"Unostentatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "GAM," a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... express at Euston which had come, not from the Five Towns, but from Birmingham. Having on the previous day been called to Birmingham on local and profitable business, he had found it convenient to spend the night there and telegraph home that London had summoned him. It was in this unostentatious, this half-furtive fashion, that his visits to London now usually occurred. Not that he was afraid of his wife! Not that he was afraid even of his mother! Oh, no! He was merely rather afraid of himself—of his own ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... to the people of Dry Bottom he had announced in a quiet, unostentatious paragraph that while he had not come to Dry Bottom for a free fight, he would permit no one to tread on his toes. His readers' comprehension of the metaphor was complete—as was evidenced by the warm hand-clasps which he received from citizens who were not in sympathy with the Dunlavey regime. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sofa, large enough for two to sit upon comfortably. He paused to open the door across from the telephone table and found that it opened into a closet, whose hangers and hat forms now held the outdoor clothing belonging to Nita's guests. Nice clothes—the smart but unostentatious hats and coats of moneyed people of good taste, he observed a little enviously, before he opened the door which led into the main hall which bisected the main floor of the house until ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... later years. He entered Phillips Exeter Academy in the fall of 1887, and was graduated in 1890. Almost at once he achieved, utterly without effort, a popularity rare in its quality. Because of his relation with his schoolmates and his unostentatious way of looking after the welfare of others, he soon came to be known as Ma Newell, and this affectionate sobriquet not only clung to him through all the years at Exeter and Harvard, but followed him after graduation whithersoever ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... towered with grave dignity above the meaner crowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timid glances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone and impassive,—yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to have become royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remote dignity and the nearer civilized world acquired the status ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... great tent, she sat, while poems were read and speeches made. The brown curls had become snowy white, and the bright eyes of girlhood had grown deeper and more earnest. The manner was the same as ever, unostentatious, courteous, kindly. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... during the doubtful blessings of summer, stood on the slopes, their thousand bayonets guarding against trespass where only pressing necessity could drive a human foot. Sheep-sage, which grew low upon the ground, and unostentatious and dun, was found here, where no flocks came to graze; this was the one life-giving thing which sprang ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... ridicule what they did not always understand, and very rarely met with. But men of far higher genius than this monarch, Selden, Usher, and Milton, must first be condemned before this odium of pedantry can attach itself to the plain and unostentatious writings of James I., who, it is remarkable, has not scattered in them those oratorical periods, and elaborate fancies, which he indulged in his speeches and proclamations. These loud accusers of the pedantry of James were little aware that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... finance, but in 1884 Ryan was merely a ruddy-faced, cleancut, and clean-living Irishman of thirty-three, who could be depended on to execute quickly and faithfully orders on the New York Stock Exchange—even though they were small ones—and who, in unostentatious fashion, had already acquired much influence in Tammany Hall. With his six feet of stature, his extremely slender figure, his long legs, his long arms, his raiment—which always represented the height of fashion and tended slightly toward the flashy—Ryan made a conspicuous ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... predecessor, and which, if they had not been so checked, would long before this time have involved the finances of the General Government in embarrassments far greater than those which are now experienced by any of the States; of limiting all our expenditures to that simple, unostentatious, and economical administration of public affairs which is alone consistent with the character of our institutions; of collecting annually from the customs, and the sales of public lands a revenue fully adequate to defray all the expenses thus incurred; but under no ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... Frankford, Pa., was the residence of Thomas Chalkley, an eminent minister of the Friends' denomination. He was one of the early settlers of the Colony, and his Journal, which was published in 1749, presents a quaint but beautiful picture of a life of unostentatious and simple goodness. He was the master of a merchant vessel, and, in his visits to the west Indies and Great Britain, omitted no opportunity to labor for the highest interests of his fellow-men. During a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... in greater perfection. As Oakland is pre-eminently a city of roses, so is this Mormon Saints' Rest a city of lilacs and tulips. The flowers, at least, are saintly, and they are surely loved. Scarce a home, however obscure, is without them, and the simple, unostentatious manner in which they are planted and gathered in pots and boxes about the windows shows how truly ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... had very little room to move about in his dugout. I was very much impressed with the unostentatious way in which he said, "If you want to say your prayers, Padre, you can kneel over in that corner first, because there is only room for one at a time. I will say mine afterwards"—and he did. He was a Roman Catholic, and had lived in India, and was a very fine type ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... for us - very trying. There seemed to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... clumps of ancient trees, among which troops of deer were strolling. Pembroke Lodge is a plain, unostentatious building, rising in the midst of charming grounds. We were received in the drawing room by the young ladies, and were sorry to learn that Lady Russell was so unwell as to be unable to give us her company at dinner. Two charming ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Fisherman's Palace passed in a steady and orderly procession over the broad deck; through the smart main ward with its polished oak floor; through the operating-room, and through the comfortable, unostentatious club-room, which had been designed by Lewis Ferrier. Robert Cassall was silently ecstatic now that the pinch of his work was over; and he had good reason to be proud, for no prettier or more serviceable piece of work was ever bought with money, and no man ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... with his wife and daughter and Miss Dodge ('Gail Hamilton') left at noon yesterday in anticipation of the rush. Before going the Senator did a very gracious and kindly deed in an unostentatious way. Sending for Flipper, the colored ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... it was simply clad but very expensively—how expensively it was his business to know. Then he took in the room in which they sat. Simplicity again, but the simplicity of high art—the drawing-room of one rich enough to indulge in the final luxury of a highly cultivated taste, viz.: unostentatious elegance and the subjection of each carefully chosen ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... mighty works, pointed sneeringly at his origin; his own country and native town refused him the honor of a prophet. Even his brothers, we are told, did not believe in him, and in their impatient zeal for a temporal kingdom, they found fault with his unostentatious proceeding. His apostles and disciples, with all their profound reverence for his character and faith in his divine origin and mission as the Messiah, of God, yet by their ignorance, their carnal Jewish notions, and their almost habitual misunderstanding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... worship at the tombs of his ancestors. He had previous to his marriage performed this filial duty once, but the mausoleum containing his father's bones was not then completed, and the whole thing was conducted in a private, unostentatious manner. But on the last occasion great preparations were made and vast sums spent (on paper), that nothing might be wanting to render the spectacle as imposing as money could make it. Royalty was to be seen humbly performing the same hallowed ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... of other miscellaneous work inseparable from the conduct of a political movement in which crisis followed crisis with bewildering rapidity, were managed year after year from Mr. Bates's office in the Old Town Hall with a quiet, unostentatious efficiency which only those could appreciate who saw the machine at work and knew the master mechanic behind it. Of this efficiency the September demonstrations in 1912 were ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Grecian Coffee-House, then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality. "Occasionally," adds the judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning-coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... Court,' was held on the morning of the 17th of February: a grander gathering, it was said, than even the great one held by Lord Canning in 1859. The scene was one of remarkable splendour—a splendour alien to the simple and unostentatious tastes and habits of the chief actor in it, but which he knew how to use with effect when taking his place as Suzerain in an Assembly of Princes. To aid us in conceiving it, we must have recourse to the picture sketched at the time in one ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... purity of Priestley's life, the strictness of his performance of every duty, his transparent sincerity, the unostentatious and deep-seated piety which breathes through all his correspondence, are in themselves a sufficient refutation of the hypothesis, invented by bigots to cover uncharitableness, that such opinions as his must arise from moral ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... things in the Bible is the story of the good Samaritan with his simple, unostentatious aid to a wounded man, an enemy of his people whom the Samaritan knew was none the less a brother. And you will remember the priest of the temple, the man who taught charity, and love, drew up his skirts and passed the ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... Sweden. Diesel's firm in Stockholm helped us out of the difficulty; they sent us the man, and it afterwards turned out that he was the right man. Knut Sundbeck was his name. A chapter might be written on the good work that man did, and the quiet, unostentatious way in which he did it. From the very beginning he had assisted in the construction of the Fram's motor, so that he knew his engine thoroughly. He treated it as his darling; therefore there was never anything the matter with it. It may truly be said that he did honour to his firm and the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... has been under-working for himself ever since;—drudging at low rates for unappreciating booksellers,—wasting his fine erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his own,—and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... as smoky, but I thought it less so than the central parts of London. The manufactures, for the most part, are carried on in an unostentatious way, in small scattered shops, and no where make the noise and bustle of a single great iron works. Compared with them Sheffield is a seat of elegant arts, nevertheless compared with the cotton and silk trades, it must be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... a red-letter day for me when Simon Newcomb met me at the door of the Cosmos Club, of which he was then president, and presented me as his guest to one and another of the select company of men who formed its membership. He moved among them as unostentatious and simple-mannered as he had been as a boy, with a catholic interest in all the varying topics which held the sympathies of the crowd, and able well to hold his own whatever might be the field of the conversation. Bishop, poet, scientist, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Joseph Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... distress. He was one of the very few people in Bridgeport who had never received any aid from Mr. Barnum, but he was ready to join in any expression of sympathy, and saw no reason why it should not assume a material form [loud applause]. He would only allude to Mr. Barnum's unostentatious benevolence. To one of the churches of the city Mr. Barnum gave $500—to one of their churches in which he felt no interest beyond his interest for Bridgeport, and this was but a specimen of his munificence. Nobody could say that Mr. Barnum had not made the best and most benevolent use of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... things that paid. Stripped of its rhetoric, the Bishop's address resolved itself into a panegyric of success, and the morality of it was that if you could not achieve intellectual and athletic prominence, you might get a certain degree of credit by unostentatious virtue. What I felt was that somehow the goal proposed was—dare I hint it?—a vulgar one; that it was a glorification of prudence and good-humoured self-interest; and yet if the Bishop had preached the gospel of disinterestedness ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... itself, situated in a Chelsea square of some repute, was small and unostentatious, but was painted a spotless white and possessed, even from the outside, an air of quiet and unassuming elegance. A trim maid-servant opened the door and ushered him into a drawing-room of grey and silver, with a little faded blue in the silks of the French chairs. There were a ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... advanced works was made in splendid style; and as the 'dusky warriors' stood shouting upon the parapet, Gen. Smith decided that 'they would do,' and sent word to storm the first redoubt. Steadily these troops moved on, led by officers whose unostentatious bravery is worthy of emulation. With a shout and rousing cheers they dashed at the redoubt. Grape and canister were hurled at them by the infuriated rebels. They grinned and pushed on, and with a yell that told the Southern chivalry their doom, rolled irresistibly over ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... itself into the garage. Despite the dimness, I recognized Miss Falconer's chauffeur, the man she had addressed as Georges when they left the rue St. Dominique. The very link I needed, provided I could get into communication with him in some unostentatious way. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... his appeal. But he did not forget that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say of him that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,—who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel of his ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... it. His school, though it had probably escaped open persecution until it rose to political importance, could never have been on friendly terms with the Brahmans of the old school. The parvenu on the throne saw his natural allies in the followers of Buddha, and the mendicants, who by their unostentatious behaviour had won golden opinions among the lower and middle classes, were suddenly raised to an importance little dreamt of by their founder. Those who see in Buddhism, not a social but chiefly a religious and philosophical reform, have ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... subscription. But I will throw out of consideration the whole of those amounts—the whole of this unparalleled munificence on the part of many manufacturers which never appears in any account whatever—I will throw out everything done in private and unostentatious charity—the supplies of bedding, clothing, food, necessaries of every description, which do not appear as public subscriptions, and will appeal to public subscriptions alone; and I will appeal to an ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... dog—why, I shall only be too pleased to take the whole burden of the funeral expenses on my own shoulders; and I hope you know me well enough to feel sure that the arrangements will be tasteful, and, at the same time, unostentatious!" ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... this was that for the next quarter of a century no great reforms were initiated, but those already effected were consolidated, and some progress was made in a quiet, unostentatious way, especially in the ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... lending them money and a retinue for the Simla journey, would surely cast them into prison if he heard that they had hit a priest. He enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they bade him change the subject. Their one hope, said he, was unostentatious flight from village to village till they reached civilization; and, for the hundredth time dissolved in tears, he demanded of the high stars why the Sahibs 'had ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... not your majesty excuse me?" said the abbe, bowing low. "My life has been the still, quiet, lonely, unostentatious life of a priest, and only the ever-blessed King Frederick William introduced storm and tempest into its even course. That was, without doubt, God's will; otherwise this robust and giant form which ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... himself to be led away, expatiating as he went, upon the unrivaled location and glorious future of his mining property. From time to time, Dr. Surtaine jotted down an unostentatious note. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... singularly unostentatious. He moved as swiftly as any young priest, His voice was quite even and quite low, and his pace neither rapid nor pompous. According to tradition, He occupied half-an-hour ab amictu ad amictum; and even in ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... would have been, for those who were interested in the plan, to furnish the money necessary, and then to have selected a retired place, where there would be the least prejudice and opposition to be met, and there, in an unostentatious way, commenced the education of the youth to be thus sustained. Instead of this, at a time when the public mind was excited on the subject, it was noised abroad that a college for blacks was to be founded. Then a city was selected for its location, where was another college, so large as ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... who, for many reasons, had kept his afternoon's plan very dark. He knew only too well that his beloved chums would not hear of an afternoon's work, and would head him off either to footer or a run round the Bender. Therefore, immediately after dinner, he had made an unostentatious exit, and reached the laboratory ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... mixture of good and evil as men are every where else. There is not among them an approach to that constant stream of benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor which we have in England, nor yet the unostentatious attentions which we have among our own poor to each other. Yet there are frequent instances of genuine kindness and liberality, as well as actions of an opposite character. The rich show kindness to the poor in expectation of services, and ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... were somewhat disappointed in the quiet, unostentatious general rooms. The suite assigned them—at a hundred and twenty francs a day—was comfortable, was the most comfortable assemblage of rooms either had ever seen. But there was nothing imposing. This impression did not last long, however. They had been misled by their American passion for looks. They ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... outline of John Bull—the shadow on the wall of John Mattock. The unostentatious millionaire's legacy to his two children affected Mr. Bull thrillingly, pretty nearly as it has here been dotted in lining. That is historical. Could he believe in the existence of a son of his, a master of millions, who had never ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lateness of the hour, albeit with misgivings justified in the issue, he hailed a taxicab and had himself driven to the headquarters of the British Secret Service in America, an unostentatious dwelling on the northwest corner of West End Avenue at ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... cross roads on the outskirts of the wood in gusts, fitful indeed, but not so fitful that Nora, on the distrained foxy mare, was not able to gauge to a nicety the state of his temper. From the fact of her unostentatious position in the rear it might safely be concluded that it, like the wind, was still rising. The riders huddled together in the lee of the trees, their various elements fused in the crucible of Sir Thomas's wrath into a compact and anxious mass. There had been an unusually large ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... could not be a tyrant! In the heartiness of his mirth and his enjoyment of simple joys; in the directness and shrewdness of perception which constituted his wit; in the untired, undiscouraged faith in human nature which he always kept; and perhaps above all in the plainness and quiet, unostentatious earnestness and independence of his religious life, in his humble love and trust of God—in all, it was a character such as only Freedom knows ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... lord of the play-ground. Now, every body who sees this, says, it is a proof that the boy has not much mind. He is a simple boy. If he had good sense he would perceive that others of his playmates, in many qualities, surpassed him, and that it became him to be humble and unostentatious, The mind that is ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... in such fashion as involved the loyalty of Meriwether Lewis, the man to whom, of all others of his acquaintance, Thomas Jefferson gave first place in trust and confidence and friendship—the young man who but now was making his unostentatious departure on the great adventure that they ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... quiet enough, and the winner in this great game of chance maintained the same unostentatious silence in victory as that which, in the hour ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... time a capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod returned in a casual manner through the house. Of his sang-froid under a great strain it is sufficient to ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... darkness, until his glad eyes behold the beneficent beacons that welcome him to safe and hospitable harbor. Then the hearts of those who love him are gladdened, and his home made happy; and this gladness and happiness are due to the silent, unostentatious, unerring monitor that was the sailor's guide over the weltering waters. But if drifted too far northward, he finds the needle no longer true, but pointing elsewhere than to the north, what a feeling of helplessness falls upon the dismayed mariner, what utter ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Yes, it was a simple thing, an unostentatious remembrance; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions. Rodney loyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business, but every spire and frond and leaf of green in this winter wreath shed off the secret, magnetic meaning ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... everyday life, and he seems utterly incapable of envy or detraction, or the indulgence of any ignoble or unmanly passions. Indeed, one of his most intimate friends remarked "that he was the beau-ideal of dignified manliness and truthfulness of character." His manners possess all that unostentatious frankness, and self-possessed urbanity and quietude, that is indicative of refined feelings. That such a shining mark has not escaped envy, detraction, and persecution, will surprise no one who is well acquainted with the materials of which human nature ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... It is an unostentatious home, with simple gables and plain windows, and is but a story high. In front are some old trees, and a convenient porch to the door, in which to sit and look forth upon the road, a few paces in advance of it. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Alexandria, the marriage had been probably regarded, thus far, only as a mere matter of form. Caesar was now about fifty-two. He had a wife, named Calpurnia, to whom he had been married about ten years. She was living, at this time in an unostentatious and quiet manner at Rome. She was a lady of an amiable and gentle character, devotedly attached to her husband, patient and forbearing in respect to his faults, and often anxious and unhappy at the thought of the difficulties and dangers ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... enjoy a holiday, while they are unbending their minds with verse, it may be expected that such Readers will resemble their former selves also in strength of prejudice, and an inaptitude to be moved by the unostentatious beauties of a pure style. In the higher poetry, an enlightened Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the wisdom of the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wherever these appear, simplicity accompanies them; Magnificence herself, when legitimate, depending upon a simplicity ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... distinguished foreigner is at the table to-night, Mr. Aldham; a gentleman, I am happy to say, of my own hard-working profession, and a member of the English Parliament from the great city of Leeds. A traveller in the United States, in the most unostentatious manner, he has done us the honor, at the request of the Society, to be present to-night. I rise, Gentlemen, to propose his health. He is of that Old England of which I have been speaking; of that Old England with whom we had some fifty years ago rather ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit. The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the entire story. On ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house her home for months together,—ministered to its sick, miserable, and ignorant inmates,—put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... moment's notice on behalf of the "Cause." I had had no experience of the petty internal strifes, of the jealousies and human frailties which a closer knowledge of all political parties reveals. I remember how ashamed I felt of the quite unostentatious comfort of our home, how anxious I was to dissemble the presence of servants, how necessary I thought it to dress myself in my oldest and least becoming clothes for the occasion, and how indignant I felt when Caroline, who was ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, America from Alaska to the Horn, Madagascar, and other strange countries that would be a mine of information to a writer of books of adventure—tales told in the main with truth and accuracy, and in the quiet, unostentatious manner of the habitual digger to whom poverty, riches, and hardships come all in their turn ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... this imagination of competitive locusts be set forth to the end. If a fuller proof of what an unostentatious self-effacement hesitates to enlarge upon were required, it might be found in the barbarian printed leaf, for the next day this person saw a public record of the strife, in which his own name was followed by a numerical emblem signifying that he had not stumbled or proved incompetent ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... doubted that the search was to be consistent with propriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discern in Greek work is the first which you ought to discern in all work; namely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtained by simple and unostentatious means. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells too, by Jove!—breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in—your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to account to myself for—for—Mr. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... Inferences, however clever, however sound they may seem when they are drawn, are apt to lead one astray. The detective who habitually used the deductive method would spend a great deal of his time exploring blind alleys. Yet Foyle, with the unostentatious Maxwell at his right hand, hurried in the direction of Berkeley Square with a hope that his ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... at Ensal and he looked them frankly in the face that they might see that in a dignified manner he would insist to the last upon the rights of the Negro passengers. The justness of Ensal's request, his unostentatious, manly bearing had the desired effect. The two men quietly turned about ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... this year consigned to doom, not one behaved himself with truer or nobler heroism; not one, either, whose fate commands a deeper sympathy. Under thirty years of age, largely gifted, with most respectable connections, a high place in society, brilliant prospects, and so unostentatious in his enthusiasm that it was only then his country heard of his devotion, and learned his worth; there he stood with as lofty consciousness and as brave a heart as ever consecrated the scaffold or ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... the sad duty of this biographer to write of disappointed love, I am sure he would not have any sensational story to tell of the Young Lady. She is one of those women whose unostentatious lives are the chief blessing of humanity; who, with a sigh heard only by herself and no change in her sunny face, would put behind her all the memories of winter evenings and the promises of May mornings, and give her life to some ministration ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... compelled to send back some jewels which had been presented to her by the Prince Regent; but which, it was discovered, belonged to the Crown, and could not be alienated. Sir Benjamin was created a Peer, and sent to Stockholm as ambassador, where his affable manners and his unostentatious hospitality rendered him exceedingly popular; and he became as great a favorite with Bernadotte as he had been with the Prince Regent. The name of Bloomfield is at this day respected ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... to reside in that unostentatious home, obedient to the rules of the school as the youngest pupil, dining with the children at their early hour, and returning to her sanctuary, whence she sent forth rapidly and continuously what won for her the adoration of the young and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... stealth and blush to find it fame " [Pope], hide one's light under a bushel, cast a sheep's eye. Adj. modest, diffident; humble &c. 879; timid, timorous, bashful; shy, nervous, skittish, coy, sheepish, shamefaced, blushing, overmodest. unpretending[obs3], unpretentious; unobtrusive, unassuming, unostentatious, unboastful[obs3], unaspiring; poor in spirit. out of countenance &c. (humbled) 879. reserved, constrained, demure. Adv. humbly &c. adj.; quietly, privately; without ceremony, without beat of drum; sans faon. Phr. " not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty " [Romeo and Juliet]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of the arrival of him whose face we have so long sought The hour is at hand when he joins his military family at an unostentatious and very frugal dinner. In about half an hour there is a sudden cessation in the hum of conversation, the guard is ordered to stand to arms, and in a moment more, amid profound silence, Garibaldi has passed through the antechamber, leaving ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... city was quiet and unostentatious and so devoid of the pomp and pageantry of a victorious general as to cause question in the minds of some as to whether or not this was the man expected. His dress was plain in the extreme, and bore upon it no insignia of rank; yet those there were, of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... sentences in that sequence which shall secure for each its proper emphasis and its determining influence on the others—influence reflected back and influence projected forward. As an example of the charm that lies in unostentatious antiphony, consider this passage from Ruskin:—"Originality in expression does not depend on invention of new words; nor originality in poetry on invention of new measures; nor in painting on invention of new colours or new modes of using them. The ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... small tea-table between them. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms and plants. Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable and unostentatious. There was not a chair to be seen which might not have held the giant's frame. San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what was good. If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse turned out to be capable of four times the work. If he bought a picture ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Mrs Darcy waited upon us, having thoughtfully sent a mounted messenger to enquire if we felt equal to receiving company after our journey. On our agreeing, they presented themselves in the most unostentatious way, having walked through their park and down the lane, though the weather was showery. ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... moons round in a kind of an unostentatious way, with the Kid still acting peevish and low in his mind, and me saying little things every now and then to chirk him up, until the shank of the evening arrives 'long about two A.M. Then we slips over into the yards below Riverside Drive, taking due care not to wake up no sleeping ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... I known another human being the perpetual object of whose life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even of her own excellence that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence it came. She had seen the world—its glories without being dazzled; its vices and follies without being infected by them. She had suffered often and severely from fits of long and painful ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of diminishing gradually into what tailors call "a morning coat," or a morning coat which was in course of expanding ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Wheeler and Mr. Graper were so to speak the north and south poles of the little group upon the improvised platform from which Lady Harman was to talk to the gathering. She would have liked the support of Mr. Brumley, but she couldn't contrive any unostentatious way of bringing him into the business without putting it upon a footing that would have involved the appearance of Sir Isaac and Mrs. Pembrose and—everybody. And essentially it wasn't to be everybody. It was to ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... presence of a lady, hat in hand, and with its selectest bow and smile, and in the same breath turns to commit the direst offences against the peace and purity of womanhood; but that true and hearty, though simple and unostentatious, reverence for the sex, that teaches men to regard all women as worthy of freedom, respect, and protection, simply by virtue of their womanhood. I say not that this chivalry is a Southern, but that it is an American trait. As such I am proud ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... N. Carne, Esq., Dimlands and St. Donat's Castles, died November 28th, 1866, at Dimlands, in the 94th year of her age. Deceased could claim a Royal Welsh lineage, being the 34th in unbroken descent from Ynyr, King of Gwent and Dyfed. Her long life was distinguished by unostentatious acts of charity and ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... estimation of all who knew it, it was the rarest aggregation of elegant, intellectual, and accomplished people that have ever been found assembled in our village. Thirty years since, amidst the sincere and unostentatious cordiality which characterized it, at a dinner party, for example, at Judge De Saussure's, eight or ten of his favorite associates wanted to do honor to some distinguished stranger—for such were never permitted to pass through the town without a tender of the hospitality ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... lining of whose cloak were of different colours, and a high reward, and pardon for past acts of malignancy, might tempt him once more to turn his tippet. For these reasons Joceline kept a strict, though unostentatious watch over Trusty Tomkins. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... material, with a quaint frill of old lace falling over the low collar, a bunch of spring snowdrops at her belt, and her lovely hair bound with the black velvet band which none could wear just in the same way—a very simple, unostentatious home toilet, but she looked, Walter thought, like a queen. Possessed of a wonderful tact, Gladys managed, while the meal progressed, to confine the conversation to commonplace topics, so that the servant ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... know one another, they look out for one another, and build their houses so high up that a pike cannot reach and wound them. Their usual practice is to seek a very high tree, where they can build their nests safely; and, their houses being so unostentatious in size and furnishing, a tree holds them easily. The ladder by which they ascend is a log, some grooves that they cut in it serving as steps. On the coming of night they draw this ladder up and thus sleep secure. They teach us the little with which life is satisfied, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... different sets of measures, each of which supplemented the other: military and naval efficiency on the one hand and pacific interpenetration on the other. The former has been often and adequately described; the latter has not yet attracted the degree of attention it merits. For one thing, it was unostentatious and invariably tinged with the colour of legitimate trade and industry. Practically every country in Europe, and many lands beyond the seas, were covered with networks of economic relations which, without being always emanations of the governmental brain, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... would readily admit. But that it should find its profit in the business of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral insect, must after all have ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... had never been able to live on his income of $22,500 per year. He expressed his conviction that the wide-spread poverty of the bishops is caused by their being required to maintain "venerable but costly palaces." He says that he and many of his fellow-churchmen would prefer to lead plain and unostentatious lives, but they are not allowed to do so; that they would much prefer to devote a portion of their income to charity and other worthy purposes rather than to be compelled to spend it in useless ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... practical form of Christianity, that was not dogmatic or sectarian. It took the Unitarian name, but only in the sense of rejecting the harsher interpretations of the doctrine of the Trinity and of election. The members of the Unitarian churches during this period were devout in an unostentatious manner, pious after a simple fashion, loyal Christians without excess of zeal, lovers of liberty, but in a conservative spirit. This simple form of piety enabled the men who accepted it to govern the state in a most faithful manner. They managed its affairs justly, ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... appearing less pachydermatous than the rest. Or else he flies to the other extreme, and affects the odd; pretends, poses, parades, and at last succeeds half in duping himself, half in deceiving other people. But with Far Orientals the case is different. Their love has all the unostentatious assurance of what has received the sanction of public opinion. Nor is it still at that doubtful, hesitating stage when, by the instrumentality of a third, its soul-harmony can suddenly be changed from the jubilant major key into the despairing minor. ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... Grave and unostentatious, yet not moody,—neither impulsively liberal and generous nor habitually penurious and uncharitable,—he led a quiet and monotonously easy life, varied by occasional trips to foreign lands, and comforted by the assurance that ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... he said. "I have heard of him. One of those fine, unostentatious figures—strong in action, a little narrow in outlook, perhaps, but essential to a country's staying power. You have every reason to be ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Washington were such infidels. After Channing's day, this kind of man here in New England was absorbed by the Unitarian movement, and, as a separate class, disappeared. Mrs. Pickard was bred in this school and she appears never to have forgotten her home training. "She was unostentatious and charitable," says an early friend, "and her whole life was an exhibition of the ascendency of principle over mere taste ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... anti-slavery man. When we got to the chapel—a Baptist one—they were at prayer. Walking in softly, we entered a pew right in the midst of them. The minister—a mulatto of about thirty years of age, with a fine intelligent eye—was very simple in dress, and unostentatious in manner. His language, too, was appropriate and correct. He was evidently a man of good common sense. His text was Psalm li. l2, l3. He referred very properly to the occasion on which the Psalm was composed, and drew from the text a large mass of sound practical ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... never hear of the shadow of a suspicion of any kind having rested upon her fair name. She possessed in herself the three Graces—Faith, Hope, and Charity. She was tender and pure. She impressed all who knew her by the unostentatious faithfulness of her spirit, and purity of her life. She seems to have been actuated every day by the one desire, to do her duty. She wished to serve God, obey her parents, and do any good work that might be in her power. And who does not see how much better she was than a useless ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... career of John Jay that by no triumph of extraordinary genius, by no favor of brilliant circumstances did he win and leave an honored name, but through the simple uprightness and the sound wisdom of a consistent and loyal character—so emphatic and yet unostentatious as to overcome, in the end, the most rancorous political injustice. His early training was no less favorable to this result than his birth. His father removed to Westchester county, and, on a pleasant ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Orange Court House, seventeen miles on the way to Richmond. Detachments of a Vermont and a New York cavalry regiment composed the reconnoitring party, and the whole was commanded by Gen. Crawford, a clever and unostentatious soldier. We bivouacked that night near Raccoon Ford, on the river Rapidan. No fires were built; for we knew that the enemy was all around us, and we slept coldly and imperfectly till the gray of Sunday morning. At daylight we galloped into the main street of Orange Court House, having ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... hand-to-hand conflicts of a body that was lustrous with forensic talents. A man's status in the United States Senate is determined by the calibre and skill of the opponents who are selected to cross weapons with him in the forum. Wright was unostentatious, studious, thoughtful, grave. Whenever he delivered an elaborate speech the Whigs set Clay, Webster, Ewing, or some other of their leaders to reply to him."—H.B. Stanton, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... and origin of the revolutionary movement and its subsequent history, which sparkled with heroic deeds, was told in a quiet, unostentatious manner. I had just come from Russia. I had been much in that country, and thought I knew a great deal about it and the sinister system of government that breeds revolutionaries; but the tales of cruel, ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... gracefully shewing its unostentatious front, and, at length, humbly adorning almost all the scattered villages of the land.—Bowles's History ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... of the family estate had always attended to its cultivation, and was properly called a gentleman farmer. Unostentatious and frugal, he never lacked means, in spite of bad harvests or unexpected losses, to assist the younger members of the family in starting in life, or to help forward any good ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Helder. Upon the elevation of Louis Napoleon to power the Count, who distrusted him and his schemes, abandoned politics and the agitation of public life forever, contenting himself with doing all the good in his power and aiding the needy in a quiet, unostentatious way. His daughter and her husband spent a great deal of their time at the family mansion, and the Count and Mercedes acquired additional delight thereby. Albert de Morcerf, his wife and Mlle. Louise d' Armilly remained inmates of the Monte-Cristo residence, aiding not ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... he had his chance, and during that time things went from bad to worse with his conspicuous dress, forcing him to be unostentatious, exact—for his goings and comings could be seen for a mile—even retiring. He found now that he began to think of some acts and some speeches of his, in the time when he was not a Button Boy, with as much mortification as the buttons often gave him; and he often checked ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... mighty undertaking. It was made known at Vladivostok by the Czarevitch (now Nicholas II.) in the course of a lengthy tour in the Far East; and he is known then to have gained that deep interest in those regions which has moulded Russian policy throughout his reign. Quiet, unostentatious, and even apathetic on most subjects, he then, as we may judge from subsequent events, determined to give to Russian energies a decided trend towards the Pacific. As Czar, he has placed that aim in the forefront ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... enjoyable one to all, but it was especially delightful to three couples who early paired off together, and in a quiet unostentatious fashion dropped into the rear. Captain and Mrs Staunton had naturally much to say to each other upon matters interesting only to themselves; while as for Violet and Rex, Blanche and Lance, this was their first opportunity for an exchange of these sweet nothings in which ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... could not be. I surely would have discovered this long ago if it had been true. Mercenary! Could he be called mercenary whom a high sense of honor had forbidden to assist me in the investment of my property? Good for nothing! Ah, my father did not know the noble impulses that underlay Roger Dale's unostentatious manner! ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... character, its oak-panelling and beamed-ceiling, together with some fine pieces of antique furniture, lend it an air of historical interest, whilst in all other respects it speaks of solid comfort, refinement, and unostentatious elegance. Evidently the room of a rich man, who has, however, apparently come to some compromise on the difficult question of his entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; for the panelled walls possess, among other decorations, a richly ornamented crucifix, a ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... Nor pamper with exciting eloquence A parasite ambition. With clear eye And cautious speech, and judgment never warp'd By fancy or enthusiasm, he pursued An even, upright course. His bounties sought Unostentatious channels, and he loved To help the young who strove to help themselves, Aiding their oar against opposing tides, Into the smooth, broad waters. Thus flow'd on His almost fourscore years,—levying slight tax On ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... of the Secretary of War exhibits several gratifying results attained during the year by wise and unostentatious methods. The percentage of desertions from the Army (an evil for which both Congress and the Department have long been seeking a remedy) has been reduced during the past year 24 per cent, and for the months of August and September, during which time the favorable effects of the act ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... occupied with the preceding conversation, Col. Malcome had donned his fur-lined overcoat and stepped across the yard to Deacon Allen's cottage. The good people were quite embarrassed to behold so smart a visitor in their unostentatious little parlor, but the colonel, by his gentlemanly grace, soon placed them at their ease. After a few moments' conversation on general topics, he asked, casually enough, who was the owner of the fine mansion he had noticed in his rambles about town, with the appellation "Summer ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... in every week during the season, a general invitation to which is given to the favoured; others are monthly; and others, again, at no regular intervals. At these gatherings, the amusements are conversation and music only, and the entertainment is unostentatious and inexpensive, consisting of tea and coffee, wine or negus handed about in the course of the evening, and sandwiches, cake, and wine at eleven o'clock. Suppers are prohibited by common consent, for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... and our professional connection disposed of, we both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on—abundance to leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which, properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace into the ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... which particularly endeared this brave and justly-famous Boer officer to us were his straightforwardness and unostentatious manner, his truthfulness, and the utter absence of affectation that distinguishes him. I am certain that he has written his simple narrative with candour and impartiality, and I feel equally certain, from what I know of him, that this most popular of our late opponents has reviewed the exciting ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and—beautiful poetic contrivance!—we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches—soils no satin paper—vows no vows—no, he is above such humbug. His motto is evidently deeds, not words. And what does he do? Send a flimsy epistle, which his fair reader pays the vile postage for? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... of mechanics in the highest of terms. Women are employed in various capacities in nearly every line of work that was exhibited in this department, and Miss Gleason probably stands as an example of the real but unostentatious work of many women who understand the intricacies of machinery fully as well as men with the same degree ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who was their benefactor. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" "'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed him up not a trifle! How alert to love, how open to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure! What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particularly to women! How wide those windows of his soul open ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... most wonderful place to speak in. We had it enormously full last night (Marigold and Trial), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher being present in his pew, I sent to invite him to come round before he left. I found him to be an unostentatious, evidently able, straightforward, and agreeable man; extremely well-informed, and with a good ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Union—men who held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at home and at the capital. These gentlemen and their households were unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well aware of the potency of their influence. They had no troublesome appearances ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... character, he is just and sometimes generous; hospitable but not unostentatious; dictatorial and circumlocutory to excess in his conversation, and of an inquisitive turn of mind, and considering his resources, he is well informed and even clever in matters of the world; in short, he is a perfect pattern of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... contrived, by his simple and unostentatious habits, to render himself more agreeable to his English guests than even Francis had been able to do with all his profuse and expensive civilities. Not, as some may condemn us, in consequence of our national fickleness; nor, as others ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a little time his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was Shelley, and it opened at a passage ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... common that tranquil and subdued manner which I have chosen to denominate repose; but, in the ease of the two former, this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an unambitious, unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before me the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong undercurrent of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... always entertaining. It is Southey's almost unexampled felicity, to possess the best gifts of talent and genius, free from all their characteristic defects. As son, brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves with firm, yet light steps, alike unostentatious, and alike exemplary. As a writer he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... his great joy he never lost one of his most beautiful natural graces, the grace of an unostentatious humility. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... in earlier years. Carlyle's Reminiscences had not long before been published. Mrs. Carlyle, therein so extravagantly though naturally belauded, he described as a bitter little woman, with, however, the one redeeming quality of unostentatious charity: "The poor of Chelsea," he said, "always spoke well of her." "George Eliot," whose genius he much admired, he had ceased to know long before her death, but he spoke of the lady as modest and retiring, and amiable to a fault when the outer crust of reticence had ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... of any person, any chance-comer, about whom they know nothing. Who is not open to flattery? and if he seems not to be exposed to it, is it not that he is too shrewd or too refined to be beguiled by any but what is delicate and unostentatious? A man never considers who it is who praises him. But the most dangerous, perhaps, of all kinds of vanity is to be vain of our personal appearance, most dangerous, for such, persons are ever under temptation—I may say, ever sinning. Wherever they go they carry their snare with ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... volumes, covered in like manner with ms. notes by the same hand. To a man of M. Barbier's keen literary appetite, this latter must prove an inexhaustible feast. I was shewn, in this same well-garnished, but unostentatious collection, GOUJET'S own catalogue of his own library. It is in six folio volumes; well written; with a ruled frame work round each page, and an ornamental frontispiece to the first volume. Every book in the catalogue has a note subjoined; and the index is at ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... for once, in Massachusetts, a public institution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and mortar; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, that any future additions will tend to make this spot a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, inflame local or state pride, but can never be an effectual, economical agency in the work of reformation. Every public institution has ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... to tell—it was principally charm. He was one of the most unostentatious, unselfish, high-minded, consistent men I ever knew. Completely a gentleman in the finest sense of ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... unostentatious as the veery's does not appeal to the hurried or the preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased myself with imagining a resemblance between it and the poetry of George Herbert,—both uncared for by the world, but both, on ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... o'clock to-day we passed through the neat-looking town of Franklin. It looks very new, most of the houses being substantial bricks. Here we met General Fry, the man who slewed Zollicoffer. The General is of plain, unostentatious appearance, a keen eye, lips compressed, the whole countenance denoting determination ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... Countess Saito, despite their immense wealth and their political importance, were simple, unostentatious people, who seemed to devote most of their thoughts to their children, their garden, their dwarf trees, and their breed of cocker spaniels. They took their social duties lightly, though their home was a Mecca for needy relatives on the search for jobs. They gave generously; ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... street, and the young lady was assisted to alight; entering the house, she was received by an elderly female, who immediately conducted her to a private room, which contained a bed and furniture of a neat but unostentatious description. The carriage drove away, and Julia remained several hours in the house. At about nine o'clock in the evening, the carriage returned, and she was assisted to enter, being apparently in a very feeble and unwell condition. She reached her own dwelling, and for over a week remained in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... and was fetched by a plain green chariot; and the few that saw him said that he was a portly gentleman, wrapped in a long great coat and muffled up to the eyes. Keeping himself well behind his Royal Highness, the portly stranger took a deep but unostentatious interest in the performance. In his Haroun al-Raschid character he had been present, with his friend Lord Coleraine (then Major George Hanger), at some of the actual scenes represented; and in particular, by virtue of the fact of his wearing "a clean shirt," had been called ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of Scandinavia can be explored at a very slight expense. The exiled prince, with his companions, travelled in the most unostentatious manner. He felt quite secure in his wanderings, as but few of the emigrants had penetrated those distant regions. From Copenhagen he passed to Elsineur, visiting all objects of historic interest. Crossing the Sound at ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... visitor at the Casino. These simple and unostentatious funerals are very impressive. The priests always walk bareheaded through the streets on these occasions, and on many others. Indeed, the priestly head seems ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... way, and the plate and jewels another, they became bankers from father to son. A peculiarity attended them; they never broke, nor even cracked. Jew James Hardie conducted for many years a smooth, unostentatious and lucrative business. It professed to be a bank of deposit only, and not of discount. This was not strictly true. There never was a bank in creation that did not discount under the rose, when the paper represented commercial effects, and the indorsers were ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... laugh, in which I joined her, for the speech was characteristic of the native prairie inhabitants' character. Frugal, but open-handed, hard to beat at a bargain, they are equally swift to seize upon all chances that lead to business and do the stranger an unostentatious kindness, though they have no false delicacy in forthwith establishing commercial relations with ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... day. Conspicuous among the anti-slavery leaders of New England, his voice always had been heard in defense of human rights. His loyalty to the union was equaled only by his devotion to the interests of the soldiers. He lived a quiet, unostentatious life, at the hotel, where his well-known face and figure could be seen when the senate was not in session. He was a man of strong mentality, of sturdy frame and marked individuality. As chairman of the committee on military affairs he had been able to make himself extremely ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... alone to heal the sick. His patient was a journeyman barber, with only a boy, and a girl of fifteen, to depend upon. This same doctor often went among his friends in State Street, in 'change hours, to preach the gospel of charity in his own unostentatious way. All gave when he asked, and it was not a very difficult matter for him to raise fifty or a hundred dollars for a deserving family. He purposed to do this for those under the barber's humble roof, who, without being connected by the remotest ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... streets of the city of Cleveland.) in which the colored people—or a goodly portion of them—worship on Sundays. The seats are cushionless, and have perpendicular backs. The pulpit is plain white—trimmed with red, it is true, but still a very unostentatious affair for colored people, who are supposed to have a decided weakness for gay hues. Should you escort a lady to this church, and seat yourself beside her, you will infallibly be touched on the shoulder, and politely requested ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... private society, he was universally beloved. "His society," writes Mr Deans, "was courted by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. In every company he was alike kind, affable, and unostentatious; as a companion, he was the most engaging of men; he was the best story-teller of his day." His power of humour was unbounded; he had a joke for every occasion, a bon-mot for every adventure. He ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a bed in the unostentatious lodging in the Rue de Vaugirard where Damour had brought him. The surgeon had pronounced the wound mortal, giving him but a few hours to live. For long after he was gone Philip was silent, but at length he said "You heard what Grandjon-Larisse said—It is broken pride that kills, Damour." Then ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... treason for a small community to live quietly here in the Alsatian hills, harming nobody, asking nothing save freedom of thought? Is it treason for a woman of the world to renounce the world? Is it treason for her to live an unostentatious life and use her fortune to aid others to live? Treason! Monsieur, the word has an ugly ring to me. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... bodies in the earth." Then, desirous of correcting by her example, in this last act of her life, the wasteful pomp of funeral obsequies to which the Castilians were addicted, she commands that her own should be performed in the plainest and most unostentatious manner, and that the sum saved by this economy should be distributed in ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott |
