"Unassuming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prosecution. My foreman printer, Mr. A. Watkin, superintended the removal. By the evening not a particle of our plant remained at the office. Mr. Watkin stuck loyally to his duty during my long absence, and on my return I found how much the Freethinker owed to his unassuming devotion. ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... as extraordinary muscular power, as well as undaunted courage, would seem to be required to enable a man to make his way against so many enemies. But this was not the fact. Chaerea was of small stature and of a slender and delicate form. He was modest and unassuming in his manners, too, and of a very kind and gentle spirit. He was thus not only honored and admired for his courage, but he was generally beloved for the amiable and ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... our missionaries (J. Johnson) says of Gordon "he was one of the most unassuming and gentle men I ever met; and I well remember his saintly conversation, as he sat at tea with us. I also remember, (though only a youth) being struck with his humility, especially for one of his rank and profession. He generally had on a well worn greyish overcoat, the side pockets ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... busy in making preparations for his departure. Certain trunks and packages were got up, and he begged to purchase some sail-cloth for a tent, and some provisions, which of course were not refused. We had altogether fifteen prisoners. When Barwell, dressed in his brown suit, and looking perfectly the unassuming artisan he had pretended to be, had taken his seat, six of them were told off into the boat and carried on shore. The boat then returned for the remainder, and for the stores and provisions which Mr Barwell—for so I will ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... was evidently somewhat more highly educated than the generality of his class; without being in the least dandified, he possessed an ease and polish of manner at that time quite exceptional in the mates of such small craft as the Esmeralda. He was very quiet and unassuming in his behaviour; and altogether he produced so favourable an impression upon me that I unhesitatingly shipped him on the spot, arranging with him to bring his dunnage on board and assume duty on the following day. My overhaul of the stores on board the barque ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Paris there is a really quiet, peaceful street, a refuge for the thoughtfully inclined, it is surely the broad Rue d'Ulm, which starts from the Place du Pantheon, and finishes abruptly at the Rue des Feuillantines. The shops are unassuming, and so few that one can easily count them. There is a wine-shop on the left-hand side, at the corner of the Rue de la Vieille-Estrapade; then a little toy-shop, then a washerwoman's and then a book-binder's establishment; while on the right-hand you will find the office of the Bulletin, with ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... free-and-easy chat with first one and then another of our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is fourteen years old, light-haired, blue-eyed, unassuming and pretty. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... poor man, of limited education; yet possessing high moral qualities, that I would give much to call my own. This man's character I esteem far above that of many in society to whom no one thinks of objecting. There are hundreds and thousands of humble and unassuming persons like him, far superior in the high moral qualities of mind to the mass of self-esteeming exclusives, who think the very air around them tainted by their breath. Do you suppose that I would enjoy less the pleasures of a few weeks at Saratoga, because Thomas ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... work or of sport, and nowhere can a man discover more immediately the happiness of being of use. The recreation and the religion, the study and the play, of our associated life, are waiting for the dedication of unassuming Christian men to a life which offers itself, not to be ministered ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... rear, thereby distracting the attention of the enemy and contributing in no small measure to their subsequent speedy defeat. This decision on the part of the Captain, strange to say, met with universal and unqualified approval; for Dick's unassuming demeanour and geniality of manner had long since made him popular and a general favourite, while his superior intelligence, his almost instinctive grasp of everything pertaining to a ship and her management, and his dauntless courage, marked him out as in every respect most suitable ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... history is increased by the total absence of all the "moving" letters found in the original work. The "lordly husband and father," "the imperious son," "the proud ambitious sister, Arabella," all combined to force the universally beloved and unassuming Clarissa to marry the wealthy Mr. Somers, who was to be the means of "the aggrandisement of the family." Clarissa, in this perplexing situation, yielded in a desperate mood to "the earnest entreaties of the artful Lovelace to accept the protection of the Ladies of his ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... said Jane. "I see now the cause my uncle had to dislike the Scotch marriage law. He must have been made very miserable from some unguarded words spoken or written; but this does not prevent his son taking the position of a legitimate heir. He is quiet and unassuming, and will take a very good place ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... the most shallow observer, and although he was brave, clever, and educated, he inspired distrust by his much promising and general love of gossip and story-telling. He had all of Mr. Lincoln's garrulity (which I suspect to be the cause of their affinity), and none of that good old man's unassuming ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... ceremony. "Ventre St. Gris!" he muttered hoarsely, and loosened the long rapier in the shabby sheath at his side. For, with the closing of the door, he had become a Huguenot gentleman, over forty and a little grizzled perhaps, but modest and unassuming; wiry, alert, lightning-quick, with a wrist of steel and a heart of gold; and he was about to ascend the stairs of an unknown house at Blois in total darkness. He went up, crouching, ready for anything, without a footfall, not even ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... of their first youth, perhaps, but sharing amicably the more moderate refreshment which middle-age requires,—without being at any particular pains to conceal the fact from anybody. Here was then, after all, the strong and sure salvation of Philistia, in this quiet, unassuming common-sense, which dealt with the facts of life as facts, the while that the foolish laws, and the academical and stercoricolous nonsense of Philistia, reverberated as remotely and as unheeded as harmless ...
— Taboo - A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius Nicanor, with - Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir • James Branch Cabell
... eighty years, painted a bright green, and the heavy-barred, small-paned Georgian sash windows enlivened with three coats of white. He was as kind to her as a man, mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house was large, the rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women scarcely made a perceptible addition ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... stepped into the Waldorf with a friend of mine who wished to send a telephone message. He is a quiet, unassuming man of fifty, who inherited a large fortune and who is compelled, rather against his will, to do a large amount of entertaining by virtue of the position in society which Fate has thrust on him. It was a ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... from the role they filled, suffered. Major the Earl of Suffolk, commanding B/56th Battery, was killed by shrapnel through the heart. He was a popular, unassuming man. Lieutenant Stewart, of the same battery, was wounded. Colonel Cotter, commanding the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., was hit in the forehead. Lieutenant Hart's wrist was shot through. The 14th Battery had two hundred 5.9's burst round them; yet they brought up their team, one ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... of a great many, the city hall was filled last night with a very large and intelligent audience of ladies and gentlemen.... Miss Anthony spoke for an hour in a plain, unassuming manner, but ably and learnedly. She has been an active worker for more than forty years in this cause and now, at life's closing hours, sees the right accorded woman in the States of Wyoming and Colorado, and the cause gaining momentum as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... regarded as "persons in comfortable circumstances." They are better educated, have more correct tastes, and do the most to give to New York society its best and most attractive features. It is a class to which merit is a sure passport. It is modest and unassuming, free from ostentatious parade, and, fortunately, is growing rapidly. It is made up of professional men of all kinds, clergymen, lawyers, poets, authors, physicians, painters, sculptors, journalists, scientific men, and actors, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... back from the brows; he wore rather large side-whiskers. One of the witnesses at Saint Cloud said that Castaing looked more like a priest than a doctor; his downcast eyes, gentle voice, quiet and unassuming demeanour, lent him an ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... three years his senior. Both had recently returned home, after a protracted absence of several years, beyond the mountains, whither they had been sent by their ambitious parents, "to attend college and see the world." Stone was a quiet, modest, unassuming young man, rather handsome, but too pale and thin to be decidedly so. Having made the most of his opportunities at "William and Mary," he had come home well-educated (for that day and country) and polished by ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... frame; instead of diminishing his influence, increases the utility of his conduct, by making the world acquainted with the sanctity of his character. Witness, ye various regions of the earth! with what surprize, delight, and veneration, ye beheld an unarmed, and unassuming traveller instructing you in the sublime science of mitigating human misery, and giving you a matchless example of tenderness and magnanimity! O, England! thou generous country! ever enamoured of glory, contemplate in this, the most perfect of thy illustrious sons; ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... not only these accomplishments in themselves that made the American boy at once take the place of hero and leader of his form in this school of old England, but the quiet and unassuming mien with which he bore his superiority—not seeming in the least to despise the weakest or most backward of his competitors, and good-humoredly initiating them all into the little secrets of his success in ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... midst of it, when the earth and the sky appeared to have met in true Waterloo fashion, and the dark branches of the pines seemed writhing and tossing in a sea of flame, a loud knock came at the hall-door (bells are not the fashion in Dixie), and a servant soon ushered into the room a middle-aged, unassuming gentleman, whom my host received with a respect and cordiality which indicated that he was no ordinary guest. There was in his appearance and manner that indefinable something which denotes the man of mark; but my curiosity was soon gratified by an introduction. It ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... failed to do anything of the sort. His opponents, libellers, and progeny of his mean executioners, are all losing ground, and he is gaining everywhere. There is an unseen hand at work revealing the awful truth. This dignified, calm, unassuming man, while surrounded by a crowd of Kings and Princes, who were competing with each other to do him homage and show their devotion, startles them by telling a story of when he was "a simple Lieutenant in the 2nd Company of ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... 1766, John Wesley, on his northern circuit, visited this unassuming little village and preached in the pulpit of the parish church. A circular sun-dial bearing the motto "We stay not," and the date 1782, appears above the porch, and the church is entered by a fine old door of the Perpendicular period. A paddock on the west side ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Richborough, Reculver, and Lynne, written by Mr. Roach Smith and illustrated by Mr. Fairholt, which exhibits the results of recent discoveries of many remarkable Roman antiquities in Kent; and a brief, unassuming narrative of the Hudson's Bay Company's Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847, by the commander of the expedition, Mr. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... is almost the beginning and the end of philosophical morality. This is why it aims at being modest rather than humble; this is how it can be proud at the very time that it is unassuming. To humility indeed it does not even aspire; humility is one of the most difficult of virtues both to attain and to ascertain. It lies close upon the heart itself, and its tests are exceedingly delicate and subtle. Its counterfeits abound; however, we are little concerned ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the rare old sort—hard-working, and always ready; never complaining, but satisfied with any food there chanced to be; sensible and sturdy; a woman who could be thoroughly depended on. Her boxes were full of good dresses, of a solid, unassuming kind, such as would wear well—a perfect wardrobe. Her purse was always well supplied with money; she had money saved up, and she sent money to her parents: yet her wages, until late years, had been small. In doing her duty to others she did good to ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... not form acquaintances upon the street, or seek to attract the attention of the other sex or of persons of her own sex. Her conduct is always modest and unassuming. Neither does a lady demand services or favors from a gentleman. She accepts them graciously, always {60} expressing her thanks. A gentleman will not stand on the street corners, or in hotel doorways, or store windows and gaze impertinently at ladies as they pass ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... unassuming, you will create a position for her, and, whether she becomes the king's master, or his mistress, or whether she only becomes his confidant, you will only have made a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... go ahead. All the long years when the hopeless war dragged along we, unassuming, forgotten in quiet, Endured without question, endured in our loneliness all your incessant child's antics and riot. Our lips we kept tied, though aching with silence, though well all the while in our silence ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... brief for the English: For the English at home, restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the field, equally all of ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his wholesome face, And the gentle blue of his eyes, and grace Of unassuming honesty, Be there to welcome you and me! And what though the toil of the farm be stopped And the tireless plans of the place be dropped, While the prayerful master's knees are set In beds of pansy and mignonette And lily and aster and columbine, Offered in love, as yours ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... between Dickens and some of his friends at Gad's Hill, respecting the unhappy marriages of actors. Twenty such marriages were instanced, and out of these only two turned out happily. He said that Charles Dickens at home was a quiet, unassuming man. He remembers on one occasion his saying, in relation to a war which was then going on, "What must the feelings of a soldier be, when alone and dying on the battle-field, and leaving his wife and ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... among the Quakers, who composed the leading citizens of the town,—a people tolerant but narrow, frugal but appreciative of things good to eat, kind-hearted but not remarkable for generosity, except to the poor of their own denomination, law-abiding but not progressive, modest and unassuming but conscious and conceited, as most self-educated people are. It is a wonder that a self-educated man like Franklin was so broad and liberal in all his views,—an impersonation of good nature and catholicity, ever open ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... different the result! The farmer has tended and gathered many a crop from the old place since they were boys, but has been blind and deaf to all that has there yielded such a harvest to the other. That other, a plain, unassuming man, "standing at ease in nature," has become a household word because of all that he has contributed to our intellectual ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... and unassuming fireman in the offices of the Intelligence Section, General Staff, is now recognized as one of the best fighting units in the A.E.F. Report has it that he was one of the best bets on the Border, where he served in the Body Snatchers—with ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... the first terrible days of her youth kept Hortense from feeling the pride and arrogance of good fortune, preserved to her modest, unassuming tone of mind, prevented her from entertaining any overweening or domineering propensity in her day of prosperity, or from seeming cast down and hopeless when adversity came. She never lulled herself with the idea of ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... man amongst them whom I ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the Briareus of parts of speech, a walking Polyglott and more, who ought to have existed at the time of the Tower of Babel as universal interpreter. He is indeed a marvel—unassuming, also. I tried him in all the tongues of which I knew a single oath, (or adjuration to the gods against post-boys, savages, Tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vetturini, post-masters, post-horses, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... but with a body somewhat loosely built. He wore quiet grey clothes with a black tie, a pearl pin, and a neat coloured shirt. His complexion was a little pale, his features well-defined, his eyes dark and penetrating but hidden underneath rather bushy eyebrows. His deportment was quite unassuming, and he left the place as though entirely ignorant of the impression he created. The little cluster of chorus girls looked at him almost with awe. Only one of them ventured to laugh into his face as though anxious to attract his notice. ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the activity he displayed in avoiding her carriage and escaping from her society. If Mr. Stanmore had been the most successful Lovelace who ever devoted himself to the least remunerative of pursuits, instead of a loyal, kindhearted, unassuming gentleman, he could hardly have chosen a line of conduct so calculated to keep alive some spark of interest in Maud's breast as that which he unconsciously adopted. It is one thing to dismiss a lover because suited with a superior article (as ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... have myself heard it more than once spoken of as an English town. At Nancy, where Father O'Leary was travelling, his native country happened to be mentioned when one of the party, a quiet French farmer of Burgundy, asked, in an unassuming tone, 'If Ireland stood encore?' 'Encore,' said an astonished John Bull, a courier coming from Germany—'encore! to be sure she does; we have her yet, I assure you, monsieur.' 'Though neither very safe, nor very sound,' interposed an officer of the Irish Brigade, who happened to be present, looking ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... I saw Mr. Glen, the missionary from Astracan, as he passed through St. Petersburg on his return to England. He is a very learned man, but of very simple and unassuming manners. The doom which had been pronounced upon his translation seems to have deeply affected him; but he appears to me to labour under a very great error respecting the motives which induced the Editorial Committee to reject his work, or at least ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... for him? Although so much younger, he is a better swordsman and a better rider than you are. He is liked by every one in the auberge, which is more than can be said of yourself; he is always good tempered, and is quiet and unassuming. What on earth do you always set ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... children," was immediately adopted by Overton, and when later it was noised about that Ruth had written the words while Arline had composed the music, both girls were later rushed by the Dramatic Club and made members, an honor to which unassuming Ruth had ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... to quietly hand out your card and a modest credential; you must advance with a trumpet and blow a brazen blast to shake the stars. The time has gone by when self-advancement can be gained by modest and unassuming methods. To stand with lifted hat and solicit a hearing savors of an all too humble spirit. The easily abashed may starve in a garret, or go die on the highways. There is no chance for them in the jostle of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full brass ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... unaffected and unassuming!' said Lady Elizabeth. 'I little expected Arthur Martindale's marriage to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord Lyttelton was uniformly my aversion. His manners were overbearingly insolent, his language licentious, and his person slovenly even to a degree that was disgusting. Mr. Robinson was in every respect the very reverse of his companion: he was unassuming, neat, and delicate in his conversation. I had not a wish to descend from the propriety of wedded life, and I abhorred, decidedly abhorred, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... married, but he was there with his wife. He was apparently about thirty-five, tall, and of dark complexion, with a studious bend in his shoulders, and of irregular features strongly impressed with melancholy. His manners were particularly reserved, though as unassuming as they could well be. His exquisitely beautiful poem of 'Lillian' was among the pet treasures of the lady of the house, and we had all been indulged with a sight of it, in a choicely bound manuscript copy—but ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... two bits with Allison that the prophecy held good, but Sarah's well-known attitude toward the vice of gambling checked him in the rash offer. Besides, he wondered how he could make sound anything but foolish an offer to back the certainty of a weather forecast which was based upon nothing but the unassuming and quiet finality ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... of buffoon at a half-theatre half-saloon in the City Road, called indifferently the "Grecian" and the "Eagle," where he had danced and tumbled, and sung comic songs, and delivered the dismal waggeries set down for him, without any marked success, and almost without notice. He was a quiet, unassuming little man, this Robson, seemingly without vanity and without ambition. He had a wife and family to maintain, and drew his twenty-five or thirty shillings weekly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... reader, on the 19th of April, 1866. Thirty-one years before, the Koords plundered his native village on the plain of Gawar, and he removed to Degala, near Oroomiah. He was then about thirty years of age, a sedate, dignified, upright man and very righteous in his own eyes. Gentle and unassuming, he yet commanded the respect of all, and his reputation as a scholar soon secured for him the place of a teacher in the incipient male seminary. For many years he was its first teacher, and down to the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... of Jewish Bolshevist leaders there is the Jewish people, the many millions of the Jewish population of Russia. The unassuming representatives of that Jewish Community of Archangel take the liberty to affirm that neither the Jewish people as a whole, nor any of its socially organized groups, are responsible for the savagery, violence, acts of blasphemy, and mockery of human ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... mystic and peculiar, man, axe, tree, and breath one common being. And when, by-and-by, the woodcutter added a song of his own to the song his axe made, the illusion was not lost, but rather heightened; for it, too, was part of the unassuming pride of nature, childlike in its simplicity, primeval in its suggestion and expression. The song had a soft monotony, swinging backwards and forwards to the waving axe like the pendulum of a clock. It began with a low humming, as one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I saw you,' resumed Mr Pecksniff, with still greater deference, 'in the little, unassuming village where we take the liberty of dwelling, I said you were mistaken in me, my dear sir; that ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... engaged in predatory excursions; the former are pusillanimous and cowardly, the latter are bold and courageous, full of spirit and energy, and never seem happier than when engaged in martial exercises; the former are generally mild, unassuming, humble and honest, but cold and passionless. The latter are proud and haughty, too vain to be civil, and too shrewd to be honest; yet they appear to understand somewhat of the nature of love and the social affections, are warm in their attachments, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of Lucy Bargrove will never be prejudicial to me. I wish you knew what an unassuming girl she is, and yet so clever and well informed. Besides, mamma, have we not been playmates since we have been children? It would be cruel to break with her now, even if we felt so inclined. I could ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... afloat was at this time Captain Don Miguel Grau, a native of Piura, and a man of about forty-five years of age. He is spoken of as "an officer of the highest capacity and bravery, remarkably quiet and unassuming, and an excellent seaman. His people worshipped him, and all who knew him honoured him." In 1868 he had been given command of the Huascar, an ironclad monitor of 1130 tons displacement, 1200 horse-power, and with a nominal ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... of the poem, "Champagne, 1914-15", and remarked that "Cyrano de Bergerac would have signed it." But France had no time, even if she had had the knowledge, to realize the greatness of the sacrifice that had been made for her. That will come later. One day France will know that this unassuming soldier of the Legion, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... at the telegram which had shattered the simple routine of his unassuming life. "On board Celtic dock this afternoon three o'clock hope see you. Verne." He sneezed sharply, as was his unconscious habit when nervous. In desperation he stopped at a veterinary's office on Frankfort Street, and left orders to have the doctor's assistant call for Lorna Doone and ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... unassuming tomb Of him who told where health and beauty bloom, Of him whose lengthened life improving ran— ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... in his twentieth year, and will take the reins of government this year. He is tall and slight in person, gentlemanlike in manners, perfectly well bred, and always courteous to strangers, though even more modest and unassuming than was his father, the priest-king, whose praises are still fresh in every heart. His Majesty speaks English quite creditably, wears the English dress most of the time, and keeps himself well informed as to matters and things ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... of these riders of the western plains was unassuming. Their brown canvas tunics, their prairie hats, their black, hard serge breeches, with broad, yellow stripes down the thighs, possessed a businesslike appearance not to be found in a modern soldier's uniform. These things were for sheer ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... saint was Samuel, the courageous guide and modest, unassuming Christian. He was the one who guided his well-loaded brigade up the mighty Saskatchewan river to the rescue of the whites there, and having safely and grandly done his work, "holding on to God," went ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... ready to oblige, and willing to be obliged by others; breathing habitual kindness towards friends, courtesy to strangers, long-suffering to enemies. It exercises authority with moderation; administers reproof with tenderness; confers favours with ease and modesty. It is unassuming in opinion, and temperate in zeal. It contends not eagerly about trifles; slow to contradict, and still slower to blame; but prompt to allay dissension and to restore peace. It neither intermeddles unnecessarily ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... meant Admiral Fitzroy; and much explanation and banter followed, which the children made the louder from dread of the subject. Mrs. Froggatt was by no means the cultivated person her husband was; but, being of a good old plain farmer stock, she was quite as unassuming, and her manners with the young Underwoods were a good deal like those of a superior old housekeeper, only perhaps less authoritative and familiar; but she was not to be kept away from the subject of her real anxiety. 'I wish I could see your sister, and speak to her; he ought to have some advice ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... walked up to the gates. He was not unknown to those who sat in high places, having been chosen to command the secret bodyguard of Royalty during one protracted foreign tour. An unassuming man, few of his acquaintances, perhaps, knew that he shared with the Lord Mayor of London the privilege of demanding audience at any hour ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... gayly;—"I am not going unprovided into the business. There is my cousin Seth Plumfield, who has engaged himself to be my counsellor and instructor in general; I could not have a better; and Mr. Douglass is to be my right hand; I occupying only the quiet and unassuming post of the will, to convey the orders of the head to the hand. And for the rest, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and arms—a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition, sustained by a ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... judgment to the effect that I am the master of it. Under the circumstances, it has become my duty to forbid your son to enter my house again. I am sorry, because it deprives me of the society of one of the most modest, unassuming, and gentlemanly persons I have ever had the honour ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... little town which fairly shrieks at you its pre-eminence as a picture of that type. As you pass through its orderly little streets, with its little frame houses, all of the same kind and all neat and unassuming, with its dirt roads and its typical Town Hall, set correctly back behind a correct little patch of grass in a neat square, you feel instinctively that the Darwinian theory must be avoided in your ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... his command of the whole situation make him sought as a counselor and as a leader. As the older men, like Clough and Downie, pass away, Doctor Ferguson, by common consent, forges to the front. The present prosperity and harmony of the Telugu mission are largely due to his unassuming and welcome influence. He too is a man whose scholarship and character reflect honor upon the Rochester Theological Seminary, where he sat under ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... they have secured a place and developed a crown. Others look for light in roundabout ways, making use of every gap their neighbours leave, and rise upward in soft coils. All these form a high roof, under which younger and weaker plants lead a skimped life—hardwood trees on thin trunks, with small, unassuming leaves, and vulgar softwood with large, flabby foliage. Around and across all this wind the parasites, lianas, rotang, some stretched like ropes from one trunk to another, some rising in elegant curves from the ground, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... with the chipped nose, speaking for both, remarked that the matter was confidential enough and to be arranged discreetly. Their general quarters were in that village over there where the infernal clodhoppers—damn their false royalist hearts—looked remarkably cross-eyed at three unassuming military men. For the present he should only ask for the name of General ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... strange store of learning which his roving life had won for him, how he could have confided to her his real name, and perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet, he thought, she would not care for wealth and honour; she would prefer a quiet life—a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted to good deeds, to charity and love. He could see her—in his visions—reading by a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the marge of the slumbering ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... two after he resumed in the same unassuming voice, like a man thinking his way. "Of course you can't think of such a man, until you do think of him. That's where his cleverness comes in. But I came to think of him through two or three little things in the tale Mr. Angus told us. First, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Unadorned senornama. Unadvisedly malprudente. Unadulterated nefalsita, pura. Unaffected neafekta, naiva, simpla. Unalloyed nemiksita. Unalterable nesxangxebla. Unanimity unuanimeco. Unanimous unuvocxa, unuanima. Unanimously unuvocxe, unuanime. Unassuming neafektema, modesta. Unavailing malutila. Unawares senatente. Unbar malbari, malfermi. Unbearable netolerebla. Unbecoming malkonvena. Unbelief malkredeco. Unbeliever malkredulo. Unbend (relax) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... 'Quiet, unassuming, yet of an intensely proud nature. One who if he was deceived would never face his fellow-creatures, but would bow his head before the wind and ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... 'supposititious' letters for his purposes, as it was for Thucydides to compose speeches for his; and though eloquence was, in this case, for the most part, dispensed with, these little every-day prosaic unassuming, apparently miscellaneous, scraps of life and business, shewing it up piece-meal as it was in passage, and just as it happened in which, of course, no one would think of looking for a comprehensive design, became, in the hands of this artist, an invention quite as ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... lately of the progress of the negotiations between the courts of Petersburg, Vienna, and Versailles. The distance of the former, and the cautious, unassuming character of its minister here, is one cause of delays: a greater one is, the greediness and instable character of the Emperor. Nor do I think that the Principal here, will be easily induced to lend himself to any connection, which shall threaten a war within a ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... which other men indulged with no such horrified denunciation from the rest of the world. Others, it is evident, shared with Cauchon that sharp sensation of dreadful pleasure in finding her out; young Courcelles, so modest and unassuming and so learned, among the rest; not L'Oyseleur, it appears by the sequel. That Judas, like the greater traitor, was struck to the heart; but the less bad man who had only persecuted, not betrayed, stood high in superior virtue, and only rejoiced that at last the victim was ready to drop into the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... sorrow. But you know how much I loved and respected your brother, and how truly and heartily I sympathise with you. There were few in Edinburgh so much beloved as Sir William, and it will be long indeed ere the memory of his goodness shall pass away. Such men in the quiet, private, and unassuming walk, are often much more missed and more extensively lamented than men who have been more in the eye of the public, and during their life have had much of public observation and favour. It is trying for us who are far on in the pilgrimage to see one and another of our brothers and sisters pass ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... narrative when he was happy, and his material was full and sound. Yet his false and vulgar fun has spoiled many of these volumes pollinated from India. They have another defect, too, though it would be unfair to blame Kipling for that when it may be seen blossoming with the unassuming modesty of a tulip in any number of Punch. I mean that amusing gravity of the snob who is sure of the exclusive superiority of his caste mark, with not the trace of a smile on his face, and at a time when all ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... of Kiddie's efforts to be homely and unassuming, Gideon Birkenshaw was not always entirely at his ease in his presence. The old man recognized that his own upbringing and education had been sadly deficient and that his roughness of speech and manners became painfully obvious in comparison ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... demeanour of the unassuming Smithers, and such were the happy effects of Scotch whiskey and Havannahs on that interesting person! But Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered as a 'knowing card,' a 'fast-goer,' and so forth, conducted ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise; But now the share uptears thy bed, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... her way home she thought with maternal anxiety of her two boys; but the nearer she approached the unassuming quarter of the city where she lived the more vividly she felt that she did not belong there, but in the part of Brussels ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... most delicate woman. He has only one eye, but that a very good one which does not miss things. He has been made into a regular hero by the people here, but he is the most modest man I have ever met. He is sincere and unassuming, so calm, with no heroic bluster about him. His voice is quiet and gentle. We had a blow-out for him, and all those present were very discreet. We all forgot our years and our troubles and we showed him a good time. I hardly think that even you, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... had taken a great fancy to this bright young fellow sitting by my side. I felt I should like to have finished the education his father had so gallantly begun. There was something irresistibly attractive about him, so modest, so unassuming, and yet so straightforward ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... vivacity and spriteliness that ill suited her, that having regard to her age and tendency towards rheumatism must have cost her no small effort. From these experiences there remains to me the perhaps immoral opinion that Virtue, in common with all other things, is at her best when unassuming. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... unassuming, but no doubt sufficiently conceited and ambitious, young fellow that he should have the affection, the love, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... chief aim was to do good to the many poor families whose necessities came to her knowledge. Great also was his satisfaction to find that after two seasons in New York, where she had been the Belle, she was still the same loving, unassuming, pure-minded girl she had ever been, tho' the admiration and attention her beauty and accomplishments had excited, had she been less carefully trained, might have rendered ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness." It is said of Grace Darling, that she was particularly gently and unassuming in manner and speech. She was not lifted up in any way by the sudden popularity which she gained; nor did it cause her to be other than what she had always been—a simple, modest maiden. She could be dignified in the presence of those who sought her out of idle curiosity, and were rude enough ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... doubtful is rather the subject-matter than the actual composition. It is perhaps a shade too laudatory and ostentatious. And this will be more than our modesty can carry, however plain and unassuming the style in which it is written, especially as I have to enlarge on the munificence of my relatives as well as on my own. It is a ticklish and dangerous subject, even when one can flatter one's self that there was no way of ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... duel. Brooks, from his age and infirmities, refused. According to the rules of the code duello, Wigfall posted Brooks at Edgefield Court House, and guarded the fatal notice during the day with a loaded pistol. A relative of Brooks, a feeble, retiring, and unassuming young man, braved the vengeance of Wigfall, and tore the degrading challenge from the court house door in spite of the warning and threats of the Knight of the Code. A pistol shot rang out, and the young champion of Brooks fell dead at his feet. Preston Brooks, hearing of the indignity ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... was crowded. As I stood by the fire I did not at once notice a quiet, unassuming traveller who had just entered, until he brushed past my arm and whispered, "Follow me." I did so a few minutes later, for it was Tom Jones, who looked for all the world as if he was a quiet city merchant, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... for him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the pate generally approved, bon comme le pain—daily bread for the most ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... majority of the votes of his brother priests could have done it, he had been their archbishop. He was a man of great intellect, of great good sense, of vast and varied learning, and withal simple as a child, unselfish, unassuming, and inoffensive, meek and humble of heart; charitable in word and deed; sincere in his relations with God and man; tender to the poor and little ones; always attentive to his duties, ever zealous for God's glory, never caring to make display or to gain the applause of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... also frequently exhibited by the Aborigines in their natural state, in the modest unassuming manner in which they take their positions to observe what is going on, and in a total absence of any thing that is rude or offensive. It is true that the reverse of this is also often to be met with; but ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... and whose large eye, of a soft deep blue, habitually expanded, as if looking upon a wide and boundless surface, might well be called an eye of ocean. He advanced with mild and graceful composure, and saluted me with an unassuming modesty and politeness, blended at the same time with a manly firmness, simplicity, and dignity, which gave me the presentiment that ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... him. It was also his duty to provide two huge tanks of wine, one containing the ruby liquor pressed out at Assmannshausen; the other the straw-colored beverage that had made Hochheim famous. These tanks were connected by pipes with the plain, unassuming fountain standing opposite the Town Hall in that square called the Romerberg. The moment an election took place Herr Durnberg turned off the flow of water from the fountain, and turned on the flow of wine, thus for an hour ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... that while I was speaking a drum went by the church, and how I was disgusted to see all the heads near the windows thrust out of them, as if the building were on fire. Cedat armis toga. The clerk in the office, a mild, pensive, unassuming young man, was very polite in his manners, and did all he could to make us comfortable. He was of a literary turn, and knew one of his guests in his character of author. At tea, a mild old gentleman, with white hair ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... Christ." She gave him the rest of St. Matthew, and a tract to each of his attendants, and he promised that, if the great teacher would come and see him, he would collect his villagers to hear the new doctrine preached. There was something very attractive, meek, and unassuming about the man's whole appearance, and of him there was much hope; but, just about this time great anxiety fell on the mission party. The kindly Myowoon and his wife were removed, and immediately after a summons was sent to Mr. Hough ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... affair," said the Duke, "and something else more closely affects me. I am expected to accept it, then, that the Comte de Mont-aiglon, travelling incognito in the unassuming role of a wine merchant, came here at this season simply from a passion for our Highland scenery. I had not thought the taste for dreary mountains and black glens had extended ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... taking up some branch of Christian work and devoting themselves to it; and if they have no gift in any special direction, they think they are outside of the vineyard altogether. But it is not so. The sphere of quiet and unassuming Christian life is open to all. It is impossible to measure the extent ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... bloom late and come to their beauty only when some disaster threatens destruction of the home or some sorrow wrecks its happiness. Simple, plain, unassuming, neither very wise nor very strong in other matters, they have a heart that can love with such intensity that it warms the coldest spot and is the refuge ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... my dears?" asked Miss Merivale from her seat by the fire. Pauline turned round with a little stare. Miss Merivale was so quiet and unassuming a personage that she had got into the habit of ignoring her. "Of Clare's new amusement, Miss Merivale," she said, with a laugh. Her laugh, like her voice, was a trifle hard. "It was scientific dressmaking when I was at Woodcote last, you remember, Rose ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... Keller to be the most accomplished and remarkable man in Germany. Mr. Keller was as firmly persuaded, on his side, that Mr. Engelman was an angel in sweetness of temper, and a model of modest and unassuming good sense. Mr. Engelman listened to Mr. Keller's learned talk with an ignorant admiration which knew no limit. Mr. Keller, detesting tobacco in all its forms, and taking no sort of interest in horticulture, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... tones, but he did not answer, because he wished to avoid a scene. It were better, he thought, to let the storm exhaust itself. The unassuming introduction of the "woman you had loved," in place of the reverse, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the well-known Cherry Valley family, built for his residence in 1807 the house which still stands on Lake Street facing the length of Chestnut Street. He was a man of stout build, with a full face, slightly retiring forehead, a trifle bald, urbane and unassuming in deportment. As a pleader at the bar he was only moderately eloquent, but he was popularly designated far and near as "the honest lawyer," and his advice was not only much sought but implicitly relied upon. In a period not much devoted ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... the coroner, with a few brief words, called for the first witness, George Hardy. A young man, with a frank face and quiet, unassuming manner, stepped forward from the group of servants. After the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... well-ground moraine soil it develops a perfectly tropical luxuriance of foliage and fruit, and is the very loveliest tree in the forest; poised in thin white sunshine, clad with branches from head to foot, yet not in the faintest degree heavy or bunchy, it towers in unassuming majesty, drooping as if unaffected with the aspiring tendencies of its race, loving the ground while transparently conscious of heaven and joyously receptive of its blessings, reaching out its branches like sensitive tentacles, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... green-grey silk dress, all set with gold and blue buttons. I fancy she was a large blonde. Then there was Miss Fison, the maid who served both Lady Drew and Miss Somerville, and at the end of the table opposite my mother, sat Rabbits the butler. Rabbits, for a butler, was an unassuming man, and at tea he was not as you know butlers, but in a morning coat and a black tie with blue spots. Still, he was large, with side whiskers, even if his clean-shaven mouth was weak and little. I sat among these people on a high, hard, early Gregorian chair, trying to exist, like ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... to work at once, and in three feverish days completed the first draft of his parable. In this the Hyde aspect was only Jekyll's unassuming disguise, adopted at hours when he wished to be a little gay. Stevenson burned his first draft, and rewrote the whole ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... daughter of a small Dumfriesshire farmer, who in order to get the Duke of Argyle to intercede to save her sister's life got up a petition and actually walked to London barefoot to present it to his grace. Helen Walker died in 1791, and on the tombstone of this unassuming heroine is an inscription ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... see! Where have I got to? Ah, I remember. I said my father may not have been a hero, but he had a great deal of that sterling stuff in him which you find in really sterling people; and in addition, he performed his brave acts in a quiet, unassuming way, so that often enough they passed unnoticed; and when he had finished, he sank back into his perfectly simple life, and never marched about in metaphorical uniform with a drawn sword, and men ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... Mathew, handed him his papers, and reported his condition. That gentleman immediately set about rendering every facility to relieve his immediate wants and further his business. The consul was a man of plain, unassuming manners, frank in his expressions, and strongly imbued with a sense of his rights, and the faith of his Government,—willing to take an active part in obtaining justice, and, a deadly opponent to ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams |
