"Reticence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a hint concerning Storri's ebon purpose of abduction, and how he meant to fire the Harley house and then kidnap Dorothy in the confusion certain to be an incident of flames and smoke at four o'clock in the morning. This reticence arose from the delicacy of Inspector Val. The relation could not fail to leave a most unpleasant impression upon Richard, and Inspector Val decided to suppress it ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... my pocket against the day when I could look it over without agitation and without tears. I was glad I did. Less and less it seemed necessary to send it I was not sure it would do any hurt, but in my doubt I leaned to reticence, and eventually ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... themselves they are conscious of a want of that book-learned culture which the practice of their skilled crafts cannot bestow, and this makes them suspicious of those who have it and diffident in conversation with them. But underneath this reticence and willingness to hear dwells a quiet scepticism which has no docility in it, and is not to be persuaded out of its way by any eloquence or any emotion. Missionary influences, like those of church and chapel, make but little ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... very things they know most deeply. Most of the women who have written have said only the lesser phases of themselves; they have unwittingly withheld their deepest and most poignant wisdom because of a native reticence of speech. Many a time they reach a heaven of understanding shut to men; but when they come back, they cannot tell the world. The rare artists among women, like Sappho and Mrs. Browning and Christina Rossetti and Laurence Hope, in their several different ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... earnestly, like a child who felt itself repulsed, and stood silent as if expecting me to come out of my reticence and receive her ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... knowledge which would have supplied the key to the situation, and I therefore had to conduct myself with the utmost circumspection lest I should say or do something which would nullify the good effect which I had unwittingly produced. By adopting an attitude of extreme reticence, however, and allowing the others to do all the talking, I gradually attained to the knowledge that I am regarded as the reincarnated Manco; and now our copper-coloured friends are all on fire with eagerness for me to initiate the operations which ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... gesture with her pretty hand as if to dismiss the subject; and, after wondering a moment at the girl's singular reticence after her previous frankness, Andras thought only of enjoying her grace and charm, until the Tzigana gave him her hand and bade him good-night, begging him to remember that she would be very happy and proud to receive ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... been unusually long in keeping to good resolutions, and had afterwards seen some one whom he liked better, then Lucy's death would undoubtedly have made a considerable difference to him, and this is all that he has ever said that it would do. What right have we to put glosses upon the masterly reticence of a poet, and credit him with feelings possibly the very reverse of ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... sheet of paper consisted of two words, 'From Madge;' and what accompanied them was a bit of forget-me-not—not painted, this time, but a bit of the real flower. It was a pretty notion. It confessed much, without saying much. There was a sort of maiden reticence about it, and yet kindness, and hope. What Frank King did not know was this—that it was Nan Beresford who had suggested that ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... the 'Keepsakes' of the thirties, and even—alas—in the various prefaces and commentaries which accompanied the publication of so many poems of Shelley, his wife succumbed to an increasing habit of almost Victorian reticence and dignity. And those later novels and tales, though they sold well in their days and were kindly reviewed, can hardly boast of any reputation now. Most of them are pervaded by a brooding spirit of melancholy ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... derived from the sins by the sinner. His course in this respect might have been a succession of fits of vertigo or epilepsy as far as pleasure goes. There is even a rather fine piece of real psychology as to his state of mind after his first succumbing to temptation. But all this abstinence and reticence, however laudable in a sense it may be, necessarily deprives the passages of anything but purely psychological interest, and leaves most of them not much of that. Luxury in vacuo may, no doubt, be perilous to the culprit; but it ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... there had hitherto been no reserve between them, though they were not usually confidential in its full sense. But the divergence of their emotions on Stephen's account had produced an estrangement which just at present went even to the extent of reticence on the most ordinary ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... them with a casual air as if he had drifted their way by accident. He was one of those oppressively quiet men who possess the unhappy knack of appearing wholly out of touch with all social surroundings. There was a reticence about him which almost all took for surliness, but which was in reality merely a somewhat unattractive mixture of ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... concerns the weaker sex, neither representing to us the forms of the Assyrian women in the sculptures, nor so much as mentioning their existence in the inscriptions. Very rarely is there an exception to this all but universal reticence. In the present instance, and in about two others, the silence usually kept is broken; and a native woman comes upon the scene to tantalize us by her momentary apparition. The glimpse that we here obtain does not reveal much. Beyond the fact that the principal ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... curious to learn the details, about which, for some reason, the Mexican has hitherto preserved silence. His reticence has been due to an injunction of the doctor, who, still under some anxiety about the recovery of his patient, forbade imparting to him particulars that might have an injurious effect on his nervous system, sadly debilitated by the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... behind the ear, and sold at Suez—not at Cairo for fear of consequences. Yet neither promises nor bribes would persuade the poorest to break through the rule of silence. The whole might have been a canard: on the other hand, there was also a valid reason for reticence; the open mouth would not long have led to a sound throat. So our many informants contented themselves with telling us frequent tales of gold ornaments picked up after rain; they showed us a ring made from a bit found on the Tabk road, and they invariably ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... that afternoon had sent the parcel by a messenger to the duke, inasmuch as he had reason to believe that the article contained therein was the property of the duke and that the duke would probably be glad to have it restored to him. The significant reticence of this message was meant to inform the duke that Marie Delhasse was not so solitary in her flight but that she could find a cavalier to do her errands for her, and one who would not acquiesce in the retention of the diamonds. I imagined, with a great deal of pleasure, what ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... "That," she said, "is what seems so impossible for some to accept—so terrible—the apparent indifference, the lack of explanation—God's dreadful reticence in this thunderous whirlwind of prayer that storms skyward day and night from ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the dormitory that he meant to take a little holiday before his next crib, though a certain inherited reticence suppressed the fact of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... enough to hear, and colour. She had imagined the last night's conversation unknown to all; but Underwood reticence was so incapable of guessing at Harewood communicativeness, that it never entered her brain to suspect the topic of conversation between the three juniors as they walked ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my election, I have come to tell everything to you, as to a confessor, a priest, begging you not to divulge a word of this conversation, even in the interest of my cause. I ask nothing but that, my dear colleague,—absolute reticence on this subject; for the rest I rely upon your ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... dining-rooms. He was an acute and successful lawyer, an eloquent debater, and a young man. The world was at his feet, and Mr. Die was very proud of him. Mr. Die was proud of him, and proud also of his own advice. He said nothing about it even to Harcourt himself, for to Mr. Die had been given the gift of reticence; but his old eye twinkled as his wisdom was confessed by the youth at his feet. "In politics one should always look forward," he said, as he held up to the light the glass of old port which he was about to sip; "in real life it is better ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... chairs and she talked. Little Roscoe Potts writhed near by upon an ottoman and betrayed that he, too, could talk when circumstances were kindly. The detail of their personalities, salient in that first moment, was that Heaven had denied them both the gift of reticence. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... course, have been Hermann's skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied oceans had refrained from smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping the lumpy rudder, frightening the children, and generally opening this family's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reticence. The ruthless disclosure was in the end left for a man to make; a man strong and elemental enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea by the power of a ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... not being in the Minor Canon's nature, he doubtless displayed openly that he would at any time have revived the subject, and even desired to discuss it. The determined reticence of Jasper, however, was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody, solitary, resolute, so concentrated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed purpose, that he would share it with no fellow- creature, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Strange reticence is shown by all Watt's historians regarding his religious and political views. Williamson, the earliest author of his memoirs, is full of interesting facts obtained from people in Greenock who had known Watt well. The hesitation ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... at every word. And what, again, are we to say of its sober truthfulness, not exaggerating, not running to phrases, not seeking to make a hero out of what was only an ordinary but good and brave young man? Literary reticence is not Whitman's stronghold; and this reticence is not literary, but humane; it is not that of a good artist but that of a good man. He knew that what the mother wished to hear about was Frank; and he told her about her ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no personal knowledge of him, as giving them conclusive proof that his character and conduct were irreproachable. His influence is apparent in the answer of the Archbishop Albert to Luther, in its tone of gracious reticence, and its remarks about needless contention. Erasmus had written some time before to the Archbishop, contrasting the excesses charged against Luther with those of the Papal party, and denouncing the corruptions of the Church, and particularly ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... been less interested in Elsa and more concerned about his rehabilitation, self-analysis would have astonished Warrington. The blunt speech, the irritability in argument, the stupid pauses, the painful study of cunning phrases, the suspicion and reticence that figuratively encrust the hearts of shy and lonely men, these vanished under her warm if careless glances. For the first time in ten years a woman of the right sort was showing interest in him. True, there had been other women, but these had served only to ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... violently, the wise statesman will give at once, gracefully and generously, what the Englishman will certainly obtain one day, if he has set his mind upon it. If, on the other hand, he asks for it calmly, then the wise statesman (instead of mistaking English reticence for apathy) will listen to his wishes all the more readily; seeing in the moderation of the demand, the best possible guarantee for moderation in the use ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... dear madame," I soothingly said; "because reticence is art's brightest crown; because Zola never gives us a real human document and Flaubert does; and the difference is a difference of method. Flaubert is magnificently naked, but his nakedness ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... his own horse to ride. He took no attendant with him except the one who had asked for the "Evening-Glory." He would not even call on the nurse, lest it might lead to discoveries. The lady was puzzled at his reticence. She would sometimes send her servant to ascertain, if possible, what road he took, and where he went. But somehow, by chance or design, he always became lost to her watchful eye. His dress, also, was of the most ordinary description, and his visits were ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... actual, achieved end. One misses the heated passion of Watts's best pictures, which flow through the ordered channel of recognisable expression and make one adore them as poetry. But there, of a truth, invidious comparison ends, and reticence shall ever guard the space that intervenes betwixt the grounds sacred to the exposition of the embodiment of ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... absence of reticence; a kind of natural freedom which assuredly had a charm of its own, although some persons might not ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... hearing this conversation, was impressed by the tact and delicacy it displayed. It never occurred to her that Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson's reticence might be inspired by other motives than a generous desire to spare her feelings. "She really is quite a decent ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... out tempered by the fires of experience and discipline. The steel-gray eyes were no longer frank and gentle. They judged warily and inscrutably. He talked little and mostly in monosyllables. It was a safe guess that he was master of his impulses. In his manner was a cold reticence entirely foreign to the Dave Sanders his friend had known and frolicked with. Bob felt in him a quality of dangerous strength as hard and ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Henry was now on the arrival platform, right across where a finger pointed; Gertie was to wait until a scarlet handkerchief showed itself, and she begged him very earnestly not to give the signal unless it appeared to be well justified. A train, that had received no education in the art of reticence, came to an intervening set of lines, and Gertie's anxiety increased; she hurried down the platform to a point from which it was possible to see the meeting. Henry was engaged in conversation with a Great Western official; ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... manufacturers again called upon Mr. Roberts, but with no better result. A third time they called and appealed to Mr. Sharp, the capitalist of the firm, who promised to use his best endeavours to induce his mechanical partner to take the matter in hand. But Mr. Roberts, notwithstanding his reticence, had been occupied in carefully pondering the subject since Mr. Ashton's first interview with him. The very difficulty of the problem to be solved had tempted him boldly to grapple with it, though he would not hold out the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and sketches which have been published with such frequency (Mr. Lodge has a weakness for seeing himself in print) curiously enough no mention can be found either of the Force Bill or the attempt to coerce England with a silver club. One can only explain this reticence by excessive modesty. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... told me that, while in London, the Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip cafe noir, smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his masterly ability ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... on the unsavory subject. It was exceedingly unpleasant reading, but for two years Bok persisted, only to find that Doctor Abbott was right. The root of the evil lay in the reticence of parents with children as to the mystery of life; boys and girls were going out into the world blind-folded as to any knowledge of their physical selves; "the bloom must not be rubbed off the peach," was the belief of thousands of parents, and the results were appalling. Bok pursued his ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... face indicated what seemed so natural a movement of resentment, that the good-natured Nello hastened to atone for his want of reticence. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of that theory is this. One sees people in later life who have just missed big chances; some over-subtle delicacy of mind, some untimely reticence or frankness, some indolent hanging-back, some scrupulousness, has just checked them from taking a bold step forward when it was needed. And one sees them with large powers, noble capacities, wise thoughts, relegated to the ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this curious reticence was a disappointment to me. It is still a wonder. I am sure that if I had been one of the "Old Contemptibles" I should talk of nothing else all my life. But I came to see afterwards that if I had heard battle stories I should never have known the men. The centre of interest of their ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... composed; and she was almost ashamed of responding so languidly to her friend's outpourings. But she herself had no desire to confide her bliss to Ellie; and why should not Ellie observe a similar reticence? ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Trans-Isthmian Canal. He was indefatigable, breezy, and deliberately indiscreet. He tells much, and what he does not tell he leaves you to infer, without risk of going astray. Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, of New York; the general counsel of the Company, offset Varilla's loquacity by a proper amount of reticence. Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and had interviews with President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, but could not draw them into his conspiracy. The President told him that, at the utmost, he would only order American warships, which were on the Panama coast, to prevent ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... qualifications; Gerald did not care for politics; she herself preferred a quieter life; they probably could not afford a town house. But to such disclaimers Miss Robinson opposed the brightness of her faith in her friend's capacities. 'Ah, my dear, it's your very reticence, your very quietness, that will tell. Once settled—I've always felt it of you—you will make your place—and your place can only be a big one. My only regret is that you won't get your wedding-dress in Paris—oh yes, I know that they ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... This reticence, then, in the actors who perform the sad comedies of their philanthropy-scourged world, must, in a degree, account for the shortcomings of this painfully gleaned tale, which ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... passed by when Sophy Chantrey detected in her husband a degree of preoccupation and reticence that had long been unusual to him. For a few days he kept the secret; but at last, just as she began to feel she could bear his reserve no ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... happy in their stately home, and good as they are happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the phrase "Jacob Flint's Journey," he intends thereby to symbolize the good fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... or shortcomings which would not come to light when the captain was on the high-road to such disclosures; for a wise and discreet reticence was not his distinguishing ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... I saw the ghost of a smile on his lips for a moment. He evidently saw through Quarles's reticence, and knew that the professor would not speak ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... her confidence. He called upon her several times in this expectation; but each time there was more perceptible an indefinable something which prevented it. In fact, he felt mortified by Elizabeth's reticence. People had confidently expected that Miss Hallam would explain her conduct to him; some had even said, they were ready to resume friendly relations with her if the rector's attitude in the matter appeared to warrant it. It will easily be ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had no such reticence, nor had he yet learned how to cloak the ugliness of a naked truth in the pleasant euphemisms of diplomacy. With frank brutality ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... married life vies in obscurity with that of his youth. His biographers are not agreed among themselves; and in the same degree that he lays open to our view all that concerns his secret thoughts, the innermost mechanism of his mind, he observes too much reticence in respect to his public functions and conduct, and his social relations. The title of Gentleman in Ordinary to the King, which he assumes, in a preface, and which Henry II. gives him in a letter, which we print a little farther on; what he says as to the commotions of courts, where he passed ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... c'est par la bienveillance pour les oeuvres de ceux qui pensent autrement que moi.—MONOD, R. Hist., xvi. 184. Nous n'avons nul interet a faire parler l'histoire en faveur de nos propres opinions. C'est son droit imprescriptible que le narrateur reproduise tous les faits sans aucune reticence et range toutes les evolutions dans leur ordre naturel. Notre recit restera completement en dehors des preoccupations de la dogmatique et des declamations de la polemique. Plus les questions auxquelles nous aurons a toucher agitent et passionnent ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... bringing her little brood sometimes would sit silently watching the children, and look at Laura as if about to speak, but she always went away with her mind unrelieved. Violet Hogan, who brought her beruffled and bedizened eldest, made up for Mrs. Bowman's reticence. Moreover Violet brought other mothers and there was much talk on the topics of the day—talk that revealed to Laura Nesbit a whole philosophy that was new to her—the helpfulness of the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... and Blythe were past-masters in the art of genteel scoundrelism. Adventurers of the very first water, they seldom, if ever, let me into their secrets until their plans were actually matured. Their reason for this reticence was that they believed I might show the white feather. They could not yet rely ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... cause of this reticence, expressing itself on occasions as resistance, it seems an inappropriate response to the needs and opportunities of our day and age and one of the many factors responsible for the alienation between young and old which is popularly termed the "generation gap." Our trainees were ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... reticence, which had some humor in it, put me on my metal concerning the child, and the day after my arrival I sent Tam MacColl with a written request to Dame Dickenson to fetch the little ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... his official duties. But his innocence made surprisingly little difference in the long run. The surgeon's story was real journalistic treasure-trove, the richest possible kind of mine for ingenious writers to delve in; and after all the most determined reticence in no way affects the ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... friends concerning the dead man and his doings during the years he had been in the countryside. His strong will, his uncertain temper, his faithful service to an easy and improvident employer, all were discussed and commented upon freely enough, yet with a certain reticence and forbearance also, since "he had gone to ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the little Jan, softly. But, after this feat, he took a fit of childish reticence, and would say no more; whilst, deeply resentful of the liberties Jan had taken, Miss Amabel Adeline Ammaby twisted her features till she looked like a gutta-percha gargoyle, and squalled as only ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nature grew to depend upon something stronger than itself to twine about. He sought it in his schoolmates; but they misread him. The little acts which were due to his keen sensitiveness or to his exaggerated reticence of disposition were frequently interpreted by them as affronts, and he was generally left out of their games, or avoided entirely. His playmates consequently became fewer and more transient as the years gained upon him, until at length, trodden upon, but unable to turn, he withdrew his love from ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... night which is now so holy to us, they called in their tongue modranecht (modra niht), that is, the mothers' night, by reason we suspect of the ceremonies which in that night-long vigil they performed." With his usual reticence about matters pagan or not orthodox, Bede abstains from recording who the mothers were and what the ceremonies. In 1644 the English puritans forbad any merriment or religious services by act of Parliament, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the distinction and the difference was apparent to Mary. The dignity of a gentleman and a man of the world was partly shorn away: the gentleman portion, which comprised kindness and reticence, had vanished, the man of the world remained, typified by a familiarity which assumed that this and that, understood but not to be mentioned, shall be taken for granted: a spurious equalization perched jauntily but insecurely ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... like a saint, like the picturesqueness of a lonely tree which lives to shelter unnumbered lives and to stand quietly in its place. There was such rustic homeliness and constancy belonging to her, such beautiful powers of apprehension, such reticence, such gentleness for those who were troubled or sick; all these gifts and graces Martha hid in her heart. She never joined the church because she thought she was not good enough, but life was such a passion and happiness of service that it was impossible ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's unburdenment, ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... was always present at these instructions; and after the hour devoted to Zillah had expired she had lessons of her own. But Gualtier remarked that, for some reason or other, a great change had come over her. Her attitude toward him had relapsed into one of reticence and reserve. The approaches to confidence and familiarity which she had formerly made seemed now to be completely forgotten by her. The stealthy conversations in which they used to indulge were not renewed. Her manner was such that he did not venture to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... above all things, one of Nature's gentlemen, whom the rough world will never disguise nor the sea life change. He would be thirty-five years of age now, I remember, but he has not lost his boyish face, and there is the same shy reticence which he never could conquer. He has come here according to his promise. A ship lies in the offing, and he would have me go to it. How little he knows of my true condition in this dreadful place. How may a woman go when a ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... eagerness to carry out this laudable design, the Quarterly Reviewer cannot even state the history of the doctrine of natural selection without an oblique and entirely unjustifiable attempt to depreciate Mr. Darwin. "To Mr. Darwin," says he, "and (through Mr. Wallace's reticence) to Mr. Darwin alone, is due the credit of having first brought it prominently forward and demonstrated its truth." No one can less desire than I do, to throw a doubt upon Mr. Wallace's originality, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... excellence he neither wished nor was able to appreciate, than as the man who had suffered so much for his patriotic and independent opinions. As I naturally could not attach much value to the political importance of my past career, he imagined this arose from suspicious reticence, and encouraged me by the assurance that, although great mistakes and even offences might have been committed in this respect, these only affected those who, while they had remained in Germany, had not been made happy, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Jehovah reduplicated. 'In Jab Jehovah is the Rock of Ages.' In the former verse the prophet had given up in despair the attempt to characterise the peace which God gave, and fallen back upon the expedient of naming it twice over. In this verse, with similar eloquence of reticence, he abandons the attempt to describe or characterise that great Name, and in adoration, contents himself with twice taking it upon his lips, in order to impress what he cannot express, the majesty and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... month or so ago. But a month or so ago the secrets came. Oh, I know him so well. He is trying to hide that there are any secrets lest his reticence should hurt me. But we have been so much together, so much to each other—how should I not know?" And again she leaned forward with her hands clasped tightly together upon her knees and a look of great distress lying like a shadow upon her face. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... the subject was closed. She might have pushed deeper into her father's reticence, but some instinct shrank from what she might uncover. There could be only pain in learning the secret he ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... be following hot-foot upon her thought—both her expression of face and her diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also, her enchanting, peculiar gait—a gait which belonged to her alone—was so absolutely free and unfettered that every ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... said no more, but she could not have employed a more convincing eloquence. The reticence wrought upon Eileen's nerves. After a couple of months of maternal meekness and family poverty, the suggested sacrifice began to appeal to her. A letter from Doherty on his steamer (forwarded to her from ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... least, if not confession and apology upon her lips, and was hurt by her silence as much as offended by her behaviour. She was yet more annoyed, when they first met, that, notwithstanding her evident suffering, she wore such an air of reticence, and thence she both regarded and addressed her coldly; so that Dorothy was confirmed in her disinclination to confide in her. Besides, as she said to herself, she had nothing to tell but what she had already told; everything depended on the interpretation ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... ascribed his behaviour of the previous day, his first, false version, his reticence and his confusion to scruples of conscience and vague apprehensions. Anxious about the consequences of the business and dreading lest his testimony might complicate it, he had tried to avoid ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... active realization; the Magic of Works, 840-l. Hermetics speak with reserve of secret fire, living and philosophical, 775-u. Hero, less noble to describe than be a, 349-l. Heroditus described Bal's temple at Babylon, 590-l. Heroditus excuses himself for reticence concerning the Mysteries, 380-m. Heroditus testifies concerning the doctrines of Zoroaster, 617-l. Herodotus speaks reservedly of the Mysteries of Isis, 405-m. Hieroglyphics believed to have been taught the Priests by the deities, 359-l. Heroic acts performed by the basest and lowest, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the reader that her future really lies in the short story rather than in the novel. Few American writers have such a natural dramatic story sense, and to this Susan Glaspell has added an increasing reticence in the portrayal of her characters. In these two stories you will not find the slightest sentimentalization of her subject matter, nor is it keyed so tightly as some of her previous work. "A Jury of Her Peers" is one of the better folk stories of the year, sharing that distinction with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... means pleasant to him. The Under-Secretary of State for India was as dark as a November day when he reached his mother's house, and there fell upon every one the unintermittent cold drizzling shower of his displeasure from the moment in which he entered the house. There was never much reticence among the ladies at Richmond in Lucy's presence, and since the completion of Lizzie's unfortunate visit to Fawn Court, they had not hesitated to express open opinions adverse to the prospects of the proposed bride. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... unbearably wearisome. Also, her peculiar gaiety—which always sounded as though she were laughing at herself, at you, and at the world in general—was gauche and anything but infectious, while her sympathy was too evidently forced. Lastly, she knew no reticence with regard to her ceaseless rapturising to all and sundry concerning her love for Papa. Although she only spoke the truth when she said that her whole life was bound up with him, and although she proved it her life long, we considered such unrestrained, continual ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... is a hard teacher, often brings to light the best that is in us. It was so in this case. For, as one writer says: "The long and harassing ordeal disclosed the splendid courage, the reticence, the rare discretion, which were to carry the Princess through many an awful peril in the years to come. Probably no event of her early girlhood went so far toward making a woman of Elizabeth as ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... connecting link was absent. It seems to me now sometimes, that perhaps he was wisely retentive of his feelings, and waited a better time to let them flow. For, ever as we grew older, we drew nearer to my father, or, more properly, my father drew us nearer to him, dropping, by degrees, that reticence which, perhaps, too many parents of character keep up until their children are full grown; and by this time he would converse with me most freely. I presume he had found, or believed he had found ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... 530; cryptography, steganography[obs3]; freemasonry. stealth, stealthiness, sneakiness; obreption|; slyness &c. (cunning) 702. latitancy[obs3], latitation[obs3]; seclusion &c. 893; privacy, secrecy, secretness[obs3]; incognita. reticence; reserve; mental reserve, reservation; arriere pensee[Fr], suppression, evasion, white lie, misprision; silence &c. (taciturnity) 585; suppression of truth &c. 544; underhand dealing; closeness, secretiveness &c. adj.; mystery. latency ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was so little known; in fact hardly recognized at all. Most Americans would probably take this priceless creation in her hand for something bought at a ten-cent store, because of its simplicity and classic reticence of design. They always wanted, as they would say themselves, something more to show for their money. Their only idea of "real lace," as they vulgarly called it (as if anything could be lace that wasn't real), was that showy, awful Brussels, manufactured for exportation, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Press, that brought James, for instance, into communication with Mrs. Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases, the little Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on. That great class to which they had risen, and now belonged, demanded a certain candour, a still more certain reticence. This combination guaranteed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... minister to say a word about certain moral scandals. But they do not say anything about the immorality and the indelicacy and the indecency of doing them. Let us have done with that hypocrisy, brethren. I am arguing for no disregard for proprieties; I want all fitting reticence observed, and I do not wish indiscriminate rebukes to be flung at foul things; but it is too much to require that, by reason of the very inky cloud of filth that they fling up like cuttlefish, they should escape censure. Let us remember Paul's exhortation, and reprove because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... know that Robert Belcher himself had not unwittingly come to the precise locality where he would be under constant surveillance? How could he know that a deeply laid plot was not already at work to undermine and circumvent him? The lad's reticence, determined and desperate, showed that he knew the relations that existed between his father and the proprietor, and seemed to show that he had acted ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... tolerable at best and when even slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache was harsh and lacked a generous curve—his normal outlook seemed one of reticence and suspicion. Kate refused to like him; ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... darn-fool neches who fired those shots," he cried in a sudden break from his usual reticence. "Maybe they're the force but they aren't the brain. The brain behind this play is Mister Louis Creal. Say, this thing's bigger than we guessed. This Louis Creal runs these workings. Guess he's ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... bed and board are a matter very apt to come to speech: it is much easier to speak of them than of ideas; and they are sometimes much more pressing with some! Nay, for another thing, may not this religious reticence, in these devout good souls, be perhaps a merit, and sign of health in them? Jocelin, Eadmer, and such religious men, have as yet nothing of 'Methodism;' no Doubt or even root of Doubt. Religion is ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... topic inexhaustible; Jessica, having her mind thus drawn away from Burlington House, benefited not a little by the mystery of her friend's position; she thought, however, that Nancy might have practised a less severe reticence. To Mrs. Morgan it never occurred that so self-reliant a young woman as Miss. Lord stood in need of matronly counsel, of strict chaperonage; she would have deemed it an impertinence to allow herself the most innocent ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... clothed his cast. Richard Mahony, in short, is a real man, whose fortunes take a genuine hold upon one's attention; though I repeat that I could wish his author had told them less wordily, and—in one glaring instance—with a greater respect for the decencies of medical reticence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... them would not have supported a day- laborer, and toward the close of his second year at the Manse, Hawthorne found himself running in debt for the necessaries of life. He endured this with his usual stoical reticence, although there is nothing like debt to sicken a man's heart,—unless he be a decidedly light-minded man. Better fortune, however, was on its way to him in the shape of a ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... girl's open indifference was least of all to his liking. It enraged his vain, choleric nature to its inner core. Already he planned dominance; but willing to wait and to endure for ten days, meantime he employed innocence, reticence, dignity, attentiveness, so that he seemed a suitor misunderstood, misrepresented, unjustly used—to whose patient soul none the less presently must arrive justice and exoneration, after which all would be happier ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... for instance, in the Hitopadesa in the following words: 'Good people show mercy unto all beings, considering how like they are to themselves.' On subjects which transcend the limits of human understanding, Confucius is less explicit; but his very reticence is remarkable, when we consider the recklessness with which Oriental philosophers launch into the depths of religious metaphysics. Thus we read ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... himself to banish the thought of her from his mind; in fact an indescribable uneasiness always leapt up within his heart when her name was mentioned, and that was very rarely, for his father never spoke of her, and old Betto, the head servant, but seldom, and then with such evident sadness and reticence, that an undefined, though none the less crushing fear, had haunted him from childhood upwards. As he stepped out so bravely this soft spring evening, the look of disquietude did not remain long on his face. At twenty-four ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Even in the grouping and narration of its old incidents it exhibits no dramatic power, and little skill of characterization in the portraiture of its personages. And not only does a matter-of-fact air pervade the narrative, but the tale is told with such reticence of fact as well as of feeling, that it reveals but little of the real life of a London courtesan, and leaves the reader almost as ignorant as he was when he took up the book of what it is that makes the horror of such existence; all of which might have been imparted without any violation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... and monotonous with chiming bells, had passed languidly away. Dr Simon had come and gone, optimistic and urbane, yet with a faint inward dissatisfaction over a patient behind whose taciturnity a hint of mockery and subterfuge seemed to lurk. Even Mrs Lawford had appeared to share her husband's reticence. But Dr Simon had happened on other cases in his experience where tact was required rather than skill, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... being an accomplice if she "said anything." The necessity for this intimidation arose from his plans at the moment, of which she, of course, knew nothing; and only later, five days afterwards, she guessed why he had been so doubtful of her reticence and so afraid of a new outburst of indignation on ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... slightest hint of its existence. She was pleased that he was so sensible as to recognize the impassable gulf between them, and that he did not go moaning along the brink, thus making a spectacle of himself, and becoming an annoyance to her. Indeed, she sincerely respected him for his reticence and self-control, but she also misjudged him; for he was so patient and strong, and went forward with his duties so quietly and steadily, that she was inclined to believe that his feelings toward her were not very deep, or else that he was so constituted that affairs of the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... are rarely more than three or four days behind the time of reception. We often get the first accounts of battles at a distance in this way, as our generals and our government are famed for a prudential reticence. When the Northern papers simply say they have gained a victory, we rejoice, knowing their Cretan habits. The other day they announced, for European credulity, the capture and killing of 40,000 of our men: this staggered us; but it turned out that they did capture ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... communications—in this case—corrupt good manners. If your intended speech is a sensible one, the present is as good a time, and Bedford Square as good a place, as you are likely to find for it. If it is otherwise, confess that you have decided to leave it unsaid. But do not postpone it. Reticence is always an error—even on the treasury bench. It is doubly erroneous in dealing with me; for I have a ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the sparkling in those eyes which had met his but an hour or more ago, when disappointed hope had thrown them into deep shadows, there was a tentative significance. It appealed to the lowest nature of his senses to see her, whom he had long desired, unbending in her reticence. Her laughter was a whip about his body; her lips, parted—losing that expression of restraint—were becoming an obsession to his eyes. But he guarded all his actions with ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... when he thought of her eyes and the maddening way in which they looked into his; of the grave little smile, evanescent, delicate, subtle, the very aroma of a smile, so different from the coarse hilarity of your commonplace English girls; of the reticence and pride which gave such value to her smaller graces; of the enchanting look and accent which had accompanied her act of self-surrender just now—that acceptance of his word and renunciation of her own fancy which had put him in the place and given him the honor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... will let me have a crumb of comfort when you can, won't you?" She looked in my face so wistfully as she made this appeal that I was quite moved; and, indeed, I am not sure that my state of mind at that moment did not fully justify my colleague's reticence towards me. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... to observe the gravity and reticence of the Indian, this youth was gifted by nature with powers of loquacity which he found it difficult to suppress. Knowing this, Moonlight felt that she dared not trust him with her secret, and was much perplexed how to attract her mother's attention without ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... which reported the happy extinction of the insurrection by the hanging of the last conspirator, William Garner, reported also, with enthusiastic indignation, the massacre of the Greeks at Constantinople and at Scio; and then the Northern editors, breaking from their usual reticence, pointed out the inconsistency of Southern journals in printing, side by side, denunciations of Mohammedan slave-sales and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... noticed that the bronze grew a trifle darker in his forehead. It seemed that he guessed her thoughts, but the fact that he offered no explanation and made no excuse for the uninviting fare pleased her. She fancied she understood his reticence, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... himself ever had, of sustaining the illusion of an awful or solemn narrative through a long poem, to be closed in a catastrophe that is at once unexpected and ludicrous. The mystification is complete; the secret of the issue is never betrayed; suspense is maintained with Spartan reticence; curiosity is excited progressively to its utmost tension; and the surprise at the end is oftentimes electric. "A Storm at Hastings" and "The Demon Ship" are of this class. But sometimes the terrible so prevails as to overpower the ludicrous, or rather, it becomes more terrible by the very presence ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... about her husband, but in this reticence she was not joined by Rose Dawn or Jennie Cassavant. Jennie maintained that the misfitted Mr. Lawrence was alive, very much so; that Esther and he weren't even divorced, but merely separated. The only sanction Mrs. Lawrence ever gave to this report ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... cheerfulness which professional familiarity with the mysteries of that religion seems to give. For the moment, at least, his features are so impassive that they may tell either of the deepest grief or the purest indifference; or it may be, merely of reticence on entering a stranger's room. He only bows towards HORSHAM'S half-proffered hand. With instinctive respect for the situation of this tragically made widower the men have risen and stand ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... immediately applicable to his own person, which possibly may hereafter, in some other method, be communicated to the world.'[8] He welcomed the opportunity to tell all that he knew. There was no reason for reticence. He wrote of men as of things frankly as he knew them. More than a history of the Rebellion, his Life is also a picture of the society in which he had moved. It is the work which contains most ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... born in Boston, in 1745, and died in 1806. He lived in a large wooden house on Tremont Street, near Hollis Street, and was a near neighbor of Crane, Lovering and the Bradlees. He was a man of unusual reticence, but noted for courage and patriotism. From 1773 till his death, he kept a vow never to drink tea. In 1797 he married Mary, the sister of Joseph Hiller, the first collector of the port of Salem, and was the father of Captain John Fenno, a pioneer in ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... Big Jerry began to ply the visitor with questions, and press him to talk on many subjects connected with the wide world of men; and, as Donald's natural reticence yielded to the naive interrogations, he answered with a readiness which somewhat surprised even himself. The child ate little; but sat with her elbows on the table, her firmly rounded chin resting ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... of gloating, and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the preposterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold sulked in silence until Judith, emerging from her usual self-contained reticence, made her first advance to him. "Let's us all go there by the railing where we can look down into the central court," she suggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... often talked to them of spiritual matters, I did not at the time feel any impulse to relate my experience either to them or to anyone else. I had no desire to unload my mind—a remarkable thing for so eager a talker and expounder as I have always been. This reticence, I am sure, came not from a fear of being laughed at, or of shocking anyone, or again from a fear of a repetition of the experience. It simply did not occur to me to talk. The experience was solely mine, I was satisfied and even a little perturbed by the result. Probably some sense of the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sincerely thankful to have got out of it so easily, for it was impossible to say what gossip might not have been set on foot if the Rapkins had not been brought to see the advisability of reticence ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward; and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... showed the results of wrecked nerves and distorted imagination. Sleepless nights he now visited on his friends by an increasing irritability. The first few days of this state of Kwaiba were laughable. He spoke of O'Iwa San; not freely, rather with reticence. He made his references as of jesting expectation of her advent. Then he passed to boisterous tricks; springing out on the maids from dark corners or the turns in the corridors. Alarmed by these manifestations of the old man—not entirely strange, for he was ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... once or twice, but they did not tell her much of what she wanted to know. Bessie's letters were, it is true, full of allusions to what Captain Niel was doing, but she did not go beyond that. Her reticence, however, told her observant sister more than her words. Why was she so reticent? No doubt because things still hung in the balance. Then Jess would think of what it all meant for her, and now and again give way to an outburst of passionate jealousy ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... of their business, for one-third of their annual profits, 'the work of God.' This was done; and from that day to this the proportion thus set apart of their profits has been regularly devoted to the service of the Church and of charity. But this is not all. The brother, of whom I speak with the reticence and the reverence due to a type of character not absolutely common in this age of the Golden Calf, has systematically limited his own personal expenses during the whole of these years to a few thousands of francs, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... useful and good for him which is unbefitting his age. He knows that his first duty is to himself; that young men should distrust themselves; that they should act circumspectly; that they should show respect to those older than themselves, reticence and discretion in talking without cause, modesty in things indifferent, but courage in well doing, and boldness to speak the truth. Such were those illustrious Romans who, having been admitted into public life, spent their days in bringing criminals to justice and in protecting the innocent, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the stairs outside. Adrienne and Mrs. Adams had come back, and Errington turned composedly to greet them, the veil of reticence, momentarily swept aside by the surge of a sudden emotion, falling once more into ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... his "Antiquity of Man" he too was cautious. Knowing the dangers of his footing, he abstained from giving an estimate of the extension of time required by his evidences of human remains. Society in London, however, would not put up with that reticence, and he had to disclose at dinner parties what he had withheld from the public—namely, that, in his opinion, the duration of man could not be less than fifty ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... of hell to exhibit, and I would speak with all reticence on matters so awful; but this much, at any rate, is clear, that the very same revelation of God, thankfully accepted and submitted to, is the medium of cleansing and the source of joyful life, and, rejected, becomes the source of sorrow and the occasion of death. Every man sees that aspect ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... a contemplative preoccupation with the Incarnation and the Sacraments, which he shrank from talking about, from a natural humility and a clear and grateful understanding of the Catholic tradition of reverence and reticence. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the brother to talk. Silence is usually either stupid or timid. But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to listen to him, silence is advisable. Nevertheless, too much silence is open to suspicion. It may be reticence, or it may be a vacuum. It may be dignity, or it may ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... place at the other end of the room and, balancing himself with difficulty, came over to Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm, and asked permission to seat himself beside them. He seemed to have been drinking whisky, as he had dropped his natural shell of reticence. He spoke of hydrotherapy and gymnastic exercises, and called himself a quack. It was the gymnastics, he said, that had given his daughter the idea of taking up dancing. As if to challenge the others, he elaborated bold philosophic theories, dealing out one wild statement after the other, each ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... glowing face. She radiated vitality, the richness and abundance of high summer; she suggested a darkly gorgeous peacock-butterfly, and in the delicate radiance of the spring woods, she seemed out of key with their slender elegance of leaf and spray the soft reticence of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... house at a corner of a street, in the middle of a town, in one of the least important prefectures in France, but the name of the street and the name of the town must be suppressed here. Every one will appreciate the motives of this sage reticence demanded by convention; for if a writer takes upon himself the office of annalist of his own time, he is bound to touch on many sore subjects. The house was called the Hotel d'Esgrignon; but let d'Esgrignon be considered ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... affirmative—also to ascertain the precise locality of the said creek. Of course it would have been a very simple matter to put the question directly to Don Manuel; but he had evinced such very palpable embarrassment and reticence whenever Madera's name had been mentioned that I thought it would be better to rely, in the first instance at all events, upon my own personal investigations. So when I left the house that morning it was with the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... is altogether interested in the topics of adults; and as the conversation of both sexes is said by those who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, the purity which is one of the greatest charms ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... full consent of his own family for his wooing, but the parents of his lady would have had him keep silence at least till the fifteen-year-old maiden should be confirmed. The ease and unconstraint of that mountain home-life, however, were not very favourable to reserve and reticence; a spray of white heather, offered and received as the national emblem of good fortune, was made the flower symbol of something more, and words were spoken that effectually bound the two young hearts, though the formal betrothal was deferred until some time ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... ownership, but who gave a large part or all of their time to some work connected with the enterprise. As far as possible this was confined to paid employees, but in a few cases the question of wages of those employed could not be successfully ascertained on account of reticence of the employer. No record was made of whether or not the time of the proprietor was also put into the business since in this respect there was great ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... attention having been called to him as a lad of parts, his Highness had given him to the Marquess of Cerveno, in whose service he remained till shortly before that young nobleman's death. The hunchback passed hastily over this period; but his reticence was lit by the angry flash of his eyes. After the Marquess's death he had lived for a while from hand to mouth, copying music, writing poetry for weddings and funerals, doing pen-and-ink portraits at a scudo apiece, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great, gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron-gray hair and patriarchal beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind answer, his whole appearance and manner, what he looked, what he said,—all impressed me with the deepest sense of reverence. If his being likened to anything in history could have made the scene more solemn, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... For no man was more shy of autobiographical revelations. His biographers are continually reduced to gleaning stray hints, here and there, concerning his private life. [5] And therefore we can measure by this emergence from a habitual personal reticence the soreness with which he now published work unworthy of his genius. "Mr Garrick," Fielding tells us, speaking of this distressed winter of 1742-3 "... asked me one Evening, if I had any play by me; telling me he was desirous of appearing ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... travelling-man had faded from him, that deliberate ingratiation of which the lowest form is the bawdy joke in the Pullman smoker. One imagined that, having been fawned upon financially, he had attained aloofness; having been snubbed socially, he had acquired reticence. But whatever had given him weight instead of bulk, Anthony no longer felt a ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... skipper of the Ferndale had taken it for granted that I was a relative of the Shipping Master! I was quite astonished at this discovery, though indeed the mistake was natural enough under the circumstances. What I ought to have admired was the reticence with which this misunderstanding had been established and acted upon. But I was too stupid then to admire anything. All my anxiety was that this should be cleared up. I was ass enough to wonder exceedingly at Mr Powell failing to notice the misapprehension. I saw a slight ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... French and English spoken. Indeed, since his arrival he had only spoken the German language, and that mostly in his intercourse with Carg. But after the French officer had gone away Beth began to reflect upon this reticence. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... a sort of half invalid and had not been on friendly footing with other children. It was then that her habit of silence and reticence had been established. The years in the school in Massachusetts restored her health but did not break this habit. She came home and took the place in the schools to earn money with which to take her ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... sudden demise. And, between you and me, although Burgess, the ship's surgeon, has never said as much in words, I firmly believe that the occurrence puzzled him as much as it did me; indeed, his very reticence over the affair only strengthens my suspicion that such is the case. But, puzzling as were the circumstances connected with Captain Matthews's death, I consider that those associated with the death of Mr Mowbray, who took command of the ship in place of Captain Matthews, were ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... man who formed his opinion on the best basis—namely, experience, and that had taught him that a bold reticence does less harm to one's ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... him. He garbled his sentences so to speak with excessive and useless wording. "The Octoroon" shows a fine feeling for romance as do all of the other pictures of Fuller that have been publicly visible, but it is romance obsessed with monotone. There is the evidence of extreme reticence and moodiness in Fuller always. I know little of him save that I believe he experienced a severity of domestic problems. Farmer I think he was, and painted at off hours all his life. It is the poetry of a quiet, almost sombre order, ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... when presently a young girl with two children came and stood near me. These were of a different class. There was no timidity or reticence about them. After standing at my side, and finding that they could not see to advantage, the three sidled round to the back, and gradually edged themselves nearer and nearer until they commanded a satisfactory view of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "out of it all," not for weeks or even for months, but very possibly for all time. The doctor's reticence told him this; so did his own sick heart; so did the dutiful cheerfulness of his men and his brother officers. They overdid it, he realized, and the efforts they so conscientiously made showed how deep their sympathy must be, and how tragic the cause of it. His ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... disgrace. The physician, indeed, had perhaps indulged a professional passion for hushing the matter up, rather than any pity for Bartley. He probably had the scientific way of looking at such questions; and saw much physical cause for moral effects. He refrained, with the physician's reticence, from inquiring into the affair; but he would not have thought Bartley without excuse under the circumstances. In regard to the relative culpability in matters of the kind, his knowledge of women enabled him to take much the view of the woman's ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... satisfactory answers to the questions as to who had killed the man, and why he had been shot. But Inspector Tinkler was the most wary of officials, and pending the inquest and the verdict of twelve good men and true, he declined to commit himself to an opinion. The result of this reticence was that the reporters had to fall back on their inventive faculties, and next morning published three theories, side by side, concerning the murder, so that the Beorminster Chronicle containing these suppositions ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... historian, and few there be who are found able to resist it. How easy to keep back an ugly fact, sure to be a stumbling-block in the way of weak brethren! Carlyle is above suspicion in this respect. He knows no reticence. Nothing restrains him; not even the so-called proprieties of history. He may, after his boisterous fashion, pour scorn upon you for looking grave, as you read in his vivid pages of the reckless manner in which too many of his ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... enough to accept the interesting cave near Paccaritampu as the place where Manco Ccapac was born, and from which he came to conquer Cuzco. Why were the sworn witnesses so reticent? It seems hardly possible that they should have forgotten where Tampu-tocco was supposed to have been. Was their reticence due to the fact that its actual whereabouts had been successfully kept secret? Manco Ccapac's home was that Tampu-tocco to which the followers of Pachacuti VI fled with his body after the overthrow of the old regime, a very secluded ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... him. He knew also that his mother would not betray him—he would have counted it betrayal—to his father; nor would any one who had ever heard Mr. Raymount give vent to his judgment of any conduct he despised, have wondered at the reticence ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... rendered most valuable service to an English lady and myself. Certainly, I thought that I might with a good conscience say nothing about your being a soldier, which might easily have caused all kinds of difficulties. With all my patriotism, I do not reproach myself very severely for this reticence. For what military secrets could you disclose in Berlin? Our disasters are plain for all to see, and the papers are filled with ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... joined his fingertips together and smiled. "Peggy is right," said he, "although I don't wholly approve of her modern lack of reticence in metaphor. Oliver is coming out true gold from the fire. He's a capital fellow. And he spoke of you, my dear Marmaduke, in the kindest way in the world. He has a tremendous ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... acquainted with the little folk of the wood—this my little Jeanette did, not feeling the need of human companionship as had I. When, upon rare occasions, she had questioned her guardian as to the identity of her parents, he had answered with a most strange reticence that she must not bother her head about such matters, but to wait till she was twenty-one, when she would know all. Naturally, the child believed and did as she was bid, but the maiden wondered and began to brood in secret. In time she began to ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... to the plantation, where she found more than enough to occupy her mind; and Eric often wondered at the admirable system and punctuality she displayed—at the grave composure with which she discharged her daily duties, and the invariable reticence she observed with regard ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... a thought, that for years had been locked in the inmost shrine of her heart, to-day proved too strong for her powers of reticence. Hadrian was supposed to have murdered her father, but no one could positively assert it, though either he or another man had certainly slain the noble Nigrinus. At this moment the old suspicion stirred her soul with revived force, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
