"Unostentatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 4th, the following occurrences, in the house of commons, marked at once the estimation in which Sir Robert was held by public men, and his own singular and unostentatious character. Lord John Russell introduced to the house the circumstance of the honourable baronet's decease, and said:—"It is impossible not to lament that hereafter this house will be no longer guided by that long and large experience ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... name might have been preserved. Such, too, fail to appear in the Jewish annals, which contain but few women's names of any kind. Inspired devotion of strength and life to Judaism was as natural with a Jewess as quiet, unostentatious activity in her home. No need, therefore, to make ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... ready to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who was ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... white cloth gown of elegantly-simple cut, that revealed with unostentatious art the lovely lines of the slender shape. A knot of white and golden freesias, exhaling a clean, delicate perfume, was fastened at her breast; her wonderful red-brown hair was shaded by a broad-brimmed brown felt hat of Vandyke shape, with creamy ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... amazing quantity of other miscellaneous work inseparable from the conduct of a political movement in which crisis followed crisis with bewildering rapidity, were managed year after year from Mr. Bates's office in the Old Town Hall with a quiet, unostentatious efficiency which only those could appreciate who saw the machine at work and knew the master mechanic behind it. Of this efficiency the September demonstrations in 1912 were ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... away, and the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... His simple, unostentatious, and even ascetic life during these years was noted. He was known as a man of extremely refined tastes and sensitive though not querulous nature. A commentator ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... still swollen and puffy, but her elastic spirits had sufficiently recovered to enable her to make repeated attempts to converse with her taciturn companions, and to run in and out of their cubicles to play lady's-maid as usual, in such useful, unostentatious ways as carrying water, folding nightgowns, and tying hair ribbons. This morning she was even more assiduous than usual in her attentions, for there was an edge of coldness and reserve in the manner even of Flora herself which cut deeply into the sensitive heart. ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... But little preliminary work was needed, as it partook largely of the nature of a spontaneous tribute. Fully 2,000 people, representing the beauty, wealth and intelligence of the city, passed before this unostentatious, kindly woman during the evening and esteemed it an honor ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... throughout the play, is a room in the vicarage. Jacobean in character, its oak-panelling and beamed-ceiling, together with some fine pieces of antique furniture, lend it an air of historical interest, whilst in all other respects it speaks of solid comfort, refinement, and unostentatious elegance. Evidently the room of a rich man, who has, however, apparently come to some compromise on the difficult question of his entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; for the panelled walls possess, among other decorations, a richly ornamented ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... entertaining the highest veneration for his memory, a profound respect for his ability, great experience, and learning as a judge, and cherishing for his many virtues, public and private, his earnest simplicity of character and unostentatious deportment, both in his public and private relations, the most ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... settle his affairs, and fetch his wife; but when he had once crossed the Alps, no inducement could prevail on him to revisit his native country, or even to leave Rome. During a period of twenty-three years after his return to Rome from Paris, he lived a quiet, unostentatious life, and executed a great number of pictures, which decorate the principal cabinets of Europe, and will ever be regarded as among their most valuable ornaments. He confined himself mostly to works of the large easel size, which were eagerly sought after, and usually disposed ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... chariot; and the few that saw him said that he was a portly gentleman, wrapped in a long great coat and muffled up to the eyes. Keeping himself well behind his Royal Highness, the portly stranger took a deep but unostentatious interest in the performance. In his Haroun al-Raschid character he had been present, with his friend Lord Coleraine (then Major George Hanger), at some of the actual scenes represented; and in particular, by ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... jumping to conclusions. Inferences, however clever, however sound they may seem when they are drawn, are apt to lead one astray. The detective who habitually used the deductive method would spend a great deal of his time exploring blind alleys. Yet Foyle, with the unostentatious Maxwell at his right hand, hurried in the direction of Berkeley Square with a hope that his ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... sacrifice. He was even then a priest of Mars. It was the hand of Marcus alone that threw the crown so carefully and skillfully that it invariably alighted upon the head of the statue of the god. The entire ritual he knew by heart. The great Emperor Antoninus Pius lived in the most simple and unostentatious manner; yet even this did not satisfy the exacting, lofty spirit of Marcus. At twelve years of age he began to practice all the austerities of Stoicism. He became a veritable ascetic. He ate most sparingly; slept little, and when he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look to in the future, the major always kept ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... with clumps of ancient trees, among which troops of deer were strolling. Pembroke Lodge is a plain, unostentatious building, rising in the midst of charming grounds. We were received in the drawing room by the young ladies, and were sorry to learn that Lady Russell was so unwell as to be unable to give us her company ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... personal relations with both—retained their confidence, and while he lived secured their general support of his Administration. Herein President Lincoln exhibited those peculiar qualities and attributes of mind which made him a leader and manager of men, and enabled him in a quiet and unostentatious way to exercise his executive ability in administering the Government during the most troublesome period ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... listened, knowing Veale for a queer rustic character of poor repute, gave him sixpences to assist in his efforts to quench an abnormal thirst. Talking together, they decided that the hero of the tale had done rather a fine thing in a very unostentatious way, and it occurred to several of them that pluck ought to be rewarded. If the chance came they would encourage Dale. The M.F.H. in fact made up his mind to reconsider matters, and see if he could not before long let Dale have an inning ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... presence of a lady, hat in hand, and with its selectest bow and smile, and in the same breath turns to commit the direst offences against the peace and purity of womanhood; but that true and hearty, though simple and unostentatious, reverence for the sex, that teaches men to regard all women as worthy of freedom, respect, and protection, simply by virtue of their womanhood. I say not that this chivalry is a Southern, but that it is an American trait. As such I am proud ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... kitten's fur, and lie against the skin closer than tired eyelids. They are the common people of the flower world, yet have, in virtue of that fact, the beauty and simplicity of the common people. They own a subdued and unostentatious strength, are humble and ignored, are walked upon, unnoticed, rarely thought about and never praised; they are cut off in early youth by mowing machines; yet their pain in fading is unreported, their little sufferings unsung. They cling ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... son, brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike unostentatious and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liberty, of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... play-ground. Now, every body who sees this, says, it is a proof that the boy has not much mind. He is a simple boy. If he had good sense he would perceive that others of his playmates, in many qualities, surpassed him, and that it became him to be humble and unostentatious, The mind that is truly great ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... stared at Ensal and he looked them frankly in the face that they might see that in a dignified manner he would insist to the last upon the rights of the Negro passengers. The justness of Ensal's request, his unostentatious, manly bearing had the desired effect. The two men quietly turned about ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... retiring. His life was simple and unostentatious. He had a kindly disposition, which endeared him to his students, to which fact many American chemists who were students at Goettingen during the time of Woehler's activity can cordially testify. In short, it may be said deliberately ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... bibliographer's copy of the Bibliotheque Francaise De La Croix du Maine, in six volumes, covered in like manner with ms. notes by the same hand. To a man of M. Barbier's keen literary appetite, this latter must prove an inexhaustible feast. I was shewn, in this same well-garnished, but unostentatious collection, GOUJET'S own catalogue of his own library. It is in six folio volumes; well written; with a ruled frame work round each page, and an ornamental frontispiece to the first volume. Every book in the catalogue has a note subjoined; and the index is at ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... light, they teach the people that preceptors ought to be in the place of gallants. They systematically corrupt a very corruptible race (for some time a growing nuisance amongst you), a set of pert, petulant literators, to whom, instead of their proper, but severe, unostentatious duties, they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of gay, young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets. They call on the rising generation in France to take a sympathy in the adventures ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... reserve line first—the lair of Battalion Headquarters and its appurtenances. Much of our time here, as elsewhere, is occupied in unostentatious retirement to our dug-outs, to avoid the effects of a bombardment. But a good amount—an increasing amount—of it is devoted to the contemplation of our own shells bursting over the Boche trenches. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... should find its profit in the business of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral insect, must after all have long ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... which it might interest us to see. So we went with him through the shop, up stairs, into the private part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest adventures I ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of village business. The two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir for fear of breaking some fragile thing that ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... occupied with the preceding conversation, Col. Malcome had donned his fur-lined overcoat and stepped across the yard to Deacon Allen's cottage. The good people were quite embarrassed to behold so smart a visitor in their unostentatious little parlor, but the colonel, by his gentlemanly grace, soon placed them at their ease. After a few moments' conversation on general topics, he asked, casually enough, who was the owner of the fine mansion he had noticed in his rambles about town, with ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... girl seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all. It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a thrilling ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... admiration, I acquired an equally great respect and admiration for the British soldier. I had always loved those "contemptible regiments" who, as Sir Thomas Browne says, "will die at the word of a sergeant," but I loved them still more when I saw their good-natured, unostentatious way of life. They were, above all things, easy and sympathetic livers. Almost the only thing that shocked and disgusted them was being treated as heroes. Dr. Johnson talked about the "plebeian magnanimity of the British common soldier" and meant the right thing, though, in truth, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... conversation. And though it is a matter of no importance, I may mention that he employs a reviewer who, referring to the map in my book, A Difficult Frontier (Yugoslavs and Albanians)—a map which is most conspicuously printed opposite the title-page—observes that it "is hidden in one unostentatious page, which at first sight ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... presented themselves to him. This was simply characteristic of him. He has never valued money but for the practical uses to which it may be applied in the amelioration of the condition of others. Simple in his habits, and unostentatious in his mode of life—indulging in no luxuries—he has managed by sheer hard work to accumulate a fair fortune, which is of value to him only so far as he can do good with it—first to those having the strongest domestic claims upon him, and secondly, to his comrades ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... and unostentatious cottage buried among the trees. All around it, first, flowers; secondly, flowers; thirdly, flowers. The garden, a network of walks, and spruce hedges of rare beauty; occasionally you stumble unexpectedly on a rustic bower, tenanted ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... by a knife in the back, and more than probable that a like fate would be reserved for me, since I had constituted myself his guardian angel. For my own part, however, I had a pronounced distaste to ending my days in so unostentatious a fashion. I had also a notion that I should prove an exceedingly difficult person to assassinate, and that those who sought to slip a knife into me would find my hide peculiarly tough, and my hand peculiarly ready to ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... Frederigo Alberigi and his Falcon. The perseverance in attachment, the spirit of gallantry and generosity displayed in it, has no parallel in the history of heroical sacrifices. The feeling is so unconscious too, and involuntary, is brought out in such small, unlooked-for, and unostentatious circumstances, as to show it to have been woven into the very nature and soul of the author. The story of Isabella is scarcely less fine and is more affecting in the circumstances and in the catastrophe. Dryden has done justice to the impassioned eloquence of the Tancred ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the continent, and he travelled in a quiet, unostentatious manner. He went to dine with his old friends, but avoided introductions, and remained at Florence nearly two months after other Americans had departed for Rome. The reason he alleged for this was that Rome was a mouldy place and the ruins made him feel ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... who mingle with and study the actual condition of the very poor. The extent of good accomplished by these few who are giving their lives to uplifting society's exiles is little understood, because it is quiet and unostentatious; yet through the instrumentality of the silent workers, thousands of persons are annually kept from starvation and crime, while for many of them new, broad, and hopeful horizons are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... over, and the victory was won. He had not bound his victim till the new flight of that victim had compelled him; nor had he spoken even one harsh word to him. He had captured him fairly and bravely too, and in the most quiet and unostentatious manner had handed him over to the police ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr. Pertwee was an unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an unostentatious office on the third floor. He showed me a picture in water-colours of the Rogue flying before the wind. The deck was at an angle of 95 to the ocean. In the picture no human beings were represented on the deck; I suppose they had slipped off. Indeed, I do not see how anyone could have ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... with a home-returning satisfaction in her solidity and her ugliness and her low-toned fogs and her great throbbing unostentatious importance, which the more flippant capital seemed to have intensified in him. He ordered the most British luncheon he could think of, and reflected upon the superiority of the beer. He read the leaders in the Standard ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... expressed his conviction that the wide-spread poverty of the bishops is caused by their being required to maintain "venerable but costly palaces." He says that he and many of his fellow-churchmen would prefer to lead plain and unostentatious lives, but they are not allowed to do so; that they would much prefer to devote a portion of their income to charity and other worthy purposes rather than to be compelled to spend it in ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... the old school of gentlewomen. Her quiet, black gown with its crepe trimmings, gave, even to my masculine eye an effect of correct and fashionable, yet quiet and unostentatious ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... runs to her sick neighbour to do the same for her little ones, frequently sharing with them her own children's food; and then, like an angel of mercy, watches over and comforts her sick neighbour. Such is the unostentatious Christian charity found among the Christian poor. O that it may more ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... be after the loss of poor Harry. Towards the end of that time he took Edie, pale and pretty in her simple new mourning, out once more into the Bourne Close for half an hour's quiet conversation. Very delicate and sweet and refined that tiny girlish face and figure looked in the plain unostentatious black and white of her great sorrow, and Ernest felt as he walked along by her side that she seemed to lean upon him naturally now; the loss of her main support and chief advisor in life seemed to draw her closer and closer every day to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... continental spirit; there is nothing insular or narrow about it. It is informal, nonchalant, tolerant, sanguine, adaptive, patient, candid, puts up with things, unfastidious, unmindful of particulars; disposed to take short cuts, friendly, hospitable, unostentatious, inclined to exaggerate, generous, unrefined,—never meddlesome, never hypercritical, never hoggish, never exclusive. Whitman shared the hopeful optimistic temperament of his countrymen, the faith ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... actual effect of much of his creative work, though he illustrated this in his life, as few men have done. He regarded it as the highest duty of life to give pleasure to others; his art in his own idea thus became in an unostentatious way consecrated, and while he would not have claimed to be a seer, any more than he would have claimed to be a saint, as he would have held in contempt a mere sybarite, most certainly a vein of unblamable hedonism pervaded his ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... effect of the house's interior was one of well-chosen but unostentatious comfort, and the materials and furnishings used were all so nicely adapted to their setting that only to more discerning eyes than those of the Stuarts' neighbours would they have expressed unusual resources ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... humble "black gown" dragging and splashing his way, with La Salle and Tonti, through the swamps of Louisiana, holding forth the crucifix and backed by French carbines and Mohican tomahawks, among the marvels of that wilderness was found this: a child of nine sitting, and—with some unostentatious aid from her medicine-man—ruling; queen of her tribe and high-priestess of their temple. Fortified by the acumen and self-collected ambition of Listening Crane, confirmed in her regal title by the white man's Manitou through the medium of the "black gown," and inheriting her father's fear-compelling ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... unbended his vigorous mind from his severe and brilliant discoveries. We can now only lament the (almost) premature death of this high-ranked philosopher, this great benefactor to the arts, and deep promoter of science, whose mortal remains were consigned to his unostentatious tomb, at Geneva, in one of the finest evenings of summer, followed by the eloquent and amiable historian, De Sismondi, and by other learned and illustrious men. One may apply to his last moments at Geneva, (where he had arrived only one day before) these lines ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... must—stiffen my back," he said sternly to himself, as he neared the dingy schoolhouse toward which, from all directions, he could see his audience making its way. It was not the first time he had addressed these girls and women, in so informal and unostentatious a manner that no one of his hearers had so much as suspected his profession, but had taken him for one of their own class. "He's got a way with him," they put it, "that makes you feel like you could listen to him all night." The sight ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... thing, would have been, for those who were interested in the plan, to furnish the money necessary, and then to have selected a retired place, where there would be the least prejudice and opposition to be met, and there, in an unostentatious way, commenced the education of the youth to be thus sustained. Instead of this, at a time when the public mind was excited on the subject, it was noised abroad that a college for blacks was to be founded. ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... was made in connection with the burial at Westminster Abbey was that the clause in his will which read: "I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious and and strictly private manner," should be strictly ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... father, with what true and unostentatious philosophy thou didst accommodate thyself to the greatest change thy quiet, harmless life had known since it had passed out of the brief, burning cycle of the passions! Lost was the home endeared to thee by so many noiseless victories ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lived a pious, Christian life; he had been beloved for unostentatious Christian charity; with his religious belief no fault had ever been found; he was a canon of the Church at Frauenberg, and over his grave had been written the most touching of Christian epitaphs. Naturally, then, the people expected a religious service; ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... played in scratch games against the house. There seemed to be a tremendous number of fellows who had done this. At one time or another, it seemed, half the School had opposed Dencroft's in the ranks of a scratch side. It began to dawn on Eckleton that in an unostentatious way Dencroft's had been putting in about seven times as much practice as any other three houses rolled together. No ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the loftiest character. Some of Mr. Roscoe's townsmen may regard him merely as a man of business; others, as a politician; all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom. Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character, which gives the nameless grace to real excellence, may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know that true worth is always void of glare and pretension. But the man of letters, who speaks of Liverpool, speaks of it as the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... and again sauntered in, this time with the theater crowd. Our first visit had been so quiet and unostentatious that the second attracted no attention or comment from the waiters, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... upon comfortably. He paused to open the door across from the telephone table and found that it opened into a closet, whose hangers and hat forms now held the outdoor clothing belonging to Nita's guests. Nice clothes—the smart but unostentatious hats and coats of moneyed people of good taste, he observed a little enviously, before he opened the door which led into the main hall which bisected the main floor of the house until it reached ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... it was a simple thing, an unostentatious remembrance; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions. Rodney loyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business, but every spire and frond and leaf of green in this winter wreath shed off the secret, magnetic ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... panelled with deeply carved and gilded oak, the room which was Angela Sovrani's special sanctum, all the persons there assembled rose from their different sitting or lounging attitudes, and respectfully bent their heads to the brief and unostentatious benediction given to them by the venerable prelate of whom all present had heard, but few had seen, and everyone made way for him as Angela met and escorted him to a seat on one of the old, throne- like chairs with which ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... vehicle stopped before a house of respectable exterior, in Washington street, and the young lady was assisted to alight; entering the house, she was received by an elderly female, who immediately conducted her to a private room, which contained a bed and furniture of a neat but unostentatious description. The carriage drove away, and Julia remained several hours in the house. At about nine o'clock in the evening, the carriage returned, and she was assisted to enter, being apparently ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... if they had not been so checked, would long before this time have involved the finances of the General Government in embarrassments far greater than those which are now experienced by any of the States; of limiting all our expenditures to that simple, unostentatious, and economical administration of public affairs which is alone consistent with the character of our institutions; of collecting annually from the customs, and the sales of public lands a revenue fully adequate to defray all the expenses thus incurred; ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... Hall that night was a very quiet, unostentatious function; for the numerous guests that were usually to be found beneath its hospitable roof had now gone their various ways, and Lady Olivia had, of course, at once ceased to issue further invitations as soon as the projected expedition had been finally determined ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "GAM," a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even; and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... chapel—a Baptist one—they were at prayer. Walking in softly, we entered a pew right in the midst of them. The minister—a mulatto of about thirty years of age, with a fine intelligent eye—was very simple in dress, and unostentatious in manner. His language, too, was appropriate and correct. He was evidently a man of good common sense. His text was Psalm li. l2, l3. He referred very properly to the occasion on which the Psalm was composed, and drew from the text a large mass of sound practical instruction. ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... a trying situation for us - very trying. There seemed to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... discover where they had taken shelter, and say he was commissioned to supply their wants. But as he was ever attentive to the rule of doing good in secret, his own name was, on no account, to be divulged, nor would he press Jobson to inform him where the fugitives resided. The language of loyalty, unostentatious generosity, and warm attachment to Eustace, was, to Jobson, a sure pledge of the honour and sincerity of Monthault. He readily promised to get the whole secret out of Mrs. Isabel, and discover none of his intentions. "I see, noble sir," continued ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Catholics were no longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the Established Church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. But the spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the Whigs were as unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to the piety ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... doesn't it? Yet it had to be done. As I intimated a few minutes ago, my life has hitherto been a sort of unostentatious failure. I used to think it was because I was outclassed: I know now it has been because I wouldn't do as other men do. It has been a rather heart-breaking process—to sort out the scruples, admitting the just and overriding the others—but ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... action, is never left alone, but he fits in somewhere; the Whole takes him up and directs him, and adjusts him into the providential plan; not simply from without but through himself. Such is this poet's loyalty to his Idea; he has faith, deep, genuine faith, yet unostentatious, quite unconventional at times; a most refreshing, yes, edifying appearance to-day, even for religious people, though he be "an ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells too, by Jove!—breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in—your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to account to myself for—for—Mr. Kurtz—for the shade of Mr. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... for once, in Massachusetts, a public institution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and mortar; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, that any future additions will tend to make this spot a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, inflame local or state pride, but can never be an effectual, economical agency in the work of reformation. Every public institution ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... dinner, and Burns looked to see his friend enjoy, as he thought he must, the cleverly planned and deliciously cooked meal which came, perfectly served, upon the table. It was such a dinner as he himself delighted in, unostentatious but satisfying, with certain touches, here and there, calculated to tempt the most capricious palate,—such as he shrewdly judged Leaver, in his presumably lowered state of vitality, ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... to give up these enjoyments without a murmur, when higher claims called for her undivided care. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well; and the robin will doubtless be repaid for the unwearied patience with which she performs her unostentatious duties. Some people are inclined to think domestic labour dishonourable, and the cares of house-keeping a burden; but our feathered friend is wiser than they. She does with her might what she finds to do, and she does it heartily. Every act of duty, faithfully ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... become the sad duty of this biographer to write of disappointed love, I am sure he would not have any sensational story to tell of the Young Lady. She is one of those women whose unostentatious lives are the chief blessing of humanity; who, with a sigh heard only by herself and no change in her sunny face, would put behind her all the memories of winter evenings and the promises of May mornings, and give her life to some ministration of human kindness with an assiduity that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... expired. As his soul sped heavenward A watched its flight with melancholy admiration. B burst into a passionate flood of tears and sobbed, "Put away his little cistern and the rowing clothes he used to wear, I feel as if I could hardly ever dig again."—The funeral was plain and unostentatious. It differed in nothing from the ordinary, except that out of deference to sporting men and mathematicians, A engaged two hearses. Both vehicles started at the same time, B driving the one which bore the sable parallelopiped containing ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... begun when the Studdifords made a flying trip to Honolulu, where Jim had a patient. The great liner was fascinating to Julia, and, as usual, her beauty and charm, and the famous young surgeon's unostentatious bigness, made them friends on all sides, so that the life of cocktail mixing and card playing and gossip went on as merrily as it had in San Francisco. Julia could not spend the empty days staring dreamily out at the rolling green Pacific; ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... with a culture and strong intellect, almost masculine, but which betrays itself under such sweet and gentle and unobtrusive forms that one is only led to perceive it by slow degrees. She is the most modest and unostentatious person one can well conceive. She lives simply, and the chief of her large income (you know she was the rich Miss Milbank) she devotes to others. After lunch she wished me to see a little of the country round Esher and ordered her ponies and small carriage for herself and me, while Mr. ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... House, seventeen miles on the way to Richmond. Detachments of a Vermont and a New York cavalry regiment composed the reconnoitring party, and the whole was commanded by Gen. Crawford, a clever and unostentatious soldier. We bivouacked that night near Raccoon Ford, on the river Rapidan. No fires were built; for we knew that the enemy was all around us, and we slept coldly and imperfectly till the gray of Sunday morning. At daylight we ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... wrote to Albert Hill in her big, cramped handwriting, on the expensive yet unostentatious note-paper which Ellen had decreed, inviting him to come and spend Whitsuntide ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... now, mamma! Suppose you begin. I've been perfectly honest with myself, and I've been honest with Mr. Beaton. I don't care for him, and I've told him I didn't; so he may be supposed to know it. If he comes here after this, he'll come as a plain, unostentatious friend of the family, and it's for you to say whether he shall come in that capacity or not. I hope you won't trifle with him, and let him get the notion that he's coming on any ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to be martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... They moved in one of the many circles of cultured and agreeable people, which, despite the mandate of a M'Allister, formed a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; they entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the career of the Baroness had not been unearthed. That the widow of Judge Lawrence, the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known as "The Baroness" caused some questions, to be sure, but the simple answer that she ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Saito, despite their immense wealth and their political importance, were simple, unostentatious people, who seemed to devote most of their thoughts to their children, their garden, their dwarf trees, and their breed of cocker spaniels. They took their social duties lightly, though their home was ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the little church. The number of persons confirmed was 846, and there were likewise two ordinations. The stay of the Bishop at the Red River was only three weeks, and he accomplished his enterprising journey of two thousand miles in six weeks. He is one of the most unostentatious persons possible; it was not until he presented me with a volume containing an account of his visitation that I was aware that he was the prelate with the account of whose zeal and Christian devotedness I had long been familiar. He is now an aged man, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... social questions, appeared in 1864. Allingham married in 1874 Helen Paterson, known under her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at Hampstead on the 18th of November 1889. Though working on an unostentatious scale, Allingham produced much excellent lyrical and descriptive poetry, and the best of his pieces are thoroughly national in spirit and local ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... interior, and constantly crowd his yard. There they sit, in almost perfect silence, receiving their goods, and making payment in gold-dust and ivory. Towards us Mr. Bannerman showed himself most hospitable, yet in a perfectly unostentatious manner. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... will not your majesty excuse me?" said the abbe, bowing low. "My life has been the still, quiet, lonely, unostentatious life of a priest, and only the ever-blessed King Frederick William introduced storm and tempest into its even course. That was, without doubt, God's will; otherwise this robust and giant form which He gave me would have been in vain. My height and strength so enraptured the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Mrs. Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently preoccupied, and after she had removed her outer duster and entered the room, she glanced at the clock on the mantel-shelf and threw herself with an air of resigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her traveling-dress, although unostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting; a slight pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from some absorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gave even an air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room, which it is to be feared ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Illyrians. He added to the material glories of his capital, and sought to secure peace throughout the world. He was both munificent and magnificent, and held the reins of government with a firm hand. He was cultivated, unostentatious, and genial; but ambitious, and versed in all the arts of dissimulation and kingcraft. But he was a great monarch, and ruled with signal ability. After the battle of Actium, his wars were chiefly with the barbarians, and his greatest ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Gladys wore a black gown of some shimmering soft material, with a quaint frill of old lace falling over the low collar, a bunch of spring snowdrops at her belt, and her lovely hair bound with the black velvet band which none could wear just in the same way—a very simple, unostentatious home toilet, but she looked, Walter thought, like a queen. Possessed of a wonderful tact, Gladys managed, while the meal progressed, to confine the conversation to commonplace topics, so that the servant who attended should not be furnished ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... manner which so many distinguished artists, even Liszt himself, have thought it worth while to carry perhaps to the degree of affectation. Smoothly shaven, quiet, eminently respectable-looking, his handsome, somewhat Jewish-looking face composed in an expression of unostentatious good breeding, he was wont to seat himself at the piano with all the simplicity of one doing any commonplace thing. He had the air of one who respected himself, his art, and the public. His performance was in an exquisitely artistic sense that of the gentleman, perfect, polished, and elaborately ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... a kind heart, and was ever just and generous in his dealings. Wholly unostentatious himself, the humblest felt at ease in his presence. Possibly no incumbent of the great office was more easily accessible to all classes and conditions. Courteous at all times, no guards were necessary to the preservation of his ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... the conclusion that they are just such a strange mixture of good and evil as men are every where else. There is not among them an approach to that constant stream of benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor which we have in England, nor yet the unostentatious attentions which we have among our own poor to each other. Yet there are frequent instances of genuine kindness and liberality, as well as actions of an opposite character. The rich show kindness ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... elevation of Louis Napoleon to power the Count, who distrusted him and his schemes, abandoned politics and the agitation of public life forever, contenting himself with doing all the good in his power and aiding the needy in a quiet, unostentatious way. His daughter and her husband spent a great deal of their time at the family mansion, and the Count and Mercedes acquired additional delight thereby. Albert de Morcerf, his wife and Mlle. Louise d' Armilly remained inmates of the Monte-Cristo residence, aiding ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... verse-forms, will delight in his simple 'vitty' songs of the Delectable Duchy. He is a patriotic Cornish-man sure enough ... as good as anything of the kind written by the dialect-poets of Lancashire or Dorset ... it is a thing to rejoice over, this little easy-going, unostentatious book." ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... jewels which had been presented to her by the Prince Regent; but which, it was discovered, belonged to the Crown, and could not be alienated. Sir Benjamin was created a Peer, and sent to Stockholm as ambassador, where his affable manners and his unostentatious hospitality rendered him exceedingly popular; and he became as great a favorite with Bernadotte as he had been with the Prince Regent. The name of Bloomfield is at this ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... righteous wrath against Captain Costigan when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" "'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed him up not a trifle! How alert to love, how open to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure! What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particularly to women! How wide those windows of his soul open toward heaven! How magnanimous, how sad his face and ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... that something is sent almost every day even to the hospitals near Washington and the great cities, and that the amount bestowed increases just in proportion to the distance of the hospital from the great Government centres of supply. This is a noiseless and unostentatious charity,—sometimes, I am tempted to think, too noiseless and unostentatious. A few weeks ago, a lady friend visited one of the hospitals near Washington, carrying with her for distribution some Sanitary goods. She gave a handkerchief to one of the sick men. He took it, looked at it, read the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and dotted everywhere with innumerable herds of cattle. Beyond the Missouri rose abruptly chains of snow-capped mountains, glistening in the sunlight and veined with gold and silver. Reports of these men came at times to Virginia,—reports always of a quiet and unostentatious prosperity. In the winter of 1864 their secret became known, and half the nomadic population of Virginia hurried to the new mines, and puzzled the slow-moving Minnesotians by their bustle and activity. Claims advanced rapidly in price, and the discoverers reaped fortunes. A city rose like an exhalation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... exceeding tact in confronting the prejudices of the King and the priesthood. He took no pains to conceal his birth and lineage in the most aristocratic country of the world. Considering that he was only second in power and dignity to an absolute monarch, his life was unostentatious and his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... lateness of the hour, albeit with misgivings justified in the issue, he hailed a taxicab and had himself driven to the headquarters of the British Secret Service in America, an unostentatious dwelling on the northwest corner of West ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... The ring is given by the man immediately after the announcement of the engagement to the woman, who wears it on the third finger of her left hand. It should be a small and unostentatious one. Diamonds, rubies, moonstones, sapphires, and other ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... of unostentatious means. Andrew lost him in Drury Lane and found him again in Piccadilly. He was generally alone, never twice with the same person. His business was scattered, or it was his pleasure that kept him busy. He struck the observer as always being on the outlook for someone ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... soul of conscious integrity. Worldly fame has been parsimonious of her favor to the memory of those generous companions. Their numbers were small; their stations in life obscure; the object of their enterprise unostentatious; the theatre of their exploits remote; how could they possibly be favorites of worldly Fame—that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblage of multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... long-haired, swaggering bully, with his air of mystery, had captivated them, as he always had done since the days of Homer. Simple merit, which sat lowly in barrooms, and conceived projects for the public good around the humble, unostentatious stove, was nowhere! Youth could not too soon learn this bitter lesson. And in this case youth too, perhaps, was right in its conjectures, for this WAS, no doubt, the little game of the perfidious Bulger. We recalled the fact that his unhallowed appearance ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... for the academic classes of the school, would be a credit and delight to any municipality. There is everything about the exterior and interior that must awaken a sense of pride in every pupil who enters its portals. Its facilities are sensible and unostentatious, yet they meet every requirement of the department. What is true of the new Academic Building is likewise true of the various dormitories for girls and boys. The cleanliness and the sanitation to be found at Tuskegee are in delightful contrast to the poor environment to which many ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... his wife and daughter and Miss Dodge ('Gail Hamilton') left at noon yesterday in anticipation of the rush. Before going the Senator did a very gracious and kindly deed in an unostentatious way. Sending for Flipper, the ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... great,—the bitterest trial of the literati of the eighteenth century, which drove Cowper mad, and sent Rousseau to attics and solitudes,—so that, in his humble but pleasant home, with his young wife, with whom he lived amicably, he could see his friends, the great men of the age, and bestow an unostentatious charity, and maintain his literary rank and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... although he could tell the meeting he had driven his own donkey-cart once upon a time, if he had come down to a wheelbarrow now! (Cries of "Toff!" and "Aristocrat!" from the more extreme Guys.) He did not understand those expressions of disapproval—a wheelbarrow with one leg missing was surely an unostentatious conveyance enough. Well, they had met that evening to discuss the means to be taken to obviate the depression in the important branch of out-door industry in which, if he did not mistake, they were all interested. (Hear, hear!) That such depression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... efficiency on the one hand and pacific interpenetration on the other. The former has been often and adequately described; the latter has not yet attracted the degree of attention it merits. For one thing, it was unostentatious and invariably tinged with the colour of legitimate trade and industry. Practically every country in Europe, and many lands beyond the seas, were covered with networks of economic relations which, without being always emanations of the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... certainly inferior to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit. The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the interest in them never fades. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Drury, upsetting all her arrangements, implying that it had been presumptuous to exert any authority without relationship. It did seem hard that the claims of kindred should be only recollected in order to unsettle her plans, and offend her unostentatious tastes. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its doing all the hard work and making itself generally useful. Formerly it was the man who wore the fine clothes who went to the shows. To-day it is the woman gorgeously clad for whom the shows are organized. The man dressed in a serviceable and unostentatious, not to say depressing, suit of black accompanies her for the purpose of carrying her cloak and calling her carriage. Among the working classes life, of necessity, remains primitive; the law of the cave is still, with slight modification, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... genuinely patriotic Irishman, steadfast in his political creed, though unostentatious in his professions, being more a man of action than of words. My mother, as I think I have already sufficiently indicated, was, on the other hand, more demonstrative. I think she must have had a positive genius for conspiracy. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... had very little room to move about in his dugout. I was very much impressed with the unostentatious way in which he said, "If you want to say your prayers, Padre, you can kneel over in that corner first, because there is only room for one at a time. I will say mine afterwards"—and he did. He was a Roman Catholic, and had lived in India, and was a very fine ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Scandinavia can be explored at a very slight expense. The exiled prince, with his companions, travelled in the most unostentatious manner. He felt quite secure in his wanderings, as but few of the emigrants had penetrated those distant regions. From Copenhagen he passed to Elsineur, visiting all objects of historic interest. Crossing the Sound at Helsinbourg, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... crimson of modesty which, alas! is now of such rare occurrence among the sex, unconscious that, in doing so, she was adding fresh testimony to the impressions which had gone so generally abroad of her extraordinary beauty, and the many unostentatious virtues which adorned ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... figure of the orphan—over the fair young face with its delicate cameo features, warm, healthful coloring, and brave, hopeful expression. Four years had developed the pretty, sad-eyed child into a lovely woman, with a pure heart filled with humble unostentatious piety, and a clear, vigorous intellect inured to study, and ambitious of every honorable eminence within ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... which in effect declares that all men are created equal, and that the government is "of the people, for the people, and by the people." Anyone with ordinary intelligence and with open eyes, who should visit any city, town or village in America, could not but be impressed with the orderly and unostentatious way in which it is governed by the local authorities, or help being struck by the plain and democratic character of the people. Even in the elementary schools, democracy is taught and practised. I remember visiting a public school for children ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang |
