"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "while she repaired that accident I lifted not my eyes above the hem of her robe, that so her rare modesty might take no offence." ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... even if it is original, and it may be very apt, but few people in real life quote poetry in their ordinary speech. You may be well read in poetry and the kindred arts, but it is hardly the part of modesty or discretion for you to force your quotations upon a reader who very likely cares neither for your erudition nor the poets themselves. It is bad technically, too; and usually, as in the case of the following specimen, ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... the ideal of Confucius, the superior person, "the son of the King"? There you had the very essence of Benham, the idea of self-examination, self-preparation under a vague Theocracy. ("Vaguer," said Benham, "for the Confucian Heaven could punish and reward.") Even the elaborate sham modesty of the two dreams was the same. Benham interrupted and protested with heat. And this Confucian idea of the son of the King, Prothero insisted, had been the cause of China's paralysis. "My idea of nobility is not traditional but expectant," said Benham. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... and Gideon (and not his uncle, whose initials he had humorously borrowed) was the author of "Who Put Back the Clock?" He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimate friends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and alarming failure, the modesty of the novelist had become more pressing, and the secret was now likely to be better kept than that of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was the thought that prompted him to send a manuscript copy of his first almanac to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State in Washington's cabinet. In his letter to Jefferson, dated August 19, 1791, Banneker made, with characteristic modesty, a polite apology for the "liberty" he took in addressing one of such "distinguished and dignified station," and then proceeded to make a strong appeal for the exercise of a more liberal attitude towards his downtrodden race, using his own achievements as a proof that the "train of absurd and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... brief infallibility of manner; that lofty light air, that politely disdainful view of Valori and mankind: he has now need of men. Complains of nothing, is cheerful, quizzical;—ardently busy to "grind out the notches," as our proverb is; has a mild humane aspect, something of modesty, almost of piety in him. Help me, thou Supreme Power, Maker of men, if my purposes are manlike! Though one does not go upon the Prayers of Forty-Hours, or apply through St. Vitus and such channels, there ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Seth laughed, in spite of himself. "Young man," he observed, "you ain't cultivated your modesty under glass, have you?" ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at least have said this to the distinguished critic, if I found that his class was more advanced than I. But it proved that their session was within quarter of an hour of its end,—and with some lingering remains of native modesty, I waited for another occasion,—a morrow which never came,—before putting myself under Mr. Ruskin's volunteer tuition. But I tell the story to illustrate what might have been. Had I been legitimately a working-man in London, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... sacrifice rather than abandon all hope of calling her my own. The proud title of Riverola was as nothing in my estimation when weighed in the balance against her charms—her bewitching manner—her soft, retiring modesty. I moreover flattered myself that I was not indifferent to her; and I loved her all the more sincerely because I reflected that if she gave her heart to me, it would be to the poor and humble Cornari, and not to the rich ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... tell you? You ought to get acquainted with Princess Passek," continued Maslenikoff, who had become talkative; "she has entirely devoted herself to this cause. Elle fait beaucoup de bien. Thanks to her and, without false modesty, to myself, everything has been changed, and changed so that none of the old horrors can be found there, and they are decidedly well off there. You will see it. There is Fanarin. I am not personally acquainted with him; besides, our roads do not meet because ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... this effectiveness of Emerson, no pose, no literary art; nothing that corresponds even remotely to the pretended modesty and ignorance with which Socrates lays pitfalls for our ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... system, are here simply metamorphosed strata of that age, may with justice be looked upon as one of the most valuable results which have been attained by British geologists for many years." A very just remark indeed! If only geologists would learn a little modesty from this discovery, which completely turns upside down their old world-building process of grinding down all the upper strata out of the molten granite, and gives us, instead, the baking of the strata into crystalline rocks; a process exactly the reverse of the former, and of that asserted by the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... tells us, "raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the kingdom." Even courtiers and crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. "His carriage," says Clarendon, "throughout that agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his person, to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled to give him a just testimony." But his demeanour, though it impressed Lord Falkland ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... skin. The soft dark hair comes low on her white forehead. With a gaily-coloured shawl covering her head, and drawn across her chin, as they wear it in the Island, she looks, or looked when I last saw her, a hidden, gliding image of modesty. And despite that sin of the past she is modest. It was the ignorant sin of a child, and out of the days of horror and wrath that followed—her purging—she brought only the maternity that burns like ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... as able to entertain several admirers at once as are some of her blond sisters across the sea. Her voice was softer and her laugh more attractive than that of many an American belle of high social standing. In fact the women of this island village were, as a class, of remarkable dignity and modesty, so that there was probably less to shock one's modesty here than at many a fashionable American watering place. Of course ignorance of their language made it impossible to understand all that was going on, but to judge by their actions and the tones of their ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... with great shrewdness causing the appointment of committees to cooeperate with the Bar Association, with the Committee of Seventy, and with the Municipal Taxpayers' Association. These represented regenerated Tammany. Kelly affected extreme modesty, but as he moved about the hall of the national convention, urging the nomination of Greeley, the delegates recognised a master in the art of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was the teacher of Govinda, the teacher of S'a@nkara; but he was probably living when S'a@nkara was a student, for S'a@nkara says that he was directly influenced by his great wisdom, and also speaks of the learning, self-control and modesty of the other pupils of Gau@dapada [Footnote ref 2]. There is some dispute about the date of S'a@nkara, but accepting the date proposed by Bha@n@darkar, Pa@thak and Deussen, we may consider it to be 788 A.D. [Footnote ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... those faces, according to their different temperaments, could be seen first the same vague, hard interest that had been Thyme's when she first looked at them, then the same secret hostility and criticism, as though they too felt that by this young girl's untouched modesty, by her gushed cheeks and unsoiled clothes, their sex had given them away. With contemptuous movements of their lips and bodies, on that doorstep they proclaimed their emphatic belief in the virtue and reality ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to the ground and the disloyal young Britons were scurrying off through the woods in twenty different directions, leaping over fallen logs, crashing through underbrush and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. The crucial moment had proved too much for schoolboy modesty. Mr. Watson glared around to find himself left with only a handful of embarrassed and giggling girls. Just one boy remained, little Tommy Basketful, who was too small to run away and who held to his sister's ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... which they do not know or which they fear; set themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme judges of all. They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears upon their mothers' breasts; but generally they believe in nothing, blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old woman or an evil courtesan. They are all equally eaten to the bone with calculation, with depravity, with a brutal lust to succeed, and if you plumbed for their hearts you would find in all a stone. In their ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... still alive, has graven on his tomb that he was "corpore procerus."[444] The taste of the English for finery becomes so well known, that to them is ascribed, even in France, the invention of new fashions. Recalling to his daughters, in order to teach them modesty, that "the deluge in the time of Noah happened for the pride and disguises of men, and mostly of women, who remodelled their shapes by means of gowns and attire," the Knight de la Tour Landry gives the English ladies the credit, or rather the discredit, of having invented the immeasurable ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... our little lessons upon the beauties of modesty and humility, we have picked out basic arrogances—tail of a peacock, horns of a stag, dollars of a capitalist—eclipses of astronomers. Though I have no desire for the job, I'd engage to list hundreds of instances in which the ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... weaknesses, which her friends do not conceal. It was a weakness, not perhaps that she overestimated herself; that might be pardoned; but that she took no pains to conceal her high opinion of her abilities and worth. One likes to see an appearance of modesty, and that little deceit Margaret did not practice. On the contrary, Mr. Emerson says, "Margaret at first astonished and then repelled us by a complacency that seemed the most assured since the days of Scaligar.... In the coolest way, she said to her friends, 'I ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of sages such as Heraclitus. They were able to say proudly of themselves that much had been revealed to them, for they did not attribute their knowledge to their transitory personality, but to the eternal daimon within them. Their pride had as a necessary adjunct the stamp of humility and modesty, expressed in the words, "All knowledge of perishable things is in perpetual flux like the things themselves." Heraclitus calls the eternal universe a play, he could also call it the most serious of realities. But the word "earnest" has lost its force through being applied to earthly ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... uneducated and neglected. The finer affections become blunted. Woman is no more the gentle wife, companion, and friend of man, but his fellow-labourer and fellow-drudge. She is exposed to influences which too often efface that modesty of thought and conduct which is one of the best safeguards of virtue. Without judgment or sound principles to guide them, factory-girls early acquire the feeling of independence. Ready to throw off the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Let him [Anatolius] know to what sort of man he has succeeded, and, expelling all the spirit of pride, let him imitate the faith of Flavian, his modesty and his humility, which raised him up even to a confessor's glory. If he will shine with his virtues, he will be praiseworthy and everywhere he will win an abundance of love, not by seeking human things, but divine favor. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... modesty but modesty should never lead to a denial of the truth. Remember, Jacob, that thou ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... both men and women should wear the Spanish costume, that they no longer should receive Mohammedan names, or marry without permission. The Moriscoes contended that no particular dress involved religious opinions, that the women used the veil according to their notions of modesty, that the use of their own language was no sin, and that baths were used, not from religious motives, but for the sake of cleanliness. These expostulations were, however, without effect. Nothing could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... importance, in the gift of the Home Office. It meant, no doubt, the abandonment of more brilliant things; Darrell was content to abandon them. His determination to apply for it seemed, indeed, to himself an act of modesty—almost of sacrifice. As to the technical qualifications required, he was well aware there might be other men better equipped than himself. But, after all, to what may not general ability aspire—general ability properly ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... chamber, he diligently applied himself to the task of carrying into practical effect the suggestion which had arisen in his mind. By an arrangement of transparent glasses and reflecting surfaces—which, were it not for a well-defined natural modesty, he would certainly be tempted to describe as highly ingenious—he ultimately succeeded in bringing about the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... head. "Only the stupid, the guilty, and the base are proud and overbearing," he said. "But, whoever has seen you, Louisa, on the day of your first arrival in Berlin, will never forget your sweet image in its radiance of grace, modesty, and loveliness. It was on a Sunday, a splendid clear day in winter, the day before Christmas, which was to become the greatest holiday of my life. A vast crowd had gathered in front of the Arsenal Unter den Linden. Every one was anxious to see you. At the entrance ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... But the modesty of the English tongue forbids us to translate the rest of the phrase. Dean Swift might have related how Balzac wished to express his contempt for all the royalties of the earth. Now that he is in ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Los condenados did not deter him from employing a similar symbolism and similar motifs again; and, after the tremendous hit of Electra, he deliberately chose, for Alma y vida, his next effort, a subject and style which should discourage popular applause.[5] Such was the modesty, unconsciousness and intellectual ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Travelling Companion," which was returned by an editor on the plea that it was a work of genius and indecent, and which I burned the other day on the ground that it was not a work of genius, and that "Jekyll" had supplanted it. Then came one of those financial fluctuations to which (with an elegant modesty) I have hitherto referred in the third person. For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me to conjecture how I looked, but I felt dreadfully destitute of sail as I scudded over the rough pathway that wound around the shore. Blushing, panting, and utterly overwhelmed with conflicting emotions of modesty and despair, I darted behind the friendly shelter of a rock, and inwardly resolved that if ever I went bathing in Finland again, I would at least perform my ablutions in a more appropriate costume than Nature ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... greatest success with the gentlemen of the Poughkeepsie. Her youth, beauty, and modesty, told largely in her favor; and the simple, womanly affection she unconsciously betrayed in behalf of Harry, touched the heart of every observer. When the intelligence of her aunt's fate reached her, the sorrow she manifested was so profound and natural, that every one ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... is due that assumption of extravagant and conventional pudor which forms one of the most abiding features of the pastoral drama. To censure an exaggeration of the charm of modesty on the threshold of the seicento, or to object a strained sense of chastity against the author of the golden-age chorus, may indeed seem strange; but, as with Fletcher at a later date, the very extravagance of the paradox may supply us with ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Peggy presided, was subject on the contrary to some painful vicissitudes. When the post of housekeeper had been deputed to her, Peggy had been greatly elated by her increased importance, and with characteristic modesty had expatiated upon her peculiar fitness for the post, and declared her intention of exhibiting a really well-conducted establishment to the gaze of the world. She provided herself with a huge account book, marched about the house jingling an enormous bunch of ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... prominent characteristics of both sexes. With the boy this is satisfied without much pretence at secrecy. False modesty prevents the girl from openly obtaining the desired information. She obtains it secretly from her companions. Mothers do not give their daughters credit for the instinct that compels the satisfaction of their curiosity. Sometime ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... all the more proper that you should tell the story, Mr. Passford, and spare Mr. Gilfleur's modesty," said ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... titles means Struck by the Pawnee, and was occasioned by some blow which the chief had received in battle from one of the Pawnee tribe. The second is in English Half Man, which seemed a singular name for a warrior, till it was explained to have its origin, probably, in the modesty of the chief, who, on being told of his exploits, would say, 'I am no warrior, I am only half a man.' The other chiefs spoke very little; but after they had finished, one of the warriors delivered a speech, in which he declared he ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... an extraordinary difficult Author; for this requires more than double the time of a Historian or the like, which was as much as I cou'd allow my self. I made choice of these three Plays as well for their Modesty as Regularity, for above all things I wou'd by no means give the least Encouragement to Lewdness or Obscenity, which grow too fast of themselves; and therefore I thought I cou'd not chuse better than ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... dishes that we know during the winter, and when prepared after the recipe given here it precedes all other forms of serving corn meal. To mix it properly one must know the proper values of herbs and condiments, and this recipe is the result of much discriminating study. Modesty prevents us giving it more than the name of "scrapple." It is prepared in the following manner, differing from that ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... silk, and pleasant, serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect curve, and the teeth, though white and even, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... contemptuous air, that his sentiments were of a dangerous tendency, and that it was to be an enemy to the state to believe that the sun revolved round its own axis, and that the year had twelve months, he held his tongue with great modesty and meekness. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... animals, though the animals also are there slandered! The women were free and complaisant; there were many children about. But matings, I thought, occurred only of free and mutual desire, and not more frequently than in other countries. The women were not without modesty, nor the men without a pale chivalry. At first I thought constraint or rule did not enter in, but after a talk with their priest through Diego Colon, I gathered that there prevailed tribe and kinship restraints. Later we were ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... showing her heart to the world, with falling hair and rending sobs. As he lay thus trying to court back his dream of perfect roses, I had my delight in knowing he would never dream-what Senda saw so plainly, yet with such faultless modesty— that all true love draws its strength and fragrance from the riches not of the loved one's, but of ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... a more ridiculous compound of pretended modesty, and real want of delicacy, than is to be found with this class of sojourners on the highway. Should any of their own sex arrive, of whom some little scandal has been afloat, they are up in arms, and down they plump in their rocking-chairs; and although the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... descended from the antient family of the Livingstons. He was born about the year 1555. His father, David Rollock, sent him to Stirling to be educated for the university under Thomas Buchanan, where his genius, modesty and sweetness of temper soon procured to him the particular friendship of his master, which subsisted ever after. From this school, he went to the university of St Andrews, where he prosecuted his studies for four years; at the end of which, his progress had been so great, that ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... be quarrelling about over-appreciations and under-appreciations—and after all I have no interest nor wish, I do assure you, to depreciate myself—and you are not to think that I have the remotest claim to the Monthyon prize for good deeds in the way of modesty of self-estimation. Only when I know you better, as you talk of ... and when you know me too well, ... the right and the wrong of these conclusions will appear in a fuller light than ever so much arguing ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... giving him away?" he said. "My dear Miss Falconer, everybody knows him. Every ball-room every tennis-court, is strewed with his wrecks. And all the time he doesn't know it; but goes his way crowned with a modesty which is the marvel and the wonder of this most ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... extreme modesty she did not realize how much she had gained in intellectual culture. Women left to themselves have time to read, and Giselle had done this all the more because she had considered it a duty. Must she not know enough to instruct and superintend the education of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fair star I saw two brilliant eyes, With sweetness, modesty, so glistening o'er, That soon those graceful nests of Love before My worn heart learnt all others to despise: Equall'd not her whoever won the prize In ages gone on any foreign shore; Not she to Greece whose wondrous beauty bore Unnumber'd ills, to Troy death's anguish'd ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Haeberlein was actually in London last week in connection with the disgraceful Kellner business. ON DIT that he escaped detection through the instrumentality of one of the fair sex, whose audacity outweighed her modesty." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of man a familiar name. Probably it may be quite common in similar localities, but its size, its brief periodicity, and inconspicuousness, contribute to make it, at present, one of the rarities of botany. Beneath a kidney-shaped leaf a tiny, solitary, hooded, purple flower shelters with becoming modesty, the art of concealment being so delicately employed that it seems to preserve its virginal purity. There is proof, however, that the flower does possess some "secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed in glycerine the preservative takes the hue of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... thinking, though his pathos, indeed, sometimes reached intensity. His humor was always delicate and kindly; his sentiment never degenerated into sentimentality. His diction was graceful and elegant—too elegant, perhaps; and in his modesty he attributed the success of his books in England to the astonishment of Englishmen that an ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... for the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But the foolish despise wisdom and discipline. Reverence comes through wise instruction, And before honor goes modesty. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... once, and, struck by Ruth's modesty and beauty, he went to her and said she was not to glean in any other fields but his all the time of harvest. He told her she need fear no rudeness from the young men, for he had laid his commands upon them not to molest or ...
— A Farmer's Wife - The Story of Ruth • J. H. Willard
... "Well, my modesty forbids me to explain how far the rumor is true. But, the fact is, she has given me the most unmistakable proofs of her favor. Of course, a man who has seen as much of the world as I have cannot be expected to reciprocate such a passion in its sentimental aspects; but from ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and slit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth. Being cold-blooded, they needed no clothing, beyond their belts and equipment, and the emblem of the Chartered Ullr Company painted on their chests and backs. They had no need for modesty, since all were of the same gender—true, functional hermaphrodites; any individual among them could bear young, or fertilize the ova of ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... exaggerated deference, modesty, timidity, France in the eighteenth century surrendered to England the exclusive privilege of constructing her astronomical instruments. Thus, when Herschel was prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel, we had not even ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Odes, his voice is raised in a paean of unmixed triumph. "The pure home is polluted by no unchastity; law and morality have destroyed crime; matrons are blessed with children resembling their fathers; already faith and peace, honour and maiden modesty, have returned to us," &c. [11] This can hardly be mere exaggeration, though no doubt the picture is coloured, since the popularity of Ovid's Art of Love, even during Horace's lifetime, is a sufficient proof that profligacy ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... regard the fathers, upon seeing the reverence with which the captains treated them, who always kissed their hands on seeing them. This custom has remained even until the present in the islands. However, they do not kiss the hand, but the habit or girdle. I suppose that the fathers' modesty would not permit the captains to kiss the hand, and they substituted therefor the habit or girdle. Upon the Indians seeing this, they have followed the same custom. Consequently, as a rule, when an Indian comes to talk to a father, he kisses the latter's hand. With this instruction that the fathers ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... Now (by my modesty) a goodly Broker: Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines? To whisper, and conspire against my youth? Now trust me, 'tis an office of great worth, And you an officer fit for the place: There: take the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... opportunity for a flank movement. In the Count's breast rage and astonishment contended for the mastery as he contemplated the curious miscarriage of his newspaper assault. He had chosen this line of attack partly because his modesty counseled him to keep his own personality in the background, partly because the wider the publicity of his rival's disgrace the more complete would that disgrace be. But as his newspaper ally failed him, he took the campaign into his own hands; ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... reckoned that, with an assured income of 12,000 ducats, the youth would be contented to amuse himself, while he left the government of Florence in the hands of his Vizier.[9] But here the wily politician overreached himself. Cosimo wore an old head on his young shoulders. With decent modesty and a becoming show of deference, he used Guicciardini as his ladder to mount the throne by, and then kicked the ladder away. The first days of his administration showed that he intended to be sole master in Florence. Guicciardini, perceiving that his game was spoiled, retired ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... infallible signs. Generally speaking, the chief of these were: long hair, and a tendency to make lugubrious remarks beginning with Verily, verily I say unto you. In actual life, too, lots of men did grow their hair long and cultivate the verily-verily habit; hoping that, despite their innate modesty, their fellow-men might not fail to take the hint and pierce the disguise afforded, often by a personal morality you might ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... silent for a while. "And yet," resumed he, "I believe that I was wrong to invite him hither. In your unconscious modesty, you have not perceived, my child, that Gunther loves you with all the fervor of a true and honest heart. He may have indulged the thought that I would bestow my daughter upon a poor little imperial secretary, whose brother enjoys ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... it invests them with a synthetic and general character and allows only the pure idea, the divine principle, of them to be seen, whether this be the cause I cannot say, but I feel that if I embraced her I would hold in my hands the heaven of human pleasure. It is certain that modesty communicates an invincible attraction to women. My uneasiness is so great that it would be vain for me to ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... crusade. When families of eight or ten men, women and children are all huddled promiscuously together in a single apartment, a condition common among our poor all over the land, there is little hope of inculcating morality and modesty. And yet in spite of the fateful heritage of slavery, in spite of the manifold pitfalls and peculiar temptations to which our girls are subjected, and though the safeguards usually thrown around maidenly youth and innocence are in some ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... any reader, whether Protestant or Catholic, not to admire the frankness and candor, the honest conscientiousness, the courage, and, at the same time, womanly modesty and ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... us a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and, further, simplicity of life far removed from ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... to cure Anthony's-fire, or a wet bed in an ice-house to cure an ague, as recommend a sinner to those accursed lies, Roman penance, and Auricular Confession."—The mental purity of Nuns consists in a life totally "contrary to the laws of God, of modesty, of decency. They are constantly exposed to the obscene interrogations, and the lewd actions of the Priests. Notwithstanding God has fixed a bar on every female mind, it is broken through by the Priests putting questions to them upon those subjects, as the scripture declares, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... already so bountifully been bestowed in large donations, that it seems wanting in modesty, if not in equity, to make further immediate demands upon heads of houses, ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... that grief, which came while his troubles were beginning, much else had come to Lincoln; and now through four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had grown therewith. Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a tragedian telling his story would have devised for him. This man had stood alone ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the most expensive of these establishments; and from that point on, their progress towards finished cynicism, fatty degeneration of the intellect, and smiling abandonment of all scruples, all ideals, and all modesty, was rapid and certain. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... clandestine murders, and Rome itself a theatre of horrors, where nobility of descent and splendour of fortune marked men out for destruction; where the vigour of mind that aimed at civil dignities, and the modesty that declined them, were offences without distinction; where virtue was a crime that led to certain ruin; where the guilt of informers and the wages of their iniquity were alike detestable; where the sacerdotal order, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... friend you are, aren't you, Fritz?" said she. "You worship Mr. Rassendyll. I know you think I should worship him too, if he asked me. Well, I shouldn't. I am foolish enough to have my own idol." All my modesty did not let me doubt who her idol might be. Suddenly she drew near to me and whispered in my ear. I think that our own happiness brought to her a sudden ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... morally the best part, but it is by all odds the least interesting—it is found in the type of man belonging to the plains in a temperate zone, who differs in every respect from the real northman, his distant cousin and hereditary enemy. If Charles Juxon was remarkable for anything it was for his modesty and reticence, in a word, for his apparent determination not to be remarkable ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... where it falls into consideration that, though he wanted not wit nor courage, for he had very fine attractives, as being a good piece of a scholar, yet were those accompanied with the retractives of bashfulness, and natural modesty, which, as the wave of the house of his fortune then stood, might have hindered his progression, had they not been reinforced by the infusion of sovereign favour, and the Queen's gracious invitation; and that it may appear how ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... bliss again than speak of it aloud. If their blood had not been lashed by their rapid march, if the darkness had not offered complicity, they would, for a long time yet, have continued kissing each other on the cheeks like old playfellows. Feelings of modesty were coming to Miette. She remembered Justin's coarseness. A few hours previously she had listened, without a blush, to that fellow who called her a shameless girl. She had wept without understanding his meaning, she had wept simply because she guessed that what he spoke of must ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may, perhaps, have really suffered, but you have no respect for your own suffering. You may have sincerity, but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You doubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your last word through fear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a cowardly ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... tiger before them, and a careless or scoffing multitude ranged all around—these were strong witnesses to the great principle of Faith—noble proofs of the power of living and dying for things unseen. This was their function. It was for others to show forth the humility and modesty in which, as a ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... surprised to find one who seemed to think it a duty to keep his knowledge and taste in the background. She gave him credit for more talent than appeared; for more, perhaps, than he really had. She was piqued, too, at his very modesty and self-restraint. Why did not he, like the rest who dangled about her, spread out his peacock's train for her eyes; and try to show his worship of her, by setting himself off in his brightest colours? And yet this modesty awed her into respect of him; for she ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... by a physician, especially if a social acquaintance, is an unnecessary embarrassment. The false modesty that makes physical examination unwelcome to many adults, men as well as women, is easily overcome when the advantages of such examination are understood. It is likewise easy to prove to a teacher that the loss of time required in ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Odalisque, supine, Defying prurient modesty turned she, Displaying in her beauty candidly Wonder of ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... on the most friendly terms with our neighbors. The colonel and my father smoke their afternoon cigar together in our sitting-room or on the piazza opposite, and I pass an hour or two of the day or the evening with the daughter. I am more and more struck by the beauty, modesty, ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin. Then Eudemon, asking leave of the viceroy, his master, so to do, with his cap in his hand, a clear and open countenance, ruddy lips, his eyes steady, and his looks fixt upon Gargantua, with a youthful modesty, stood up straight on his feet and began to commend and magnify him, first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge; thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily beauty; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... perfect ease and freedom with which it is done; no awkwardness or confusion appearing on either side; the most well-behaved and decent young woman going into it without a blush, and they are by no means deficient in modesty. What is pure in idea is always so in conduct, since bad actions are the common consequence of bad thoughts; and though the better sort of people treat this ceremony as a barbarism, it is very much to be doubted whether more faux pas have been committed ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... Therefore, if you look around for plants, do not go to those who advertise, "layers for immediate bearing," or "plants of superior quality to all others grown;" but go to men who have honesty and modesty enough to send you a sample of their best plants, if required, and who are not averse to let you see how they grow them. Choose their good, strong healthy, one year old plants, with strong, firm, healthy roots, and let those who wish to be humbugged ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... a certain age should lead the youth, and he should in all things follow her counsels with respect and obedience. But she for her part should know at what moment to lay down her authority, and begin, with a fitting modesty, to follow him whom she has ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... virgin modesty Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth, That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won Not obvious, not obtrusive, but ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... or tree. Will Clark wrote his twice—once on Pompey's Pillar, on the Yellowstone, and once on the rock far down in Nebraska, as we noted when we passed near that place. But the simplicity, the modesty of those two, sinking everything in their great duty to their country—it's those things, my boys, which make their Journal the model of its kind and class, and their journey the greatest of its kind in all the ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... that, he has told you more than the truth! I am a patriot. The rest my modesty compels me ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... winning about this young man's modesty, and something flattering in his respectful admiration. He seemed, also, to know his place, a fact which was even more in his favor. Undoubtedly he had force and ability; probably his love of adventure and a happy lack of settled purpose had led him ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... March exulted, "nobody could be so conceited all the time as Mr. Beaton is most of the time. He must have moments of the direst modesty, when he'd be ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for their clothes on the bank, and stood shrinking behind some inadequate rag. The more spirited of the naiads threw pebbles at the cowardly intruders, who, safe behind the leafy cover that was meant to shield modesty, threw jeers and mockery in return. But the Gentile boys ran away soon, or ran away punished. A chemise and a petticoat turn a frightened woman into an Amazon in such circumstances; and woe to the impudent wretch who lingered after the avengers plunged into the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... an anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes all this to very excessive modesty, not dreaming that the empty intercourse of saloons with people of rank and fashion could be a bore to one who has run the rounds of society for the greater part of half a century, and who likes to consult his own humor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ease and grace in the company of great ladies and gentlemen. As may be easily imagined, the little Pierre's education had not been neglected. He did not fail to array himself in a manner befitting the occasion; and at the banquet he served his father's guests with so much modesty and grace that he drew forth praise ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... am not of it, but frequently in company with it: 'tis all disjointed. Madame * * *, who, though a learned lady, has not lost her modesty and character, is extremely scandalized with the other two dames, especially Moll Worthless, who knows no bounds. She is at rivalry with Lady W. for a certain Mr. * * *, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford. If you did not, I'll tell you: he is a grave young man by temper, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... it would be half enough if only the nation had the money to give away. "Why," exclaimed one gushing orator, "if we had the money the only course we could take would be to offer his Royal Highness whatever he pleased to accept, and even in that case we should have reason to fear lest his modesty might do an injury to his generosity by making him confine his demand within the strictest bounds of bare necessity." "Were we," another member of the Court party declared, "to measure the prince's allowance by the prince's merit, as we know no bounds to the latter, we could prescribe ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Burns has thus recorded his impression of the meeting:—"A Mr Dudgeon, a poet at times, a worthy, remarkable character, natural penetration, a great deal of information, some genius, and extreme modesty." Dudgeon died in October 1813, about his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... led by the nose, to a strange degree, if there were an artist dexterous enough, daring enough! His own natural judgment was good, and, though apt to be hasty and headlong, was always likely to come right in the end; but internally, we may perceive, his modesty, self-distrust, anxiety and other unexpected qualities, must have been great. And then his explosiveness, impatience, excitability; his conscious dumb ignorance of all things beyond his own small horizon of personal ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... climing thoughts, And with thy vertue beat ambition downe, 1490 And this no lesse inblazon shall thy fame. Then those great deeds and chiualrous attempts, That made thee conqueror in Thessalia. Ant. This noble mind and Pincely modesty, Which in contempt of honours brightnes shines, Makes vs to wish the more for such a Prince, Whose vertue not ambition won that praise, Nor shall we thinke it losse of liberty. Or Romaine liberty any way impeached, For to subiect vs to his Princely rule, 1500 Whose thoughts fayre ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... and through the mire. These women, too, were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who have them. Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare—that is what those beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty, gentleness and loveliness, fresher than lilacs in the month of May, will come to. Ah! you have got yourselves killed! You are no longer on hand! That is well; you have wished to release the people from Royalty, and you deliver over your daughters to the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... From the natural modesty of her character she had a great dislike to her biography, or memorial of her in any shape, being written, for she destroyed all letters that might have been used for such a purpose, publicity of any ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... rudely outraged. In the field, in the rude cabin, in the press-room and in the factory, she was thrown into the companionship of coarse and ignorant men. No chance was given her for delicate reserve or tender modesty. From her girlhood she was the doomed victim of the grossest passions. All the virtues of her sex were utterly ignored. If the instinct of chastity asserted itself, then she had to fight like a tigress for the ownership and possession of her own person, and oftentimes ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... them news of their redemption by an angel from the sanctuary;—a speech which, although Father Aldrovand shook his head, was received by her companions with such general acclamation, as greatly embarrassed the young man's modesty. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the world. The philosophers have a wonderful saying concerning the eye that there are spiritual tints in the soul which are visible in the movements of the eyelids—pride and haughtiness, humility and meekness. Accordingly the ethical qualities due to the sense of sight are pride, meekness, modesty and impudence, besides the subordinate qualities derived ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... kitchen, he found Betty's nose as much in the air as its construction would permit. For a hook-nosed animal, she certainly was the most harmless and ovine creature in the world, but this was a case in which feminine modesty was both concerned and aggrieved. She showed her resentment no further, however, than by simply returning no answer in syllable, or sound, or motion, to Robert's request. She was washing up the tea-things, and went on with her work as if she had been in absolute solitude, saving that her ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... different Challenger who greeted us in the morning—a Challenger with contentment and self-congratulation shining from his whole person. He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown out, and his hand ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... making the flames of our resin torches flicker weirdly. During the meal my uncles had rallied me very much on what they called my virtue; they had treated my shyness in the presence of women as a sign of continence; and it was especially in this matter that they urged me to evil by ridiculing my modesty. While parrying these coarse gibes and making thrusts in the same strain, I had been drinking enormously. Consequently, my wild imagination had become inflamed, and I boasted that I would be bolder and more successful with the first woman brought ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... fower raal sailors, as ye call's 'em, now aboard, barrin' Misther Mackay and the second mate; an' them's Adams over thar aft at the wheel, these two idle jokers here beside me, the ship's bhoy, an' thin mesilf—though, faix, me modesty ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... titular respect have been condemned abroad, and we are accused of being all "colonels" and "generals;" but a wife should still give her husband his title. In addressing the President we say "Mr. President," but his wife should say, "Allow me to introduce the President to you." The modesty of Mrs. Grant, however, never allowed her to call her many-titled husband anything but "Mr. Grant," which had, in her case, a sweetness ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... courier I send thee divers rhymes which may divert thee. Soothly they are most honest chronicles, albeit in all modesty I may say ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of whom stared at the pretty child till even she observed it, and showed that she did by the color that came and went in her cheeks. It annoyed me as much as if she had been my own little daughter, for I like modesty, and have often been troubled by the forward manners of schoolgirls, who seem to enjoy being looked at. So I helped this one out of her little trouble by making room between the old gentleman and myself, and motioning her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... chain, whose only known purpose was to clink as it went. Mrs. Dollery, having to hop up and down many times in the service of her passengers, wore, especially in windy weather, short leggings under her gown for modesty's sake, and instead of a bonnet a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief, to guard against an earache to which she was frequently subject. In the rear of the van was a glass window, which she cleaned with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... think you mean what you now mention. If there wanted no more, said he, than to prove the sincerity of my wishes in this point to gain your approbation of them, my chaplain should this moment put it past a doubt, and confirm my proposal:—but, pursued he, I will not put your modesty to any farther shock at present;—all I intreat is, that you will consider on what I have said, and what the passion I am possessed of merits from you. In concluding these words he kissed her with the ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... suddenly set aside and had then and there to take to breaking stones; and this young fellow who had strayed into the town straightway ignored and discounted the experience of their many years. They tried, by the most ancient of all methods, to teach the young man modesty. But they gave it up. Peter Jorgensen had the strength of three men and the courage of ten. It was not good to meddle with one who had stolen his capacities from God himself, or perhaps was in league with Satan. So they ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... bring him to dinner. And where is my child, Marie?" Scarcely had she pronounced this name, than a young girl about sixteen entered the room;—a rosy, round-faced girl, wearing her hair in smooth bandeaux caught behind her ears, which were red with modesty and shyness. She did not please me very much at the first glance; I was prejudiced against her by Alexis, who had described the Captain's daughter to me as a fool. Marie seated herself in a corner and began to sew. The soup was brought on the table. Basilia, ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... Government of the United States should make to Captain Ericsson "such suitable return for his services as will evince the gratitude of a great nation." Upon hearing this suggestion, Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,—"All the remuneration I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he discountenanced the movement set on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and destroying their moral as well as their religious instincts, and then they embrace the most revolting doctrines, and reconcile themselves to the most appalling deeds. They look on marriage as irrational, and regard modesty and chastity as vices. Shame is a weakness in their eyes, and natural affections are irrational prejudices. Scruples against lying, theft and murder, when any great good is to be gained by those practices, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Fanny, though these were considerable, were the least of her charms. Mr. William Fairbairn, who afterwards saw her in her home at Willington Quay, describes her as a very comely woman. But her temper was one of the sweetest; and those who knew her were accustomed to speak of the charming modesty of her demeanour, her kindness of disposition, and withal ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Jennings, as a beautiful young woman shrunk back with modesty. "There, sir, is the very gal that was made for you. If she had been made to your order, she could not ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... him upon his poems. But this is not to be meant of his Canterbury Tales, they being written in the latter part of his life, when the courtier and the fine gentleman gave way to solid sense and plain descriptions. In his love-pieces he was obliged to have the strictest regard to modesty and decency; the ladies at that time insisting so much upon the nicest punctilios of honour, that it was highly criminal to depreciate their sex, or do anything that might offend virtue." Chaucer, in their ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... cannot agree with the propositions advanced in general conversation, be silent. If pressed for your opinion, give it with modesty. Never defend your own views too warmly. When you find others remain unconvinced, drop the subject, or lead to some ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... don't even represent a syndicate of Eastern capitalists. On the contrary, I am a penniless adventurer whom chance alone has cast upon your hospitable grand staircase." These words were spoken with a suggestion of mock modesty that had precisely the effect of a deliberate wink, and Mr. Haviland smiled and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... regard for decency than that which bestows the graces of lightness, brightness, wit, and gaiety upon indecency. His unabashed apology was that the artistic laws of the conte obliged him to decline the laws of modesty; and among those who applauded his tales were the Duchess de Bouillon and Mme. de Sevigne. It is indeed impossible not to applaud their skill in rapid and easy narrative, and the grace, freedom, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... "I don't think I could hit him," he said with becoming modesty. They laughed aloud. "But, say, don't forget about Mr. King. Tell him I want him to parade most of the time in ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... acquaintance was useful to my men and to me, as they presented us with exquisite fishes (amongst them salmon), seeds, and pinole. I had opportunity of visiting them four times and found them always as friendly as the first time, noticing in them polite manners, and what is better, modesty and retirement in the women. They are not disposed to beg, but accept with good will what is given them, without being impertinent, as are many others I have seen during the conquest. This Indian village has some scows ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... the brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, so puffed up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their success, can never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this point of view, if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, the stranger on the staircase might be allowed to have something in him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidence, the early timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, even as pretty ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... sensation that is produced by modesty, is amply compensated by the prepossession it creates in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... womankind, Or love, in his yet wayward mind, Had ghastly doubts its precious life Was pledged for aye to the wrong wife. Could it be else? A youth pursues A maid, whom chance, not he, did choose, Till to his strange arms hurries she In a despair of modesty. Then, simply and without pretence Of insight or experience, They plight their vows. The parents say 'We cannot speak them yea or nay; The thing proceedeth from the Lord!' And wisdom still approves their word; For God created so these two They match ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... believe that it is your modesty then. Jasper may be a fine boy, but he will do well if he grows up as good ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... the opening of the door. He was all himself. Such an unaffected modesty and politeness; yet such an ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... forceful, frank, naive. She was impressed by his nearness; but Lane saw that it was the fact of his being a soldier with a record, not his mere physical propinquity that affected her. She seemed both bold and shy. But she did not show any modesty. Her short skirt came above her bare knees, and she did not try to hide them from Lane's sight. At fifteen, like his sister Lorna, this girl had the development of a young woman. She breathed health, and something elusive that Lane could not catch. If it had not been ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... false modesty about the boy; neither did he hold malice. If he had felt slightly aggrieved at not having been invited earlier, he forgot it after the first mouthful and for a time there was no further conversation in number ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... for my Travels. However, I must not let his Memory die, but give the World an Account of him as far as I cou'd gather from the Gentleman when he was disposed to Answer to Questions concerning himself, in which he always behaved himself with a well guarded Modesty. ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... once, twice, and her head fell upon his breast, and for a moment she lay wrapped in her youthful modesty as in a mantle. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... from the limits of a due caution and modesty, consider this as the throne before which the mind holds its court. Hither the senses bring in their reports, and hence the sovereign will issues his commands. The whole system appears to be conducted ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... talkative. His silence seemed to be the joint result of modesty and unpleasing remembrances. His features were characterized by pathetic seriousness, and his deportment by a gravity very unusual at his age. According to his own representation, he was no more than eighteen ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... there are a great many things I don't understand, and I am not good at argument." There were shouts of "Go on! fire ahead, play the game!" but he said, "I think we will close the service with a hymn." His frankness and modesty, and his respectful, courteous manner gained the sympathy of the men, so that all joined heartily in singing, "Sun of My Soul." In the prayer that followed his voice grew steady and his nerve came back to him. The words were ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... of a kind action naturally enkindled in him a desire to return the favor in some way, he threw me the cocoa-nuts from the trees; and, although I believe that from the first he felt an ardent desire to be near his benefactor, his natural modesty prevented his thrusting himself upon me without considerable preliminary skirmishing. His fellow monkeys, keenly sensible of his noble qualities, and happy in having got rid of the odious despot who had so long oppressed them, were only too glad to aid him in any reasonable ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... to the grave- diggers, and was weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was dayspring, indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that I began to see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and modesty and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember to have observed two working- women with a baby halting by a grave; there was something monumental ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... animal! sweats with its tongue and smiles with its tail. Gentlemen, Homo equals in wisdom, and surpasses in cordiality, the hairless wolf of Mexico, the wonderful xoloitzeniski. I may add that he is humble. He has the modesty of a wolf who is useful to men. He is helpful and charitable, and says nothing about it. His left paw knows not the good which his right paw does. These are his merits. Of the other, my second friend, I have but one word to say. He is a monster. You will ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... penitent, never failed, if he passed the shop, to enter and congratulate Madame Legrand on the excellent acquisition she had made in securing this young man, who would certainly bring her a blessing along with him. Derues affected the greatest modesty, and blushed at these praises, and often, when he saw the good father approaching, appeared not to see him, and found something to do elsewhere; whereby the field was left clear ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Her sufferings were far more unendurable, her heroism far more noble, than any which in more recent times have been so much pitied and so much applauded; but she was a simple missionary's wife, an American by birth, and she told her tale with an artless modesty—writing only what it became her to write, treating only of matters that became a woman. Her captivity, if so it can be called, was voluntarily endured. She of her own free will shared the sufferings of her husband, taking to herself ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... when a voting on some question of education or local taxation takes place in a district, these committees of the National Lifeboat Association do not, as such, take part in the deliberations—a modesty, which unfortunately the members of elected bodies do not imitate. But, on the other hand, these brave men do not allow those who have never faced a storm to legislate for them about saving life. At the first signal of distress they ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... remarks were received. And to this crowd Count Ville-Handry displayed his good-fortune. He assumed all the airs of the master of the house; as if he had been in his own house, gave orders to the servants, and then, with mock modesty, went from group to group, eagerly picking up all the compliments he could gather on Miss Brandon's beauty, and his ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... he had been painting, but he positively forbade it. He said it was a painter's prerogative to warn even—love from that holy of holies. I often wonder what was behind the curtain. I realized from that moment that if you want to see a great artist's best work, you must override his modesty and secretiveness—and tear the screen from ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... a general, a statesman, and a ruler paled before the exalted virtues of his private life. His urbanity, his gentleness, his modesty, his meekness, his simplicity, and his love won all hearts, and have never been exceeded except by Alfred the Great. He was a Saint Louis on a throne, in marked contrast with the suspicion, duplicity, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... it. No place can be better off for hotels, and few so ill off for lodgings—the latter are only to be had in small dingy houses opening upon the street. They are, of course, very noisy; nor are the let-ters of them at any pains to induce you by the modesty of their demands to drop a veil over this defect. Defect, quotha! say, rather misery, plague, torture. Can any word be an over-exaggeration for an incessant tintamare, of which dogs, ducks, and drums are the leading instruments, enough to try the most patient ears? The hotels ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... sat, for in the three months he had eaten bread there, so carefully did he guard his eyes that he had not noticed the place. One day, during recess, having looked by chance on one of his companions, he reproached himself as for a grave sin against modesty. He cultivated silence, as preserving from sins of the tongue; and his greatest penance was the limit which his superiors set to his bodily penances. He sought after false accusations and unjust reprimands as opportunities of humility; ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... interference of government. Short and tight breeches were so much the rage in France, that Charles V. was compelled to banish this disgusting mode by edicts, which may be found in Mezerai. An Italian author of the fifteenth century supposes an Italian traveller of nice modesty would not pass through France, that he might not be offended by seeing men whose clothes rather exposed their nakedness than hid it. The very same fashion was the complaint in the remoter period of our Chaucer, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that if he had been offered the post Vauban would have turned it down in order to concentrate on his own specialty, which was the attack and defence of fortresses. Marmont and Bertrand, lacked this modesty, and the affection which Napoleon had for them prevented him from listening to ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the courses, being seldom less than two hours and a half; which was a subject of never- failing entertainment. By way of beguiling the tediousness of these banquets, a select association was formed at the lower end of the table, below the mast, to whose distinguished president modesty forbids me to make any further allusion, which, being a very hilarious and jovial institution, was (prejudice apart) in high favour with the rest of the community, and particularly with a black steward, who lived for three weeks in a broad grin at the ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... His modesty surprised me all the more, because of all those performers who are generally infatuated with their own skill, he was the most wonderfully clever one that I had ever met. Certainly, I had frequently seen ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... perfect silence, but Felix, who learned all things quickly, had already learned that the silences frequently observed among his new acquaintances were not necessarily restrictive or resentful. It was, as one might say, the silence of expectation, of modesty. They were all standing round his sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibition of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to imply that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in gauze and spangles. This ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... it their business to cast dirt on a girl's name who has disregarded the commonest rules of modesty and propriety.' ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... some of the nonjuring clergy fell into habits of idleness, dependence, and mendicancy, which lowered the character of the whole party. "Several undeserving persons, who are always the most confident, by their going up and down, did much prejudice to the truly deserving, whose modesty would not suffer them to solicit for themselves...... Mr. Kettlewell was also very sensible that some of his brethren spent too much of their time in places of concourse and news, by depending for their subsistence upon those whom they ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... CAESAR; so was LUTHER. Even now, when half the human race has grown impudent, we cannot but wonder at the impudence of that obscure monk. GALILEO, too, was a very impudent fellow until the well-bred 'Rev. and dear Sirs' of his time taught him modesty. And CROMWELL! what an Arch-Impudence was he! And NAPOLEON! he put Impudence itself to the blush. And have there been no Impudences among us? It cannot be denied that our Fourth-of-July-men made ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... palace, whither I carried a distracting tooth-ach, amused even that torture by the variety of its wonders. The sleeping faun, praised on from century to century, and never yet praised enough; so drunk, so fast asleep, so like a human body! Modesty reproving Vanity, by Leonardo da Vinci, so totally beyond my expectation or comprehension, great! wise! and fine! Raphael's Mistress, painted by himself, and copied by Julio Romano; this picture gives little satisfaction ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... possibly. We were not jubilant, but Mr. Ballou said there were worse ledges in the world than that. He saved what he called the "richest" piece of the rock, in order to determine its value by the process called the "fire-assay." Then we named the mine "Monarch of the Mountains" (modesty of nomenclature is not a prominent feature in the mines), and Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up the following "notice," preserving a copy to be entered upon the books in the mining recorder's office in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Maro's Muse, or Tully's tongue, Or raping numbers like the Thracian Song, In crowning of her merits he would be Sumptuously poor, low in Hyperbole. To write is easy; but to write on thee, Truth would be thought to forfeit modesty. He'l seem a Poet that shall speak but true; Hyperbole's in others, are thy due. Like a most servile flatterer he will show Though he write truth, and make the Subject, You. Virtue ne'er dies, time will a Poet raise Born under better Stars, shall ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Duvivier, the youthful and accomplished daughter of the general. Many distinguished suitors contended for the honor of her hand; but the moment Victor appeared, they felt they had a formidable rival. The belle of the chateau could not help showing her decided preference for him, though, with a modesty and delicacy natural to his position, he refrained from making ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage |
