"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Boston society is concerned. Consequently as time went on and I could achieve prominence in no other way, I sought consolation for the social joys denied by my betters in acquiring the reputation of a sport. I held myself coldly aloof from the fashionable men of my class and devoted myself to a few cronies who found themselves in much the same position as my own. In a short time we became known as the fastest set in college, and our escapades were by no means ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... weighed in the balances and found wanting; while the party that still remained faithful to the law was composed mainly of narrow-minded fanatics, whose wild speculations, long-winded prayers and frequent vows, Koheleth considers deserving objects of derision. He himself held aloof from either camp. He took his stand outside the circle of both, surveying life from the angle of vision of the philosophical citizen of the world. But it would be idle to deny that he had far more in common with the "impious" than with ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... some diabolical illumination, the sinful city kindled into light like glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill, past Santa Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount of amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached Pompeii, and dwelt on Torre dell'Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it smouldered while the day died slowly. The long, densely populated sea-line from ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... each other more like enemies than lovers; and Caroline seemed to be more than ever withdrawn and aloof—for all her ignorance and simplicity of feeling—when she answered him in an inward brooding tone: "Yes, I understand." For she really saw neither Godfrey nor the shore, only Laura coming flushed ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... I wasn't tempted. How have you kept yourself so aloof all these years, John—so far above the furious issues ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... young chief of the Onondagas, have hearts that beat alike. The Onondagas do well to keep aloof from the white man's quarrels for the present, and to sit at peace, though watchful, in the vale of Onondaga, but your hopes are with our friends the English and you in person fight for them. We Mohawks know whom to hate. We know that the French have robbed ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more than eighteen years without them, Kitty! My poor friends are not happy, and we are. To leave well alone is a golden rule worth all in Pythagoras. The ladies of Bubastis, my dear,—a place in Egypt where the cat was worshipped,—always kept rigidly aloof from the gentlemen in Athribis, who adored the shrew-mice. Cats are domestic animals, your shrew-mice are sad gadabouts: you can't find a better model, any Kitty, than the ladies ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... pleasure, perhaps morbid, in seeing his predictions fulfilled; and it may have been a consolation to the gloomy heart of Hedrick, sorely injured by Laura's offensive care of her treasure, to find the grouping upon the porch as he had foretold: Cora and Mr. Corliss sitting a little aloof from the others, far enough to permit their holding an indistinct and murmurous conversation of their own. Their sequestration, even by so short a distance, gave them an appearance of intimacy which probably accounted for the rather absent ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... like that of Germany, holds aloof, individuals, especially Dr. Dohrn, of the Naples Zoological Station, will send ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the young man picked up from his new roommate, Tom Anstey, a soft-eyed, soft-voiced, helpful and sunny young man from Virginia. Anstey was one of the best-liked men in his class, but the new plebes at first held almost aloof ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... with difficulty, should have the powerful support of Mr. Blaine and of those Republicans of whom he was the leader and favorite. So I thought it best that he should be consulted in the matter of the selection of a Cabinet officer from New England and that I should keep aloof. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... was, she thawed toward him as he held himself more aloof, until she actually came to the point of addressing him directly, with a flicker of a smile for good measure; and, although he responded with stiff civility, he felt his blood pulse faster, and suddenly conceived the ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... and sent down the great merchant ship, with American babies and their mothers, and gallantly dying American gentlemen, there came a change even to girls and boys and professors, until then so preoccupied with their own little aloof world thousands of ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... reproach me," said he. "I shall never cease to reproach myself for letting her go where she did." And yet his heart told him that he had only acted according to his deliberate design of keeping aloof from all Margaret's pursuits and amusements that were not shared with her sister. And as for the risk, he had seen fifty people walking across the ice this very morning. Judging by the event, however, he very ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... "The church was hidden down through the Catholic and Protestant ages and is just now again coming out and standing aloof and clear for God and her blessed founder, Jesus Christ. Oh, praise God! it is all so plain now. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... me. I hovered aloof. It was only half past nine when she came—half an hour too early—but already a carriage was waiting, and a man, disguised in hat and cloak and flowing beard, stepped forward and accosted her at once. What he said to her I don't know, but he persuaded her, evidently with reluctance, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... cavaliers, but you can read all about her ancestors in any history of America. She has such a strong sense of humour and the fitness of things, that she has adapted herself to the present, instead of remaining aloof and going to the wall as she told me so many of her friends and ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Parliament of Man. It was felt that our place and power among the nations of the earth had not been given us for naught, and that, as the weal of mankind is to a considerable degree determined by international politics, we had no right longer to hold ourselves aloof from this field. The feeling was emphasized by the annihilation of space between us and other nations, brought about through steam navigation and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... They grew gradually to bewildering shapes and colors, for the girls came dressed in gowns woven of brilliant flowers. And the torrents of their beautiful hair floated loose. This time they held themselves grouped close; they kept themselves aloof, high. But again came the sinuous interplay of flower-clad bodies, the flashing evolution of rainbow wings, the dazzling interweaving of snowy arms and legs. It held the ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... was some little distance from the post. All three of the herds were holding beyond it, a polite request having reached them to vacate the grazing-ground of the cavalry horses. Lovell still insisted that we stand aloof and give the constituted authorities a free, untrammeled hand until the inspection was over. The quartermaster and his assistants halted on approaching the first herd, and giving them a wide berth, we rode for ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... of early drinkers at Sim Ripson's dropped their glasses, yet did not go briskly out to work as usual. In fact, they even hung aloof, in a most ungentlemanly manner, from Jerry Miller, who had just stood treat, and both these departures from the usual custom indicated that something unusual was the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... he planned to destroy looked him in the eye, smiling. The thing smiled in the full knowledge of good and evil, the fact that it had chosen evil, the fact that it was lost forever. It was no contagious smile, but a smile aloof and dreadful. So a man, impaled, may smile, when agony has passed beyond the usual human passions—and even so the legless man smiled upward at the smiling bust of himself. And he found that he could not destroy the bust: for the act would have about it too ominous ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... path near the newly erected Mission Station at Mafulu was being opened some of these creepers had to be cleared away, and the Mission Fathers had the utmost difficulty with the natives, only two or three of whom could be persuaded to help in the work, whilst the others stood aloof and afraid. In the same way, when the Fathers wanted to cut down some of the special palms, only two natives were induced to help in this, and even they only did so on the condition that the Fathers themselves made the ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... of posterity by one of his most distinguished successors—to cultivate free commerce and honest friendship with all nations, but to make entangling alliances with none. A strict adherence to this policy has kept us aloof from the perplexing questions that now agitate the European world and have more than once deluged those countries with blood. Should those scenes unfortunately recur, the parties to the contest may count on a faithful performance ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... very grateful old party, yet it has so much to be grateful for that, it has hardly enough gratitude to go round. He and his two sons can best keep their reverence for the grand old Party undisturbed, by remaining on the farm, aloof from the few millions of others who confidently believe that patriotism will be sooner or later rewarded ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... "and it was wrong as well as foolish to hide yourself from your friends. However independent we may be in this world, all must, to a certain extent, rely upon others. There is scarcely a man who can stand aloof from the rest and say, 'I want nothing of you.' I can understand your feeling in shrinking from asking a favor of me, or of the fathers of the other boys who are, like myself, deeply indebted to you for the great service you have rendered their sons. I can admire ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... main:{12} Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon{13} bow his cloud-topt head. On dreary Arvon's shore{14} they lie, Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famished eagle{15} screams, and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,{16} Ye died amidst your dying country's cries— No more I weep. They ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... evidently disappointed, excused him with much kindness, and Miss Minchell alluded directly to his blue lapels as evidence that even now he held himself somewhat aloof from ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone, that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in his hand, as if still bent on his duty, in the midst of that awful warring of the elements. Captain Truck called for a trumpet in his turn, and fearful of consequences he waved it to the other to keep more aloof, The injunction was either misunderstood, the man-of-war's man was too much bent on his object, or the ocean was too uncontrollable for such a purpose, the corvette driving up on a sea quite abeam of the packet, and in fearful proximity. The Englishman ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... interest was supported at Madrid by the great influence of his mother over the family of Ferdinand, who, in fact, regarded Miguel with peculiar complacency, because he had destroyed a constitutional government. The other sovereigns of Europe however, still kept aloof from any communication with the usurper. It was contended by the Portuguese refugees, and the ministers of Don Pedro, that they ought to drive Miguel from his throne by positive interference. These applications were especially made to the British ministry; but though Lord Aberdeen admitted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... standard of well-being is set by the best-off of the competitors, for he it is who determines the current standard of technique and industry, the methods of production, the minimum of labour and skill. We cannot, as we have already seen, keep aloof from world-competition, for Germany needs cheap goods. We must therefore try to keep step so far as ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... through the throng, to carry afar the news of defeat. Flight was all that was left to the troops of Antiochus or the priests of Bacchus, and few succeeded in making their escape, for many Jews who had stood aloof from the struggle joined in the pursuit. The very women caught up stones from the path to fling at the flying foe; children's voices swelled the loud shout of triumph. The altar of Bacchus was thrown down with ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... happened to Pascal, had broken some spring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as to account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally and pleasantly with the young man ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of sympathetic pity and wonder, but Lark is always haughty and nearly contemptuous. It is different with the rest of the class. It is nothing important to them. The twins are popular in the class, you know, and the others, realizing that they dislike me, hold aloof on their account." ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... applied to, remained sullenly aloof: the Emperor's letter to the Jats fell into the hands of Ghazi-ud-din, the Captain-General, who returned it to him with violent menaces. The alarmed monarch began to fall back upon his capital, pursued at a distance by his rebellious general. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... power of their allegiance and of their courage. If he joined the Politiques at their price, the price of declaring himself Catholic, the Huguenots would be offended if not alienated. So he neither absolutely refused nor said yes; and the chief Catholic nobles in the main stood aloof, watching the struggle between Huguenot and Leaguer, as it worked out ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at Mandy Ann, who had at first been appalled at the advent of the baby, and for a while kept aloof even from Ted, when the "Hatty" was in. Then she rallied and, like Jake, was ready to do battle with any one who hunched their shoulders at Miss Dory. She had two good square fights with Ted on the subject, and two or three more with some of her own class near the clearing, and as she came ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... mill administration building, he found the general manager waiting. Through the door into the conference room beyond he could see the superintendents of the various departments, with Graham rather aloof and detached, and a sprinkling of the most important foremen. On his desk, neatly machined, was the first tentative shell-case made in the mill machine-shop, an experiment rather ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that he should treat it as a tribute to the importance of social work. Three times he was offered a seat in the Cabinet, but he refused each time, because official position would fetter his special work. He kept aloof from party politics, and was only roused when great principles were at stake. Few of the leading politicians satisfied him. Peel seemed too cautious, Gladstone too subtle, Disraeli too insincere. It was the simplicity and kindliness of his relative Palmerston ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... march of intellect to boot, they do contrive to come pretty near to the honest folks before the mast in the article of ingenious ferocity. The captain, of course, and, generally speaking, all the officers keep quite aloof, pocketing up their dignity with vast care, and ready, at a moment's warning, to repress any undue familiarity. As things proceed, however, one or two of the officers may possibly become so much interested in the skylarking scenes going forward as to approach ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Nobody would go near the house. The doctor found them both on the floor insensible, down with typhus fever, shut up with the pigs and cows, the room and its odour defying description. The neighbours kept strictly aloof. Dr. Croly swept and garnished, made fires, and pulled the patients through. "Sure, you couldn't expect us to go near whin 'twas the faver," said the neighbourly Achilese. Mr. Salt, the Brum-born mission ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... conveys the general impression of a peevish little stream breaking against great calm cliffs. All this frantic excitement and expenditure of energy is so apparently purposeless and futile, the calm cattle seem so aloof and superior to it all, so absolutely unaffected by it. They are going slowly, to be sure; their gait may be maddeningly deliberate, but evidently they do not intend to be hurried. Why not let them ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... soil; O'er many a league the ponderous domes extend. And deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend; 70 A thousand jasper steps with circling sweep Lead the slow votary up the winding steep; Ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof, Bear on their branching ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... princes, of the blood, and just above that of the peers even of the oldest creation. This gave us all exceeding annoyance: it was the greatest injury the peerage could have received, and became its leprosy and sore. All the peers who could, kept themselves aloof from the parliament, when M. du Maine, M. de Vendome, and the Comte de Toulouse, for whom this arrangement was specially made, were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the birth of this third baby, her self no longer set towards him, helplessly, but was like a tide that scarcely rose, standing off from him. After this she scarcely desired him. And, standing more aloof from him, not feeling him so much part of herself, but merely part of her circumstances, she did not mind so much what he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... abruptly the orchestra caught hold of him, shook him and dragged him back. It was playing something which he had heard before—on a street barrel-organ, and which he disliked now with an intensity for which he could give no reason. It was perhaps because he wanted to remain aloof and indifferent, and because it would not let him be. It destroyed his isolation. His pulse caught up its beat like the rest. His personality lost outline—merging itself into the cumbrous uncouth being ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... that modern English thought should so long hold aloof from familiar communion with Christian writers of other ages and countries. It is rarely indeed that acquaintance is shown with such authors, though a bright example to the contrary was set by Sir William Hamilton. Sir Charles Lyell (in his "Principles of Geology," ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... intuitively, a correct judgment on a subject so complex, and disposed only to act knowingly, would be unwilling to make so hasty a decision, and consequently be disinclined to attend such meetings. Many intelligent men, therefore, stood aloof, while the most intemperate assumed, as usual, the name of the people; pronounced a definitive and unqualified condemnation of every article in the treaty; and, with the utmost confidence, assigned reasons for their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... they been possessed with such restless yearning. To the very last, Gilbert's eyes wandered from time to time towards the slender figure in the cavalcade before him, hoping for the chance of a word or look; but Martha's finer instinct told her that she must yet hold herself aloof. She appreciated the solemnity of the revelation, saw that much was yet unexplained, and could have guessed, even without Miss Lavender's mysterious hints, that the day would bring forth other and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... produced an effect the reverse of what they expected. The venerable face of the Imam, the attitude in which he had expired, with one hand pointed as if to heaven, was more impressive to those who crowded round the body than his fearless enthusiasm had been,—and thousands who till then had held aloof, now joined his followers in venerating him as a prophet. Of this first warrior-priest of Daghestan, Schamyl was the favorite disciple and the most trusted soldier. Kasi-Mullah was not killed until Schamyl ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... hour, keeping aloof from the others, quite contented with each other, and Gretel had exclaimed, "Ah, Hans, how beautiful! How fine! To think that we both have skates! I tell you, the stork brought us ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... me, that he found me grown to his liking; "beautiful, graceful, and agreeable," says he, and condescended to praise even my black hair and pale face, after which I would not have exchanged it against the golden hair of Helen. But still held aloof except when I was in company with others. And I took note that, of all the ladies that came and went at Moor Park, there was not one but hung upon his talk, and held up her head when he came near, spreading out all her graces. Mr Swift had always that power with ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... on the step outside, looking over the plain of waters, with her head in her hand. Mrs. Armadale was in a rocking-chair, just within the door, placidly knitting. Mr. and Mrs. Lenox, somewhat further back, seemed not to know just what to do with themselves; and Madge, holding a little aloof, met her sister's eye with an expression of despair and doubt. Outside, at the foot of the steps, where Mrs. Barclay sat, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... arrayed against each other, sending up great clouds of dust as they ran toward each other, locked horns and engaged in desperate conflict. It was noticed, however, that the muleys kept well out of harm's way, standing aloof from the herd and looking on ready to run at the shake of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... is a long while since I saw one man look at another as young Mayford did at our Sam tonight. I wish she were out of the way. Sam and Mayford are both desperately in love with her, and one must go to the wall. I wish that boy of mine was keener; he stayed aloof from ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... removed the diffidence that had affected her; their relations were less matter of fact and more romantic, and she felt toward him as any woman feels who knows an admirer pursues her—breathless with the wonder of it, but holding aloof, tantalizing, whimsical, and ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... year, with the hand of winter again pressed firmly upon the land, it seemed time could do no more; that the adaptation of the exotic to his new surroundings was complete. Already the past life seemed a thing interesting but aloof from reality, like the fantastic exploits of a hero of fiction, and the present, the insistently active, vital present, the sole ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... labor of the imagination which is not mere arbitrariness, but the exercise of disciplined power—combining and constructing with the clearest eye for probabilities and the fullest obedience to knowledge; and then, in yet more energetic alliance with impartial Nature, standing aloof to invent tests by which to try ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the Father: but we should hold as suspected or as heretics and of bad sentiments the rest who depart from the principal succession, and meet together wherever they please.... From all such we must keep aloof, but we must adhere to those who both preserve, as we have already mentioned, the doctrine of the apostles, and exhibit, with the order of the presbytery, sound teaching and an inoffensive conversation." [585:1] "The order of the presbytery" ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Achilles fell, nor any man might dare From forth the Trojan gateway to draw nigh; But, as the woodmen watch a lion die, Pierced with the hunter's arrow, nor come near Till Death hath veil'd his eyelids utterly, Even so the Trojans held aloof ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... who had followed Mayor Morrison into the State House, had been holding aloof, politely, from a conference which seemed to have no bearing on the political situation. They hurried behind and overtook Stewart and the young lady at the head of the stairway; their ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... that Medora's tears were checked in the ghastly fear of disasters yet to come to her father-in-law. Now and again she glanced anxiously over her shoulder at an oblong black aperture in the dusk which betokened the open door of the shed-room. Some one lurked there, evidently cherishing all aloof a grief, an anger, a despair ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... between the Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared herself content with the first alliance, which was defensive only, and which bound them to help each other, but not to join in attacking any. The Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies, and again turned their thoughts ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Hodden held somewhat aloof from his fellow-passengers; but, finding perhaps that there was no general desire to intrude upon him, he condescended to become genial to a select few. He walked the deck alone, picturesquely attired. He was a man who ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... Aloof from the group was a man of medium height, stoutly built and worn of face, whose expression was one of eager impatience. The face, caricatured a hundred thousand times, was hawklike, the eyes bright and searching, the chin out-thrust. He had ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... I don't believe it. The jealousies that divide that group are too unmanageable. If he were a Parnell! But he lacks just the qualities that matter—the reticence, the power of holding himself aloof from irrelevant things and interests, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and reserved, shrinking from publicity and holding himself aloof from the human side of war. He was constitutionally unable to make a dramatic gesture before a multitude, or to say easy, stirring things to officers and men whom he reviewed. His shyness and reserve prevented him also from knowing as much as he ought to ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... phlegmatic host. He has a great deal of common sense; he thoroughly understands the landowner's conditions of life, the peasant's, and the tradesman's. He could give sensible advice on difficult points, but, like a cautious man and an egoist, prefers to stand aloof, and at most—and that only in the case of his favourite customers—by remote hints, dropped, as it were, unintentionally, to lead them into the true way. He is an authority on everything that is of interest or importance to a Russian; ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... obedience, faith, adhesiveness; As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... had hitherto been unable fully to arouse them, the Athenians began to realize their danger. At the instance of the great orator they formed a treaty with the Thebans, and the two states prepared to defend themselves from invasion; but most of the Peloponnesian states kept aloof through indifference, rather ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... already at the door, and Frank joined him, to prepare all that would be required, while the young chief looked on, eager and smiling, but standing aloof from the Hakim as if in perfect confidence as to the result, but feeling a superstitious ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... The next day there was a great overhauling, by Preston and his mother and Daisy, of the stores of finery which Mrs. Randolph put at their disposal. Mrs. Randolph herself would have nothing to do with the arrangements; she held aloof from the bustle attending them; but facilities and materials she gave with unsparing hand. Daisy was very much amused. Mrs. Gary and Preston had a good deal of consultation over the finery, having at the same time the engravings spread ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... her face, and moved that foot whereon he had set her shoe, gently back and forth as though the leather was stiff to her ankle, and I saw that she looked at it from under her heavy hair. But Mistress Marian still held aloof, and chewed upon her dark locks like a heifer on its cud. And her eyes were every whit as dark and solemn as a very cow's. Then the young lord laughed again, and cried out, "Ha! the ox-eyed June!" or some such apery, and went and kneeled before her in mock fashion, ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... kept strangely aloof. Of late years John Barton had had a repellent power about him, felt by all, except to the few who had either known him in his better and happier days, or those to whom he had given his sympathy and ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the pride of his heart. And the stern mother, of whom she had stood so much in awe, who at first had passed her by as a thing not to be noticed, and had then sent out to her that she might be warned to keep herself aloof, now hardly knew in what way she might sufficiently show ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... a blessed hand of wedlock. My brother gone: my man excessive unruly: Lord and Lady L—— on his side, without inquiring into merits, or demerits: lectured by Dr. Bartlett's grave face: Emily standing aloof; her finger in her eye: and now my Harriet renouncing me: and all ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... came forward and added her congratulations to his. The children gazed at Pollyooly with deep respect. Only the nurses and the mothers held aloof; an earthquake shock would hardly have astonished and confused them more than had this smacking of royalty. Had any one but the little cousin of the Honourable John Ruffin smacked, they would have been unable to refrain from an outburst ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... well above Dickens, and, in the opinion of the present writer, it places him above even Balzac. But there are points wherein, according to that same opinion, he approaches much nearer to Balzac and Dickens than to the other and greater artistic creators: while in one of these points he stands aloof even from these two, and occupies a position—not altogether to his advantage—altogether by himself in his class of artistic creation. All the six from Thackeray to Shakespeare—one might even go farther back and, taking a more paradoxical example, add Rabelais—are, even in extravaganza, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... cautiously withheld his allegiance, although he had not testified his hostility by any overt act. While the queen was hesitating as to the course she should pursue in reference to the marquis, who still kept himself aloof in his fortified castle of Xerez, he suddenly presented himself by night at her residence in Seville, accompanied only by two or three attendants. He took this step, doubtless, from the conviction that the Portuguese faction had nothing further to hope in a kingdom ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Serapion held aloof. Excepting that he wore a beard and robe, his appearance even had nothing in common with them; and his talar was not like theirs, embroidered with hieroglyphics, tongues, and flames, but of plain white stuff, which gave him the aspect of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and through it, and over it, and under it, with an eye that was predetermined to pry out a secret. Then he felt of every wheel, lever, cam, ratchet, drum, and other portion within reach of his fingers. Everything was immovable. Then he stood aloof from the machine, folded his arms, pursed up his lips, and cocked an eye at it, as if, by the mere force of intellect, he would compel the dumb thing to give ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... are deceived themselves; some make it their sport to do ill offices; others do them only to receive thanks; there are some that would part the dearest friends in the world; others love to do mischief, and stand off aloof to see what comes of it. If it be a small matter, I would have witnesses; but if it be a greater, I would have it upon oath, and allow time to the accused, and counsel, too, and hear it over ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... aggressive. In fact, though he was reckoned among Lucas's party, because of his abstinence from all cult of saints or images, and the persecution he had suffered, he did not join in their general opinions, and held aloof from their meetings. And Tibble Steelman, as has been before said, lived two lives, and that as foreman at the Dragon court, being habitual to him, and requiring much thought and exertion, the speculations of the reformers were to him more like an intellectual ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... doing his best to get the bill promulgated by himself (though in accordance with a decree of the senate and on a point of religion) rejected. Messalla as yet is strongly for severe measures. The loyalists hold aloof owing to the entreaties of Clodius: bands of ruffians are being got together: I myself, at first a stern Lycurgus, am becoming daily less and less keen about it: Cato is hot and eager. In short, I fear that between the indifference of the loyalists and the support of the disloyal it may be the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder, A dreary sea now rolls between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... it seemed, the two belligerent forces paused to get their second breath. Up to that time, the battle had raged with varying fortune. Victory, that appeared about to perch first on one banner, and then on the other, held aloof, as if disdaining to favor either. The odds, indeed, had been rather with the confederates than against them, for Stuart managed to out-number his adversary at every critical point, though Gregg forced the fighting, putting Stuart on his defense, and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... playing a game. He had prided himself on being a Boer, and spoken coldly of the British. He had also, I gathered, imparted many things calculated to deceive. So he left Germany with good marks, and in Switzerland had held himself aloof from the other British wounded, on the advice of Blenkiron, who had met him as soon as he crossed the frontier. I gathered it was Blenkiron who had had him sent to St Anton, and in his time there, as a disgruntled Boer, he had mixed a good deal with Germans. They ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... authority, and had exemplified with remarkable and varied skill, a new or at least a very greatly altered kind of literary criticism. And this had already threatened incursions into domains from which men of letters as such had generally kept aloof, or which, if they had touched, they had touched not as men of letters. Something of Socrates, something of Addison, something of Johnson, mingled in Mr Arnold's presentation of himself as, if not exactly an arbiter, at any rate a suggester of elegances ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... the municipal officers and commanders of the National Guard, for never before has such supreme authority and such great dignity fallen upon men previously so submissive and so insignificant.—Formerly the subordinates of an intendant or sub-delegate, appointed, maintained, and ill-used by him, kept aloof from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves except by humble protestations against the aggravation of taxation, concerned with precedence and the conflicts of etiquette,[3116] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to purchase 'gur' (coarse sugar), of which all the females partake, as a sacred offering to the sex. No member of the other sex presumes to partake of it, and during the chorus all the men stand aloof in respectful silence. This custom prevails all over India, or over all parts of it that I have seen; and yet I have witnessed a Governor-General of India, with all his suite, passing by this interesting group, without knowing ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... this, threw toward him a piteous look of appeal, and then approached him, in search after sympathy. The two were soon engaged in conversation, while Ashby, whom this ludicrous figure had very forcibly affected, stood aloof watching him, with a smile on his face which he ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... nearest to them, so near as to seem only a few million miles away in the great emptiness into which everything had resolved itself, shone the sun, a ball of red-tongued fires. The Angel was but a voice now; the bishop and the Angel were somewhere aloof from and yet accessible ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... yet a third Delhi, hard by these two; yet curiously aloof: official, Anglo-Indian Delhi, of bungalows and clubs and painfully new Government buildings. Little scope here for imaginative excursions, but much scope for thought in the queer sensation, that beset him, of seeing his father's people, as it ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... is "always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine."[B] In his earlier works, especially, Browning is creative rather than reflective, a Maker rather than a Seer; and his creations stand aloof from him, working out their fate in an outer world. We often lose the poet in the imaginative characters, into whom he penetrates with his keen artistic intuition, and within whom he lies as a necessity revealing itself in their actions and words. It is not easy anywhere to separate ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... a distance from a moral precept, and therewith bring souls under the law. Thus he did with some of old; he did not make the Galatians fall from Christ by virtue of one of the ten words, but by something that was aloof off; by circumcision, days, and months, that were Levitical ceremonies; for he knows it is no matter, nor in what Testament he found it, if he can therewith hide Christ from the soul—'Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I detest them!" She pointed toward a sand-bar upon which stood several of these abominable birds and an adjutant, solemn and aloof. "At Lucknow they were red-headed. I do not recollect seeing one of them fly. But I admire the kites; they look so much ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... what commerce can men with monsters find? Not daring to approach their wounded foe, Whom her courageous son protected so, They charge their muskets, and, with hot desire Of fell revenge, renew the fight with fire; Standing aloof, with lead they bruise the scales, And tear the flesh of the incensed whales. 210 But no success their fierce endeavours found, Nor this way could they give one fatal wound. Now to their fort they are about to send For the loud engines which their isle defend; But what those pieces framed to batter ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... house-serfs—at best, a person of the working class. Pasinkov was extremely courteous and gentle to everybody, though he never sought the society of any one. If he were rudely treated, he was neither humiliated nor sullen; he simply withdrew and held himself aloof, with a sort of regretful look, as it were biding his time. This was just how he behaved with me. About two months passed. One bright summer day I happened to go out of the playground after a noisy game of leap-frog, and walking into the garden I saw Pasinkov ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... my prognostics had deceived me. This hope was strengthened by reflecting that the billet received was written in a different hand from that of my friend. Meanwhile I continued my search. Seated on a bench, silent and aloof from the crowd, his eyes fixed upon the floor, and his face half concealed by his hand, a form was at length discovered which verified all my conjectures ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... might be Vaudemont's manner to Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived Lord Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... little known man of about twenty-eight years, when General Harney called all the western bands of Sioux together at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, for the purpose of securing an agreement and right of way through their territory. The Ogallalas held aloof from this proposal, but Bear Bull, an Ogallala chief, after having been plied with whisky, undertook to dictate submission to the rest of the clan. Enraged by failure, he fired upon a group of his own tribesmen, and Red Cloud's father and brother fell dead. ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address of a man who kept aloof from Polish politics—a bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by name, who might just as well be killed off in ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... love I stood aloof My heart was steeled and I was beauty-proof; Yet I, unscathed in many a peril past, Lo! here am I defeated at ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions for me,—always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had before been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the associations of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's a good fellow,—always on hand "; "never talks much, but does the right thing at the right time"; "is not as unpunctual as he used to be,—he comes early, and sits through to the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... greasy buckskin from neck to foot, and with a fox-skin cap.'" The prisoners were at once sent by these raiders to Fremont, who was at that time on the American River. He immediately disclaimed any part in the affair. However, instead of remaining entirely aloof, he gave further orders that Leese, who was still in attendance as interpreter, should be arrested, and also that the prisoners should be confined in Sutter's Fort. He thus definitely and officially entered the movement. Soon thereafter Fremont started south through ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... wish to be on good terms with you; and yet, Elwood, you feel out of sorts with me, and, in spite of all I can do, seem disposed to keep yourself aloof." ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... cuddled by this friendly baby, and Jan laid her cheek against the fluffy golden head; but all the time she was watching Tony. He reminded her of someone, and she couldn't think who. He maintained his aloof and unfriendly attitude till Ayah came to take the children to their second breakfast. Little Fay, however, refused to budge, and when the meekly salaaming ayah attempted to take her, made her strong little body stiff, and screamed vigorously, clinging ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... to Carlton Terrace and was closeted for some time with the late Prime Minister. He had been engaged during that and the last two previous days in lending his aid to various political manoeuvres and ministerial attempts, from which our Duke had kept himself altogether aloof. He did not go to Windsor, but as each successive competitor journeyed thither and returned, some one either sent for the old Duke or went to seek his counsel. He was the Nestor of the occasion, and strove heartily to compose all quarrels, and so to arrange matters that a wholesome, moderately Liberal ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... of the estate was to leave the clothes of his family drying on the fence. Taniera was still the friend of the house, still fed the poultry, still came about us on his daily visits, Francois, during the remainder of his stay, holding bashfully aloof. And there was stranger matter. Since Francois had lost the whole load of his cutter, the half ton of copra, an axe, bowls, knives, and clothes— since he had in a manner to begin the world again, and his necessary flour was not yet bought or paid for—I proposed to advance him ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed much as the first. Clara saw but little of the Mother Superior, who kept herself much aloof from the community, in her own apartments, which were furnished very differently ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... I'll be free to write and write, And give my soul to sheer delight, Till joy is almost pain; To stand aloof and watch the throng, And worship youth and sing my song Of faith and hope again; To seek for beauty everywhere, To make each day a living prayer That life may ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... "Glory!" "Hallelujah!" "The Blood—the Blood!" while the shepherd in the ingle-nook slowly knocked out the ashes of his pipe against the heel of his boot. He was a free-thinker, an ex-Chartist, and held himself aloof from these emotions, though privileged, as an old retainer, to watch them. His face was impassive as ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was due to events transpiring in Central Europe. As will appear in Chapter XII. of this work, the Czar and de Giers became convinced, early in the year 1887, that Bismarck was preparing for war against France, and they determined to hold aloof from other questions, in order to be free to checkmate the designs of the war party at Berlin. The organ usually inspired by de Giers, the Nord, uttered an unmistakable warning on February 20, 1887, and even stated that, with this aim in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... from the odium and responsibility of so violent a measure. My note will force them to take their ground. If the answer is that they intended only a suggestion which I may follow or not, as I choose, I will remain, but keep aloof until I receive your directions. If, on the other hand, I am told to depart, I will retire to Holland or England, and there wait the President's orders. In either case the derangement will be extremely expensive and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... aloof from these burghers, for Master Gottfried wisely desired to give them time to be tamed before running risk of offence, either to, or by, their wild shy pride; and their mother contrived to time her meetings with her old companions ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... along the shores piled high with broken ice and snow, through a misty air to distant mountains that lifted themselves imperiously aloof, white spires against the sky,—over a forest all draped in winter robes; shore, mountains, and forest alike were chill and hushed and desolate. The lake spread its forty-odd miles in a boomerang curve from Roaring Springs to Fort Douglas, a cold, lifeless gray. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... amongst them and sat me down at the end of the table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, and but a foreman." Nor let us, whilst recalling Bacon's bounteous hospitalities, fail in justice to his great rival, Sir Edward Coke—-who, though he usually held himself aloof from frivolous amusements, and cared but little for expensive repasts, would with a liberal hand place lordly dishes before lordly guests; and of whom it is recorded in the 'Apophthegmes,' that when any great visitor dropped in upon him for pot-luck without notice he ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... were pressing on towards her, when it occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore, that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct desire I had, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he resolved to answer his friends' summons, and meet them on their return from Sicily. They had wished to have him with them in Greece, but always his departure was postponed; habits of solitude and characteristic diffidence kept him aloof ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... men looking at my shoulder, which the horse's hoof must have barely grazed, though no more, or I should have been in a worse plight. Still the shoulder was a sorry sight enough, and the great black woman with the little fair baby in her arms stood aloof looking at it with ready tears, and the baby herself made round eyes like stars, though she knew not half what it meant. I felt the hot red of shame go over me at my weakness at a little pain, after ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... took her by the hand. Lady Caroline's eyebrows contracted a little, but she did not interfere. She seemed to hold herself resolutely aloof—for a time—and listened, Janetta thought, as if she were present at a very interesting comedy of ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of it unto Vasudeva, he might be irritated with thee. Feed thou by every means in thy power those that are dear and devoted to thy lord and always seek his good. Thou shouldst, however, always keep thyself aloof from those that are hostile to and against thy lord and seek to do him injury, as also from those that are addicted to deceit. Foregoing all excitement and carelessness in the presence of men, conceal thy inclinations by observing silence, and thou shouldst not stay ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ago—it seems like a year!—I was of some assistance to refugees fleeing from Mexico into the States. They were all women, and one of them was dressed as a nun. Quite by accident I saw her face. It was that of a beautiful girl. I observed she kept aloof from the others. I suspected a disguise, and, when opportunity afforded, spoke to her, offered my services. She replied to my poor efforts at Spanish in fluent English. She had fled in terror from her home, some place down in Sinaloa. Rebels are active there. Her father was ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of it. I am an ungrateful daughter. You love me so much! You have indulged me so! I ought to give in. I can not, and your grief will kill me. I suffered so yesterday, out driving, feeling papa so far away. I kept feeling as if he were holding himself aloof in an effort to forget, and now you are crying.... Mama, it is terrible! I must make myself give you back your happiness—at least your peace of mind. Alas!—I can not give you back your happiness, for I think that I shall die if I cannot have ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... attached itself to the lodestar of the policeman's uniform; but even at this indignity, his reaction was curiously impersonal. It was as though the spiritual part of him and the material part had got a divorce; and the spiritual part, which was the plaintiff, stood coldly aloof, watching the material part tramping down Main Street, with a flat-footed policeman beside it, a voluntary escort behind, and rumour flying on ahead to all the newspapers. He was actually too humiliated ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... inns, where they form a community by themselves, the Dean artist sets up his own vine and fig-tree and has a temporary home, if ever so small and mean. The farm-houses and cottages of the Dean are filled with lodgers, all dining at separate tables and living as aloof from each other as the true Briton always lives. There are advantages in this aloofness, but it certainly lacks the camaraderie, the jolly good-fellowship, of those picturesque auberges and osterie where twenty or thirty of one calling are gathered together ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the trucks by the door, waiting for loads, talking politics, and smoking. The smell of tobacco, copperas, and burning logwood was heavy to clamminess here. She stopped, uncertain. One of the porters, a short, sickly man, who stood aloof from the rest, pushed open a door for her with his staff. Margaret had a quick memory for faces; she thought she had seen this one before, as she passed,—a dark face, sullen, heavy-lipped, the hair cut convict-fashion, close to the head. She thought, too, one of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... disturbed no whit his placid mind. He was in no hurry. He assumed Elise as his own whenever he chose to say the word. He regarded her in much the same way as a half-hungered epicure a toothsome dinner, holding himself aloof until his craving stomach should give the utmost zest to his viands without curtailing the pleasure of his palate by ravenous haste. He served Pierre with diligence and fidelity. The Blue Goose would sooner or later come to ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... a trifle dazed, startled by the vastness of the domain to which he was heir apparent, Bonbright returned to the aloof quiet ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... thrust out with shame and insult such as no lady ever yet forgave. But, thank Heaven, I am not at your mercy at all. He to whom nature has drawn me all these years is my father—Oh, papa, come to me; is it for you to stand aloof? It is into your hands, with all the trust and love you have earned so well from your poor Grace, I give my love, my veneration, and my heart and soul forever." Then she flung herself panting on his bosom, and he cried over her. The next moment he led her to the house, where he ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... majesty of their numbers against their emigrant oppressors. But, though encouraged by some old transportationists amongst the magistrates, and by the government press, the scheme was too monstrous for success. The respectable expirees stood aloof, and even detested an organisation founded on the reminiscences of crime. A few noisy meetings and inflammatory speeches were sufficient to open the eyes of most to the gulf of caste into which their own protectors ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... up no decent girl on the street and I should keep aloof from them. A decent girl would resent ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... scenes. I painted the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... common world, he loved that daringness of character which also made itself, among common things, aloof and alone. He did not, or he would not see, that that very isolation put her yet more from him than from the vulgar. Far as the poles—far as the night from day, his solitude was divided from hers. He was solitary from ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... after our perilous passage through the gorge, he quite took me into his confidence, talking to me and consulting with me as if I were a man of his own age, while Esau hung aloof looking jealous and answering in a surly way whenever he ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... apparently, that she could not visit home. And as spring passed and the summer came on, the little girl budded and opened like a rose. To the pretty school-teacher she was a source of endless interest and wonder, for while the little girl was reticent and aloof, Miss Saunders felt herself watched and studied in and out of school, and Hale often had to smile at June's unconscious imitation of her teacher in speech, manners and dress. And all the time her hero-worship of Hale went on, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... you ask. A great deal, I can assure you; for I began to fear that it was not the old nurse who had returned to us, but some strange being, who, having assumed her appearance, had not been able altogether to imitate her manner. So I kept myself aloof, and felt afraid to venture too close; but she grew thinner and paler, and my mother relieved her from all care of ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... to power with the avowed intention of liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was untenable. "Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away," his advisers told him. "With the serf she cannot endure," he answered And twenty-two millions ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... party from the woods Will chase the other with much injury forth. Then it behoves, that this must fall, within Three solar circles; and the other rise By borrow'd force of one, who under shore Now rests. It shall a long space hold aloof Its forehead, keeping under heavy weight The other oppress'd, indignant at the load, And grieving sore. The just are two in number, But they neglected. Av'rice, envy, pride, Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all On fire." Here ceas'd the lamentable sound; And I continu'd ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante |
