"Reticence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but she could not have employed a more convincing eloquence. The reticence wrought upon Eileen's nerves. After a couple of months of maternal meekness and family poverty, the suggested sacrifice began to appeal to her. A letter from Doherty on his steamer (forwarded to her from Paris by Marcelle), ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... God have been chastened and awed by their quick deliverance, and their paean is in the solemn tone of temple psalmody, the first striking bit of local color which the composer has introduced into his score—a reticence on his part of which it may be said that it is all the more remarkable from the fact that local color ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the splendid lines of his muscular shoulders. He had grown to a physical manhood which had the leopard's lithe grace and the lion's gravity. His dimpled and clean-shaven chin was strong, and the line of his lips firm. His eyes were steady and penetrating, giving an impression of reticence. His hands were slender and brown, and soft in the palms as those of a girl. The citizens marveled over him as he moved slowly through the streets, thinking himself quite indistinguishable among the other young men in dark ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... of incidents you often get, but it is not Art. The effect is produced entirely by a bald brutality of statement, the African having no artistic reticence whatsoever. One fine touch, however, which does not come in under this class was told me by my lamented friend Mr. Harris of Calabar. Some years ago he had out a consignment of Dutch clocks with hanging weights, as is natural to the Dutch clock. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... comical reticence, 'I never allow myself to criticise the conduct of a person who honors me with the gift ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... mind at ease: the leisurely rolling gait, the ready laugh, the hospitable eye of the man whose sympathies are always on the latch. It took me some time to discover under his surface garrulity the impenetrable reticence of his profession, and under his enjoyment of trifles a levelling melancholy which made all enjoyment trifling. Don Egidio's aspect and conversation were so unsuggestive of psychological complexities that I set down this trait to poverty or ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... upon the health and well-being of the community as a whole. This ignorance of the nature of the problem and of the grave issues involved naturally stands in the way of the evil being grappled with effectually. Furthermore, the policy of reticence which has prevailed in the past, while it has led to the omission of proper instruction of the young, either by their parents or as part of our system of education, has not prevented the dissemination of an incomplete or perverted knowledge ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... his joy. The next day he had been sober and from that day forth he had not taken even a drink. It was noted also that nothing was doing in the direction of developing his mine; and another quality, the rare gift of reticence, had taken the place of his brag. He sat off by himself, absent-minded and brooding, which was not like the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... motor-ride when the meal was over, but at the end of it, it seemed to Vera that they had talked solely of her affairs throughout. She knew Juliet's quiet reticence of old and made no attempt to pierce it. But, thinking it over later, it seemed to her that there was something more than her usual reserve behind it, and a vague sense of uneasiness awoke within her. She wondered if Juliet ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... which have elapsed since I left Cairo I have, for various reasons on which it is unnecessary to dwell, carefully abstained from taking any part in whatever discussions have arisen on current Egyptian affairs. If I now depart from the reticence which I have hitherto observed it is because there appears at all events some slight prospect that the main reform which is required to render the government and administration of Egypt efficient will be seriously considered. As ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also, her enchanting, peculiar gait—a gait which belonged to her alone—was so ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... remind her very strongly of Lashmar's philosophic eloquence. She looked closer; found that there was question of a French book of some importance, recently published; and smilingly asked herself whether it could be that Lashmar knew this book. That he was capable of reticence regarding the source of his ideas, she had little doubt; and what would be more amusing than to see "the coming man" convicted of audacious plagiarism? She wished him no harm; none whatever. It delighted her to see a man ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... lady would have had him keep silence at least till the fifteen-year-old maiden should be confirmed. The ease and unconstraint of that mountain home-life, however, were not very favourable to reserve and reticence; a spray of white heather, offered and received as the national emblem of good fortune, was made the flower symbol of something more, and words were spoken that effectually bound the two young hearts, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... and the flush deepened on his face; but he was too young to have learned the lesson of reticence, and there was something in the free atmosphere of this place which prompted ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... paying for the horses he would be surprised. Still, he could not quote the language; but he gave his impressions. Stannard had called Merrill to witness the statement; then, giving Wilkins injunctions to say nothing more to anybody on the subject, and pledging Merrill to reticence, he had gone home, written brief and hurried letters to Ray and to Gleason, told his wife that he had heard the stories, and that until Ray had a chance to explain would regard them as baseless rumors, or at the worst as exaggerations, for which Gleason was responsible; ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Kentuckian is curious to learn the details, about which, for some reason, the Mexican has hitherto preserved silence. His reticence has been due to an injunction of the doctor, who, still under some anxiety about the recovery of his patient, forbade imparting to him particulars that might have an injurious effect on his nervous system, sadly debilitated by the shock it ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Their reticence continued until the rocky shores of the Isle of Skye were reached, and the boat was put into one of the many inlets that break its irregular contour. Silence, indeed, was maintained until they had landed on a rocky shelf, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... no right to force himself or his love upon her. He has no right to make sure of any woman's love before he has asked her for it, unless, of course, she has {26} betrayed herself by an unwomanly want of reticence. It is both foolish and ill-bred for him to play the part of dog-in-the-manger and to object to her receiving attentions from any one else. Until he has declared himself he can assume no control over the disposal of her favours, ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... preceded by Morgan, took his leave of Major Pendennis; the Chevalier not a little puzzled at the old fellow's prudence; and the valet, to say the truth, to the full as much perplexed at his master's reticence. For Mr. Morgan, in his capacity of accomplished valet, moved here and there in a house as silent as a shadow; and, as it so happened, during the latter part of his master's conversation with his visitor, had been standing very close to the door, and had overheard ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... an abundance of blisters and bandages and some "potent purgatives," I had prepared myself to render first and last aid to the hurt in my own party. In taking instructions from our family physician, I had learned the value of a profound air of great gravity, a noble reticence, and a total absence of doubt, when I did speak. I compressed his creed into a single phrase: "In case of doubt, look wise and work on his 'bowels.'" This simple equipment soon gave me a surprisingly high standing among the men. I was a medicine ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... cryptography, steganography[obs3]; freemasonry. stealth, stealthiness, sneakiness; obreption|; slyness &c. (cunning) 702. latitancy[obs3], latitation[obs3]; seclusion &c. 893; privacy, secrecy, secretness[obs3]; incognita. reticence; reserve; mental reserve, reservation; arriere pensee[Fr], suppression, evasion, white lie, misprision; silence &c. (taciturnity) 585; suppression of truth &c. 544; underhand dealing; closeness, secretiveness &c. adj.; mystery. latency &c. 526; snake in the grass; secret &c. 533; stowaway. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of that reason, dear madame," I soothingly said; "because reticence is art's brightest crown; because Zola never gives us a real human document and Flaubert does; and the difference is a difference of method. Flaubert is magnificently naked, but his nakedness ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... unselfish creature,' replied my father, with the credulity of a child; 'I never saw another young person just like her. She's so deep and hidden in her nature, one cannot easily read her thoughts. I wish sometimes she was more open and confiding; but she is a darling, for all her reticence.' ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... meantime a scene not unlike that at Truesdale was being enacted in and about the Manchester station. There was the same reticence, and the studied quiet and perfect discipline were even more pronounced; for with Jim and Harvey to issue orders, and with Mattison and Mallory to execute them, the chance of a slip or a misunderstanding was too slight to be considered. ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... in quills, carried behind the ear, and sold at Suez—not at Cairo for fear of consequences. Yet neither promises nor bribes would persuade the poorest to break through the rule of silence. The whole might have been a canard: on the other hand, there was also a valid reason for reticence; the open mouth would not long have led to a sound throat. So our many informants contented themselves with telling us frequent tales of gold ornaments picked up after rain; they showed us a ring made from a bit found on the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... one factor of the situation, the existence of horrid calamities, and of deplorable abuses in the world of sex, evils of which surely the average person knew rather little, and which were systematically hidden from society, and above all, from the youth, by the traditional method of reticence. To recognize these abscesses in the social organism necessarily means for every decent being the sincere and enthusiastic hope of removing them. There cannot be any dissent. It is a holy war, if society fights for clean living, for protection of its children ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... or shortcomings which would not come to light when the captain was on the high-road to such disclosures; for a wise and discreet reticence was not his ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely what ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Schoolboy reticence went no further, but Emmeline filled in the gaps for herself with the lavish splendour of feminine imagination. Francesca's bridge went ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... was a man of great reticence and severe military habits, and if the plan were weak or foolish, as might well be from the utter lack of experience of the young officer who was to make it, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... being thus renewed, I could not but remember my last conversation with Joliet—his way of acquainting me with her absence from home, his mention of her godmother in Brussels, and his strange reticence as I pressed the subject. A slight chill, owing perhaps to the undue warmth of my admiration for this delicate creature, fell over my first cordiality. I asked a question or two, assuming a kind, elderly type of interest: "How do you find yourself here in Carlsruhe? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... mine—a barrister with antiquarian tastes—was dining with me in my Cornish home, and the talk after dinner fell upon the weekly papers and reviews. On The Speaker he touched with a reticence which I set down at first to dislike for his politics. By and by, however, he ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... responsible for her foolishness; but she could not talk with Madeleine on the subject without discussing Mr. Ratcliffe, and Carrington had expressly forbidden her to attack Mr. Ratcliffe until it was clear that Ratcliffe had laid himself open to attack. This reticence deceived poor Mrs. Lee, who saw in her sister's moods only that unrequited attachment for which she held herself solely to blame. Her gross negligence in allowing Sybil to be improperly exposed to such a risk weighed heavily on her mind. With a saint's capacity for self-torment, Madeleine wielded ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... A doom of reticence is upon all our shy confraternity, and we seldom make confidences even to each other. It is only at rarest intervals that the spell is lifted, by silent sympathy, by a smile, by a tear, by I know not what. At such times ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... your position," he assured her. "I take that for granted. No one with a spark of kindly feeling could look at this matter except in one way. Now, you must admit that I have behaved beautifully. I have made no attempt to surprise your reticence, or even to discover your name. Truly, I haven't made the faintest effort to entrap you into any revelations, have I? Now, I am sure that we must know quantities of the same people, and all I ask is that you mention ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... continued the Cynic. "We find a contempt for the old virtues of simplicity and reticence; we find the distinction of sex wiped out, and with it all reverence and sense of mystery. Nature is a back number with them; they must for ever be plastering their noses with powder—not just privily, as used to be the better way of faded charmers, but shamelessly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... say, is paid for it. Again, however simple-hearted and courteous he may be, he never gets very close home to the poor. Their life is not his life, nor their ways his ways. They do not understand his refinement, his delicacy about interference, his gentlemanly reticence, his abhorrence of gossip and scandal. They are accustomed to be ordered about, to rough words, to gossip over their neighbours. And so the District Visitor is "more in their way," as they tell her. She is profuse ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... event of this question being decided in the affirmative—also to ascertain the precise locality of the said creek. Of course it would have been a very simple matter to put the question directly to Don Manuel; but he had evinced such very palpable embarrassment and reticence whenever Madera's name had been mentioned that I thought it would be better to rely, in the first instance at all events, upon my own personal investigations. So when I left the house that morning it was with the determination to ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... in them, she shrank into a state of distress which seemed to plead with him to refrain from even the tenderest touch on her feelings. It was a peculiarity of their friendship that silence and absence had always mysteriously fostered its growth; and he now felt that her reticence deepened the understanding between them as the freest ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... procuring fire, and passed a comfortable night. When I resumed my journey the next day the sun was just rising. Whenever I was disposed, as was often the case, to question the wisdom of the change of routes, my old friend appeared to be near with words of encouragement, but his reticence on other subjects both surprised and annoyed me. I was impressed at times, during the entire journey with the belief that my return was a fatal error, and if my deliverance had failed should have perished with that conviction. Early this day I deflected from my old route and took ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... the voice. 'I shall never be far off, I think. When you've found Camilla and brought her here'—the tone of the voice changed and grew almost malignant despite its reticence—'you'd like to know that I was always near to, somewhere ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... and never could utter a word of the German tongue, still carried, deep in his nature, an odd compound of Indian and German transcendentalism; essentially Indian in opinion and prejudice, but German in instinct and thought. A little liquor only mellowed him—it thawed away the last remnant of Indian reticence. He talked with his associates upon all the knotty questions of law, art, and religion. Indian Theism and Pantheism were measured against the Gospel as taught by the land-seeking, fur-buying adventurers. A good class of missionaries had, indeed, entered ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... His reticence now is noteworthy, but later on it is perfectly astonishing. He is so absorbed in making discoveries that he actually has to be reminded to tell any one about them, and some one else always has to see to the ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Either Hilda must have all that was hers, by marrying Greif, or Rex must tell the story and precipitate the catastrophe. The only condition of his concealing what he knew, was that every one except himself should gain by his reticence. If this could not be accomplished justice must be done in ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... obscure Parnassians betrayed its creator, Cabell—impelled by some fantastic reticence—sought for more subtle makeshifts to hide the poet. The unwritten thesis, plunging abruptly into the realm of analytical psychology, will detail the steps Cabell has taken, as a result of early associative disappointments, to repress or at least to disguise, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... clearly a work of Kalidasa's immaturity. The youthful love-song in it does not reach the sublime reticence which is in Shakuntala and Kumara-Sambhava. But the tune of these voluptuous outbreaks is set to the varied harmony of Nature's symphony. The moonbeams of the summer evening, resonant with the flow of fountains, acknowledge ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... terrible, and she fought against herself continually. And she not only tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love the bulldog. The last chance of success in the second enterprise went out finally when Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy reticence of manner as actually to put his arm about her waist. Then every fibre of her body cried out against him, and she escaped him, shivering and thrilling with a repulsion so strong that it seemed like a crime to her. How dared ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... therefore the euphemism, without material clog upon the perquisites, as post trader at Fort Frayne. No one knew how much he was worth, for while apparently a most open-hearted, whole-souled fellow, Hay was reticence itself when his fortunes or his family were matters of question or comment. He had long been married, and Mrs. Hay, when at the post, was a social sphinx,—kind-hearted, charitable, lavish to the soldiers' wives and children, and devotion itself to the families of the officers when sickness ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... pathetic reminder in her father's communication. Her freshness would pass, the long-suffering devotion of Giles might suddenly end—might end that very hour. Men were so strange. The thought took away from her all her former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her seat. If the little breach, quarrel, or whatever it might be called, of yesterday, was to be healed up it must be done by her on the instant. She crossed into the orchard, and clambered through the gap after Giles, just ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... like." She had a splendid comradeship of manner. Her father's energy stopped short of bluster in her. Borne up on her breezy westernism was a fragrant reserve, a fine reticence that ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... a very annoying thing, Miss Pond," he began, as the cab started back along the tree-bordered road. "A most annoying thing; privacy was absolutely essential. Here is something done, a big thing, too; and when only privacy, reticence, quiet are essential, we have this infernal fuss ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Harpers had grown up in full knowledge of and sympathy with their parents' anxieties. Living as they did, in closest family union, it would have been all but impossible to prevent its being so, save by some forced and unnatural reticence, the evil of which would have been greater than the risk of saddening the children ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Virgin. She calmly set herself above dogma, and, with feminine indifference to authority, overruled it. He, having asserted in the strongest terms the principle of obedience, paid no further attention to dogma, but, without the least reticence, insisted on practices and ideas that no Church could possibly permit or avow. Toward the end of his life, his physician cauterized his ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... displayed less reticence regarding your station in the world to that woman you were in love ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... felt that she could stand anything if only her mother would fly into a rage—when she positively envied Florrie Spencer because her plebeian parent scolded her at the top of her voice instead of maintaining a calm and ladylike reticence. But Mrs. Carr was one of those women who never, even in the most trying circumstances, cease to be patient, who never lose for an instant so much as the palest or the thinnest ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... perhaps, the muscular divine. Even in the grouping and narration of its old incidents it exhibits no dramatic power, and little skill of characterization in the portraiture of its personages. And not only does a matter-of-fact air pervade the narrative, but the tale is told with such reticence of fact as well as of feeling, that it reveals but little of the real life of a London courtesan, and leaves the reader almost as ignorant as he was when he took up the book of what it is that makes the horror of such existence; all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... believed this impossible, but so it is. I am thankful to say, however, that he has every reason to hope that the future, after this, is secure. I have chosen you to care for him, because I know your ability; have heard of your powers of reticence and cheerfulness. I ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... while he and Hannah had been doing their best to drive Sandy's son to perdition through a downward course of 'loafing,' God had sent Mr. Dyson to put Davy back on the right road. But he was ill at ease; he watched the excitement, which all the lad's prickly reticence could not hide from those about him, with strange and variable feelings. As a Christian, he should have rejoiced; instead, the uncle and nephew shunned each other more than ever, and shunned especially all talk of the revival. Perhaps the whole situation—the influence ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Perhaps on the road next day his unwillingness to be communicative about Monsieur de Merri would have passed away. But meanwhile, what was the cause of that unwillingness? Did he know, after all, what had occurred at La Fleche, and had he begun to suspect me? I inwardly cursed his reticence, and went soon to bed, that I might ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and courteous that you'd hardly have guessed his errand. And at intervals they come all day. Not a tear have I seen yet. They take it as a part of the price of greatness and of empire. You guess at their grief only by their reticence. They use as few words as possible and then courteously take themselves away. It isn't an accident that these people own a fifth of the world. Utterly unwarlike, they outlast anybody else when war comes. You don't get a sense ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... sensitiveness, guessed the fact that just now further discussion of the event would be distasteful to Mary, and so she betook herself discreetly to a cigarette and the illustrations of a popular magazine devoted to the stage. As for the man, his reticence was really from a fear lest in speaking at all he might speak too freely, might betray the pervasive violence of his feeling. So, he sat motionless and wordless, his eyes carefully avoiding Mary in order that she might not be disturbed by the invisible vibrations thus ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... keen to know what Sam had come for. The last time they had heard of him he was a freighter. His reticence stimulated their curiosity. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... considerably puzzled, not to say piqued, by this curious reticence; he begged hard for names; but Medhurst was adamant. "No, no," he replied; "we detectives have our own just pride in our profession. If I told you now, you would probably spoil all by some premature action. You are ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... tells us how and why; but if not—perhaps because it is some relief to her to forget for a time the scenes of suffering in which she has been acting the part of comforter, and perhaps because there always was a shy, sweet reticence about her—we never should know what she is and what she does, except from the poor people themselves, who would bless her in words if the very thought of her did not choke them with tears. Yet, I do assure you, she passes ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... another, dated 1850, and attached evidently to some birthday present, was: 'Many years to my poor little Jeannie, and may the worst of them be past. No good that is in me to give her shall ever be wanting while I live. May God bless her.' How strange that this apostle of reticence should have such privacies as these laid open before the curious public within so few years ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... through the circle of his intimate friends, he is obliged to confess that they are far from being perfect. They possess neither the beauty of Apollo, nor the wisdom of Solon, nor the wit of Mercutio, nor the reticence of Napoleon III. If pushed hard he will be constrained to admit that he has known each and all get angry without sufficient occasion, make at times the foolishest remarks, and act as if personal comfort were the highest thing in their estimation. Yet, driven thus to the wall, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... faith by your father. No offence, I am certain, was intended; erroneous information—a little hastiness in jumping to conclusions—a sensitive nature wounded by the least insinuation—such were the unfortunate causes of Tulliwuddle's excusable reticence. Believe me, if you knew all, your opinion of him would alter very, ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... grizzled military moustache, but his hair was singularly black for a man of his years. He made no allusion in his conversation to the numerous campaigns in which he had distinguished himself, and the reason usually given for his reticence was that they dated back to such early Victorian days that he had to sacrifice his military glory at the shrine of his ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been restless. Her coy ways and her reticence had finally annoyed the man; stopping suddenly, he stood up and ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... no language, and the shame and confusion that we would not, and even dare not, trail across a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... has no conversation. I've never discovered a single topic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare say you're right.' I really thought her reticence about the fall of the Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother used to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles away long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, snapping at one's food in mid-air, ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... the time when he left Cambridge, and the time when he entered the House of Commons, may be characterised as belonging to the type of duty-letters, treating of politics, legal gossip, personal adventures, and domestic incidents, with some reticence and little warmth or ease of expression, The periodical insertion on the son's part of anecdotes and observations bearing upon the question of Slavery reminds the reader of those presents of tall recruits with which, at judiciously chosen intervals, Frederic the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... utterance in the words. It is a delicate thing for a man to speak about himself, and his own religious experience. Our English reticence, our social habits, and many other even less worthy hindrances rise in the way; and I should be the last man to urge Christian people to cast their pearls before swine, or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... high places. Believe me, your popularity is doubled. And the strange fellow himself, having money in his pocket and that voice of his in magnificent order, is to be seen everywhere, smiling mysteriously and observing a most significant reticence when he is pressed to say that he spoke at your request and to your pattern. But for your Majesty's own letters I should not have ventured to be a dissenter from the received opinion; if you bid me, at any moment I will gladly renounce my heresy and embrace the orthodox ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Miss Evelina had refused to tell him the man's name, and he honoured her for her reticence. He perceived, too, the hideous temptation with which she was grappling when she begged him to leave her. She had feared that she would tell him, and he must never let ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... a hint concerning Storri's ebon purpose of abduction, and how he meant to fire the Harley house and then kidnap Dorothy in the confusion certain to be an incident of flames and smoke at four o'clock in the morning. This reticence arose from the delicacy of Inspector Val. The relation could not fail to leave a most unpleasant impression upon Richard, and Inspector Val decided to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Department would mark the event, as in Diamond Jubilee year, by the issue of a series of special stamps, and though in March the Hon. Rudolphe Lemieux, who was then Postmaster-General, announced that such an issue would assuredly be made, the Department exercised the greatest reticence as to what values would be included in the series, and what subjects would form the designs. Naturally the Department was inundated with all sorts of suggestions, more or less appropriate to the occasion, ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... wish to tell you, which I am afraid you will be rather shocked to hear. I have not told you before, from a culpable reticence; for I believe that there must be either complete confidence between ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... observe the gravity and reticence of the Indian, this youth was gifted by nature with powers of loquacity which he found it difficult to suppress. Knowing this, Moonlight felt that she dared not trust him with her secret, and was much perplexed how to attract her mother's ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... life's last and greatest door stood ajar. What with all my dreaming, studying, and teaching was I going to do in this fierce fight? Despite all my youthful conceit and bumptiousness, I found developed beneath it all a reticence and new fear of forwardness, which sprang from searching criticisms of motive and high ideals of efficiency; but contrary to my dream of racial solidarity and notwithstanding my deep desire to serve and follow and think, rather than to lead ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... bonefish guides at Metacumbe did not let any one get a line on their methods. They will avoid a bonefishing-ground while others are there, and if they are surprised there ahead of others, they will pull up anchor and go away. May I be preserved from any such personal selfishness and reticence as this! One of these bonefish experts at the camp told me that in all his years of experience he had never gotten a bonefish bite. If you feel a tug, it is when the bonefish is ejecting the hook. Then it is too late. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... apes the manly model without a thought of all that the imitation involves. She forgets that as soon as a woman steps down of her own free will from the pedestal on which the chivalrous admiration of men has placed her, she abandons at once her claim to that flattering reticence of speech, and that specially attentive courtesy of bearing, which are in men the outward and visible signs of the spiritual grace which they assume as an attribute of all women. In spite of what the crazy theorists of the perfect ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... was immediate. With a little cry Suzanna pressed her lips to her mother's. All her reticence was gone. This mother who enfolded her stood once more the unwavering star ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I must resign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years the partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' With her habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, but goes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come and cheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with grown-up step-children, ill herself, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... insincerity, so to speak, or an egotism so subtile, so capacious and frank, as permits him to take up the grandest character in history into the hollow of his hand, and turn him about there for critical inspection and definite adjustment to the race, with absolutely no more reverence nor reticence than a buyer of grain shows to a handful of wheat, as he pours it dexterously from hand to hand, and blows the chaff in the seller's face.[G] But both writers alike are left behind us in the library, and are not subsequently brought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... perhaps some day be advisably connected with it; but I do not wish to disturb, or amuse, you with a formal statement of the manifold expectations I have formed respecting your future work. You will not, I am sure, imagine that I have begun without a plan, nor blame my reticence as to the parts of it which cannot yet be put into execution, and which there may occur reason afterwards to modify. My first task must unquestionably be to lay before you right and simple methods of drawing ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the link between the old and new body: he was a member of ours at his death. But not a drop of liquor is seen at our meetings, except a decanter of water: all our heavy is a fermentation of symbols; and we do not draw it mild. There is no penny fine for reticence or occult science; and as to a song! not the ghost of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... suspicions, he makes the rather unlikely explanation, that he has as many writings as there are days in the year. In the future, however, her letters are sacred, no eye but his own being permitted to gaze on them; and with his usual reticence where his feelings are seriously involved, he ceases to mention to his friends ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... brief total of the impressions, the human qualities, of these vast cities, is to me comforting, even heroic, beyond statement. Alertness, generally fine physique, clear eyes that look straight at you, a singular combination of reticence and self-possession, with good nature and friendliness—a prevailing range of according manners, taste and intellect, surely beyond any elsewhere upon earth—and a palpable outcropping of that personal comradeship I look ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... sickened at the revelation that a gentleman could see so much in mere vulgarities of opinion, and though she uttered as few words as possible, conversing only in sad smiles and headshakes and in intercepted movements toward the door, she happened, in some unguarded lapse from her reticence, to use the expression that she was disappointed in him. He caught at it and, seeming to drop his field-glass, pressed upon her with ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... was inevitable that he must feel more keenly the death of a father who, until in the shadow of impending disaster, had never offered him a very close intimacy. Their relations had been merely warm and pleasant—an easy camaraderie between friends—neither questioned the other's rights to reticence and privacy. Their mutual silence concerning business pursuits was instinctive; neither father nor son understood the other's affairs, nor were they interested except in the success of ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... a mill. It was a—city. This was the sum of Nancy's astonishing discovery. And the picture of it held her fascinated. She commented little, she had questioned little of the old skipper at her elbow. The thing she saw was too overwhelming. Besides, reticence was impressed upon her by the nature ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... her in a thousand ways, seeking to discover her secret; but she was a person both faithful and discreet. Of her interview and journey he got only such news as was already published on the housetops. At such reticence he took umbrage; he grumbled, sulked, and would not speak ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... persons he had despatched, of his system of torturing prisoners to make them confess what they had concealed and where. He would drivel about his amours, of the style in which he lived when ashore, and the like; but whether reticence had grown into a habit too strong even for drink to break down, he never once gave me so much as a hint touching his youth and early life. He was completely a Frenchman in his vanity, and you would have thought him entirely odious ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Willis, who is supposed to be such a splendid instructor of youth, should not have brought Nan a little better into control. Now, you, my dear Hetty, are very different. You have passions and feelings—no one has them more strongly—but you keep them in check. Your reticence and your reserve please me much. In short, Hester, no father could have a more admirable daughter to live with him. I am pleased with you, my dear; the experiment of having you home from school to look after my house has turned out well. There ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... urged her to an utterly irrelevant response. "I wonder if you have known many women?" She felt that she should like to hear his story from him, there in the deserted yard; but when he answered her, he revealed a personal reticence worthy of the aristocratic traditions of Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I haven't had time for them," ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,—warmth and brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of shyness, he impressed every one as a man ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... born in Boston, in 1745, and died in 1806. He lived in a large wooden house on Tremont Street, near Hollis Street, and was a near neighbor of Crane, Lovering and the Bradlees. He was a man of unusual reticence, but noted for courage and patriotism. From 1773 till his death, he kept a vow never to drink tea. In 1797 he married Mary, the sister of Joseph Hiller, the first collector of the port of Salem, and was the father of Captain John Fenno, a ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... in her chair, motionless, while before her mind's eye rose the altered face of the woman who, deceived for long, was deceived no more—who knew! With her there had been no self-respecting reticence, no decency of secret tears. She had heaped insult upon the woman who had wronged her, she had led her husband a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... absence of the flattering responses to which he was largely accustomed. And, dropping abruptly his artificial courtesy, he maintained a sullen silence, quickened his stride. He drew some satisfaction from the observation that his reticence hurt her. Her hands caught and strained together; she looked at him with ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... offered. It may be that the mere necessity of planning together the framework of their society and of building up their State out of chaos has imposed on them the necessity of more outspokenness. Certainly they have discarded, or have not assumed, the reticence of the modern English of England; and much of this freedom of utterance Europeans misinterpret, much (because the fashion of it is strange to themselves) they believe to be insincere. In which judgments they are quite wrong. The American ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... she has heard all the family dissatisfactions and numberless descriptions of Violet. From Eugene she has learned that Miss Violet was offered to him, and there is no doubt in her mind but that she was forced upon Floyd. She cannot forgive him for his reticence those last few days, but her patience is infinite. The wheel of fate revolves, happily; it can never remain at one event, but must go on to the next. The Ascotts' house is a perfect godsend to her, and her intimacy with Mrs. Latimer a wise dispensation. They ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... notice the red-headed one?" asked Pete Murphy. "My first girl had red hair. I always jump when I see a carrot-top." He made this intimate revelation simply, as if the time for a conventional reticence ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... that they were speaking open-heartedly. What a good thing it is to be frank and speak without reticence, without the shame and guilt of not knowing what one is saying and for each to go straight to the other. ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... is because of my Bostonian reticence. No secret, I assure you. I found it, sir, in the lining of this coat. The fair donor of this spacious garment on one occasion, at least, gave a tip to ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... blackmailer does not dream of bluntly demanding money, or exposing his knowledge that he will get it. He pleads decently the poverty of his family and the long illness of his mother-in-law; and with the same decency the blackmailed yields to compassion and opens his purse. There is a gentlemanly reticence to be observed in these matters and Hillyard was well aware of the rules. He struck quite a ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... her little brood sometimes would sit silently watching the children, and look at Laura as if about to speak, but she always went away with her mind unrelieved. Violet Hogan, who brought her beruffled and bedizened eldest, made up for Mrs. Bowman's reticence. Moreover Violet brought other mothers and there was much talk on the topics of the day—talk that revealed to Laura Nesbit a whole philosophy that was new to her—the helpfulness of the poor ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... brain above and the sub-ego below, with the latter's constant reminders that mind is a mere excrescence, often warped or ill-directed, at the apex of the perfect body, is almost negligible. Even, when moral their lack of reticence, their practical logic, their habit of facing every fact pertaining to life, psychical and physical, as squarely as they face a simple question of hunger and thirst, above all their almost complete lack of that modern, development, called romance, which has ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... council, assuming that his affairs were not public property, but his alone. There was something about this man, Lanko, however, which influenced him to break his usual reticence. ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... for this reticence and false shame. The whole process of reproduction is a wonderful example of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, and if properly explained the child will ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... his livery of white and green, with his hooded falcon across her bosom and embroidered slantwise upon the fold of her doublet. Thus she made a very handsome page. She was different though. He thought that there was now about her an allure, a grave richness, a reticence of charm, an air of discretion which he must always have liked without knowing that he liked it. Yet he had never noticed it before. The child was almost a young woman, seemed taller and more filled out. No doubt this was true, and no doubt ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no cause for reticence. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... with reticence, couldn't say. If a murder, anybody might have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted 'prenticeship. Not so, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people come to identify, and never ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... narrative, though, as I said, I only picked it up piecemeal, as he was in the humour to talk about past events. He had not been so long among the Indians without acquiring somewhat of their manner and reticence. I had, indeed, to pump him to draw out what I wanted to know. He was more communicative generally to Martin, to whom he had taken a great ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... that the imperium should come to him only through her hands; a strange reticence seemed to choke these words in her throat. Anon he would know. Caius Nepos and the others would tell him, but it was so sweet to give so much ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Chivers softly. "Your memory, my dear Riggs, is absurdly defective. We knew that you had a young sister in the mountains, from whom you discreetly wished to conceal your real position. We respected, and I trust shall always respect, your noble reticence. But do you remember the night you were taking her to school at Santa Clara,—two nights before the fire,—when you were recognized on the road near Skinner's, and had to fly with her for your life, and brought her to us,—your two dear old friends, 'Mr. and Mrs. Barker ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... to the point, or else one keeps still entirely; and, at that phase of his existence, keeping still was not Scott Brenton's forte. Indeed, he was later than are the most of us in learning the lesson that the keenest social weapon lies in reticence. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... to early spring. None else knew of his intention except his one friend, a Dr. Duchesne, a young Creole physician known to the people of Wingdam as "Duchesny." He never mentioned it to Mrs. Morpher, Clytie, or any of his scholars. His reticence was partly the result of a constitutional indisposition to fuss, partly a desire to be spared the questions and surmises of vulgar curiosity, and partly that he never really believed he was going to do anything before ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... ownership, but who gave a large part or all of their time to some work connected with the enterprise. As far as possible this was confined to paid employees, but in a few cases the question of wages of those employed could not be successfully ascertained on account of reticence of the employer. No record was made of whether or not the time of the proprietor was also put into the business since in this respect there ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... tell," she stammered, frightened back into reticence. "It's only—an idea that came into my head because of—something I can't explain. But, oh, do be honest with me, Captain Hannaford, if you are my friend, for I can never ask any one else, and I can never ask you again. It's just asking ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of that tantalizing girl continued to haunt his memory, and would not down even to the glorious hope of a coming campaign. The mystery surrounding her, her reticence, the muttered insinuation dropping from the unguarded lips of Murphy, merely served to render her the more attractive, while her own naive witchery of manner, and her seemingly unconscious coquetry, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... his shoulders. His mother likened him to a young lion. Mentally he was slow, but his judgment was clear and accurate. Above all, he was honest, and knew not fear of man, beast, or devil. His life in Styria, hedged about by ceremonious conventions, had given him an undue portion of dignity and reticence, but that could easily be polished down by friction with the rougher side of the world. Except myself and his mother, he had never known ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... to the power of thought and expression, is the happiest gift an author's fairy godmother can bestow upon him, saves Kielland from saying too much—from enforcing his lesson by marginal comments, a la George Eliot. But he must be obtuse indeed to whom this reticence is not more eloquent and effective than a page ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... she had found him poring over a large map. He had rolled it up at her approach and his manner had made it impossible for her to express an interest that would otherwise have seemed natural. With the reticence to which she had schooled herself she had made no comment, but the thought of that rolled up hidden canvas and its possible significance remained with her. It might mean only a renewed interest in the scenes of past exploits—fervently she hoped it did. But it might also mean the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... early. Because there's not only the walk to St Martin's an' back—which is six mile—but when you've passed the doctor for bandy legs or weak eyesight, you may be started on duty that very night. I ben't allowed to say more just now," he added with a fine air of official reticence. "And as for you"—he turned impatiently on 'Biades—"I wish you'd find your sister, to fetch an' shut 'ee away ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"—Diana winced as she remembered her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene—"and I am especially pleased to see you elegantly ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... circumstances surrounding him Ford would have told his tale with greater reticence. As it was he spoke with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm born of an honest desire that Conquest should see the woman he was about to marry in the full beauty of her character. In regard to this he himself had made the discovery so slowly and so recently that ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... of the Radical delegation and made the same appeal to each one of them. All declined. I suspected at the time that apprehension that a vote for anybody else would be hissed by Lincoln's friends, had something to do with their reticence. I had no such apprehension. I did not believe there was anybody in that convention who would dare to hiss the name of Grant. If Grant had been a candidate before the convention he would have ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... acquainted with you, Miss Meredith," he said a little stiffly, sincerity struggling through natural reticence, like a light through a fog. "I'm no lady's man, as you probably know, but I had to come and thank you to-night. Desmond's quite my finest officer—no disrespect to your brother; he knows it as well as ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... trying to piece together phrases which would indicate the correct answer. There was her disturbing confession about having given away bits of herself, little bits of herself in wrong directions. There was her reticence as to the ownership of the car and the way in which she had tried to prevent a meeting. There was her sympathy for Maisie's matrimonial excesses; her unnatural tolerance for Adair; her reiterated excuse for the current love-madness, that people had the right at any cost ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... her hand caressingly upon the banker's shoulder as she spoke. It was not a time for reticence; it was not an occasion upon which to be put off by any girlish fear ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... tones betrayed reticence in crediting the miracle. Yet this blackened figure must have prevailed over the prince or the latter would not have so mysteriously ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... strongly felt for many years. You will, on reflection, I think, see that I could not with propriety refer to the circumstances alluded to in the note on the same page of the 'Review.' It is one of hundreds of cases where reticence seemed to myself, as, in some sense, representing Her Majesty, to be prescribed to me. When my book is complete, an abridged 'Life' will be published. I am sure this article must do good by being in the hands of the public before ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... others, and it was only in days of storm that one felt the pressure of the tides. This inscrutable composure was perhaps her chief grace in Glennard's eyes. Reserve, in some natures, implies merely the locking of empty rooms or the dissimulation of awkward encumbrances; but Miss Trent's reticence was to Glennard like the closed door to the sanctuary, and his certainty of divining the hidden treasure made him content to remain outside in the ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... mutual masturbation. These desires were under control, and the fear of ridicule seems to have been the chief restraining cause. At about the age of 15 he began to realize that such acts might be considered morally bad and wrong, and this led to reticence and careful concealment. Up to the age of 20 there were four definite attachments to persons of his own sex. There was a tendency, sometimes, to regard women as possible whippers, and this became stronger at 22, the images of the two sexes then mingling in his thoughts of flagellation. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... wot she says," replied the small baker's boy with the dignified reticence of superior knowledge, "she knocked ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ramusio to have said that he died at the time when the news of Columbus' discoveries reached England, then Sebastian Cabot told an untruth, because the letters-patent of 1498 were addressed to John Cabot alone. The son had a gift of reticence concerning others, including his father and brothers, which in these latter days has been the cause of much wearisome research to scholars. To avoid further discussion of the preceding points ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Jehovah is the Rock of Ages.' In the former verse the prophet had given up in despair the attempt to characterise the peace which God gave, and fallen back upon the expedient of naming it twice over. In this verse, with similar eloquence of reticence, he abandons the attempt to describe or characterise that great Name, and in adoration, contents himself with twice taking it upon his lips, in order to impress what he cannot express, the majesty and the sufficiency of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... I think, that out of human suffering a quality is distilled which affects everything one does. Those who have known sorrow can best depict it—not perhaps most plausibly, but most convincingly—and with fewer accessories, more reticence, and—better taste." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... the moonlight upon it, stiffened into a mask-like reticence at this touching upon the sensitive topic which threatened his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... changed her girl-lovers in anticipation of future inconstancies—writing a love-letter to Ada to-day and a copy of verses to Ethel to-morrow—but had kept with all the same quiet gravity and gentle reticence which seemed to watch rather than share, and to be more careful not to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... photograph of her on his mantelpiece. And it very soon became known among his friends, when the news of his engagement leaked out through Jack, that it was not to be spoken of in his presence. He had preserved the same reticence, it may be remembered, about ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... and twos, to their place of meeting, round the dark trunks of the elm trees. Fine as it was overhead, it was less so under-foot. The previous day, you may remember, had been a wet one, the night had been wet, and also the morning of the present day. Schoolboys are not particularly given to reticence, and a few more than the original conspirators had been taken into the plot. They were winding up now, in the weird moonlight, for the hour ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a hard teacher, often brings to light the best that is in us. It was so in this case. For, as one writer says: "The long and harassing ordeal disclosed the splendid courage, the reticence, the rare discretion, which were to carry the Princess through many an awful peril in the years to come. Probably no event of her early girlhood went so far toward making a woman of Elizabeth as ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... neither of those whom he had left in an aggravated suspense could have any idea of his errand, and his sudden reticence after he had been in the habit of telling them all he was going to do, mystified them considerably, Bob in particular ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... of this set back was to effect a rapprochement between Julius Hersheimmer and the Young Adventurers. All barriers went down with a crash, and Tommy and Tuppence felt they had known the young American all their lives. They abandoned the discreet reticence of "private inquiry agents," and revealed to him the whole history of the joint venture, whereat the young man ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of himself." It is not that he is without great passions, but that he does not like talking about them. He is too self-conscious to trust his tongue on such big themes. He might "make an exhibition of himself," and he dreads that above all things. This habit of reticence has its unlovely side; but it has great virtues too. It keeps the mind cool and practical and the atmosphere commonplace and good-humoured. It gives reserves of strength that people who live on their "top notes" have not got. It goes on singing "Tipperary" ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... solitary. Hallam Tennyson's biography of the laureate resents the opinion that his father was unsocial, but really leaves the commonly-received opinion unrefuted. Tennyson's reticence and love of contemplation and aloneness amounted to a passion. He was not a man of the people. He fled from tourists as if they brought a plague with them. He did nothing but dream. You might as easily catch the whip-poor-will, whose habitation changes ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... reticence. However, I can see through a brick wall as well as most people. I understand, so let us drop the subject, my boy. And ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... and what he does not tell he leaves you to infer, without risk of going astray. Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, of New York; the general counsel of the Company, offset Varilla's loquacity by a proper amount of reticence. Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and had interviews with President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, but could not draw them into his conspiracy. The President told him that, at the utmost, he would only order American warships, which were on the Panama coast, to prevent any attack from outside ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... the three of us, without attempt at conversation. Both Gertrude and I recognized the futility of asking Louise any questions: her reticence was a part of a role she had assumed. Our ears were strained for the first throb of the motor as it turned into the drive and commenced the climb to the house. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty. I saw Louise's hands grow rigid as they clutched ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... knowledge which would have supplied the key to the situation, and I therefore had to conduct myself with the utmost circumspection lest I should say or do something which would nullify the good effect which I had unwittingly produced. By adopting an attitude of extreme reticence, however, and allowing the others to do all the talking, I gradually attained to the knowledge that I am regarded as the reincarnated Manco; and now our copper-coloured friends are all on fire with eagerness for me to initiate the operations which shall eventuate in the expulsion of the Spaniard ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... acquainted with the real truth, and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others, without betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister or any resentment towards Edward. At first Marianne wept in grief and amazement; then she began to ascribe Elinor's long reticence about the engagement to lack of real depth of feeling; and it was not till the latter had done a deal of protesting that the younger girl was able to give her sister due credit for self-sacrifice and generosity. So when Mr. John Dashwood came round to his sisters ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... like these, of war and stress, of worries and apprehension, reaching across the world, for our rulers and servants facing great responsibilities and perplexing situations, to respond to every query and satisfy all curiosities. Much reticence must be permitted them. Much accepted, as a matter of course, without pursuing curiosity to ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... glanced powerlessly upon the iron reticence of Maurice, and the Advocate took his departure disheartened. Later in the autumn, so warm a remonstrance was made to him by the leading nobles and deputies of Holland against his contemplated withdrawal from his post that it seemed a dereliction of duty on his part to retire. He remained ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... embarrassment when they could find no chair big enough for him; the shy wonder with which he put out his hand and hooded the tiny black head with it, and uncurled the little hand with his obese forefinger; the reticence with which he checked his remark that he had always wanted to have a child of his own. And he perfected the picture that he desired her to see by the assurance he gave murmurously from the darkness of the open door. "Get well soon.... You ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward; and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... until a month or so ago. But a month or so ago the secrets came. Oh, I know him so well. He is trying to hide that there are any secrets lest his reticence should hurt me. But we have been so much together, so much to each other—how should I not know?" And again she leaned forward with her hands clasped tightly together upon her knees and a look of great distress ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... hurt by being questioned. She missed the reticence of a gentleman. Then she reproached herself for not understanding that his frank curiosity was a delicate appeal to her confidence in him, and answered: "He ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... official duty, and was afraid of no amount of work; and though he knew how great was the prize before him, he refused to leave his Board before the day had come at which his Board must necessarily dispense with his services. Between him and his father there had been no reticence, and it was clearly understood by him that he was to go down and win twenty thousand a year and the prettiest girl in Cumberland, if his own capacity that way, joined to all the favour of the girl's father and mother, would enable him to attain success. To Emily ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... Walt Whitman's view gave offence; he thought of civilisation as a conventional system, cultivating a false shame and an ignoble reserve about bodily processes. But the vital truth of his doctrine lies in the fact that many of our saddest, because most remediable, disasters are caused by a timid reticence about the strongest force that animates the world, the force of reproduction. Whitman felt, and truly felt, that reason and sentiment have outrun discretion. It may be asked, indeed, how this terror of all outspokenness ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... journey we are now taking together, and the conference which is to follow. Despite deep anxiety to learn what is before me I have not asked you a single question, nor even hinted at the subject until this moment. Now, I think I should be rewarded for my reticence." ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr |
