dollyness about her; and just such a tiny, foolishly obstinate mouth as usually goes with a face like hers. She is vain, but never ill-natured, unless it ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... pursued him was more due to his habitual conscientiousness of his own intention than to any fear that she would not fully respond to it. Indeed, with his conservative ideas of proper feminine self-restraint, Louise's calm passivity and undemonstrative attitude were a proof of her superiority; had she blushed overmuch, cried, or thrown herself into his arms, he would have doubted the wisdom of so easy a selection. It was true he had known her scarcely three weeks; if he chose to be content ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... granddaughter of this determined and rebellious lady, had also her positive quality, but in a somewhat more subdued form. She did not die until 1897, and so the recollection of her is fresh and vivid. As a mature woman she was undemonstrative and soft spoken; a Methodist of old-fashioned Wesleyan type, she dressed with a Quaker-like simplicity, her brown hair brushed flatly down upon a finely shaped head and her garments destitute of ruffles or ornamentation. The home which she directed ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... of his head gave me a glimpse of his eyes behind the glasses. He looked as if he wished I'd change the subject. In his dry, undemonstrative way, I think he liked me. Or at least he liked me when I wasn't trying to make him think about things outside his safe and secure little framework. But I didn't give in. If men of science are not going to take up the evidence and work it over, then where are ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... she retorted, carelessly; "it is an arrangement for mutual convenience. But remember," she added, lifting her index finger in playful threat, "that we are extremely well-bred and undemonstrative." ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... afoot, leaving Heidelberg on September 12, 1836. He passed through Strassburg, and thought of Goethe as he climbed the tower of the cathedral; he visited the Suabian poets at Stuttgart and Tuebingen, and was deeply disappointed with the kindly but undemonstrative Uhland; and he reached Munich on September the twenty-ninth. Here he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... place a fortnight later without any of the celebration usual in such cases. The death of the Judge, the fact that Julianna had no other immediate relatives to act as her protectors, and that my own father, whose affection for me has always been of a rather cold and undemonstrative type, approved not only of my choice of a wife, but also of my plan for an immediate marriage, argued against delay. Furthermore, Julianna herself, with a sad but charming little smile, again and again assured herself in my presence that she knew ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Betty, so'll I," promised Bobby, putting an awkward arm around Betty's neck. Bobby was as undemonstrative as a boy and rarely kissed any one. "What in the wide world are we going to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... seemed unable to realize that this popping of rifles, this calm, undemonstrative series of statements by an unexcited German officer, meant that war had come at last—the European war of which people even in America had talked for years as sure ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... only veiled till a convenient season, and, giving to the momentary lull its full value, she acquiesced, finding in Eric's society enjoyment and resources altogether unexpected. Instinctively they seemed to comprehend each other's character, and while both were taciturn and undemonstrative, a warm affection sprang up ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... in the parlor as she entered, upright, pale, and rigid. Each read the other's countenance. Lizzie went towards her slowly and giddily. She must of course kiss her patroness. She took her listless hand and bent towards her stern lips. Habitually Mrs. Ford was the most undemonstrative of women. But as Lizzie looked closer into her face, she read the signs of a grief infinitely more potent than her own. The formal kiss gave way: the young girl leaned her head on the old woman's shoulder and burst into sobs. Mrs. Ford acknowledged those tears with a slow inclination of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... have recently related. When the three days were over the boys started for Saint Winifred's. They drove to the station in the pony-chaise before described, accompanied, against Kenrick's will, by his mother. She bore up bravely as she bade them good-bye, knowing the undemonstrative character of boys, and seeing that they were both in the merriest mood. She knew, too, that their gaiety was natural: the world lay before them, bright and seductive as yet, with no shadow across its light; nor was she all in all ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... soldier. A striking contrast they made. The one, heated, and excited, and nervous, both in appearance and manner, looking more like a culprit brought up for judgment than a pillar of the Established Church; the other, outwardly as undemonstrative as the rock against which he leaned—just a shade of paleness telling of the sharp mental struggle from which he had come out victorious—his whole bearing and demeanor precisely what might have been expected if he had been ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... sure enough, whoever he is. He's going for it hit or miss." And there was a touch of excitement evidenced even in Jake's undemonstrative exterior. ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort for this undemonstrative Englishman to ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Maurice's entrance she rose quickly; but kept her eyes averted so that his paleness did not strike her as it had done others. She coloured vividly, with a mixture of shame, pride, and gladness, at his coming; but she only said "Good morning," in a low undemonstrative tone, and they both ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... in its silent, secret, undemonstrative way, the Japanese army had been making preparations of an important character, among which were included the construction of concrete emplacements for eighteen 11-inch howitzers, from which great things were expected. They fired a 500-pound projectile charged ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... matters of criminal procedure and of prison conditions was accurate and ample. Facts which I afterward learned for myself were never out of accord with information he had given me; and the sanity and clarity of his judgments were refreshing and remarkable. His courage was undemonstrative but indomitable; he never complained of his own condition and experiences, but was instant in his sympathy with the misfortunes of others. No more welcome and valuable counselor than he could have come to us in those first ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... inferiority in the foot-path line to the "mellow England" which in one brief month had won him for her own. Now I know very little of Holyoke, Mass., of my own knowledge. As a lecture-town I can say of it that its people are polite, but extremely undemonstrative, and that the lecturer is expected to furnish the refreshments. It is quite likely that the English lady was right, and that ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... God's world than these four at that moment. If it was worth thousands to be at the Baltic, I wish a Benthamite arithmetician would calculate how much it was worth to be one of these four marines; or how much their story is worth to each of us who read it. And mark you, undemonstrative men would have spoiled the situation. The finest action is the better for a piece of purple. If the soldiers of the Birkenhead had not gone down in line, or these marines of the Wager had walked away simply into the island, like plenty of other brave fellows in the like circumstances, my Benthamite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at these times that the old feeling of loneliness came back so overwhelmingly. Grandpa and Grandma, as they called them, were kind in their way, but even to their own children they had been undemonstrative and cold. Often in the evenings they seemed to draw so entirely within themselves, she with her knitting and he with his paper or accounts, that Steven felt shut out, and apart. "Just the strangers within thy gates," he sometimes thought to himself. He had heard that expression ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... considerably the week before Christmas, and watched Elizabeth and Lady Evelyn deck his room with box and fir and holly. The mother was quiet and very undemonstrative, but she attached herself to the dying man, and he regarded her with a pitying tenderness, for which there appeared to be no cause whatever. As she carried away her boy in her arms on Christmas-eve, he looked sadly after her, and, touching ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You shall," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity which seemed natural ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a decided sentence, to ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... if you'll be so good as not to mind, now you are here. I shall have it all right and tidy in a very little time. I ought not to have been so backward." Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of his undemonstrative temperament; for he feared that if the Melburys once were back in their own house they would not be disposed to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of her conviction of his unhappiness—was a touching appeal to her woman's heart. If he had not loved her more fervently than his phlegmatic temperament and undemonstrative bearing would induce one to suppose, he would not dread the rekindling of her olden fancy for another. The image of him who, she had confessed, had taught her the depth and weight of her own affections, whom she had loved as she ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... times when, not only his whole demeanour, but his very nature seemed to change; when he craved for dimness and quiet; and when he would work upon the Tenor with little caressing ways that won his heart and drew from him, although he was habitually undemonstrative, expressions of tenderness ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was very much astonished; for without opening she could guess that it was something valuable; it was hard and square and heavy. Of all there, not a child was in such private ecstasies as she. Her flushed cheeks told it; otherwise she was quite undemonstrative. Though I say wrong; for eyes and lips were ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... paces from their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keeping his back to the prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violently throwing out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like all sudden demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird, and theatrical. But it was more potent than speech—the speech that, even if effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen. The braves hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsive gesture from Elijah, and they, too, fled. When ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... He may think me a very nice little girl, and that I shall be a great comfort to him, but he cannot care much about having any very long conversations with me—he that has seen so many lands, and known so many great and clever people, and read so many books. He has always been most undemonstrative to me. At his age, no doubt, he does not care much for the foolish endearments of lovers; so, with an easy conscience, I devote myself, for my short space, to the boys, to Barbara, to Vick, and the jackdaw. Once, indeed—just once—I have a little talk with him, and afterward I almost wish ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... this house of God, simple and plain the large majority of the men and women who gathered there to worship in their quiet, undemonstrative way the Power who had led them to this land of freedom. But the Word preached to these silent listeners in that rude building inspired within them those principles upon which the foundation of the best citizenship of our ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... still more phenomenal speed which was not stopped; that his name and Duncan's were mingled generously in the cheering, the painter remembered little of the game. The exhibition of human passions which the sight of it drew from an undemonstrative race: the shouting, the comments wrung from hardy spirits off their guard, the joy and the sorrow,—such things interested him more. High above the turmoil Coniston, as through the ages, looked down ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... familiarities or make unseemly jokes in his presence; that few felt quite at ease in his company,—oppressed by his bearing, and awed by his prodigious respectability and grave solemnity. Not that he was arrogant and haughty, like a Roman cardinal or an Oxford Don; he was simply dignified and undemonstrative, like a man absorbed with weighty responsibilities. I doubt if he could unbend at the dinner-table like Disraeli and Palmerston, or tell stories like Sydney Smith, or drink too much wine with jolly companions, or forget for a moment the proper and the conventional. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Far-Western reverence for womanhood which I fancy challenges the most polished politeness. He remained patient, undemonstrative, self-effacing, and respectful before her, his angular arm slightly but not obtrusively advanced, the offer of protection being in the act rather than in any spoken word, and ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... but I was as often disappointed; and now this homeward voyage had almost come to an end, and I had never heard her voice in song since she was a child. Open and unreserved as she was by nature, in this particular she had schooled herself to be as reticent and undemonstrative as she accused me ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... Anthony at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. They noticed him slowly making his way toward them, and prepared for the coming storm. As he approached, both arose, and with extended hands, exclaimed most cordially, "Good evening, Mr. Greeley." But his hands hung limp and undemonstrative by his side, as he said in low and measured words, "You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. You set out to annoy me in the Constitutional Convention, and you did it effectually. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was off. He wondered what his silent, undemonstrative father would do. He had always felt that he was a man of deep emotion for all ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... all, in the other direction. His birds, on the other hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch nature. Few of them are shown in violent action like Audubon's cuckoo; their poses for the most part are easy and characteristic. His drawings do not show the mastery of the subject and the versatility that Audubon's do;—they have not the artistic excellence, but they less frequently ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... as well have stayed where he was, for the parting between these two was as undemonstrative as their meeting had been. But when the young men had gone a few steps down the pavement, John turned back again to the door where Allison ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... knew Dr. Williams intimately, while admitting that he was unduly disposed to distrust his own powers and judgment, says that, aside from this, he was a rare man. "He had great self-control, and was so undemonstrative, that those who did not know him intimately can scarcely be said to have known him at all. He possessed genuine refinement; and with his marvelous fund of information in almost all departments of knowledge, his fine command of language, and his good nature and enthusiasm, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... utterly colourless whiteness of her skin. Her manner was very subdued, very quiet; nor did she exhibit any signs of fear; or much of emotion, save to those who were near enough to her to perceive a quiet, silent, and undemonstrative tear steal ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the bulldog; take him to her Royal Highness with my compliments. There is no truer friend than an animal of his breed. He is steadfast in his love, for he makes but few friends; he is a good companion, for he is undemonstrative; he can read and draw inferences, and your enemies will be his. I shall bid you good afternoon. God be with ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... he had become another man, the speaker had burst out to speak of his Master; and how it had swayed and bent the assembly. It was an entirely new view of Mr. Rhys, and Eleanor could not forget it. In general, as she had always seen him, though perfectly at ease in his manners he was very simple and undemonstrative. She had not guessed there was such might in him. It awed her; it delighted her. To live such a life and to do such work as that man lived for,—that was living indeed! That was noble, high, pure; unlike and O how far above ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... out of the range of women's emotional sympathy. Men's sympathy is of a different calibre. Even when it is a practical, living thing that can be felt and built on, it is often almost cold-bloodedly inarticulate and undemonstrative, which is the only kind of sympathy acceptable to a man in trouble, especially a man of Druro's type, who did not want to discuss the thing at all, but just to take what was coming to ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... of Chinese character, and one fostered, if not generated, by Buddhistic teaching, is an undemonstrative fondness for animals, or, I might rather say, a passive admission of their right to considerate treatment, and strangely enough animals, both wild and domesticated, appear to comprehend this sentiment, for while greatly scared at the approach of a European ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... afraid. The good side of it was that it set her at liberty to attend to her mother at times when she would have been otherwise occupied with her baby; but Bell required very little from any one: she was easily pleased, unexacting, and methodical even in her dotage; preserving the quiet, undemonstrative habits of her earlier life now that the faculty of reason, which had been at the basis of the formation of such habits, was gone. She took great delight in watching the baby, and was pleased to have it in her care for a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner. Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was so hesitating, so uncertain, too slight for self-confidence, just too much and too fresh to allow him to generalise with the unthinking assurance that was demanded of him. Yet had anyone, he asked himself, more obstacles to overcome than he, in his efforts to set himself free? This silent, undemonstrative father, who surrounded himself with an unscalable wall of indifference; this hard-faced, careworn mother, about whose mouth the years had traced deep lines, and for whom, in the course of a single-handed battle with life, the true reality had ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to be separated from one's family." And what she had found in her own home did not as yet make up to her for all she had left behind. Even her husband, though uniformly kind in language and behavior, was of a singularly cold and undemonstrative disposition; and it almost seemed as if the gayety which he exhibited at her balls were an effort so foreign to his nature that he indemnified himself by unpardonable boorishness on other occasions. The Count de Provence had but little more polish, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... spoken, Marget and I, to each other of love; we had not called it by a name to each other; we had only felt and dreamt it. Possibly, that is the natural course of a simple, true love, for it is undemonstrative. It likes the half-lights of the dusk, to live in the shadow of its silvery clouds, and to arrive round corners, if only that it may have a safe way of escape, should it be frightened. Ever it likes running away, and, better ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... Platonic, philosophic, staid, stayed; sober, sober minded; grave; sober as a judge, grave as a judge; sedate, demure, cool-headed. easy-going, peaceful, placid, calm; quiet as a mouse; tranquil, serene; cool as a cucumber, cool as a custard; undemonstrative. temperate &c. (moderate) 174; composed, collected; unexcited, unstirred, unruffled, undisturbed, unperturbed, unimpassioned; unoffended[obs3]; unresisting. meek, tolerant; patient, patient as Job; submissive &c. 725; tame; content, resigned, chastened, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... after my friend's death I happened to meet in a strange town a youth of about my own age who exerted upon me a strong and instant attraction. He possessed a refined, handsome face, was gracefully built, and, though he was rather undemonstrative, we soon ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... familiar cry of the red-headed woodpecker, for the first time in Florida, and looked up to see him flying the national colors from the ridgepole of the State House. I did not break out with "Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!" I am naturally undemonstrative; but I said to myself that Melanerpes erythrocephalus was a ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... cause of this evil thing which had been done to him. A very evil thing had been done. He did feel that the absolute happiness which had been his for the last few days had perished and gone from him. He was a man undemonstrative, and silent in expressing his own feelings, but one who revelled inwardly in his own feelings of contentment when he was content. His wife had been to him all that he had dreamt that a woman should be. She had filled up his cup with infinite bliss, though ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... well known architect of the firm of Geo. B. Post & Company, New York, was a rather quiet undemonstrative member, but a worker and investigator in his particular line. His observations and recommendations should have great weight in the work reconstructing and rebuilding ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... younger man's brow. Every act or look which could be interpreted into an expression of regard for his brother fired his soul with feelings of aversion and anger till he was well-nigh distracted. Nor was Ralph any less disturbed. In his undemonstrative way he watched Nick, and suffered the acutest pangs of jealousy at what he believed was Aim-sa's marked preference. But the woman continued to stir the fire she had kindled with a childlike naivete which was less of the wild than ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... be confounded with noise, vehemence, or outward demonstration.—It is often exceedingly quiet and undemonstrative. Notice when the machinery of an engine is standing still, how the steam makes a great noise as it issues from the safety-valve, but when the vapor is turned into the cylinder and is used in driving the engine ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... absurdly foolish as I have,—throwing away what was of the greatest value in the world for the sake of something that seemed to be precious, just for a moment." It was very difficult, and he already began to feel that the nature of the girl was altered towards him. She had suddenly become hard, undemonstrative, and almost unkind. Hitherto he had always regarded her, without much conscious thought about it, as a soft, sweet, pleasant thing, that might at any moment be his for the asking. And Mary Bonner had told him that he ought ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... and undemonstrative ways, there is no lack of mirth and relaxation for Winona among her ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... many trips, and exhibited a reckless familiarity with the officers; the officers themselves, now so modest and undemonstrative, a few hours later so all-powerful and important,—these are among the reminiscences of most Californians, and these are to be remembered among the experiences of our friend. Yet he feels, as we all do, that his past experience ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... over me, and the care which he took to disperse it by speaking to me soon afterwards with especial kindness. He kept up his delightful, affectionate manner towards us all his life. I sometimes wonder that he could do so, with such an undemonstrative race as we are; but I hope he knew how much we delighted in his loving words and manner. How often, when a man, I have wished when my father was behind my chair, that he would pass his hand over my hair, as he used to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... very happy, but in a very different way; for, while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative, Lucy seemed wild with joy, and danced gayly about the house—now in the kitchen, where the cake was making; now in the chamber where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to her own room in quest of Valencia, who ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... project came seriously under discussion, they were all a good deal surprised to hear Aunt Emily take part in it as one who must inevitably be of the party. Henry Pym was a reserved, undemonstrative man, and when Meryl begged him to let them accompany him on his travels, though he said very little, he was secretly a good deal gratified and pleased. His own early hardships had taught him the inestimable value of learning ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... 19, 1834. At the present writing, 1897, Susan, Daniel, Mary and Merritt still survive, aged seventy-seven, seventy-three, seventy and sixty-three, all remarkably vigorous in mind and body; a family of few words, quiet, undemonstrative and yet knit together with bonds of steel, loyal to each other in every thought and each ready to make any ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Personally speaking, I was in no way remarkable—except for being, in the ordinary phrase, "tall for my age." On her side, Mary displayed no striking attractions. She was a fragile child, with mild gray eyes and a pale complexion; singularly undemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, except when she was alone with me. Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certain artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charming reddish-brown ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... when the shadows of its various protuberances which fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork—were of the right measure. Besides this, as I have said, he could have counted off most of the successive owners and occupants, several of whom were known to general fame; doing so, however, with an undemonstrative conviction that the latest phase of its destiny was not the least honourable. The front of the house overlooking that portion of the lawn with which we are concerned was not the entrance-front; this was ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the captain when he rejoined them, but he remained as silent and undemonstrative as ever, so they took their departure without further ceremony ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... She had thought, when he had entered her room at the hotel, that his manner was strange and not nearly so hearty as it should have been over finding her. He had been too matter-of-fact and undemonstrative. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer |
