"Reluctance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... granting of leave by two days. It would be tedious to record all the little and big difficulties that were then encountered through the reluctance of the military authorities to allow one to get transport or help of any kind. But four days later I was marching out of Mustapha Pasha on the way to Kirk Kilisse by way of Adrianople, a bullock-wagon carrying my baggage, an interpreter trundling my bicycle, I riding a small pony. ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... to permit shortening and lightening the gun. Mueller's guns had no heavy reinforces; the metal was distributed along the bore in a taper from powder chamber to muzzle swell. But realizing man's reluctance to accept new things, he carefully specified the location and size for each molding on his gun, protesting all the while the futility of such ornaments. Not until the last half of the next century were the experts well ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... inspired as one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... cool voice and with a calm face. I think there must even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago, 'just before my father died,' he said. I got away at last, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... it difficult to say what distress the sudden removal of this amiable and accomplished Scholar occasions me, just as I am finishing my task. I consign these pages to the press with a sense of downright reluctance,—(constrained however by the importance of the subject,)—seeing that he is no longer among us either to accept or to dispute a single proposition. All I can do is to erase every word which might have occasioned him the least annoyance; and indeed, as seldom as possible ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... philological lore; his visits to the tent of the Romany chal and the parlour of the Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character by his flinging himself into contact with people all widely differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral truth; his glimpses of God and the obscuration of the Divine Being to his mind's eye; and his being cast upon the world of London, by the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... at length he was with a sad heart compelled to give it up in despair. Captain Rymer sympathised heartily with his neighbour's misfortune, and pretty little Mary shed many a tear for the loss of her two friends. Several months passed by, and still no news came of the lost ones. With great reluctance the two families at length went into mourning. It was a sad day, for it was an acknowledgment that hope was given up, and that the two dear lads were ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... devotion," the crash of the wreck, the wild farewell, "the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his agony," the horrors of famine, the tale of the two fathers, the beautiful apparitions of the rainbow and the bird, the feast on Juan's spaniel, his reluctance to dine on "his pastor and his master," the consequences of eating Pedrillo,—all follow each other like visions in the phantasmagoria of a nightmare, till at last the remnant of the crew are drowned by ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... just heard the news. I did not know that Lieutenant Hector has challenged Odal." Her face was a mixture of concern and reluctance. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... only inhabitant had left a few days previous, having availed himself of the opportunity presented by a passing emigrant's horse,—and that, in consequence, the opening of the Institute was indefinitely postponed. Under these circumstances, and yielding with reluctance to the earnest solicitations of many eminent scientific friends, he has been induced to place the Lectures before the public in their present form. Should they meet with that success which his sanguine friends prognosticate, the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... with reluctance from the fascinating picture, and dropping into the big lounge chair, he lighted a cigarette. He had just placed the match in an ash tray when he heard Sir Charles's voice in the lobby, and a moment later Sir Charles himself came ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... numerous parishes served by monks in much better plight. The monastery took the tithes and somehow provided for the services; but the efforts of Grosseteste to secure the establishment of permanent stipendiary vicarages in his diocese exemplify the reluctance of the religious to give their appropriations the benefit of permanent pastors, paid on an adequate scale. It was an exceptional thing for the parish clergymen to do more than discharge perfunctorily the routine duties of their office, and preaching was almost unknown among them. The friars ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... to mix itself up with the affairs of the company; it dreaded being involved in calamities which it could not relieve, and received all overtures with visible reluctance. But the universal voice of the nation called upon it to come to the rescue. Every person of note in commercial politics was called in to advise in the emergency. A rough draft of a contract drawn up by Mr. Walpole was ultimately ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... were busy breaking up and destroying provisions; in another, they were slaying men, horses, and cattle, and these actions were accompanied with appropriate sounds. The cattle, particularly, had become sensible of their impending fate, and with awkward resistance and piteous cries, testified that reluctance with which these poor creatures look instinctively on the shambles. The groans and screams of men, undergoing, or about to undergo, the stroke of death, and the screeches of the poor horses which were in mortal ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... I came into this place," instead of saying "since I became President." The war he usually spoke of as "this great trouble," and he almost never alluded to the enemy as "Confederates" or "the Confederate Government." He had an unconquerable reluctance to appear to lead public opinion, and often spoke of himself as the "attorney for the people." Once, however, when a Senator was urging on him a certain course which the President was not disposed to pursue, the Senator said, "You say you are the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and in spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen. There, by the scraper, lay Clym's hook and the handful of faggot-bonds he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... disappointed. The trembling woman who had held him in her arms at Westleydale had never shown herself to him again. She had been called, created, for an end beyond herself. The woman he had married again was pure from passion, and of an uncomfortable reluctance in the giving and taking of caresses. He forced himself to respect her reluctance. He had simply to accept this emotional parsimony as one of the many curious facts about Anne. He no longer went to Edith for an explanation of them, for the Anne ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... address. He was still at the National Arts Club, they assured him. So that evening he presented himself there unannounced. He found Jarvis alone in the reading-room, a book open before sightless eyes. He rose to greet Strong, with evident reluctance. ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... many a boy must have amused himself as I did, seeking to read in them some reference to himself or those he loved. It was to these marks that my uncle now directed my attention, struggling, as he did so, with an evident reluctance. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instant, as fairly placed there for his sake. This had really been his luck, for he shouldn't have liked to write to Mrs. Worthingham for guidance—that he felt, though too impatient just now to analyze the reluctance. There was nobody else he could have approached for a clue, and with this reflection he was already aware of how it testified to their rare little position, his and Cornelia's—position as conscious, ironic, pathetic survivors together of a dead and buried ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... abounded in pacific discretion, and was wanting only in the "daemonic element"; we chose a statesman, who had the sort of merit then wanted, who, when he feels the steady power of England behind him, will advance without reluctance, and will strike without restraint. As was said at the time, "We turned out the Quaker, and ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... would not be right to leave Aunt Susan alone for so long, and then as her school did not close until the last of June, she would have no time to get ready. These were not the sole reasons for her reluctance, and in fact she made no mention of what was her principal reason. He did not understand that Alice Page was too proud-spirited to appear willing to put herself in his way and accept an invitation having for its ultimate object the giving of an opportunity to him to court ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... minister and favorite, who had always been the steady friend and zealous champion of Wallenstein and was therefore expressly sent to him, exhausted his eloquence in vain to overcome the pretended reluctance of the duke. "The Emperor," he admitted, "had, in Wallenstein, thrown away the most costly jewel in his crown: but unwillingly and compulsorily only had he taken this step, which he had since deeply repented of; while his esteem for the duke had remained unaltered, his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... morning of the day set apart for the debut of Kalora, Count Selim went to her apartments, and, with a rather shamefaced reluctance, gave his directions. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... described by Rousseau, are scarcely more than would be expected of every singer of the Queen's Theatre. Rossini's music, replete with difficulties of execution, has compelled even the unwieldy bass to overcome his reluctance to rapid motion, and he is now obliged to condescend to runs, arpeggios, and other similar feats of agility. In an opera buffa at a Neapolitan theatre, called Il Fondo, we once heard Tamburini execute the well-known song "Ma non fia sempre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... he said. "All this hurry of preparation has been a severe test on her, taken with her reluctance to leave her home. She is feeling stronger now, and it will be better for her to get the leave-taking over than to postpone and dread it longer. You will all make it easy for her—No breakdowns," he cautioned, with a smile. "New Mexico is a great place, and you are doing the best ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... obliged to mention, though I do it with great reluctance, another deep imagination, which at this time, the autumn of 1816, took possession of me—there can be no mistake about the fact;—viz. that it was the will of God that I should lead a single life. This anticipation, which has held its ground ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... and I spent a portion of this morning alone (Fellowes was gone out for a day or two), conversing on various subjects. I hardly know how it was, but I felt a strong reluctance to enter with formality on that one which yet lay nearest my heart, —whether from the fear lest I should do more harm than good; lest controversy should, as so often happens, indurate rather than soften the heart: or perhaps I had some secret distrust of my own temper or his. ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... counter. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust or three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his grandnephew's hand while the shopman smiled uneasily; and, on Stephen's feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... he never learned to like it. Each morning he went with reluctance and remained with loathing—the loathing which he always had for anything resembling bondage and tyranny or even the smallest curtailment of liberty. A School was ruled with a rod in those days, a busy and efficient rod, as the Scripture recommended. Of the smaller boys Little ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in the preceding chapter is but a faint picture of the bad effects of what is called polite education, as given in the Public Schools, on the male portion of society. It is with some reluctance that I am now going to trace the same evil influence in its still more injurious consequences on the female portion. It is very difficult to treat this part of the subject with the necessary freedom, not only on account of its intrinsic delicacy, but also because of that false (and indeed ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Pretending that Christ's reluctance is due to the fact that he shrinks from the exertions necessary to obtain this boon Satan offers to bestow it freely upon him, provided he will fall down and worship him. Hearing this proposal, Christ rebukes the tempter, saying, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and only him shalt serve," ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... silent, as I was ordered; and we hurried on, until there was a halt in front of a huge old building. "The hall of the Jacobins," whispered the Jew, and again cautioned me against saying or doing any thing in the shape of reluctance. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... opinion between Bismarck and the King; Bismarck complained to Benedetti that he was wavering: when at last the answer was sent it was to accept the principle, but Bismarck boasted that he had accepted it under such conditions that it could hardly be carried out. The reluctance of the King to go to war caused him much difficulty; all his influence was required; it is curious to read the following words which he wrote ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... venture to say, correction—of a system established by the highest wisdom of noble ancestors, cannot be too reverently undertaken: and it is necessary for the English people, who are sometimes violent in change in proportion to the reluctance with which they admit its necessity, to be now, oftener than at other times, reminded that the object of instruction here is not primarily attainment, but discipline; and that a youth is sent to our Universities, not (hitherto at least) to be apprenticed to a trade, ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... power of Gates to remedy these conditions, for he had brought with him from Devil's Island but a limited supply of provisions. So, with great reluctance, the Lieutenant-Governor decided to abandon Virginia rather than sacrifice his people. As the colonists climbed aboard the vessels which were to take them from the scene of their sufferings, they would have set fire ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... any pretension to fashion wore nankeen trousers. Well-dressed men wore charming fancy materials or immaculate white, and every one had straps to his trousers, while the shrunken hems of Lucien's nether garments manifested a violent antipathy for the heels of boots which they wedded with obvious reluctance. Lucien wore a white cravat with embroidered ends; his sister had seen that M. du Hautoy and M. de Chandour wore such things, and hastened to make similar ones for her brother. Here, no one appeared to wear white cravats of a morning except a few grave seniors, elderly capitalists, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... incorrigible soldiers which were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be no small loss to the English crown. It was never so likely to be lost as then, and he would rather die than that it should be lost during his government. The queen, however, sent money with the greatest possible reluctance, and was strangely dissatisfied with this able and faithful servant, even when his measures were ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... milled about the doors of the temporary Temple for a chance to register and donate their investments. Honey Tone, operating in a rented house, herded the investors into a room where his voice could pulverize the sediment of reluctance which remained in his hearers' minds, leaving no dregs of doubt that might cloud the nectar ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... wasn't as easy as he'd imagined—not even for an FBI man. His credentials were checked with the kind of minute care Malone had always thought people reserved for disputed art masterpieces, and it was with a great show of reluctance that the Special Security guards passed him inside as far as the office ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to boarding school after a holiday. How he used to go from the station to the school by the longest road possible, taking frantic account of every moment of liberty left him. Today his feet had the same leaden reluctance as when they used to all ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... fair, and square, and I was learning that the rule of their game was thumbs down—give nothing—take everything. I might have retired, but I was already deep in, with resources pledged to the limit; and what would my reluctance to press our advantage with Clark, Ward & Co. be considered but fool sentimentality? If I insisted on my view, what would happen? The people who had followed me so far—and their number was thousands and their quality, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... issue of this mission pretty clearly proved, that notwithstanding the dread of the British power entertained by the Abdalli chiefs, their reluctance to part with their town would not be easily overcome by peaceable means: while the Governor-general (then busily engaged at Simla in forwarding the preparations for the ill-fated invasion of Affghanistan) still declined, in despite of a renewed application from Bombay to give ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... spasm of longing—if she could get those thousand francs! But though she was so dizzy and so upset she retained her grip on her native Florentine shrewdness. She said nothing of her need of the money; not a syllable of her sore distress. On the contrary, she was coy and wary, affected great reluctance to part with her pet, invented a great offer made for him by a director of a circus, and finally let fall a hint that less than a thousand francs she could never take for ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... farewell visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. A black and white creeping warbler suddenly became much alarmed as I was approaching a crumbing old stump in a dense part of the forest. He alighted upon it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its sides, and finally left it with much reluctance. The nest, which contained three young birds nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot of the stump, and in such a positions that the color of the young harmonized perfectly with the bits of bark, sticks, etc., lying about. My eye rested ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... jealous, but feeling sure that Mabel had no attraction save her wealth, and knowing that Durward did not care for that, she occasionally suffered him to leave her side, always feeling amply repaid by the evident reluctance with which he left her society for ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... undisguised insolence, Lord Alvanley remained a shining example of good-nature, so that, save, perhaps, in one instance recorded in this book, his wit never offended. Likewise, only once, it is said, did he exhibit reluctance in consenting to oblige anyone who requested from him a favour, on which occasion he conveyed his refusal in a singularly characteristic manner. Some friends were anxious to get up a representation of Ivanhoe, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... reluctance to meeting the man whose presence was so painful, and of dread lest he had grown impatient, and might present himself to her guardian, Regina hastened into the square, and looked eagerly about ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Great advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... in other people's affairs, the personality of Persis Dale was as a killing frost to many a flourishing scandal. She had a readiness to believe the best, a reluctance to condemn her fellow men on anything short of convincing proof, fatal to calumny. Although perhaps justified in thinking the worst of young Mr. Thompson, no one present felt disposed to enlighten Persis as to the character of the discussion which had engrossed a gathering convened for the high ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... and gas prices. Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, a poor educational system, government misuse of oil and gas revenues, and Ashgabat's reluctance to adopt market-oriented reforms. In the past, Turkmenistan's economic statistics were state secrets. The new government has established a State Agency for Statistics, but GDP numbers and other figures ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... minute had Olivia ever considered that this reluctance on her part to be "well established" must have been something like a grief to her father, for he had never betrayed a sign of it. On the contrary, he had seemed to approve her decisions, and had even agreed with her in preferring the mistletoe to the pitcher-plant. ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Gospel; the other sons, all of them reckoned clever too, were brought up to secular employments. And preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel he had; in an honest manner, all say,—though never with other than a kind of reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course. He had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by that event. Friends, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... point de mire to all the dogs, who were jumping up to catch it. The cub was delighted, mewing with high glee, sometimes running up, sometimes down, just to invite his playfellows to come to him. I felt great reluctance to kill so graceful and playful an animal, but it became a necessity, as no endeavours of mine could have forced the dogs to leave it. I shot him, and, tying him round my neck, I now began to seek, with some anxiety, for the place where ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... not without reluctance, that the forest-trees of Central and Southern Europe have a great advantage over our own in the corresponding latitudes, in density of foliage as well as in depth of color and persistence of the leaves in deciduous species. ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... afterward this Philistine-combatant went to London, and there perished of the plague in great misery! In short, nowhere shall we find the least approach, in the lives and 445 writings of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to that guarded gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with which the holy brethren of the Inquisition deliver over a condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, recommending him to mercy, and hoping that the magistrate will treat the erring brother with 450 all possible mildness!—the magistrate who ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... died at his loved rural home on the sea-shore, where, by his request, his cattle were driven beneath his window so that he could gaze on them once more before he left them forever. He wrestled with the great Destroyer, showing a reluctance to abandon life, and looking into the future with apprehension rather than with hope. When Dr. Jeffries repeated to him the soothing words of Sacred Writ, "Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me," the dying statesman exclaimed, "Yes; that is what I want, Thy rod; Thy staff!" He was no hypocrite, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... remember the driver of the fiacre? I wanted to give him a LOUIS, and Duc d'Ayen said, 'You will be known;' so that I gave him a crown." He was going to tell the whole story. Madame made a sign to him to be silent, which he obeyed, not without considerable reluctance. She afterwards told me that at the time of the fetes given on occasion of the Dauphin's marriage, the King came to see her at her mother's house in a hackney-coach. The coachman would not go on, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Assembly, and of the Parisian mob whom they were keeping in a constant state of excitement, increased in violence; while one occurrence which took place was, in Mirabeau's opinion, especially calculated to prompt a suspicion of the king's intentions. Louis had at, last, and with extreme reluctance, sanctioned, the bill which required the clergy to take an oath to comply with the new ecclesiastical arrangements, in the vain hope that the framers of it would be content with their triumph, and would forbear to enforce it by fixing any precise date ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... greatest difficulty in convincing my ignorant companions that the tiger must be killed if we wished to remain in peace and safety. It was a long time before I could overcome their reluctance and ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... evening, therefore, was spent much more to her satisfaction; it was devoted to friendship, to mutual enquiries, to kind congratulations, and endearing recollections; and though it was late when she retired, she retired with reluctance. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... the building. They could not be kept back by authoritative assurances that the stones were sound, and were well and truly laid. The hysterical protests against the irreverence of examination fell on deaf ears. The answer was the simple insistance on investigation. The very reluctance to permit it was an indication that it would ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... think that you can conquer the South; and I never meet a soul, even those who would most wish it, who thinks it possible—that is, to conquer and retain it. I do not suppose the mass of people in your country will believe it, but I feel sure if we do go to war it will be with the utmost reluctance by all classes, Ministers of Government and all. Time will show, and it is no use writing or thinking about it. I called the other day on Dr. Boott, and was pleased to find him pretty well and cheerful. I see, by the way, he takes quite ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... with a loath and bewildered face, which gradually changes to one of suspicion, and of wonder as to what those fellows can possibly want of him, till at last the prevailing expression is one of contrite desire to atone for the first reluctance by any sort of service. The contributor professes to have observed these changing phases in the visages of those whom he that night called from their dreams, or arrested in the act of going to bed; and he drew the conclusion—very ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... civilization has been shattered. Work for work's sake, as the most glorious privilege of human faculties, has gone, both as an ideal and as a potent spirit. The conception of work as a degrading servitude, to be done with reluctance and grudging inefficiency, seems to be the ideal of millions of men of all ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... their ropes, some willingly enough, others with reluctance. Tad spliced them together, tested each knot with all his strength ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... no day went by but that some richer gift accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's. Ruth received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection. It were idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet it hurt her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions for the marriage, but went about her daily tasks ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... been this threat which overcame Major Kent's reluctance. It may have been a natural curiosity to find out what trouble Gallagher had got into with Mr. Billing: It may simply have been Dr. O'Grady's force of character which vanquished him. He allowed himself to ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... among the persecutors of his father? Or because, as he repeatedly assures us, Mr. Pitt was a disagreeable man in private? Not at all; but because Mr. Pitt was too fond of war, and was great with too little reluctance. Strange that a habitual scoffer like Walpole should imagine that this cant could impose on the dullest reader! If Moliere had put such a speech into the mouth of Tartuffe, we should have said that the fiction was unskilful, and that Orgon could not have been such a fool as to be taken in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The reluctance with which the freemen of the North submitted to the dictation of these conditions, is attested by the awkward and ambiguous language in which they are expressed. The word slave is most cautiously and fastidiously excluded from the whole instrument. A stranger, who should come from a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Mrs. Raymond's cell, I briefly told her the state of affairs and bade her follow me. She obeyed, as might be supposed, without much reluctance. We passed through the office and out into the street; but, before departing, I transferred the key from the inside to the outside of the door and locked the sleeping turnkey in, so that there could be no possibility of his immediately pursuing ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... brought her back to herself. She unfolded my arms with slow reluctance. "No, dearest," she said, earnestly, with a face where pride fought hard against love. "That is WHY, above all things, I did not want you to follow me. I love you; I trust you: you love me; you trust me. But I never will marry anyone till I have ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... sow dispos'd her progeny. Vile puss to gain her wicked ends, Much love for both of them pretends. First to the eagle's aerie mounts, And thus to her false alarms recounts: "Madam, in truth our dangerous state, 'Tis with reluctance I relate; But things are really gone so far, Conceal them I no longer dare. Night after night the treacherous sow Our tree has undermined below; Ere long it cannot choose but fall, And then she hopes to eat us all." Successful when she saw her lies, Down to the bristly sow she hies; "My worthy neighbor!" ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... dare say you look respectable and healthy," she said, as if conceding a point with no little reluctance, "but appearances are ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... hidden upside down and the woman concerned will not become pregnant. The method of transferring the influence of the afterbirth from the real mother to the victim was not explained, and in fact the practice was revealed with a good deal of reluctance. ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... ancient fame. More than anywhere else there reigned the distrust, so innate in the German people, of anything new, the sort of laziness in feeling anything true or powerful which has not been pondered and digested by several generations. It was apparent in the reluctance with which—if not the works of Wagner which are beyond discussion—every new work inspired by the Wagnerian spirit was accepted. And so the Wagner-Vereine would have had a useful task to fulfil if they had set themselves to defend ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Our conclusions must be drawn of course from the extant inscriptions which refer to guilds, and time may have dealt more harshly with the stones in one place than in another, or the Roman government may have given its consent to the establishment of such organizations with more reluctance in one province than another; but, taking into account the fact that we have guild inscriptions from four hundred and seventy-five towns and villages in the Empire, these elements of uncertainty in our conclusions are practically eliminated, and a fair comparison may be drawn ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... coming to an end, for in a month the rainy season would begin and this great park become a marsh. He went fluctuating between an excited eagerness for a renewal of rivalry and the interchange of ideas and the companionship of women; and a reluctance to leave a country which had so restored him to physical well-being. Never had he been so strong. He had recaptured, after his five years of London confinement, the swift spring of the muscles, the immediate response of the body to the demand ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... doubt you, Dunham, that I hesitate to reveal all I may happen to know; but from a strong reluctance to circulate an evil report concerning one of whom I have hitherto thought well. You must think well of the Pathfinder, or you would not wish to give him ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... an essential part of our being and the key to the interpretation of our life, we load ourselves down with a difficulty that has always proved burdensome in philosophies of religion. Theism, whenever it has erected itself into a systematic philosophy of the universe, has shown a reluctance to let God be anything less than All-in-All. In other words, philosophic theism has always shown a tendency to become pantheistic and monistic, and to consider the world as one unit of absolute fact; and this has been at variance with popular or practical theism, which latter has ever been more ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... am asked why the profession continues to prescribe these drinks, I answer; simply from the force of habit and traditional education, coupled with a reluctance to risk the experiment of omitting them while the general popular notions sanction their use. Nothing is easier than self-deception in this matter. A patient is suddenly taken with syncope, or nervous weakness, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... the seller's name). "Ar, powerful fine pig." Then the seller, saying also "Mr." (for twin brothers rocked in one cradle give each other ceremonious observance here), the seller, I say, admits, as though with reluctance, the strength and beauty of the pig, and falls into deep thought. Then the buyer says, as though moved by a great desire, that he is ready to give so much for the pig, naming half the proper price, or a little less. Then the seller remains in silence for some moments; ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... for a moment, grew as dark as a thunder-cloud, but it passed away in a sneer, and he contented himself with saying, "Are you so proud, also, my young sir?—It matters not, however. What did the Duke say to you? He showed no reluctance, I trust. We will bring his pride ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... exogamous subclasses. A modified regard for the totem or crest (kobong) appears in West Australia, according to Sir George Grey's report[809]; it is not allowable to kill a family kobong while it is asleep, and it is always with reluctance that ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turnspit dog gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write; yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address. Yet what shall I say now I'm entered? Shall I tire you with a description of this unfruitful country; where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... got some better clo'es to put on," he thought, as with reluctance he drew on the ragged attire which had served him for some months, getting more ragged and dirty every day. "I'll buy some as soon as I ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... DOUGLASS said his reluctance to come forward was not due to any lack of interest in the subject under discussion. For thirty years he had believed in human rights to all men and women. Nothing that has ever been proposed involved such vital ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... parents were alike determined in favour of the Church, a project with which this new one was inconsistent. Their embarrassment was but increased, when the Duke, on learning the nature of their scruples, desired them to think well before they decided. It was out of fear, and with reluctance that his proposal was accepted. Schiller enrolled himself in 1773; and turned, with a heavy heart, from freedom and cherished hopes, to ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... calculator. For desk work and office routine he had an unconquerable aversion; and his physical powers, had they remained at their best, must have proved quite unequal to the workshop training necessary to the practical engineer. Accordingly in 1871 it was agreed, not without natural reluctance on his father's part, that he should give up the hereditary vocation and read for the bar: literature, on which his heart was set, and in which his early attempts had been encouraged, being held to be by itself no profession, or at least one altogether too irregular and undefined. For ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... equally with myself. Birmingham, like a compassionate nurse, not only draws our persons, but our esteem, from the place of our nativity, and fixes it upon herself: I might add, I was hungry, and she fed me; thirsty, and she gave me drink; a stranger, and she took me in. I approached her with reluctance, because I did not know her; I shall leave her with reluctance, because ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... see me. I hovered aloof. It was only half past nine when she came—half an hour too early—but already a carriage was waiting, and a man, disguised in hat and cloak and flowing beard, stepped forward and accosted her at once. What he said to her I don't know, but he persuaded her, evidently with reluctance, to enter the carriage with him. The rain was pouring. I suppose that was why she went. In a moment the coachman had whipped up the horses, and they were ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... relation between certain parts of that infinitely varied mass, of which the rest of the universe is composed, and which ceases to exist as soon as those parts change their positions with regard to each other." His conclusion is that "the desire to be for ever as we are, the reluctance to a violent and unexperienced change," which is common to man and other living beings, is the "secret persuasion which has given birth to the opinions of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... chief, versed in the wiles and tricks with which the government was but too well supplied, uttered the vow with great reluctance, and only after he had received a written assurance that, whatever might be the result of the negotiations, his liberty should not be restricted in any respect, after he had proved that he had used his utmost efforts to induce the leader of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of taste recently as to reticence or indiscretion, there are still many people who can not only understand but thoroughly sympathise with Thackeray's disgust at the idea of having his "Life" written; and the even greater reluctance which he would certainly have felt at that of having his letters published. But, as has been suggested on a former occasion, when things are published there is nothing disgraceful in reading them: and it may be frankly admitted that lovers of English ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... good time, Sir Gilbert," answered the minister, with a superior smile, for he clung with hard reluctance to the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... reluctantly and tardily giving ground before something that is of a visibly underbred order. Increasingly underbred, and thereby insensibly approaching the character of this war situation, but accepted with visible reluctance and apprehension both by the ruling class and by the underlying population. The urgent necessity of going to such a basis, and of working out the matter in hand by an unblushing recourse to that matter-of-fact logic of mechanical efficiency, which alone can touch the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... two others followed his example, though with ill-concealed reluctance. "All, then, are not cowards," commented O-Tar. "The duty is distasteful. Therefore all three of you shall go, taking as many warriors as ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... madness, could not understand the reason of her desperate reluctance, and asked an old Druid-priest to set the conscience of the Princess at rest. Now this Druid, less religious than ambitious, sacrificed the cause of innocence and virtue to the favour of so great a monarch, and instead of trying ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... Ica, Ayacucho, Huancavelica), Mariategui (from Moquegua, Tacna, Puno), Nor Oriental del Maranon (from Lambayeque, Cajamarca, Amazonas), San Martin (from San Martin), Ucayali (from Ucayali); formation of another region has been delayed by the reluctance of the constitutional province of Callao to merge with the department of Lima; because of inadequate funding from the central government and organizational and political difficulties, the regions have yet to assume major responsibilities; ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... beside her dusky hair, and the velvety, blue-grey eyes, when she looked up, had caught the dreaming darkness of the heavens. Only now and then she glanced round. Mostly she sat with her eyes on the shadowy darkness and her work in her lap. And the Dutchman, gazing, felt with a sort of fierce reluctance that there were no women in the world for calmness and strength quite like the Englishwomen, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... disagreeable shock he realizes that he must be hungry. True, I had the crown piece, and before the sun had mounted I was sore tempted to spend it; but the vow I had inwardly made to keep it for its owner, together with a shame-faced reluctance to appear in my present condition before a fellow man, helped me for a time to bear my hunger. Yet I knew that I could not go long without food, and it would soon become imperative that I should pocket my pride and either change ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... otherwise soon became revealed, though not at first to her, for she was too bewildered to notice where they were going. Instead of turning and taking the road to Jim's, the Baron, as if influenced suddenly by her reluctance to return thither if Jim was playing truant, signalled to the coachman to take the branch road to the right, as ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... magic sword of King Arthur, which only he could unsheathe and wield. When he was about to die he requested a knight to throw it into a lake close by, who with some reluctance threw it, when a hand reached out to seize it, flourished it round three times, and then drew it under the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... persuasion and with bitter tears; and the new-born child was dropped into oblivion in the box of the asylum for foundlings. Next year the same easy expedient was again resorted to, with the same heedlessness on the part of the father, the same pain and reluctance on the part of the mother. Five children in all were thus put away, and with such entire absence of any precaution with a view to their identification in happier times, that not even a note was kept of the day ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the other day, Mrs. ——— mentioned the origin of Franklin's adoption of the customary civil dress, when going to court as a diplomatist. It was simply that his tailor had disappointed him of his court suit, and he wore his plain one with great reluctance, because he had no other. Afterwards, gaining great success and praise by his mishap, he continued to wear it ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Crescent, Wandsworth, this afternoon between the hours of three and four? The house is the residence of a Mrs. Culpin, widow of one of my Yard men who was killed last autumn. I am wiring her to expect you. But, knowing your reluctance in the matter of any clue to your identity being circulated, I have given you the name you adopted in the Bawdrey affair: "George Headland." I have also taken the same precaution with regard to Captain Morrison, leaving you to disclose your identity or not, as you ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... distrusted by the middle classes, as well as by the aristocracy, and threw himself more and more on the sympathy of the old revolutionists. When he came to fill up the higher offices, he met with a strange reluctance to accept them, and was driven to enlist the services of two regicides, the virtuous republican, Carnot, and the double-dyed traitor Fouche. Feeling the necessity of resting his power on a democratic basis, he promulgated a constitution ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... of gold. When I had held the precious treasure in my hand for a quarter of an hour (during which time I listened to a recital of its wonderful curative properties), I was compelled to restore it to its owner, which I could not help doing with a certain degree of reluctance.... My request that he would give me a piece of his stone (though it were no larger than a coriander seed), he somewhat brusquely refused, adding, in a milder tone, that he could not give it me for all the wealth I possessed, and that not on account of its great preciousness, but ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... clear-sighted. Rosina's faults were patent to his memory; the magic of her beauty less invincible. Within a month all was changed again. Rosina fretted herself into what she contrived to have reported to Bulwer-Lytton as an illness. She begged for an interview, and he went with reluctance to bid her farewell for ever. It was Bulwer-Lytton's habit to take with him a masterpiece of literature upon every journey. It seems unfortunate that on this occasion The Tempest was not his companion, for it might have warned him, as Prospero warned Ferdinand, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? ... Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... angry," whispered General von Kockeritz; "he only yielded with the utmost reluctance; and, believe me, my friend, the king will never forgive us this victory we have obtained over him; it may produce the worst results and ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... power of Erling's muscles restrained Glumm, the deep-toned impassioned earnestness of his voice held back Ulf, who had leaped up and drawn his sword; but it was with evident reluctance that he ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... things in fair Italy, as doubtless there are in fair England, to which there is no reluctance on our part to bid adieu, and among them, to descend to smaller grievances, are the exorbitant hotel charges; disgusting railway station accommodation; and dirty railway carriages, owing chiefly to the national ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... had been discussed between these two with much interest; but Rose had given up all thought of it with great apparent reluctance, and nothing had been said about it for some days. Judging from what her own feelings would have been in similar circumstances, Fanny doubted the ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find all over the world fragmentary ceremonies in which the bride affects some sort of reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from him. The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a survival of Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that the veil thrown over the bride is really a net. I gravely doubt whether ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... of equal strength act differently on different temperaments. The same motive, when it stands alone, with no opposing motive, has not the same effect on different minds. There is in the will of every human being a certain reluctance to action—in some greater, in others less—corresponding to the vis inertiae in inanimate substances; and as the impulse which will move a wooden ball may not suffice to move a leaden ball, so the motive which will start into action a quick and sensitive temperament, may produce ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... Louis himself been in the boat at that moment, it would be his fate to row a British subject thus. "At these last mighty words," says the Memoirs, "a stern resolution sat upon his countenance, which the Canadian beheld and with reluctance temporized." After a series of adventures, and dangers of every kind, the fugitives succeeded in capturing a French boat. Next, they surprised a French sloop, and, after a most hazardous voyage, they finally, in their prize, landed at Louisbourg, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... right length and thickness of these pole pieces should be. It was found an advantage not to use too thin pole pieces, otherwise the magnetism from the permanent magnet did not pass through the iron without considerable reluctance, being choked by insufficiency of section: also not to use too thick pieces, otherwise they presented too much surface for leakage across from one to the other. Eventually a particular length was settled upon, in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... town. This section of country, being higher and more rolling than that in the neighborhood of Booneville, had many advantages in the way of better camping-grounds, better grazing and the like, but I moved with reluctance, because I feared that my proximity to Asboth would diminish to a certain ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... to Grant, to Burnside, to Sherman, and later to Foster, [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. pp. 358, 365, 391-393; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 368.] but with no effect, except that Grant was displeased with his original reluctance to march to Burnside's relief as well as with these protests. The result showed itself in the spring, when Granger was relieved from the command of the corps, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... is determined that we shall pay homage to his wealth, and admire his taste, and drink the bitter cup of humiliation to the very dregs. If he had any real delicacy of feeling, he would understand our reluctance to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... determined, so far as in him lay, that the United Netherlands should never fall back under the dominion of Spain. He had long maintained the impossibility of effecting their thorough independence except by continuing the war, and had only with reluctance acquiesced in the arguments of the French ambassadors in favour of peace negotiations. As to the truce, he vehemently assured those envoys that it was but a trap. How could the Netherlanders know who their friends ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... were tightly joined, and while the old bird's was being gradually withdrawn, they were shaken convulsively,—by the mother's attempts to disgorge, and perhaps by the young fellow's efforts to hasten the operation. It was plain that he let go with reluctance, as a boy sucks the very tip of the spoon to get the last drop of jam; but, as will be mentioned in the course of the narrative, his behavior improved greatly in this respect as he ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... those, who, in despite of their own assertions, say they are acquainted with the views, with the determination of these beings, will seldom do more than render virtue unpleasant; fear alone will then make us practise with reluctance, that which reason, which our own immediate interest, ought to make us execute with pleasure. The inculcation of terrible ideas will only serve to disturb honest persons, without in the least arresting the progress of the profligate, or diverting the course of the flagitious: the greater number ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... supposed to know their way to her presence. Hepworth lingered a moment in the hall. Those beautiful marble people seemed enticing him to stay, and, for the instant, he felt an unaccountable reluctance to present himself before the actress; a feeling of humiliation came upon him that he should be willing to visit any woman whom the lady of his love could not meet on equal terms. What right had ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... I would have embraced death without any reluctance, had it presented itself to me. But what we wish, whether it be good or evil, will not always happen according to our desire. Nevertheless, considering that all my tears and sorrows would not restore ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... habit of doing, we landed at our usual time on the left bank, and while the people were pitching the tents, I walked down the bank with M'Leay, to treat with these desperadoes in the best way we could, across the water, a measure to which my men showed great reluctance, declaring that if during our absence the natives approached them, they would undoubtedly fire upon them. I assured them it was not my intention to go out of their sight. We took our guns with us, but determined not to use them until the last extremity, both ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... understand me clearly; every month that you faithfully bring me an account of certain goings on, I will count into your hand five and twenty ." I must confess that Marin only accepted my proposition with much reluctance, but still he did accept it, and withdrew, meditating, no doubt, how he should be enabled to satisfy both Chamilly and myself. A long time elapsed before Marin brought me any news of importance, and I began to feel considerable doubts of his ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... on "The Present Status of Darwinism"—Explains the Reluctance of certain men of Science to ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... amiable, and self-possessed, sitting in a corner by Lady Findon, who smiled and chatted incessantly. And it was clear to him that Welby was the spoilt child of the room. Wherever he went men and women grouped themselves about him; there was a constant eagerness to capture him, an equal reluctance to let him go. ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with a great show of reluctance, "they pretend that you have allowed yourself to be deceived by me, and that you haven't weighed at their proper ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... as in slight reluctance to say; then the curtain, which he saw about to rise, came to his aid. "I'll tell you next time." But when the next time came he only said he'd tell her later on—after they should have left the theatre; for she had immediately ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... could not go. Up on this I expressed my deepest regrets, and I hoped that Miss O'Halloran would come. But Marion demurred, and said she wouldn't leave Nora. Whereupon Nora urged her to go, and finally, after evident reluctance, Marion allowed ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... had not been quite all he had dreamed, this woman not so ardent. He had glimpsed couples here and there that set him to imagining more consuming passions. Here again he had not explored very deep. But he had dismissed regrets like these with only a slight reluctance. For if they had settled down a bit with the coming of their children, their love had grown rich in sympathies and silent understandings, in humorous enjoyment of their funny little daughters' chattering like magpies ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... my young gentleman patronisingly replies that he 'appreciates my reluctance, and reserves them ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Horseshoe Robinson." In their present form his works cannot be accepted even as offering material on which to form a judgment, except in so far as they contain repetitions of statements given by Ramsey or Putnam. I say this with real reluctance, for my relations with Mr. Gilmore personally have been pleasant. I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books; but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what was drawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremely untrustworthy. Oral tradition has ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... been making inquiries this morning," I replied with some reluctance, "and I learn to my blank amazement that there is no such person as ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... you ought to choose one of the others first?" Bert, considerably embarrassed by the sudden attention, mumbled as he moved with pretended reluctance but secret eagerness out ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... lay aside his suggestion of cold semi-reluctance more readily than any man who knew his business would have laid it aside. His manner at the outset was quite perfect. His sole ineptitude lay in his feeling a too great confidence in the exact quality of his companion's type, as he summed it up. He did not calculate on the variations ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... integrity of our ministry, and whom nothing has been able to reconcile to our late measures. He, therefore, who has never exerted himself in defence of the ministry, was, in his turn, thought unworthy of ministerial protection, and was given up to the chance of war without reluctance. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... this Exhibition by inviting your inspection of the wonderful live 'orse with five legs. (To the depressed Cart-horse.) 'Old up! (The poor beast lifts his off-fore-leg with obvious reluctance, and discloses a very small supernumerary hoof concealed behind the fetlock.) Examine it! for yourselves—two distinct 'oofs with shoes and nails ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... life. Pharaoh Daggs, step forward and unloose the rope!" The man with the broken nose fixed his light eyes on the Captain's for a full five seconds. Bonnet's pistol muzzle was as steady as a rock. Then the sailor's eyes shifted and he obeyed with a sullen reluctance. Jeremy, liberated, climbed to his knees and stood up swaying. Just then there was a rush of feet behind. He turned in time to see Job Howland vanish head foremost over the rail in a long clean dive. The astonished crew ran cursing to the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... our own little company broke up, loath to leave the charming spectacle. The guests departed with the greatest reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to lock the door. Mrs. Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come very early next morning for the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unable to secure justice from outsiders, and unwilling to do justice to those outsiders who treat it well, may result in our having to take action to protect our rights; but such action will not be taken with a view to territorial aggression, and it will be taken at all only with extreme reluctance and when it has become evident that every other resource ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... course, there was a good deal of astonishment and confusion and reluctance when this extraordinary plan came out. No one had imagined precisely this turn in Ethel's originality. Her mother was in a state of paralyzed dismay at an idea so wildly unconventional; the twins and her brothers and Miss Nancy Bangs ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... passed, the counteraction which a kind and watchful guardian might have opposed to such example and influence was almost wholly lost to him. Connected but remotely with the family, and never having had any opportunity of knowing the boy, it was with much reluctance that Lord Carlisle originally undertook the trust; nor can we wonder that, when his duties as a guardian brought him acquainted with Mrs. Byron, he should be deterred from interfering more than was absolutely necessary for the child by his fear of coming into collision ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... Something in her, fitfully and with reluctance, struggled to free itself, but the warmth of his nearness penetrated every sense as the sunlight steeped the landscape. Then, suddenly, she felt that she wanted no less than the whole ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... with an air of reluctance. "Well, I will see about it. Ef I can crawl troo de sentries, and bring some for you and de oders, I will. It will help keep you awake and keep ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... With some reluctance she took off a sort of half-stovepipe hat, and covered her face with her handkerchief while I looked into it. I found a package of newly printed confederate bonds, and a quantity of court plaster. That settled it. She cried a little, and wanted to go into the ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... look at the comfortable quarters he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... says of the Eskimo of East Greenland, that "they seemed to consider man as consisting of three independent parts,—soul, body, name" (517. 122). One can easily understand the mysterious associations of the name, the taboos of its utterance or pronunciation so common among primitive peoples—the reluctance to speak the name of a dead person, as well as the desire to confer the name of such a one upon a new-born child, spring both from ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... reason, the natural reluctance of Gaudry, or perhaps a feeling of compunction in the heart of the widow, this plan was not put into immediate execution. Possibly she hesitated before adopting a plan more cruel, more efficacious. Her ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... than again encounter the Saxons. When Otto and Welf were thus assured of Henry's immediate inability to injure them, they disbanded the troops which had served them so gallantly. Much as the soldiers longed to return to their homes, they did not part without some reluctance. They had long toiled side by side in the same glorious cause; they had shared the same dangers and the same pleasures. They had slept and kept watch together. Reminiscences of hair-breadth escapes and of mutual services had created friendships of ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... admits and is willing to patronize in addition to the two former and exclusive ones of vice and misery, in the second and remaining editions of his work. Mr. Malthus has shewn some awkwardness or even reluctance in softening down the harshness of his first peremptory decision. He sometimes grants his grand exception cordially, proceeds to argue stoutly, and to try conclusions upon it; at other times he seems disposed to cavil about or ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... But with deep reluctance one is bound to assert that the advocates of Universal Salvation to a great degree ignore or explain away unsatisfactorily much of the sterner side of the Bible. For amid all its hopefulness there is a steadily ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... breast. He spoke slowly, groping for his words. MacRae did not interrupt. Something compelled him to listen. There was a pained ring in Gower's voice that held him. The man was telling him these things with visible reluctance, with a simple dignity that arrested him, even while he felt that he should ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... varieties of coral and fish and crabs and strange grotesque creatures low in the scale of life which are unceasingly at work within "coo-ee." The complexity of the subject from a scientific aspect is sufficient justification for reluctance to set down anything beyond casual experiences and personal observation, and the record of ever-recurring pleasure obtained from the delights of the marine garden. Special attainments and varied lore must be at the command of the student who would attempt to classify ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Lunarian Church Party had all along Preach'd up for a part of their Religion, that Absolute undisputed Obedience, was due from every Subject to their Prince without any Reserve, Reluctance or Repining; that as to Resistance, it was Fatal to Body, Soul, Religion, Justice and Government; and tho' the Doctrine was Repugnant to Nature, and to the very Supreme Command it self, yet he that resisted, receiv'd to himself Damnation, just for all the World like our Doctrine of Passive Obedience. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... sacrifice to take the place of the Broken Lady, that when Mother began to dress her little boy she imagined that all thought of trousers had gone from him. But it was not so. With prompt disfavor he regarded the blue suit of kilts edged with lacy braid, and although there was reluctance in Mother's heart, she began to ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... put out her hand a very little way, very slowly, and with seeming reluctance. He took it, and held it prisoner. When she thought it had been there long enough, she tried gently to draw it away. He held it tight: it submitted quite patiently to force. What is the use resisting force. She turned her head away, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... hands together, as if thereby crushing her reluctance to enter, she waited a moment, with closed eyes, while her lips moved in silent prayer; then ascending the terrace, she crossed the stone pavement, walked up the stops and slowly advanced to the threshold. The dark mahogany door ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... my own guide about two miles in a journey of little more than half a mile! But, strange to say, the horse was of Zoega's opinion respecting roads through Iceland. He would not budge into the bog till I inflicted some rather strong arguments upon him, and then he went in with great reluctance. Before we had proceeded a dozen yards he sank up to his belly in the mire, and left me perched up on two matted tufts about four feet apart. Any disinterested spectator would have supposed at once that I was attempting to favor my guide with a representation of the colossal ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... he was cogent and he was emphatic. He explained what he had done and why he had done it. He was frank and free with that selected few. He delicately made known the General's reluctance, but stated in his behalf his willingness to step into the breach at this eleventh hour for the sake of his party. Then Thornton went first to Colonel Wadsworth, drew him along to Linton, and told them what ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... clergy, in a body, remonstrated with him, assuring him that God had placed him upon the throne expressly that he might punish the wicked and thus protect the good. He felt the force of this reasoning, and instituted, though with much reluctance, a more rigorous government. War had been his passion. In this respect also his whole nature seemed to be changed, and nothing but the most dire necessity could lead him to an appeal to arms. The princess Anne appears to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... of explorers subsequently made ready to leave, signs of reluctance to have them go were apparent among the Indians. Finally, several of the chief warriors sat on the rope that held the boat to the shore. Irritated by this, Captain Lewis got ready to fire upon the warriors, but, anxious to ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... he would have been glad to question Dowie daily and closely, a certain reluctance of mind held him back. Also he realised that, being a primitive though excellent woman, Dowie herself was secretly awed into avoidance of the subject. He believed that she knelt by her bedside each night in actual fear, ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the fixed ropes to lay hold of I climbed fast. I relinquished such holds upon solidity with reluctance. That yonder was the top, said my men, but for fully half a minute I declined to go any further. For it was quite obvious to me that I should never get down again. But again I shrugged my shoulders and went on. I might just as well ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts |
