"Unobtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hero was never insensible to flattery. He could not refrain from comparing his present with his recent situation. The constant consideration of all around him, the affectionate cordiality of Sir Lucius, and the unobtrusive devotion of Lady Afy, melted his soul. These agreeable circumstances graciously whispered to him each hour that he could scarcely be the desolate and despicable personage which lately, in a moment of madness, he had fancied himself. He began to indulge the satisfactory idea, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... originality about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness in the treatment, both of sentiment and incident, which is not often found. We imagine that few can read it without deriving some comfort or profit from the quiet good sense and unobtrusive words of counsel with ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... them, and had learned to call no man master but Christ. He knew his own mind, and could give forcible expression to his convictions when occasion required. Naturally of an unassuming disposition and unobtrusive manners, he never courted popularity nor sought to thrust his opinions upon others; and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he was deferred to even by those whose views were in some respects widely divergent from his. It ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... Edinburgh on the 21st December 1843. Eminently gifted as a musician, she could boast of having been complimented by the poet Burns on the grace with which she had, in his presence, sung his own songs. Of retiring and unobtrusive habits, she mixed sparingly in general society; but among her intimate friends, she was held in estimation for the extent of her information and the unclouded cheerfulness of her disposition. She has left some MSS. of poems and songs, from ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sat the silent, impassive, inscrutable Yaqui. His dark face, his dark eyes were plain in the light of the stars. Always he was near Gale, unobtrusive, shadowy, but there. Why? Gale absolutely could not doubt that the Indian had heart as well as mind. Yaqui had from the very first stood between Gale and accident, toil, peril. It was his own choosing. Gale could not change him or thwart him. He understood the Indian's idea of obligation ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of criminals) see to that; and shabby people are very infrequent. People who want to save money for other purposes, or who do not want much bother with their clothing, seem to wear costumes of rough woven cloth, dyed an unobtrusive brown or green, over fine woollen underclothing, and so achieve a decent comfort in its simplest form. Others outside the Rule of the samurai range the spectrum for colour, and have every variety of texture; the colours attained by ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... of its spirit. So dull and uninviting is calm and practical religion, that religious persons are ever exposed to the temptation of looking out for excitements of one sort or other, to make it pleasurable to them. The spirit of the Gospel is a meek, humble, gentle, unobtrusive spirit. It doth not cry nor lift up its voice in the streets, unless called upon by duty so to do, and then it does it with pain. Display, pretension, conflict, are unpleasant to it. What then is to be thought of persons who are ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... children, with Helen's help; preparing herself, in the quiet of her "House of Gods"—a tiny room above the studio—in much the same spirit as she had prepared for the great consecration of marriage, with vigil and meditation and unobtrusive fasting—noted by Nevil, though ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... learn to take small gains that offer, and to watch unmoved while splendid chances come to naught. We learn to live life and to waste no energy in vain wishing that we had shuffled differently. We learn even to marvel admiringly at the unobtrusive cunning which thwarts us of our dream's own—to wonder that cards ever should come right for any player in that maze of chances and faulty judgments. And we learn, above all, to brush the things together without loss of time and to play a new hand ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the younger Cicero and of Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the learning of old Greece, strong of will yet tolerant and gentle, his austerity so tempered by humanism that he won not only respect but love; he had been adored by the gay young patricians, who paid homage to the virtue which they did not ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... that if a person had done wrong, he would be conscious of it; and that if he were found out he would at least try to appear penitent. But in this case my theory did not seem to be working; for my former chum, whom I remembered as a quiet, unobtrusive fellow, met my startled glance with a twinkle of suppressed humor. I confess that such a blow to my theory ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... benefactor and friend to his last home in their arms. Their sorrowing hearts were the truest mourning, the only pomp and circumstance worthy of the occasion; and their streaming eyes were the modest and unobtrusive, but most deeply affecting, pageant of that day. All the inhabitants followed him, with mourning in their hearts. Remembering Henry's love for flowers, his fellow-citizens made arches of flowers in three places for his mortal remains ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... own individuality, any one in search of that very unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. It is possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkind visitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effort in an ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... inferiors,—it was no marvel that one part of the world forgave to a man rich and young the irregularities of dissipation, that another forgot real immorality in favour of affected religion, or that the remainder allowed the most unexceptionable excellence of words to atone for the unobtrusive errors of a conduct which did not ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... us nearly a month, and won our regard by his quiet, intelligent, and unobtrusive manners. Although dressed in skins, he was perfectly the gentleman, moreover an enlightened and sincere Christian, for he had thrown aside all heathen customs and superstitions. His great object appeared ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... scheme of decoration, the work is much simplified; but if one has to live in the average nondescript house and wishes to use French furniture, the problem will take time and thought to solve. In this kind of house, if one cannot change it at all, it is better to keep as simple and unobtrusive a background as possible, to have the color scheme and hangings and furniture so beautiful that they are a convincing reason themselves of the need of their being there, but one should not try to turn the room ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... almost always addressed his friends by their Christian names, more especially when those friends were of higher standing than himself. There was a depth of pride, which few understood, lurking beneath his quiet and unobtrusive manner; and he had a way of his own by which he let people know that he considered himself in every respect their equal, and in some ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of modern St. Dunstan's is that unobtrusive figure of Queen Elizabeth at the east end. This figure from the old church came from Ludgate when the City gates were destroyed in 1786. It was bought for L16 10s. when the old church came to the ground, and was re-erected over the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sentimental soliloquy. It is, then, merely sufficient to say that I took the earliest steamer for kinder shores, spurred on to haste by a venomous cable-gram from the Smithsonian, repudiating me, and by another from Bronx Park, ordering me to spend the winter in some inexpensive, poisonous, and unobtrusive spot, and make a collection of isopods. The island of Java appeared to me to be as poisonously unobtrusive and inexpensive a region as I had ever heard of; a steamer sailed from Antwerp for Batavia in twenty-four hours. Therefore, as I say, I took the night-train ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... and good sense that characterized her unobtrusive conduct, Miss Dexter had prepared from Muriel's wardrobe an entire suit of mourning, which she prevailed upon Salome to accept and wear; and, on the morning of the funeral, the latter went down early into the draped and darkened parlor, where the coffin and its cold tenant awaited the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... reach of great intellectual gift or conscious effort. Joseph Worcester was a modest, shrinking Swedenborgian minister. His congregation was a handful of refined mystics who took no prominent part in public affairs and were quiet and unobtrusive citizens. He was not attractive as a preacher, his voice trembled with emotion and bashfulness, and he read with difficulty. He was painfully shy, and he was oppressed and suffered in a crowd. He was unmarried and lived by ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... he had that jaunty walk and general trimness of attire which are the traditional attributes of the academical denizens of Cambridge. He swung his arms rather more than was needed to assist locomotion, and betrayed in an unobtrusive manner a consciousness of being well dressed. His face, which was not without fine possibilities, had an air of well-bred neutrality; you could see that he assumed a defensive attitude against aesthetic impressions,—that even the Sistine Madonna ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... present site of the Baths of Caracalla, and that from time to time she gave him directions as to what rites would be acceptable to the gods. Another nymph, whom Numa commended to the special veneration of the Romans, was named Tacita, or the silent. This was appropriate for one of such quiet and unobtrusive manners as this good ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... chose the eldest son of his eldest cousin, a quiet, unobtrusive boy, to be educated as heir ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... its bereavement | |in the deaths of the Empress Dowager and | |the Emperor of China. Chinatown mourns, | |but it does so in such an unobtrusive | |Oriental way that the casual visitor on | |sympathy bent may feel that his words of | |condolence would be misplaced. | | | | A reporter from this paper was assigned | |yesterday to go up to Chinatown ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... make a parade of their affection before indifferent acquaintance, Miriam's love, like that of all proud, reserved natures, was intense. Ackermann's attentions to her were graceful and delicate, and he ever manifested toward her in his whole manner that silent devotion, unobtrusive and indescribable, which is so gratifying to woman. It was evident that he understood her thoroughly: whether he appreciated her as thoroughly was another matter, about which I had ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... men. They recommend those whom they have found most active and intelligent, and believe to be the best; but their opportunities of learning the characters of the men have been few. They have seen and observed the young, active, and forward; but they often know nothing of the steady, unobtrusive old soldier, who has done his duty ably in all situations, without placing himself prominently forward in any. The commanding officers seldom remain long with the same regiment, and, consequently, seldom know enough of the men to be able to judge ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... building upon the spectator, that each successive architect carried on faithfully the ideas of his predecessors. The whole work has been continued, as it were, in the spirit of one design; and the differences in details, while quite observable when once pointed out, are yet so unobtrusive that they seldom attract notice. To mention one such instance, Mr Paley calls attention to the different ornamentation on the windows of the south transept when compared with those in the north transept, as well as to the fact that on the south ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... rest, Nellie?' asked the father at last. He was an unobtrusive, obscure man, whose sympathy was very delicate, whose ordinary attitude ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... religious feeling, he opened to the German thought the widest possibilities of victory.... A specially Germanic way of feeling, a Germanic modesty and distinction of thought, was here powerfully promoted by means of the Gospel. True distinction is always modest, in the sense of being unobtrusive and not bragging of deserts!—K. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... were not united as a body, and consequently there was no test of character nor rules of discipline for those who assumed that name. They were very dissimilar men to their quiet and unobtrusive descendants. The markets, fairs, and every public concourse were attended by them, denouncing false weights and measures, drunkenness and villany, with the curses of the Almighty, calling upon the people, frequently with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the usual thing for him to drop into the house and encounter such a nondescript company. He looked across at the druggist and postmaster, and bowed with flourishing politeness. He said to Carroll, endeavoring to make his voice so unobtrusive that it would be unheard by the company, but with the non-success usual to a nervous and self-conscious man, that he had a word to say to him later on when he was at liberty, some matter of business which he wished to talk ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... well. But when it went to the conference committee of the two houses of Congress, the railroad representatives artfully slipped in the four unobtrusive words, "or any other claimant." This quartet of words allowed the railway magnates to exchange millions of acres of desert and of denuded timber lands, arid hills and mountain tops covered with perpetual snow, for millions of the richest lands still remaining in the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... of love is flowing through our Fatherland and is uniting all hearts. The unobtrusive mother "duty" gave birth to the genial child "feeling." She bestowed on it her strong vitality so that it can defy a world of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... to him now that the reason he had recognised Pierrepont was because that man had maintained vigilant, yet unobtrusive, observation upon him during several of the preceding days, keeping near him in all sorts of ingenious guises and making inquiries concerning him—inquiries instituted for some unexplained cause by the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... they should accept an inferior hospitality, other than with the idea of not inflicting themselves upon a strange host more than is necessary. The redman in the aggregate is an example of the peaceable and unobtrusive citizen; we would not presume to interfere with the play of children in the sunlight. They are among the beautiful children of the world in their harmlessness. They are among the aristocracy of the world in the matters of ethics, morals, and etiquette. We forget they ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... possession when I appeared on the scene, and though I did my best to be unobtrusive, my presence was not so welcome as I could have wished. Every morning when I came slowly and quietly up the little path from the gate, bird-notes suddenly ceased; the grosbeak, pouring out his soul from the top of a pine-tree, dived down the other side; the towhee, picking up his breakfast on ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... known and appreciated her services, and from whom she held her commission, passed a series of resolutions, as a tribute to her worth, and her blessed memory, in which she was described as one who was "gentle and unobtrusive, with a heart warm with sympathy, and unshrinking in the discharge of duty, energetic, untiring, ready to answer every call, and unwilling to spare herself where she could alleviate suffering, or minister to the comfort of others," as "not a whit behind the bravest hero on the battle-field;" ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... been a clergyman or he might have been Dr. Knapp, but he would not have been George Borrow. "What is truth?" he asked. "Would that I had never been born!" he said to himself. And it was an open air ranter, not a clergyman or unobtrusive godly man, that made him exclaim: "Would that my life had been like his—even like that man's." Then the Gypsy reminded him of "the wind on the heath" and the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... after school, Jerry," she counseled. This quiet, unobtrusive girl was a keen observer. She had noted Marjorie's half-troubled expression as she entered the room. The suspicion that Marjorie knew and was not pleased had already come ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... the reply upon himself. "Well, you needn't make 'em so bad as the old-style cuts; but you can make them unobtrusive, modestly retiring. We've got hold of a process something like that those French fellows gave Daudet thirty-five thousand dollars to write a novel to use with; kind of thing that begins at one side; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... with the Captain to several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a gesture ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... throbbed in the background of every interview with responsible persons. It was the unobtrusive note of a soft clarinet played in a great symphony, all the more telling because it was never played loudly or insistently, but it was there all the same. Whenever the question of the Nipe's actual whereabouts came up, the note seemed to ring a trifle ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... an adorable house," she pronounced; "I wish I could have it near the studio." She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, "Come, everybody has had enough drinks, and show it to me." They passed through the hall, and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusive lamp. "What a satisfactory fireplace!" she exclaimed in her faint key, as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. "How did they feel, do you suppose—the people, the men and women, who ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... people of five-feet-nine-and-a-half. But he has one advantage over the small man. He does not have to ask for notice. The result is that while the little man often seems vain and pushful, the giant usually is very tame, and modest, and unobtrusive. The little man wants to be seen: the giant wants not ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the palate, but fiery in quality. This particular beverage was so seductive in flavor that every one partook of it freely, with the result that the most discreet among the party now became the most uproarious. Antonio Biscardi, the quiet and unobtrusive painter, together with his fellow-student, Crispiano Dulci, usually the shyest of young men, suddenly grew excited, and uttered blatant nothings concerning their art. Captain Freccia argued the niceties ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Agellius—the Lord's Prayer, and portions of the Psalms. Afterwards, when he was well enough to converse, Agellius was struck with the inexpressible peculiarity of his manner. It was self-collected, serene, gentle, tender, unobtrusive, unstudied. It enabled him to say things severe and even stern, without startling, offending, or repelling the hearer. He spoke very little about himself, though from time to time points of detail were elicited of his history in the course ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... you in that way, did he? There are the horses, there is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting Cock. I think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive way." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cleared, and the platform became a scene of bustle and animation. But he had no difficulty in distinguishing Gabriel's stiffly erect figure as it made its way towards the hall of the station, and his sharp eyes were quick to notice a quietly dressed, unobtrusive sort of man who sauntered along, caught sight of the banker, and swung round to follow him. Starmidge watched both pass along towards the waiting lines of vehicles—then he turned on his heel and went to the refreshment ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that simple, unobtrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly out of the shadow and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... in the House of Representatives four years. If, at this period of his life, he rendered unobtrusive, though not unimportant, services to the public, it must also have been a time of vast intellectual advantage to himself. Amidst great national affairs, he was acquiring the best of all educations for future eminence ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the bellowing may be; and if we were to transport and set loose herds of long-necked camelopards, trumpeting elephants, and rhinoceroses of horrible aspect, the little birds would soon fear them as little as they do the familiar cow. But they greatly fear the small-sized, quiet, unobtrusive, and meek-looking cat. Sparrows and starlings that fly wildly at the shout of a small boy or the bark of a fox-terrier, build their nests under every railway arch; and the incubating bird sits unalarmed amid the iron plates and girders when the express train rushes overhead, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... The Suitable.—Dark, unobtrusive colors, relieved by white lace at throat and wrists, hats modest in size and coloring, set off gray hair and matronly figure far better than showy and more youthful garb. No elderly woman should attempt to wear brown; somehow it kills her complexion ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... more than a century, and yet it is only during this summer that I have heard from Mr. A. M. Hocart, who is working there at present, that there is the clearest evidence of what is known as the dual organization of society as a working social institution at the present time. How unobtrusive such a fundamental fact of social structure may be comes home to me in this case very strongly, for it wholly eluded my own observation during a visit ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in kittenhood from the manner in which she purred—a measured, oscillating sound, shifting from high to low, as comfortable and often as continuous as the unobtrusive pulse of an old clock. It was the first time, Telzey realized now, that she'd heard the sound since their arrival on Jontarou. It went on for a dozen seconds or so, then stopped. Tick-Tock continued ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never a moody or ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... with water. A fine, impalpable, yet very dense mist formed the ground mass. But in it there floated myriads of droplets, like the droplets of oil in water. These droplets would sometimes sparkle in a mild, unobtrusive way as they were nearing the light; and then they would dash against the pane and keep ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... vivacity and playfulness of his character has vanished; and although it flashes out with pleasant mirth when he is alone with his few closest friends, such as Walter and Power, his manner is, for the most part, very quiet and reserved. Yet Eden has a position of his own in the school; and unobtrusive as he is, his opinion is always listened to with kindness and respect. When he came into school again after his recovery he was received, as I have said already, with almost brotherly affection by all the boys, who felt how much he had been wronged. He became the child and protege ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... agreed in the propriety of the Grant, and if Government had anything to answer for on this point, it was for having so long delayed bringing it before the House. There could not be a greater compliment to Her Royal Highness than to state the quiet unobtrusive tenor of her life, and that she had never made herself the object of public gaze, but had devoted herself to the education of her child, whom the House was now ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... follow. If they did follow, the aesthetic experience would be fundamentally different from every other type; it would be totally atomic and discrete, instead of fluid and continuous like the rest. But its apparent discreteness is due to a failure to distinguish between the silent, unobtrusive working of comparison and the more obvious and self-conscious working. When rapt in the contemplation of a work of art, I may seemingly have no thought for other works; relative isolation and circle-like self-completeness are characteristic of the aesthetic experience; yet, as ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... clothing, but adopted no other disguise than a traveling-cap pulled well down over his eyes. He took it for granted that Fenley, like every other intelligent person going abroad, was aware that all persons leaving the country are subjected to close if unobtrusive scrutiny as they step from pier to ship. Fenley, therefore, would have a sharp eye for the quietly dressed men who stand close to the steamer officials at the head of the gangway, but would hardly expect to find Nemesis hidden in the purser's cabin. Through a porthole Furneaux ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... watched Sally with close and what he fancied was unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a certain daintiness ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... very curious, as we drove up through the stately entrance of the Hathi Paon, or Elephant Gate of the fort, to be saluted with a "present arms" by British Tommies clad in unobtrusive khaki, and to reflect that we are the inheritors of the fallen grandeur of the Mogul Emperors; that we in our turn, on many a hard-fought field, asserted our power to conquer; and that since then we have (I trust) so far followed the sound principles ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... with strong picks were knocking diamonds from the walls, diamonds so large that he became despondent at the comparative smallness of his own. Then he awoke suddenly and sat up with a start, rubbing his eyes. The din was infernal to a man who liked to do a quiet business in an unobtrusive way. It was a knocking which he usually associated with the police, and it came from his side door. With a sense of evil strong upon him, the Jew sprang from his bed, and, slipping the catch, noiselessly opened the window and thrust his head out. In the ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, unobtrusive ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Horridge to stay with you?" she asked. "You know you cannot stay here quite alone. She is a gentle creature, and very unobtrusive. I shall feel happy about you if she ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... confusion. The excellence of this sort of work lies in a clear but soft relief of the form, in colours each beautiful in itself, and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is also beautiful, though unobtrusive. Hardness ruins the work, confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye, and makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as destroying the raison d'etre of it. So you see it taxes the designer heavily ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... of early breakfasters, who fondly hoped for a repetition of his performance. I think that Johnnyboy for the time enjoyed this companionship, yet without the least affectation or self-consciousness—so long as it was unobtrusive. It so chanced, however, that the Rev. Mr. Belcher, a gentleman with bovine lightness of touch, and a singular misunderstanding of childhood, chose to presume upon his paternal functions. Approaching the high chair in which Johnnyboy was dyspeptically ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... also, at the moment the story begins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that two people, who stood outside the window, were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation, and seemed anxious for his companion to ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... for himself, and be forced to depend upon his own resources, will often act differently than when one of a great number. The "loss of a head" is contageous. One will commit a foolish act, and others will follow, but cannot tell why. Otherwise quiet and unobtrusive men, when influenced by the frenzy of an excited mob, will commit violence which in their better moments their hearts would revolt and their consciences rebel against. A soldier in battle will leave his ranks and fly to ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the various camps one orderly company. Two men he chose from his outfit and sent to the captain, as the Picardo contribution to the detail told off to herd the horses, but beyond that he confined himself chiefly to making himself as unobtrusive ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the appearance of the man was not very interesting. He watched him in mere idleness while waiting for the girl to bring the supper Donald had ordered. If there had been anyone else in the room Neal would not have wasted a second glance on the unobtrusive stranger. Yet, as he watched the man he became aware of something about him which was attractive. There was a dignity in his movements quite different from Donald Ward's habitual self-assertion, different, too, from the stately confidence of ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... the three sisters of Dr Brown, published "Lays of Affection." Edinburgh, 1819, 12mo. She was a woman of gentle and unobtrusive manners and of pious disposition. Her poems constitute a respectable memorial ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... possessed a higher estimation of myself, a more complete reliance upon my own powers, and some of that universal commodity known as "cheek," I should at this present moment have been far better off in fame and fortune. But I have been unobtrusive, unambitious, retiring—and my friends have blamed me for this a thousand times. I have seen writers of no talent at all—petty scribblers, wasters of ink and spoilers of paper, who could not write six consecutive lines of English grammar, and whose short ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... crime even though they were some one else's prints on the dagger. At any rate Fairfield was suppressing something. It could do no harm to continue the watch that had been set upon him. So Foyle left Green and his companion to continue their unobtrusive vigil. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... were dreadful contingencies that wrung the mother's soul with agony. But as habits of endurance give to the body stronger powers of resistance, so does time by degrees strengthen the mind against the influence of sorrow. A blameless life, therefore, varied only by its unobtrusive charities, together with a firm trust in the goodness of God, took much of the sting from affliction, but could not wholly eradicate it. Had her child died in her arms—had she closed its innocent eyes with her own hands, and given the mother's last kiss to those pale ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Patmore and poetry to New York is somewhat abrupt, not to say precipitous, but we made it in safety; and so shall you, if you will be agile. New York is a pleasant little Dutch city, on a dot of island a few miles southwest of Massachusetts. For a city entirely unobtrusive and unpretending, it has really great attractions and solid merit; but the superior importance of other places will not permit me to tarry long within its hospitable walls. In fact, we only arrived late at night, and departed early the next morning; but even a six-hours' sojourn gave me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... however, had been touched by what Marie had just said. He was reflecting upon her words. There was truth in them. Taken singly, those slender flames, those mere specks of light, were modest and unobtrusive, like the lowly; it was only their great number that supplied the effulgence, the sun-like resplendency. Fresh ones were continually appearing, farther and farther away, like waifs and strays. "Ah!" murmured the young priest, "do you see that one which has just begun to flicker, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of the Bell's, Miss Hart, proved herself a most unobtrusive and retiring person. She was strangely reserved, no doubt, and would reveal none of the secret which she had dimly alluded to on the night of her arrival to Mrs. Bell, but she was chatty and pleasant enough ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... confidence in his physical strength, for although his countenance was grave and his expression dignified, he stooped a good deal, as though to avoid knocking his head against ceilings and beams, and was singularly humble and unobtrusive in his manners. There was a winning softness, too, in his voice and in his smile, which went far to disarm that distrust of, and antipathy to, his race which prevailed in days of old, and unfortunately prevails still, to ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... and saw that the rich colour carpeted the landscape as far as his eye could reach, so that it seemed as though he could ride on and on through them to the distant Chiricahuas. Only, close under the hills, lay, unobtrusive, a narrow streak of grey. And in a few hours he had reached the streak of grey, and ridden out into it to find himself the centre of a limitless alkali plain, so that again it seemed the valley could contain nothing ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... these attributes which he decided his shop should possess, and by means of which he succeeded. To enter Brunt's, with its silently swinging doors, its broad, easy staircases, its long floors covered with warm, red linoleum, its partitioned walls, its smooth mahogany counters, its unobtrusive mirrors, its rows of youths and virgins in black, and its pervading atmosphere of quietude and discretion, was like entering a temple before the act of oblation has commenced. You were conscious of some supreme administrative influence everywhere imposing itself. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... passion all the more because of its hopeless impracticability, were things to dream of, not to tell. Picotee was quite an unreasoning animal. Her sister arranged situations for her, told her how to conduct herself in them, how to make up anew, in unobtrusive shapes, the valuable wearing apparel she sent from time to time—so as to provoke neither exasperation in the little gentry, nor superciliousness in the great. Ethelberta did everything for her, in short; and Picotee obeyed ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... docile, tractable, tame, subdued; mild, quiet, peaceable, meek, unobtrusive; bland, soothing, pacific, clement, tender, humane; courteous, cultivated, deferential. Antonyms: drastic, refractory, vicious, brusque, harsh, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... marked it also, and was furious. Nothing could be urged against them; they were unexceptionable. The doctor, a chatty, straightforward, energetic man, of great intellect and learning, and emphatically a gentleman; his wife attracting by her unobtrusive gentleness; his daughter by her grace and modest self-possession. Whatever Maude Kirton might do, she could never, for very shame, again attempt to disparage them. Surely there was no just reason for the hatred which took possession of Maude's heart; ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in the girl herself and partly from the perception that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her hearing Ninitta's history. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... home festivities the day passed quietly, and this was also true of the entire holiday season. Cheerfulness, happiness abounded, and there was an unobtrusive effort on the part of every one to surround the orphan girl with a genial, sunny atmosphere. And yet she was ever made to feel that her sorrow was remembered and respected. She saw that Mr. Clifford's mind was often busy with the memory of his ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... interest; in its way it provided the one really important and dramatic moment of the evening. One or two uniforms and evening toilettes had already made their appearance in the Imperial box; now there was observable in that quarter a slight commotion, an unobtrusive reshuffling and reseating, and then every eye in the suddenly quiet semi- darkened house focussed itself on one figure. There was no public demonstration from the newly-loyal, it had been particularly wished that there should be none, but a ripple ...
— When William Came • Saki
... iron posts that spaced off the opening for foot-passengers into the Park. She was looking up at the house in the way Edith had noticed before—not with the scrutiny of one who wishes to see, but with the forlorn patience of the unobtrusive creature ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... high-born characters claim sympathy for their dignified sorrows and refined delights, or whose story is illuminated by the light of artistic culture and adorned with gems of rhetoric and fine fancy; but it is sometimes surprising to observe the favor which attends a simple tale of humble, unobtrusive, we might almost say insignificant people, whose plane of life appears nowhere to coincide with our own, and to whom romance and passion seem entirely foreign. Such a tale was "Adam Bede," whose great success as a literary venture hardly yet belongs to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... time she was three-and-twenty, had her unalterable little code, and had formed every one of her habits in strict accordance with that code. She carried these decided judgments within her in the most unobtrusive way: they rooted themselves in her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago, we know, she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, because "it was right for sisters to dress alike", and because "she would do what was right if she wore a gown dyed with cheese-colouring". That ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... I shrink once more within my shell, Where unobtrusive pleasures dwell; True, I shall here by Fortune be forgot Her favors with my verse agree not well; To importune ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from others in the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very account scrutinize those others' behavior too closely. He was not versatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its rise, meridian, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... this, but he could not help it. In business resorts, in society, and in the clubs he met great capitalists, millionaires, and men of wealth of all degrees, who were gentlemen, scholars, kind and deferential in manner, and unobtrusive in dress, and not to be distinguished, so far as conversation or appearance could serve as guides, from those high types of gentlemen which are recognized all over the world. Rounders longed to be like one of these, ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence, her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself? Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... when our prospects were most disheartening, we held a brief conversation respecting the line he was then taking up for the purpose of helping me. At other times, in periods of inactivity, I saw but little of him. He impressed me, now as he did in the cedars, his quiet, unobtrusive: demeanor communicating a gloomy rather than a hopeful view of the situation. This apparent depression was due no doubt to the severe trial through which he had gone in the last forty-eight hours, which, strain had exhausted him very much both physically and mentally. His success ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... almost ignored by writers on political subjects, whose example can in reality be of the utmost use to us, for its general organization more nearly resembles our own in miniature than any other. This country is Switzerland. In her quiet fashion the unobtrusive little Confederation is working out some of the great modern problems, and her citizens, with their natural aptitude for self-government, are presenting object lessons which we especially in America cannot afford to overlook. It is true that political analogies are sometimes a little ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... real wedding at Bowstead. So their banns were put up at St. Clement Danes, and one quiet morning they slipped out, with no witnesses but the Major, Aurelia, and Eugene, and were wedded there in the most unobtrusive manner. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the animal made his way with unobtrusive swiftness the length of the room and stood between the dog and a man who fingered the butt of his ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... wild creatures and pitfalls it has never heard of," she said in discussing the point with Dowson. She had learned that Lord Coombe agreed with her. He, as well as she, chose the books and his taste was admirable. Its inclusion of an unobtrusive care for girlhood did not preclude the exercise of the intellect. An early developed passion for reading led the child far and wide. Fiction, history, poetry, biography, opened up vistas to a naturally quick ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... think, wisely, discarded in her remaining efforts the cheap attraction of an alliterative title. Emma and Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park, are names far more in consonance with the quiet tone of her easy and unobtrusive art. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... remained some weeks; and the church was very much revived, and there was a large ingathering. This was originally the home of Bro. Archie Glenn, now conspicuous in building up the University at Wichita. From the first Bro. Glenn, though modest and unobtrusive, was known as a solid and helpful member of the church. He always had the confidence of the people of Brown County, and was by them elected to various public offices, at last becoming Lieutenant-Governor ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler |
