"Unpretending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arises, which, if it be less pleasing and poetical, is, perhaps, more useful—that the impetuous course of the mountain torrent, though gratifying to the lover of nature, is unaccompanied with any other benefit to man, while the stream that pursues its unpretending path through the plains, bestows fertility on a thousand fields. Such thoughts as these, however, only arise in the mind when it has become somewhat familiar with the surrounding scenes. The roar of the cataract, the savage appearance of the dark rocks that border the falling waters, and that ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... old friend of the family, to visit him. We get an interesting little picture of a Roman of the upper class on a tour. "At dawn he would send on a baker and a cook to the place which he intended to visit. These would enter the town in a most unpretending fashion, and if their master did not happen to have a friend or acquaintance in the place, would betake themselves to an inn, and there prepare for their master's accommodation without troubling any one. It was only when there was no inn that they went to the magistrates and asked for entertainment; ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... perch in Quadri's window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the other side of the hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which interposed a kind of barrier between himself ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... the noiseless tenor of one's way, " do good by 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... between 6 and 7 minutes to cross the bridge, over two miles long, which connects Venice with the land. The water is not deep, and most of this bridge is a mere bank of earth running into the sea. It was on account of my being disgusted at the general unpretending appearance of Venice, that I left her so soon. Among the objects of interest that I saw between Venice and Bologna, was a herd of a hundred deer on a hill-side, and the merry bells of stage-teams jingling like our sleigh-bells, but which may be heard in Italy ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... some of them warm, some affectionate; and so we leave Mr. Wylie under the slow but salutary influence of love and unpretending probity. He continued to lodge next door. Nancy would only receive him as ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... simplicity of manners. The dress of the upper classes was wonderfully plain and unpretending, presenting little variety and scarcely any ornament. The grandee wore, indeed, an elaborate wig, it being imperative on all men to shave the head for the sake of cleanliness. But otherwise, his costume was of the simplest and the scantiest. Ordinarily, when he was employed in the common ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... fro. I went to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a queer little building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark in red brick. Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, and the slim chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant its unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. He is called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted the pink and pattern of piety. Oct. 4th. A letter from Sheldon awaited me in the coffee-room letter-rack when I ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... entered, there was but one other person on the outer or public side of the booking-counter; and he, sticking close in a far corner and inaudibly conferring with a clerk, seemed so slight and unpretending a body that Staff overlooked his existence altogether until circumstances obliged him to ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... distinguished stranger visited the town, he was not let off without the question, "Are you aware, sir, that we have among us one of the heroes of the late Mexican war?" And then a stroll about town to the various points of historic interest invariably ended at the unpretending ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... road from Rhydland to Abergele we saw Hemmel Park, the seat of Lord Dinorbin, lately burnt down. Near Rhydland is Penwarn, the seat of Lord Mostyn; the house is small and unpretending, the grounds are beautiful. There is a very handsome dog-kennel, in which are kept forty-four couple of fine fox-hounds ready for work, besides old ones in one kennel, and young ones in another: the dogs all in such good order and kennels so perfectly clean. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... employed to make known his wonders, he never entered upon his inquiries without praying for assistance from above. This frame of mind was by no means inconsistent with that high spirit of delight and triumph with which Kepler surveyed his discoveries. His was the unpretending ovation of success, not the ostentatious triumph of ambition; and if a noble pride did occasionally mingle itself with his feelings, it was the pride of being the chosen messenger of physical truth, not that of being the favoured possessor of superior genius. With such a frame ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... office, which was upon the ground floor of a gloomy old house in one of the dingier streets in the Soho district, and in the upper chambers whereof the attorney's wife and numerous offspring had their abode. He came down to his client from his unpretending breakfast-table in a faded dressing-gown, with smears of egg and greasy traces of buttered toast about the region of his mouth, and seemed not particularly pleased to see Mr. Nowell. But the conference that followed was a long one; and it is ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... guests, and exchanging with them the salutations and commonplaces of the evening. Mrs. Elwood, though not beautiful, nor even handsome, was yet every way a comely woman; and the quiet dignity and the unpretending simplicity of her manner, together with a certain intelligent and appreciating cast of countenance, which always rested on her placid, features, seldom failed to impress those who approached her with feelings of ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... stronger reason, probably, than that it was an English institution; but had he foreseen its durability he would have been a greater wonder than he was from having his eyes more fully opened than were the eyes of any man at that period to the rare qualities possessed by Englishmen; their unpretending magnanimity; their fine talents for business; their keen views in policy; the great things they had done in the arts of peace and war, as well as their capability of continuing to accomplish still greater achievements in both; ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... BEAUCHAMP, an unpretending residence in the simple cottage style, on the right-hand side of the road, proceeding to Niton: we catch a glimpse ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... guarding a province for his heir; and it was through fear of loosening their hold upon the faithfulness of these their best troops that Ptolemy and his rivals alike chose to govern their kingdoms under the unpretending title of lieutenants of the King of Macedonia. Hence, upon the death of Alexander AEgus, there was a throne, or at least a state prison, left empty for a new claimant. Polysperchon, an old general of Alexander's army, then thought that ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... her devotees were Norris, the singer, and Mr. Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be captivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet boy wrote to her, of which this is, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... of age; but from this alone. No monuments adorn the churchyard; head-stones of all sizes meet the eye, some worn and leaning against a shrub or tree for support, others new and white, and glistening in the sunset. Several family vaults, unpretending in their appearance, are perceived on a closer scrutiny, to which the plants usually found in burial-grounds are clinging, shadowed too by large trees. The walls where they are visible are worn and discolored, but they are almost covered with ivy, clad in summer's deepest ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... first business was to find an inn; and in this they had unexpected difficulty, since for some reason or other—possibly the fine weather—many of the nearest at hand were full of tourists and commercial travellers. He led her on till he reached a tavern which, though comparatively unpretending, stood in as attractive a spot as any in the town; and this, somewhat to their surprise after their previous experience, they found apparently empty. The considerate old man, thinking that Baptista was educated to artistic notions, though he himself was deficient in them, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... advance escape before you, and a happy and grateful community rise up in their clustering cities, towns, and villages, impede your way with demonstrations of respect and kindness, and convert your unpretending journey into a triumphal progress. Such honors frequently attend public functionaries, and such an one may sometimes find it difficult to determine how much of the homage he receives is paid to his own worth, how much proceeds from the habitual ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... cruelty in any form. He entertained a love for the horse in the stable without bowing down to worship the stage-coachmen, the jockeys, and other ignoble heroes of "horsey" life. He loved his country and "the quiet, unpretending Church of England." He was ready to exalt the obsolescent fisticuffs and the "strong ale of Old England," but he was not blind either to the drunkenness or to the overbearing brutality which he had reason ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... to France, in 1513, he left Katherine regent of the kingdom during his absence, with full powers to carry on the war against the Scots; and the Earl of Surrey at the head of the army, as her lieutenant-general. It is curious to find Katherine—the pacific, domestic, and unpretending Katherine—describing herself as having "her heart set to war," and "horrible busy" with making "standards, banners, badges, scarfs, and the like."[97] Nor was this mere silken preparation—mere dalliance with the pomp and circumstance of war; for within a few weeks afterwards, her general ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... saw at Ansbach: "Bernadotte, a very tall dark man, with fiery eyes under thick brows; Mortier, still taller, with a stupid sentinel look; Lefebvre, an old Alsatian camp-boy, with his wife, former washerwoman to the regiment; and Davoust, a little smooth-pated, unpretending man, who was never ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the piano—Mozart's "Air in A, with Variations," lies open on the instrument. One after another she plays the lovely melodies, so simply, so purely beautiful, of that unpretending and unrivaled work. At the close of the ninth Variation (Clara's favorite), she pauses, and ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... our lot to behold the departure of these the honoured and precious remains of Sir Walter Scott from the house of Abbotsford, where all his earthly affections had been centered. The coffin was plain and unpretending, covered with black cloth, and having an ordinary plate on it, with this inscription, "Sir Walter Scott, of Abbotsford, Bart., aged 62." "Alas!" said we, as we followed the precious casket across the courtyard—"alas! have these been the limits of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... make their opponents subdue theirs, and thus prove themselves to be the truest disciples of the Prince of Peace. "Let the contest," said he, "be only which shall serve our common master best, by leading a life of unpretending holiness. Schism does infinitely more harm by the enmity it engenders, than it does good by the zeal it kindles. Controversial ardour is rather the death ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... statements of religion acquire a singular and living force when we perceive them carried out and realised in the actual affairs of life in a degree to which our personal experience is a stranger. Influenced as human nature is by example, these unpretending narratives, whose whole strength lies in the facts which they record, and not in the art of the biographer, undeniably strike the mind with an almost supernatural force. They enchain the attention; they compel us to say, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... the book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the thick of the publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer by the cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... to seek other expedients. None could be found except that of rendering this company a commercial one; this was, under a gentler name, a name vague and unpretending, to hand over to it the entire and exclusive commerce of the country. It may be imagined how such a resolution was received by the public, exasperated by the severe decree, prohibiting people, under heavy penalties, from having more than five-hundred livres, in coin, in their ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the interesting volumes recently published by Mr. Knight Hunt, under the unpretending title of The Fourth Estate: Contributions towards a History of Newspapers, and of the Liberty of the Press, has been very kindly recommended to our attention by The Examiner. We gladly avail ourselves of the suggestion, and shall be pleased ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... Matthew wrote to Bacon (as Viscount St. Albans) at an uncertain date after January 1621: 'The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another.' {371} This unpretending sentence is distorted into conclusive evidence that Bacon wrote works of commanding excellence under another's name, and among them probably Shakespeare's plays. According to the only sane interpretation of Matthew's words, his 'most prodigious wit' was some Englishman named Bacon ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... that the Highlands could not have a superior. This is a sort of argument it is not easy to overcome; and her companion was content to admire the scene before her, in silence, after urging one or two reasons, in support of her opinion, in her own quiet, unpretending manner. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... ought to have it in stock, and if it is sought after with some vigour it will be soon brought in general trade within reach of all. It is not one of those things that flame on railway stations and on the covers of magazines. The makers are most quiet, unpretending men, and one would think almost afraid to take their light from under a bushel. But they are in possession of a most valuable secret in knowing how to make ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... rode a far different figure. Mounted upon a slight-made, active thorough-bred, whose drawn flanks bespoke a long and weary journey, sat Sir Arthur Wellesley, a plain blue frock and gray trousers being his unpretending costume; but the eagle glance which he threw around on every side, the quick motion of his hand as he pointed hither and thither among the dense battalions, bespoke him every inch a soldier. Behind them came a brilliant staff, glittering in aiguillettes and golden trappings, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... his unabashed affirmative. "Nice, comfortable, elevating palliness with you; and a right down rollicking bust-up occasionally with the ladies of the unpretending ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... from that twilight camp, on the south side of Market Street, stood old St. Patrick's Church. It was a most unpretending structure, and was quite overshadowed by the R.C. Orphan Asylum close at hand. Both were backed by sandhills; and both, together with the sand, have been spirited away. The Palace and Grand Hotels now ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... Lady Mabel, "at so unpretending a funeral, in the case of a member of the great order of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... can arise from so melancholy a topic. I say pleasure—because your brief and simple picture of the life and demeanour of the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues, and her pure and unpretending piety. Her last moments were particularly striking; and I do not know that, in the course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably, the firm believers ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... more like an unpretending farmhouse than an institution, forms two sides of an oblong. The back windows look out on a flat garden about seventy yards across. Part of the house was originally a cottage; the longer part a disused bobbin-mill, once turned by the stream which runs ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... influences. Squire Oliver Montague, a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except in rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned New England groves. But it was just a plain, roomy house, capable of extending to many guests an unpretending hospitality. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the plain unpretending structure which looked at from the outside might be mistaken for a warehouse, and she gazed at its blank front wondering if fate meant to be kind and give her the chance her soul longed for. But in spite ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... knocked timidly one evening at the door of a modest little workman-looking cottage, down a small side street in the back-wastes of Chelsea. 'Twas a most unpretending street; Bower Lane by name, full of brown brick houses, all as like as peas, and with nothing of any sort to redeem their plain fronts from the common blight of the London jerry-builder. Only a soft serge curtain and a pot of mignonette ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... guests, Friend Whittier, the Hon. James G. Birney, George Thompson, Theodore, or Angelia Weld, Joseph and Thankful Southwick were quietly looking about for such of the anti-slavery brothers and sisters as were too little known to be likely to receive invitations. Always kindly unpretending, clear-sighted to perceive the right, and faithful in following it wherever it might lead. They were upright in all their dealings with the world, tender and true in the relations of private life and the memory they have left ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... didn't you know the story?" said Miss Debby, in her turn looking surprised; "they met last summer at the Springs, and the colonel was so pleased with her unpretending good sense, excellent principles, and superior mental cultivation, that he proposed to her before she went away. She deferred her answer until she and his children should have become acquainted. You know he is a widower with three daughters—two ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... practised thief eluding the hot pursuit of the police. At last she paused and looked back, and thinking she had shaken me off (for knowing the game well I had hastily effaced myself in a doorway) plunged into the entrance of a small unpretending hotel in a quiet, retired square—the Hotel Pierre ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... they with wretched voices Curse me for my wretched singing, Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom, Call my ancient songs unworthy, Blame the songs and curse the singer. Be not thus, my worthy people, Blame me not for singing badly, Unpretending as a minstrel. I have never had the teaching, Never lived with ancient heroes, Never learned the tongues of strangers, Never claimed to know much wisdom. Others have had language-masters, Nature was my only teacher, Woods and waters my instructors. ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... centre of busy interests," he had great liking for unpretending men, who would come and gossip with him in a friendly, companionable way, or who liked to talk about old authors or old books. In his love of books he was very catholic. "Shaftesbury is not too genteel, nor Jonathan Wild too low. But for books which are no books," such as ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... an unpretending little place, with the bill of fare wafered to the door, and red curtains in the windows, setting off a display of joints, cauliflowers, and red herrings. He passed through into a long, low room, with dark-brown grained walls, partitioned off in the usual manner; and taking a seat in a box ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... not actually on the sea-shore, but a short walk from the village up one of those breezy uplands would bring the foot-passenger within view of the blue sea-line; on one side is Singleton, with its white cliffs and row of modest, unpretending houses, and on the other the busy port of Pierrepoint, with its bustle and traffic, its long narrow streets, and ceaseless activity. Sandycliffe lies snugly in its green hollow; a tiny village with one winding ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... two distinct men," wrote Elwin to John Murray the elder, in 1876, "and the one man quite dissimilar from the other. To see him in company I should not have recognised him for the friend with whom I was intimate in private. Then he was quiet, natural, unpretending, and most agreeable, and in the warmth and generosity of his friendship he had no superior. Sensitive as he was in some ways, there was no man to whom it was easier so speak with perfect frankness. He always bore ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... year 1828, and soon became acquainted, through some of my brother entomologists,[3] with Professor Henslow, for all who cared for any branch of natural history were equally encouraged by him. Nothing could be more simple, cordial, and unpretending than the encouragement which he afforded to all young naturalists. I soon became intimate with him, for he had a remarkable power of making the young feel completely at ease with him; though we were all awe-struck with the amount of his knowledge. Before I saw him I heard ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... which led up-stairs. Without any waste of valuable time, he slyly stepped through the doorway, and ascended the stairs. The rebels were so busy in listening to the great stories of Captain de Banyan, that they did not immediately discover the absence of the unpretending young man. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... opportunities for its development no longer occur. The credibility of this energetic but by no means ambitious man is not liable to the slightest suspicion, for, owing to his want of education, he had no knowledge of the phenomena in question, and his work evinces throughout his attractive and unpretending impartiality. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... deep insight into the human mind and human affairs, he has in some of his productions, Le Glorieux, Le Philosophe Mari, and especially L'Indcis, shewn with great credit to himself what true and unpretending diligence is by itself capable of effecting. Other pieces, for instance, L'Ingrat and L'Homme Singulier, are complete failures, and enable us to see that a poet who considers Tartuffe and The Misanthrope ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames. But the first time he addressed the waiter sharply as 'steward' we knew him at once for a sailor ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... labouring at it, and trying to copy it, you do not know the thoroughly grand qualities that are concentrated in it. Simplicity, and intensity, both of the highest character;— simplicity of aim, and intensity of power and success, are involved in that man's unpretending labour. ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... wonderful winning way about her- there was a simplicity of manner almost like that of Babie herself, and yet the cleverness of a highly-educated woman. Mary Ogilvie did not wonder at what Mr. and Mrs. Acton had said of the charm of that unpretending household, now broken up. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... established reputation drew many visitors to Mount Vernon; some of his early companions in arms were his occasional guests, and his friendships and connections linked him with some of the most prominent and worthy people of the country, who were sure to be received with cordial, but simple and unpretending hospitality. His marriage was unblessed with children; but those of Mrs. Washington experienced from him parental care and affection, and the formation of their minds and manners was one of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... now Washington's legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue as heretofore to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings who will award to you a large share for securing to them and their descendants a government ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... gate, they were stopped and questioned; but the priest, who seemed to be known, easily satisfied his examiners, and they were allowed to go on. They went along a wide street, which, however, was unpaved, and lined on each side with houses of unpretending appearance. Most of them were built of wood, some of logs, one or two of stone. All were of small size, with small doors and windows, and huge, stumpy chimneys. The street was straight, and led to the citadel, ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... their own, be, in the interest of public morality, terminated at the end of the twelve months. In the interest and at the will of landlord magistrates such traders have borne extinction meekly, over a very wide rural area. What made them then so meek and unpretending? Apparently because against powerful Peers and Squires impudence was not elicited in them by the encouragement of a John ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... melody of birds, brought us within sight of an inconsiderable level, or table land, perfectly barren, crowning the summit of one of the highest hillocks into which this huge rock is divided. In the centre of the plain, and enveloped in so thick a fog that it was scarcely perceptible, stood a small unpretending mansion. "That," said our guide, "is Longwood, late the residence of Napoleon." We soon reached the house, expecting to find it as left at the death of its illustrious occupant; with how much interest ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... unpretending little book visited the 'great wilderness of Northern New York, which lies in St. Lawrence county, on the western slope of the Adirondack Mountains. It forms part of an extensive plateau, embracing an area of many thousand square miles, and is elevated from fifteen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... real satisfaction in looking over the book. There are some opinions with which I do not agree; but the main thing about the book is a good thing; namely its hearty, wholesome love of English literature, and the honest, unpretending, but genial and conversational, manner in which that love is uttered. It is a charming book to read, and it will breed in its readers the appetite to read English ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... to assume the plain unpretending deportment of the Switzer in the days of his picturesque simplicity, (when, however, he never chewed tobacco), it would be in bad taste to censure him; but this is not the case. Jonathan will be a fine gentleman, but it must be in his own way. Is he not a free-born American? Jonathan, however, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... fallow deer that chiefly people our parks. Red deer were also found at Blenheim, in Oxfordshire, when it was visited by Dr. Johnson, as may be seen in "Boswell."] As my father always retained a town-house in Manchester (somewhere in Fountain-street), and, though a plain, unpretending man, was literary to the extent of having written a book, all things were so arranged that there was no possibility of any commercial mementos ever penetrating to the rural retreat of his family; such mementos, I mean, as, by reviving painful recollections ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Fancy.——It has Witchcraft in every Page of it: but it is the Witchcraft of Passion and Meaning. Who is there that will not despise the false, empty Pomp of the Poets, when he observes in this little, unpretending, mild Triumph of Nature, the whole Force of Invention and Genius, creating new Powers of Emotion, and transplanting Ideas of Pleasure into that unweeded low Garden the Heart, from the dry ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... generations back, preferred the trees of the orchard to those of the forest, even for ornament. Fruit trees are indeed beautiful objects when gay with the blossoms of spring, or rich with the offerings of summer, and, mingled with others, are always desirable about a dwelling as simple and unpretending in its character as Wyllys-Roof. Beneath the windows were roses and other flowering shrubs; and these, with a few scattered natives of the soil—elm, hickory, sycamore, and tulip trees—farther from the house, were the only attempts at embellishment that had been made. The garden, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the honor of this occasion, Gentlemen, to your patriotic and affectionate attachment to the Constitution of our country. For an effort, well intended, however otherwise of unpretending character, made in the discharge of public duty, and designed to maintain the Constitution and vindicate its just powers, you have been pleased to tender me this token of your respect. It would be idle affectation to deny ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... single-hearted devotion to truth, and a disposition of rare kindness and disinterested humanity. His biography will be read with satisfaction, by those who feel themselves indebted to his writings. It is simple, honest, unpretending, like its subject. With the singularly prosaic mind of Mr. George Combe, no one can expect to find it animated with any living glow. It records the life of a public benefactor, but with as little freshness or enthusiasm, as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... unpretending church not far from Phillimore Gardens, in which a little unpretending clergyman preaches every Sunday out of a very shabby pulpit. It lies in Castle Lane, which is a narrow by-way, and the great crowd of church-goers ebbs and flows within a hundred yards ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dress for their own satisfaction only, and in accordance with their instincts of "the true and the beautiful;" so it would be mere hypercritical carping to suspect coquetry of lurking in the deft folds of that unpretending blue ribbon, or that, in the face of her grande passion for Du Meresq, she could for a moment occupy herself with the foolish admiration of Alec ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the most unpretending of human beings. She moved about the house with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity. Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... but all clean, safe, and happy. What needs it to say whether the good ladies who tended them wore the habit of St. Vincent de Paul, the poke-bonnet of the Puseyite "sister," or the simple garb of unpretending Protestantism? The thing is being done. The most helpless of all our population—the children of the working poor—are being kept from the streets, kept from harm, and trained up to habits of decency, at 4, Bulstrode Street, Marylebone Lane. Any one can go and see it for himself; and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... standing before a gray, unpretending post, on which was fastened a sort of wooden plate. The child laughed, and said that this was ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... The ties of these varied with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat, unpretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant, flyaway, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His coats were of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets outside, and generally either ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Without making any pretence at covering the whole field of the novellieri, I may instance a tale of Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their literary fellows. More exclusively rustic in setting is an anecdote concerning the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, told with broad humour in the Cent ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... between Mansfield and Worksop the Duchess is regarded as a Princess Bountiful in reality, rather than a creation of fairyland. Her visits to some of the homes of the miners are generally unexpected; for instance one Monday morning in the late autumn she rode up to the unpretending dwelling of a collier to enquire about "an old friend," as she called him, who had worked in Cresswell pits. A few years before he had met with an accident and injured his spine. The occurrence came to the ears of her Grace, who arranged for ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... church, and he was pursuing a layman's course of study at the college of Navarre, under the name of the Marquis de Chillon, when his elder brother, Alphonse Louis du Plessis de Richelieu, became disgusted yith ecclesiastical life, turned Carthusian, and resigned the unpretending bishopric of Lucon in favor of his brother Armand, whom Henry IV. nominated to it in 1605, instructing Cardinal du Perron, at that time his charge d'affaires at Rome, to recommend to Pope Paul V. that election which he had ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the other two, having previously married them to princes of high rank. Cordiella was, however, at last made choice of for a wife by a French prince, who, it seems, knew better than the old king how much more to be relied upon was unpretending and honest truth than empty and extravagant profession. He married the portionless Cordiella, and took her ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... unpretending ways were far from pleasing to Hegai, chief of the eunuchs of the harem. He feared lest the king discover that Esther did nothing to preserve her beauty, and would put the blame for it upon him, an accusation that might ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... almost sturdy composure. There can rarely have been such an instance as he affords of an artist's selecting from his environment just those things his own genius needed, and rejecting just what would have hampered or distracted him. He is as sane, as unsentimental, as truthful and unpretending as the most literal and unimaginative Dutchman of his time or before it; but he has also that feeling for style, and that instinct for avoiding the common and unclean which always seem to prevent French painters from "sinking ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... chance to see dancing vines, or flying birds, or falling rains, or other "meteors outside," if the preacher proved dull or the hymns undevout. But I found my attention was well held within. Not that the preaching was anything to be repeated. The sermon was short, unpretending, but alive and devout. It was a sonnet, all on one theme; that theme pressed, and pressed, and pressed again, and, of a sudden, the preacher was done. "You say you know God loves you," he said. "I hope you do, but I am going to tell you once more that he loves you, and once more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... peace and serene elysian felicity, the charms of which he paints with simple and unrivalled eloquence. Max is not more daring than affectionate; he is merciful and gentle, though his training has been under tents; modest and altogether unpretending, though young and universally admired. We conceive his aspect to be thoughtful but fervid, dauntless but mild: he is the very poetry of war, the essence of a youthful hero. We should have loved him anywhere; but here, amid barren scenes of strife and danger, he is ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... not think so," said Mr. Carlyle. "It is simple and unpretending, I like it much. Look at the long, pretentious names of our family—Archibald! Cornelia! And yours, too—Barbara! What ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... My unpretending page shall fill, Their offspring's innocent flirtations By the old lime-tree or the rill, Their Jealousy and separation And tears of reconciliation: Fresh cause of quarrel then I'll find, But finally in wedlock bind. The passionate speeches I'll repeat, Accents of rapture or despair ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... could speak English better; but you understand me, sir." We rowed off with many vivas, and this poor mason's "hopes" that we "might find all square at home." At home! Oh, that we had a home!!—an unassuming wife—placens et tacens uxor; an unpretending house, with a comfortable guest-chamber; and no noiseless nursery, unfendered and uncared for! But the bells of Messina, all let loose together, interrupt our pleasing reverie, and our friends, who have been hovering round us in a boat, are now permitted to approach, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Roger de Coverley is among the number. Addison has, however, gained himself immortal honour by his manner of filling up this last character. Who is there that can forget, or be insensible to, the inimitable nameless graces and varied traits of nature and of old English character in it—to his unpretending virtues and amiable weaknesses—to his modesty, generosity, hospitality, and eccentric whims—to the respect of his neighbours, and the affection of his domestics—to his wayward, hopeless, secret passion for his fair enemy, the widow, in which there is more of real romance and true ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... nomination, among which were those of Colonel Donn Piatt—a judge of ability, to say the least—who had written: "The people will find his utterances full of sound thought, and his deportment modest, dignified, and unpretending.... Possessed of a high order of talent, enriched by stores of information, General Hayes is one of the few men capable of accomplishing much without any egotistical assertion of self." General James M. Comly had said: "More than four years' service in the same command gave the writer ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... Captain Gar'ner, if the weather will permit it," returned the seaman, with an unpretending sort of confidence that spoke well for ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that followed. Then this same brave sister, through the influence of an eminent lady at the White House, obtained a clerkship at the Treasury, at Washington, brought her sister from Baltimore and established her in a little unpretending family home, which she has ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... be dwelt on. Let us hear what Walker did with his money. Why, he furnished the house in the Edgware Road before mentioned, he ordered a handsome service of plate, he sported a phaeton and two ponies, he kept a couple of smart maids and a groom foot-boy—in fact, he mounted just such a neat unpretending gentleman-like establishment as becomes a respectable young couple on their outset in life. "I've sown my wild oats," he would say to his acquaintances; "a few years since, perhaps, I would have longed to cut a dash, but now prudence is ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in an hour or two," I said. "Or you might wake, to-morrow morning, with a sense of something wanting, and even this unpretending volume might be able to supply it. You will let me leave the book, aunt? The doctor can ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... impressions, given in unpretending and workmanlike style by the author. A great deal of useful information and shrewd observation is brought ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... and often committed the most momentous affairs to his direction. And yet, notwithstanding the illustrious position which Antipater thus occupied, and the great influence and control which he exercised in the public affairs of Macedon, he was simple and unpretending in his manners, and kind and considerate to all around him, as if he were entirely devoid of all feelings of personal ambition, and were actuated only by an honest and sincere devotedness to the cause of those whom he served. ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Buddha were at first as unpretending as the residences of the priesthood. No mention is made of them during the infancy of Buddhism in Ceylon; at which period caves and natural grottoes were the only places of devotion. In the sacred books these are spoken of as "stone houses"[1] to distinguish them from ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Mr. Dyceworthy could catch a glimpse through the trees of the principal thoroughfare of Bosekop—a small, primitive street enough, of little low houses, which, though unpretending from without, were roomy and comfortable within. The distant, cool sparkle of the waters of the Fjord, the refreshing breeze, the perfume of the flowers, and the satisfied impression left on his mind by recent tea and toast—all these ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... cut out of single stones, and raised in different parts of India to commemorate the conquests of Hindoo princes, whose names no one was able to discover for several centuries, till an unpretending English gentleman of surprising talents and industry, Mr. James Prinsep, lately brought them to light by mastering the obsolete characters in which they and their deeds had been inscribed upon them.[16] These pillars would, however, be utterly insignificant were they composed of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... this lady's novels, though clearly and impressively conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring incidentally from the circumstances of the story; they are not forced upon the reader, but he is left to collect them (though without any difficulty) for himself: hers is that unpretending kind of instruction which is furnished by real life; and certainly no author has ever conformed more closely to real life, as well in the incidents, as in the characters and descriptions. Her fables appear to us to be, in their own way, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... before this unpretending, now weather-beaten house had been erected, and the kindly little dark-eyed man put in charge was at once at home. He was blessed with rare versatility and patience, as well as a great heart of love for all mankind, including the dark-skinned, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... ornaments of society. She it was who soothed the nervous irritability of her mother's sick chamber and perpetual peevishness, and graced her father's drawing-room by a presence that was attractive to both old and young, from its sweetness and unpretending modesty; her two younger sisters called forth all her tenderness, from the extreme delicacy of their health; but her brothers were even greater objects of solicitude—handsome spirited lads—the eldest waiting for a situation, promised, but not given; ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... engaged in the mechanic craft of a leather-dresser, is a singular illustration of the visible and invisible of libraries. We recall past days in Cambridge, when, beneath the sign of a white wooden sheep, we entered the unpretending house which contained not only the leather-dresser's shop, but a small gallery of pictures and this valuable library. We remember, also, with grateful interest, the modest, but manly, welcome of the master of both the mechanic craft and the treasures of art ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... Commencing with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as an historical work—brief, complete, profound, impartial, truthful—which will survive the time and the occasion that called it forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than its unpretending modesty. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... the phraseology and manners of those with whom an adverse destiny had so singularly connected us. In this we succeeded; for no one, up to the present moment, has imagined either my wife or myself to be other than the simple and unpretending Frank and Ellen Halloway. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... desire no better regales. But what an aching vacuum of matter! I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabeth poets. From thence I turned to Bourne. What a sweet, unpretending, pretty-mannered, matter-ful creature, sucking from every flower, making a flower of everything, his diction all Latin, and his thoughts all English! Bless him! Latin wasn't good enough for him. Why wasn't he content with the language which Gay ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... hands for the Press. As T. C. stayed some, if not the greater part of his time there at the country house of my Uncle's Widow, I can only hope that he did not jot down much to offend her surviving Children. Perhaps not: for they were, and are, all of them (Mother dead) quite unpretending people, and T. C. himself not then so savage as after his Wife's death. From Froude no mercy of reticence can ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... my arrival, she commissioned her maid to conduct me to my room and see that I had everything I wanted; it was a small, unpretending, but sufficiently comfortable apartment. When I descended thence—having divested myself of all travelling encumbrances, and arranged my toilet with due consideration for the feelings of my lady hostess, she conducted ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Colonial Legislatures at once voted measures for general defence, ordered the levy of an army, and set George Washington at its head. No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address; his manners were simple and unpretending; his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery. But there was little in his outer bearing to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure with all the simple majesty of an ancient statue out of the smaller passions, the meaner impulses, of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... request was granted, and one morning early he set off on horseback to the city. Arriving there too soon, he put up his horse, and, threading his way through the streets of the old town, soon found himself in front of the small and unpretending, though massive, portal of ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave—the girls were fair," the mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the county; and the first time Sir ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... needed GEORGIE admonition: He, elated, Vindicated Clergyman's position. People round him Always found him Plain and unpretending; Kindly teaching, Plainly preaching, All ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... be held to bridge the gap between those two extremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct with the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a good deal of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending philosophy, is here represented. And it is submitted that the little classical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are quite as worthy of consideration as her more ambitious ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... was already so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once a bright and pleasant ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... is a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man whose own right arm—to use his own expression—won his rights as a freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told by one who has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... lying there as he did far from home and from all he loved best. Never a quiver of fear touched him as he walked down into the valley of the shadow of death; the Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and admiring testimony in his own church to Mr. Bradlaugh's noble serenity, at once fearless and unpretending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness to the Atheist's calm strength. He came back to us at the end of September, worn to a shadow, weak as a child, and for many a long month he bore the traces of his ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... has the power of lodgment in the mind. It is like the red "chigoe" which inserts his tiny head in the flesh and burrows until he causes a throbbing fester. For instance, I have never forgotten a speech which was addressed to me over twenty years ago. It was just after we had built an unpretending, but thoroughly cozy summer cottage, nestled in a grove of trees that threw long shadows into a silvery lake. The man in question told me he never saw our light at night from the other side of the pretty sheet of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... it was the close of the second act before he returned. With him was a small, quiet gentleman, of unpretending appearance, but skilled as ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... twice a year, not oftener. His manner was always, to me, peculiarly grave and kind; to every one, practical and unpretending. I had many letters from him, particularly when I was away on journeys. He seemed always to want to know exactly where I was, and to feel a care of me, though his letters never went beyond business matters, and advice about things I did ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... and the Doctor. Those authorities held their temporary state amidships, by a cask or two; and, knowing that the whole Eight hundred emigrants must come face to face with them, I took my station behind the two. They knew nothing whatever of me, I believe, and my testimony to the unpretending gentleness and good nature with which they discharged their duty, may be of the greater worth. There was not the slightest flavour of the Circumlocution ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... and exhibitions, All the public entertainments, All the tragic and the comic, All the festivals and music, All the city's merry-making. 'Round and 'round the gorgeous structure, (Gorgeous in that generation,) Stood in rows the public houses, Primitive and unpretending; But their tenants knew no others, They were simple, frugal tenants, They were happy ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... American aloes, which, with their close array of massive leaves, each ending in a sharp point, protected an orchard. Following its course a few rods, they came to a rude gateway, which admitted them into a small cattle-yard, and a low, unpretending farm-house stood ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... so as to say the simplest thing in the least simple manner. Not Osric nor Iachimo detests the mot propre more than Sidney. Yet again, he is one of the arch offenders in the matter of spoiling the syntax of the sentence and the paragraph. As has been observed already, the unpretending writers noticed above, if they have little harmony or balance of phrase, are seldom confused or breathless. Sidney was one of the first writers of great popularity and influence (for the Arcadia was very ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... old partner. 'However, my dear boy—for I really must call you so—it was that very thing that made your father's fortune; I mean that he was just as unpretending as he was clever. Everybody trusts an unpretending man. And YOU'LL make your fortune too in the same manner, trust me, before long. Now, boys!' added he, turning to his sons, 'you hear what I say, and mind you take the hint! As for the young puppies of ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty |
