|
|
|
More "Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:—I suppose it was a matter of necessity, calling on some of us from other States to speak for you to-night, for we have learned from the history of Priscilla and John Alden, that a New Englander may be too modest to speak for himself. [Laughter.] But this modesty, like some of the greater blessings of the war, has been more or less ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Thus did the modest son slip away from the angry up-braiding; But in the tone he had taken at first, the father continued: "That comes not out of a man which he has not in him; and hardly Shall the joy ever be mine of seeing my dearest wish granted: That my son may not as his father ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... named James Dore, who keeps a public-house in Bridge Street, Newcastlewest—I can vouch for his beer—also held a small farm of forty-nine acres from the Earl of Devon, for which he paid the modest rent of L11 10s. per annum—the land maintaining sixteen cows and calves, which, on the usual local computation of L10 profit on each cow, would leave a gain of L148 10s.—not a bad investment, as Irish farming goes. So it was considered, and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... his reproof. At all times his conversation was apt to reveal that sudden changes of mental phase took place within him apparently without conscious volition. He now exclaimed with more modest mien, "It is, no doubt, by the will of the Lord that you are come, for I stood in sore need of comfort, for the revelation of the truth is a trial hard to endure, and at times ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... was directed at Herbert Lyddiard, and Amy felt it; but her thoughts were at this moment occupied by another subject of absorbing interest. 'No,' she returned with modest dignity; 'I have at present no desire to alter my condition, but I have for years been intent upon bettering yours. I may be presumptuous in supposing it possible that any effort of mine could do so; but I was resolved to make the trial, and this ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... is the eagle and lamb of temporal and spiritual idealism that form the "head" of this coin, the craftsman and anvil but the modest ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... whom else than himself, Ben Abdi, should the Major turn for counsel and assistance? The little Goorkha preferred, however, that it should be thus; that Agar Sahib should say nothing, merely allowing him to stand silent three paces behind. He was a modest little man, this Goorkha, and knew the limit of his own capabilities, which knowledge, by the way, is not always to be found in the hearts of some of us boasting a fairer skin. He knew that for hard fighting, snugly concealed behind a rock at two hundred yards, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... morning peers out, from her crimson repose, On proud Prairie Queen and the modest Moss-rose; And vesper reclines—when the dewdrop is shed On the heart of the pink—in its odorous bed; But Flora has stolen the rainbow and sky, To sprinkle the flowers with ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... less compliment; Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell, For wenches, taking up their wives i' the Mall; And a brisk bout, which each of them did want, Made by mistake of mistress and gallant. Our modest author thought it was enough To cut you off a sample of the stuff: He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not, For you were all for driving on the plot: You sighed when I came in to break the ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... garden; for instance a cruet-stand, a basket of cutlery, and a triangular dish of the kind in which the correct confine cheese. They have not strayed here, they live here; indeed this is among other things the dining- room of a modest little house in Brompton made beautiful, or nearly so, by a girl, who has a soul above food and conceals its accessories as far as possible from view, in drawers, even in the waste-paper basket. Not a dish, not a spoon, not a fork, is hand-painted, a sufficient ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... secretary, and one of the king's personal attendants, who was, no doubt, in his confidence, and two other influential men, one of whom, Ahikam, is known as Jeremiah's staunch friend, would make some stir in 'the second quarter,' on their way to the modest house of the keeper of the wardrobe. The weight and number of the deputation did honour to the prophetess, as well as showed the king's anxiety as to the matter in hand. Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both living at this time, and we do not know why Huldah ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as I may call 'ee," says Tony in his modest way, and not so loud that Unity could overhear, "I see a young woman alooking out of window, who I think may accost me. The fact is, Milly, she had a notion that I was wishing to marry her, and since ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Christ did not succeed, modest as His aims were. Is not, then, an appeal to this noblest of all minds calculated to discourage rather than to encourage us in the pursuit of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... President. It conversation he drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be appointed to the Supreme Bench. Just before leaving Wade said he meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's retirement. Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their administration. He went direct to the White House, and at the door found the President going for a drive in his phaeton. He was invited to go along, and at once availed himself of the opportunity. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... company, my dear? Do you mean Lucy Bargrove's? I wish all our fashionable acquaintance were only half so modest and so well-informed. She is a sweet girl, and an ornament ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... and so followed her to victory. City after city surrendered to her, battle after battle was won under her leadership, until Charles was indeed crowned at Rheims; but, through the influence of her English enemies, the brave and modest maid was condemned as a sorceress and burned ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... modest, Chevalier," replied the vicomte. "I learn that you have entered the bouts, my poet. I tried to interest D'Herouville, but he declined. He goes about like a moping owl, watching ever for a returning ship which he ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... much of the little hill upon which the Temple was set. We read of the 'hill of the Lord's house' being 'exalted above the tops of the mountains.' We read of it being a high hill, 'as the hill of Bashan.' And though to the eye of sense it is a very modest elevation, to the eye of faith it was symbolical of much. Jeremiah felt it to be a material type, both of the elevation and of the stable duration of the God whom he would commend to Israel's and to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... unworthy. He missed the artfulness which had been so winning. He had jealousies no longer to keep his passion quick, for he could not doubt her devotion. There was nothing to lack in Suzette, and that was a fault. She had become modest, docile, truthful, grave. A noble man might have appreciated her the better. Ralph Flare was a representative ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... particular moral emphasis, bespeaking the mournful cogitations of her spirit. On leaving the church, somebody whispered to the minister, that surely Mrs. Glibbans had heard some sore news; upon which that meek, mild, and modest good soul hastened towards her, and inquired, with more than his usual kindness, How she was? Her answer was brief and mysterious; and she shook her head in such a manner that showed him all was not right. "Have you heard lately of your friends the Pringles?" said he, in his sedate manner—"when ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... implied by the practice of external criticism does or does not justify "all the fuss made over those who possess it." On this question, obviously devoid of importance, a controversy was held between M. Brunetiere, who recommended scholars to be modest, and M. Boucherie, who insisted on their reasons for being proud, in the pages of the Revue des langues romanes, 1880, vols. i ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... meek, as humble. He sat and kept silence,[195] knowing, as the prophet says, that silence is the ornament of righteousness.[196] He sat as one that perseveres, he was silent as one that is modest, except that by that silence of his he was speaking, with holy David, in the ears of God: I am a youth and despised, yet do not I forget thy precepts.[197] And for a time he sat alone, because he ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... seldom graceful in the Occidental sense, she is at least in all her ways incomparably graceful: her every motion, gesture, or expression being, in its own Oriental manner, a perfect thing,—an act performed, or a look conferred, in the most easy, the most graceful, the most modest way possible. By ancient custom, she is not permitted to display her grace in the street: she must walk in a particular shrinking manner, turning her feet inward as she patters along upon her wooden sandals. ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Kent's wife might have to forego; nay, things which Elinor Brentwood might presently have to forego. For she compelled herself to front the fact of the diminished patrimony squarely. So long as the modest Western Pacific dividends were forthcoming, they could live comfortably and without pinching. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... entitled surely to a pleasure-trip, and when that's over we can return the ship to the owners—if so disposed. You'll join us in that, Grummidge, won't you? And we'll make you skipper—or first mate, if you're too modest to take command." This sally was received with a subdued laugh, and with marks of such decided approval, that Grummidge was carried with the current—at all events, he held his tongue ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... returned to the tower crestfallen, and never again slipped into the cell of the dead Thael; but when he was eighteen years old a modest inheritance was left him, and he bought materials for dissolving metals and distilling the juice of plants. He gave out that his aim was to learn the art of healing; for that great purpose he read great books which treated of ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... spring, leaving the house to crusty Hannah and the great spider, in a carryall, being the only excursion involving a night's absence that either of the two children remembered from the house by the graveyard, as at nightfall they saw the modest pine-built edifice, with its cupola and bell, where Ned was to be initiated into the schoolboy. The Doctor, remembering perhaps days spent in some gray, stately, legendary great school of England, instinct with ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cheek, and the look in his eyes more serious, and infinitely older, the look of one who had borne much and seen more. The reporters found it difficult to get a story from the returned hero. He seemed to shun the limelight and to be almost unduly modest and retiring, which was of itself, had they but known it, a transformation sufficiently marvelous to have warranted ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... inseparable) and with words far more eloquent than the following, he sings "This honor is greater than I deserve but duty calls me—(what, not stated)... If elected, I shall be your servant" ... (for, it is told, that he believes in modesty,—that he has even boasted that he is the most modest man in the country)... Thus he has the right to shout, "First, last and forever I am for the people. I am against all bosses. I have no sympathy for politicians. I am for strict economy, liberal improvements and justice! I am also for the—ten commandments" (his ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... legislation from the Apostles. Women were to pray with their heads veiled "for the man is not of the woman, but the woman for the man."[225] Jewels, precious metal, and costly garments were unbecoming the modest woman.[226] ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... fruitless. The pretty daughter with the downcast eyes was there too; but her very admiration of the gift, so genuine and unrestrained, proved, if testimony indeed were necessary, that she was not his unknown benefactor: admirer, he would have said; but Ferdinand was in love, and modest. All agreed no one, to their knowledge, had been there; and so Ferdinand, cherishing his beautiful gift, was fain to quit his new friends in ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Parade—a suggestive mouthful. But then the Parade is such a modest little affair. The town itself is flung down a steep hill, at the mouth of a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Philisterlike, contracting thoughts? I, however, emancipated as my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my inward light, advance boldly in a transport peculiarly my own, the bright before me, and the dark behind!'—Do you not see a resemblance? O, they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling ray of light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of even ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... quiet homely ways. Modest and mild Were the fair daughters born to them in those fair ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your "Watchman," seem to me much ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... gave every evidence of the desire to be modest in their demands. They did not even enter the village—nor seek to do so until the place of the camp had been decided upon. Even Jose was not allowed to precede the others in search of kindred. He and his wife ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... are to be seen on every side. A youth no sooner gets through "the Schools," and graduates in Arts, than he inquires for a Curacy. During the three months, perhaps six, of interval, he makes himself sufficiently acquainted with the Alphabet of Divinity to enable him to satisfy the very modest requirements of the Bishop's examination; after which he finds himself at once actively engaged in the Bishopric of souls and the profession of Theology. It is probable that the realities of the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Thomas, abating the zeal of his party, and the mistaken opinion of his cause, was the fittest man amongst them to undertake the charge. He was a complete general, strict in his discipline, wary in conduct, fearless in action, unwearied in the fatigue of the war, and withal, of a modest, noble, generous disposition. We all apprehended danger from him, and heartily wished him of our own side; and the king was so sensible, though he would not discover it, that when an account was brought him of the choice they had made, he replied, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... my writing as you call it, until after I've dined at seven o'clock and given myself time to digest my modest dinner," answered ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... soldier, and no politician; honest, strict on duty, and genial and kind off duty. He is brave as a man can be in battle. A true and loving husband, a kind father, and the truest kind of a friend. A thorough sportsman, temperate, modest, and as careful of the wellfare of the humblest enlisted man as of his chief of staff." Capt. Constant Williams, in a private letter to the author, under date of December 23, 1888, says: "I wish to bear testimony of the noble bearing of ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... XIV. Can modest and prudent Christians think, that the Opinion of the General Councils, Primitive Fathers, and so many wise and good Men in the several Ages of the Church, who have condemned the going to Plays as unlawful, and as a renouncing ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... Julian," Frank said laughing, as he looked at the great pile of trunks in the post-house, "one would think that you were carrying the whole contents of a household. Those modest tin cases comprise my share ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... besides the scandalous prices, which bore no reasonable relation to the cost of production, had to pay the government luxury tax of 10 per cent, over and above. A well-known press correspondent, who entertained seven friends to a simple dinner in a modest restaurant, was charged 500 francs, 90 francs being set down for one chicken, and 28 for three cocktails. The maitre d'hotel, in response to the pressman's expostulations, assured him that these charges left the proprietor hardly any profit. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dependent on wind and weather to enable us to make any accurate estimate of the time our voyage would occupy, especially as regards those latitudes in which the winds are variable. The estimate for the whole voyage was based on an average speed of four knots, and at this very modest rate, as it may seem, we ought to arrive at the lce Barrier about the middle of January, 1911. As will be seen later, this was realized with remarkable exactness. For reaching Madeira we had allowed a month as a reasonable time. We did a good deal better than this, as we were ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... days, when from the high foaming crest of Solway to the smoothly polished breast of Loch Katrine, not a river nor a lake but has swelled with the life's tide of religious freedom. From the bonnie highland heather of her lofty summits to the modest gowan on the lea, not a flower but has blushed with the martyr's blood. But, beloved, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. What holy, loving lessons does God teach us by the history of the true Church, and a thoroughly consecrated ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... Hence, since the Bible is subject to interpretation, the demands of the reason are paramount where they do not admit of doubt. On the other hand, where the traditional dogma of Judaism is clear and outspoken, it is incumbent upon man to be modest and not to claim the infallibility of direct revelation for the limited powers of logical inference ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... into the room. He was dressed as a country swain, came in with modest, diffident air, and for a while stood watching Chester curiously from the opposite side of the apartment, then crossing over, he stood before him, hat in ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... number of soldiers, which the treaty of Stanz allowed them; and the Cantons still kept twice as many votes as the cities, although the latter, yea even sometimes one of them performed as much as all the former put together. This produced arrogance among those who, in the beginning, were modest. They were the governors of the common bailiwicks; they acted often without consulting the cities. They have strengthened themselves in our times by the admission of a fifth canton. They ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... had seen the princess, his heart could not withstand those inclinations so charming an object always inspires. She was the most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red; in a word, all the features of her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore surprising that Aladdin, who had never before seen such ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... another to Warsaw, on its way to meet the czar at St Petersburg; another to Pesth, whence it will be carried through the scenes of the late Hungarian war; another to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; others from Central Germany southward to the Swiss highlands, which bar further progress; and a very modest little group ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender, instead of me,—the innocent sufferer. It would be ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... had a four days' job on his hands. Then he called Jim Green, and Softy Meadows, and finally in despair called the only one left. John Knox,—nice orthodox name, my dear. John Knox would do it for the modest sum of five dollars, and not a—well, I'll spare you the details, but he wouldn't do it for a cent less. Nesbitt raved, and Nesbitt swore, but John Knox, while he may not be a pillar in the church, certainly stood like ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... to fondle the missing (gastric) links that would litter the Christmas table! The "greater number" could not of course go far from the Diamond City. But Modder River was near. There were the time-honoured annual excursions to that modest watering-place and now famous battlefield to excite the imagination, where "shells" could be gathered of more historic value than the "common" ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... and while Hope pictures to us a flattering scene of future bliss, let us deny its pencil those colours which are too bright to be lasting.—When hearts deserving happiness would unite their fortunes, Virtue would crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless flowers; but ill-judging Passion will force the gaudier rose into the wreath, whose thorn offends them when its ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... the power, and perhaps the opportunity, have failed us for proceeding in the manner of La Place and of Say, we cannot refuse to believe that the form which we have adopted has, also, its modest utility. It appears to us especially well suited to the wants of the age, to the hurried moments which it can consecrate ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... already spoken, and Ramphis knew it, but he did not tell Radames. Together they spoke of Radames's loyal wish to serve his people, either as a great general or as a soldier. He was too modest to think that Isis would choose him, out of all the worthy men of the army, to lead the hosts of Egypt. His desire to do valorous deeds was inspired by his love for a slave girl, who attended the Princess ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... those who seek, as the essentials of art, imaginative boldness and sincerity; understand what is meant by adversaries who maintain that, after all, Tintoretto was but an inspired Gustave Dore. Between that quiet canvas of the Presentation, so modest in its cool greys and subdued gold, and the tumult of flying, ruining, ascending figures in the Judgment, what an interval there is! How strangely the white lamb-like maiden, kneeling beside her lamb in the picture of S. Agnes, contrasts with the dusky gorgeousness of the Hebrew women ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... is one virtue which I have striven to implant more than any other in your breasts," he continued, "it is the cultivation of a modest and becoming reserve in your intercourse with ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... insupportable. Yet this very vanity was, I think, of some advantage; it hindered me from falling into such things as cause the ruin of families. I would not do anything which in the eye of the world, might render me culpable. As I was modest at church and had not been used to go abroad without my mother, as the reputation of our house was great, I passed ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... affable and modest; but the more she was thankful in her heart to Heaven for having placed her on the first throne in Europe, the more unwilling she was to be reminded of her elevation. This sentiment induced her to insist on the observation of all the forms of respect due to royal birth; whereas in other princes ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... my arms towards them, before even I could pronounce their charming name—a name fit for the Prince in some French fairy-tale; colonists, perhaps, in some far distant century from Asia, but naturalised now for ever in the village, well satisfied with their modest horizon, rejoicing in the sunshine and the water's edge, faithful to their little glimpse of the railway-station; yet keeping, none the less, as do some of our old paintings, in their plebeian simplicity, a poetic scintillation ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... not talk much, but he kept close watch of matters, and knew, as nearly as he could, all the facts that were needed to make up his mind, so that he had a good deal of weight with other members, and yet was very modest. When he first took his seat in the House, the Speaker was directed to thank him, in the name of the people, for his great services as an officer. This the Speaker did in glowing terms, quite unexpectedly ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... then when I take one up and hold it in my hand, I look at it before putting my tongue to it and think what a two-cent stamp believes. It has come to be for me like a little modest seal for my country—like a flag or a symbol. A two-cent stamp is the signature of the nation, the tiny stupendous Magna Charta of the rights ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... are you?" she asked with a slightly southern accent in her voice, delicate and entrancing. Her head gave a little modest toss, her fine white teeth caught her lower lip with a little quirk of humour; for she could see that he was a gentleman, and that she was safe from anything that might ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... loved where he might enjoy their fragrant society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... physicians who had been summoned proved futile; the lady was at the point of death; at last, in sheer despair, they summoned a midwife of great repute among the peasantry, but whose practice did not include the gentry. From the first treatment of this woman, who appeared modest and diffident to a degree, the pains ceased as if by enchantment; the patient fell into an indefinable calm languor, and after some hours was delivered of a beautiful infant; but after this was attacked by a violent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... our return home, washed the soot and dirt from our hands and faces, and while we were thus employed a modest rap was heard at the door, and who should enter but Mr. Steel Spring, looking as important, defiant, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... they were intended as a cloak to cover the essentially revolutionary designs of the shrewd New Englanders. "We have too much reason to suspect that independence is aimed at," Mr. Low warned the Congress; and Mr. Galloway could see that while the Massachusetts men were in "behavior very modest, yet they are not so much so as not to throw out hints, which like straws and feathers show from which point in the compass the wind comes." In the early days of the Congress, if we are to believe Mr. Hutchinson, this cold north ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Ophelia's modest Replies, the few Words she uses, and the virtuous Caution she gives her Brother, after his Advice to her, are inimitably charming. This I have observed in general in our Author's Plays, that almost all his young Women (who are designed as good Characters) are made to ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... near the gate of Bethlehem by which he had often driven his sheep in his younger days. At once, three of his men, without telling him what they were going to do, forced a passage through the Philistine lines and brought him the water for which he longed. Touched by the act, but always modest, David refused to allow men to risk their lives simply for his gratification and poured out the water as a sacrifice to God, according to the religious ceremony of that time, for it was as good as blood, David said, and the three men who brought ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were her company. He then ushered ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Hindenburg" yields some unimportant but interesting by-products. The railroad Napoleon, as all the world knows, lives and works in a palace, but this palace doesn't overawe one who has beaten professionally at the closed portals of Fifth Avenue. It would be considered a modest country residence in Westchester County or on Long Island. Light in color and four stories high, including garret, it looks very much like those memorials which soap kings and sundry millionaires put up to themselves in their lifetime—the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... who are worthy of love; nor to those who will enjoy the bloom of your youth, but to those who will share their possessions with you in age; nor to those who, having succeeded, will glory in their success to others, but to those who will be modest and tell no tales; nor to those who care about you for a moment only, but to those who will continue your friends through life; nor to those who, when their passion is over, will pick a quarrel with you, but rather to those who, when ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... happens within one storage cell, let us look into the early history of the storage battery, and see what a modest beginning the modern heavy duty battery had. Between 1850 and 1860 a man named Plante began his work on the storage battery. His original cell consisted of two plates of metallic lead immersed in dilute sulphuric acid. The acid ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... drawn up and down according to the tide, so that bathers might enter the water from them directly. There, as in most British towns, women bathed at one part of the beach, men at the other, and all in the most decorous and modest of costumes. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... strikingly parallel to that of seventy years before, when the president of Harvard College announced his acceptance of Baptist principles. The day after the Yale commencement in September, 1722, a modest and respectful paper was presented to the trustees of the college, signed by Rector Timothy Cutler and Tutor Brown (who constituted the entire faculty of the college) and by five pastors of good standing in the Connecticut churches. Two other pastors of note were named as assenting to the paper, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... station at Hampton, a young man, leaning on the shoulder of a servant, whom he addressed as Watkins, stepped from the platform into a hack, and requested to be driven to "The Pines." On arriving at the gate of a modest farm-house, a few miles from the station, the young man descended with difficulty from the carriage, and, casting a hasty glance across the road, seemed much impressed by some peculiarity in the landscape. Again leaning on the shoulder of the person Watkins, he walked to ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... approaching to regret. I requested them to dance, and they consented. I know nothing more graceful than these dances of the country, which have all the originality which nature gives to the fine arts; a certain modest voluptuousness was remarkable in them; the Indian bayaderes should have something analogous to that mixture of indolence and vivacity which forms the charm of the Russian dance. This indolence and vivacity are indicative of reverie and passion, two elements of character ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... of the Convention had been surveying him with a modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... college dinner he visited the booksellers' shops, where he was sure not to be disturbed by the gossip of dons, young and old. After supper he would smoke his pipe and drink his pot of ale in a tavern. It was while he took this modest refreshment, before old age came upon him, that Antony once fell in, and fell out, with Dick Peers. This Dick was one of the men employed by Dr. Fell, the Dean of Ch. Ch., to translate Wood's History and Antiquities of the University ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... existence in the community was an irresistible demonstration of Christianity and a tower of strength to every good cause. Yet he had not gained this position of influence by brilliant talents or great achievements or the pushing of ambition; for he was singularly modest, and would have been the last to credit himself with half the good he did. The whole mystery lay in this, that he had lived in the town for forty years a blameless life, and was known by everybody to be a godly and a prayerful man. The prime ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... that le moindre petit diner coute les yeux de la tete. Poor Bobbie Lacklands had a tragic experience yesterday. He said he quite unthinkingly dropped into that most recherche of eating places, Fouquet's, for a snack. With only a modest balance at the bank he ordered a sardine. Then he called for a filet mignon and half-a-pint of vin rouge—he was always a reckless spendthrift sort of boy, you know. A cup of cafe noir and an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... where, hitherto, nothing but naked rock had been seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious grasses. As for the town itself, it was certainly no great matter; containing about twenty dwellings, and otherwise being of very modest pretensions. Those who dwelt there were principally such mechanics as found it convenient to be at the centre of the settlement, some half a dozen persons employed about the warehouses of the merchants, a few officials of the government, and the families of those ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... articles that have been written on the Airedale have come from the pen of Mr. Buckley, and therefore but modest reference is made to the man who has worked so whole-heartedly, so well, and so successfully in the interests of the breed he loves. It would be ungenerous and unfair in any article on the Airedale, written by anyone but Mr. Buckley, if conspicuous ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the frame of mind of those who remembered Alexander Kielland (and he was an extremely difficult man to forget), when in the year 1879 a modest volume of "novelettes" appeared, bearing his name. It was, to all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, a perspicacity, ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... first lived around as best I could until the command was quartered, and then, requesting a detail of wagons from the quartermaster, I went out some thirty miles to get poles to build a more comfortable habitation for myself. In a few days enough poles for the construction of a modest residence were secured and brought in, and then the building of my house began. First, the poles were cut the proper length, planted in a trench around four sides of a square of very small proportions, and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... excited cries accompanied the contest. Here and there along the shores we saw little huts of fishermen, with nets hung out to dry, or groups of men seining or dropping dip-nets; upon many slopes were little terrace garden spots, where modest crops were cultivated; here and there were mats lately finished or heaps of fresh-cut rushes for their fabrication. Five hours of good paddling brought us to Santa Fe de la Laguna, just opposite the far more famous Tzintzuntzan, and but a little distance from the much ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... one till Dr Vigfusson noticed them less than twenty years ago. But the fact seems to be so; and nothing could better prove the rarity of that comparative study of literature to which this series aims at being a modest ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... lived out of the profits of a linendraper's shop in Bishopsgate Street (there she was a little right, and a little wrong—M. is a gentleman tobacconist); in short, she multiplied demands upon him till my friend, who is neither over-modest nor nervous, declared he quite shuddered. After laying as bare to her curiosity as an anatomy he trembled to think what she would ask next. My pursuits, inclinations, aversions, attachments (some, my dear friends, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... leaves the highways of literature, and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing to bear ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... long years had been friendly with Labarta, kept trying to direct him with his practical spirit, like the boy who guides a blind man. A modest income inherited from his parents was enough for the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that represented enormous fees. The voluminous documents would become covered with dust on his table and Don Esteban would ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... contempt. Next day Ferdinand made his royal entry. The populace went mad with delight, and displayed a passionate devotion which augured ill for the schemes of Prince Joachim of Berg. A less egoistic man would have seen that a national uprising was imminent. But Murat was neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a knot which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... personates my husband, Phocion, at a certain part of the play where we have to embrace, thought fit to clasp me so energetically in his arms that he threw me down, and fell down himself. I fell seated, with all my draperies in most modest order, which was very fortunate, but certainly I never was more frightened or confused. However, I soon recovered my presence of mind, and helped my better half on with his part, for he was quite aghast, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... government, for not assisting by arms revolution in Ireland,—that is, a revolution of a portion of the Irish who followed certain leaders,—they were equally abusive of the people of Rome for daring, against the will of the pope, to assert any measure of civil or religious liberty, however modest. Impudent threats were made of sending an Irish army to the pope's assistance, at the very time that the persons so vaunting were afraid of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... by the various American manufacturing plants, and said it would have been impossible for the French to succeed as they had without this help. He urged the shipping of steel on contracts with all possible dispatch. General Gosselin is an important personage, quiet and modest. I was told he had already been of great service to ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... their cordial acquiescence by shaking us also by the hand. Hurrying through the villagers our new friend led us with triumphant strides and a vivacious air towards his cottage, and calling forth his wife, bade her salute us, which she did with that modest and simple demeanour common to her countrywomen. Gratified that he had so far conduced, as he imagined, to our comfort, the Norwegian would insist on our entering his house; and conducting us, by a steep and narrow stair, to an upper room, the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... She accompanies him, in hopes that a change of climate may assist her feeble health, and also, that she may procure a more valuable education for her son, and safer from seduction, in America than in France. I think it impossible to find a better woman, more amiable, more modest, more simple in her manners, dress, and way of thinking. She will deserve the friendship of Mrs. Jay, and the way to obtain hers, is to receive her and treat her without the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: "You two brave fellows that I had been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... beyond the modest 'fiver' which a man would be thought unsociable if he did not risk on the horse that carries the country's colours. But he is very 'thick' with the racing-people on the Downs, and supplies the stable with oats, which is, I believe, not an ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... clad than the girls, who have an eye to queer combinations of colors, and the revelation of the lines that distinguish the female form without flagrant disclosure. There is much Philippine dressing that may under all the surroundings be called modest, and the prevalent expression of the Filipino is that of fixed but bewildered grief. The males are rather careless, and display unstinted the drawings of legs, that are copper-colored and more uniform in tint than symmetry. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... The modest enquirer therefore, without pretending to put himself on an equality with these illustrious men, may be forgiven, when he permits himself to suggest a few doubts, and presumes to examine the grounds ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... etc. These things must in time be attended with bad Consequences, and cannot fail of bringing the whole of their works in disrepute.* (* Cook had good reason for writing thus, and being himself scrupulously honest and careful, he felt this scamped work to be a disgrace to seamen.) If he is so modest as to say, Such and such parts, or the whole of his plan is defective, the Publishers or Vendures will have it left out, because they say it hurts the sale of the work; so that between the one and the other we can hardly tell when we are possessed of a good Sea Chart until we ourselves ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... mother," cried Lenore; "he was a stranger—a handsome, modest youth, on his way to the capital. He has neither father nor mother, and that made me so ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... nothing serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!'—'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken air; 'you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.'—This modest epigram increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation. 'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she said; 'you snatch away all my illusions; ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... may be allowed to think that Major Rose is almost too reticent and modest as regards the ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... well worthy of life, if such could find sustenance among his fellows and win a mate for himself somewhere in this world. But he, for all his hideousness and unseemly mien, is not the vampire; the blood-sucking bat has won a mantle of deceit from the hands of Nature—a garb that gives him a modest and not unpleasing appearance, and makes it a difficult matter to distinguish him from his guileless ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... up-river boat is modest and retiring. He likes to keep on the shady side, underneath the trees, and to do most of his travelling early in the morning or late at night, when there are not many people about on the river to look ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... least necessary, in order to put herself in accord with French traditions, to relegate her daughters to the middle distance. They occupied a considerable part of the foreground, in the prettiest, most modest, ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... Florence Burton. In those old days he had never seen Florence, and had hardly thought seriously of what qualities a man really wants in a wife. As he walked up and down the hill of Stratton Street, with the kiss of the dear, modest, affectionate girl still warm upon his lips, he told himself that a marriage with such a one as Julia Brabazon would have been altogether fatal to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... of a great nation upon him, he yet pondered upon the childhood teaching of home. First, he speaks of his grandfather Verus, who, by his example, taught him not to be prone to anger; then of his father, the Emperor Antoninus Pius, from whom he learned to be modest and manly; then of his mother, whose name was Domitia Calvilla. Let us read some of his own words about her, dwelling particularly upon a few of them. He writes: "As for my mother, she taught me to have regard for ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... ton; for engines and auxiliary machinery, ten to fifteen krone per ton of materials used; for boilers and pipes, six to ten krone per ton of material. The total amount to be paid out yearly was limited to the modest figure of ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... be restored, and her improving health showed that her happiness was complete. Although she never was charged with having resorted to a stratagem, our guide, who had been with her a long while, and who represented her as a modest, virtuous, and interesting girl, had always considered her insanity as assumed, with a view to work upon the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... amusing themselves with admiring the modest simplicity of the old gentleman's bill of fare when Denton, the house-steward, ran in, and, staring wildly around, exclaimed: 'Thank goodness everybody is here!' then, darting forward to an open door which looked upon the lawn, he shut and locked it, and slammed down the sashes with ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... comprehensive axiom, but simply on the knowledge of a number of particular fortunes and of their owners. Such a road towards truth is highly unromantic. The student of particular phenomena is unable to pose as the champion of the race. But the method has the modest advantage of resting not on a priori definitions, but on inductions from actual experience; hence of being ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... young Hart went to live with Asabel Abel, to whom he was apprenticed for the purpose of learning the business of cabinet making. When the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he set up in business on his own account, at first opening his modest store and workshop on the site of the present Birch House, and subsequently, after five or six years of business, removing his location to the opposite side of the street, on the spot now occupied ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... son, I have no doubts and no fears." On the occasion of his funeral there was a general outpouring of people from the town and vicinity for many miles, who sincerely mourned the departure of their friend. The State was represented by the Governor and seven members of his official family. On the modest monument that marks his last resting place is inscribed his name and the date of his birth and death. On the base the legend runs: "I have fought a good fight; ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... and safe and pleasant and altogether delightful it seemed after that dark underground tunnel! The carpet lay on the floor, looking as calm as though it had never been for an excursion in its life. On the mantelpiece stood the Phoenix, waiting with an air of modest yet sterling worth for the thanks of ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... determination,—"one good thing is, I have begun to have an effect on my father. He does not like her any more. He was distinctly bored at the prospect of her visit this time. He did not resent it at all when I called her an upholstered old lady. I really think," she added, with modest justice, "that I am rather good at poisoning people's minds against their undesirable friends." She paused, debating how long it would take her to separate Mathilde from the Wayne boy; and recalling that this was no topic for an invalid, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... or moral, that was doing at the Hydriots—of which, by-the-by, as first inventor, the company had contrived, at Harold's suggestion, to make him a shareholder to an extent that would cover all his modest needs, I could not think how he would bear ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Very modest, sir, and timid. She seems to have a secret sorrow, for I have often seen her eyes fill when she thought no one was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of a like nature, common in story-books to youths on their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and pretty, appeared. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... remarks to the bishop who, it seems, does not relish so much salt. The former acted so that the bishop demanded from the royal Audiencia that they should send that friar to Espana. It is to be noticed that this good religious is so devout that his friars, on account of his modest behavior, call him "the Theatin" [i.e., "the Jesuit"]; but seeing himself accused on such a ground, he was furiously angry, going so far as to tell the bishop that everything was going to destruction since bishops so ignorant as his illustrious Lordship were appointed, etc. The royal Audiencia made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... grown more modest in his trials, "I am sure there is some truth in the old doctrine as you state it. But is not a man better and more open to divine grace, for resisting a ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain. So firmly had this his position toward his treasure become established, that when the anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologetic state. It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever took the liberty of making so exalted a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... very nice, modest girl, Jane,' was her father's first observation. 'I can see your grandfather has taken good ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... old Pyrenean stock and modest fortune, was a provincial official whose office corresponded to that of secretary of state for one of our commonwealths. So the family lived in Tarbes, the capital of the ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... alone did the crowd consist of the brawler, the gambler, the bully, and the debauchee, though these, it must be confessed, predominated. It was a grand medley of all sects and classes. The modest demeanor of the retiring, pale-browed student was contrasted with the ferocious aspect and reckless bearing of his immediate neighbor, whose appearance was little better than that of a bravo. The grave ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... before the king. They came, and found the monarch high Enthroned in gold, his brothers nigh; While many a minister below, And noble, sate in lengthened row. The youthful pair awhile he viewed Graceful in modest attitude, And then in words like these addressed His brother Lakshman and the rest: "Come, listen to the wondrous strain Recited by these godlike twain, Sweet singers of a story fraught With melody ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... would have proved how much he loved her. All this was not right in Babette, but she was only nineteen years of age, and she did not reflect on what she did, neither did she think that her conduct would appear to the young Englishman as light, and not even becoming the modest and much-loved daughter of ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... remarked that the flowers he had liked best were cauliflowers. However, she had her way, he nothing loath. Dr. Helmcken liberally supplied us with a variety of flowers from his well-kept garden, among which I remember daisies—not the wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers, but variegated beauties, gorgeous through ages of culture. There was not a wild daisy in the country; but now they are spreading everywhere, as if when left alone they preferred their natural state. The Governor also took a kindly interest in the ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... passed the window, leaning on her uncle's arm. She curtseyed as she passed, and, with the bewitching smile of modest cheerfulness, cried—"Do you bury yourselves in the house this fine evening, gents?" There was something in the voice! the manner! the look! that was altogether irresistible. "Perhaps she wishes my company," said Montraville mentally, as he ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... the strongest champions for its repeal. If he had possessed the smallest modicum of good sense he would, after changing his views—remembering his former course—have remained neutral, or, in a modest manner, have endeavored to convince men he was influenced simply by his convictions; but he was so lost to good taste and what he owed to his holy office, as a professed priest of Him who said, "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... and refuse to wait for me to go home with her, and go straight off to another man, never mind if he was my father, instead of my brother, I don't mean to break my heart about her. Besides, I'm disappointed in her, and that's the truth. I thought she was as modest as the moon; but I never saw the moon walk out of her straight path to go after another planet, and no girl that I have anything to say to, shall go after another man. So you're welcome to her, though I'll say this, that I never saw the woman yet I loved so well, and believe she's ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... later, he knocked timidly one evening at the door of a modest little workman-looking cottage, down a small side street in the back-wastes of Chelsea. 'Twas a most unpretending street; Bower Lane by name, full of brown brick houses, all as like as peas, and with nothing of any sort to redeem their plain fronts ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... and modest held the road, Nor feared the Shadow of the Dust; And saw the whole world rich with joy, ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... India Board? How Juno sits apart, glum and huffy, uncared for, Council President though she be, great in name, but despised among gods—that we can guess. If Bacchus and Cupid share Trade and the Board of Works between them, the fitness of things will have been as fully consulted as is usual. And modest Diana of the Petty Bag, latest summoned to these banquets of ambrosia,—does she not cling retiring near the doors, hardy able as yet to make her low voice heard among her brother deities? But Jove, great Jove—old Jove, the King of Olympus, hero among gods ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... however," rejoined Turpin; "Peter has a confounded ugly look about the ogles, and stares enough to put a modest wench out of countenance. Come, come, my old earthworm, crawl along, we have waited for you long enough. Is this the first time you have seen ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her. She scarcely expected her dreams of endearments to be realized; she regarded them, except in desperate moods, with shame. If her old admirer had, indeed, attempted to sit by her side upon that hair-cloth sofa and hold her hand, she would have arisen as if propelled by stiff springs of modest virtue. She did not fairly know that she was not made love to after the most honorable and orthodox fashion without a word of endearment or a caress; for she had been trained to regard love as one of the most secret of the laws of nature, to be concealed, ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... humor as he heard the virtues of the modest Thad thus extolled to the skies; he knew what was coming, but it pleased him to keep the boys on the anxious seat a while, for this was a every amusing happening ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... sacrifice because they had the very qualities which, when lost to the community, then it dies in its soul. They were candid with themselves, and questioned our warranty with the same candour, but were modest and reticent; they were kindly to us when they knew we were wooden and wrong, and did our bidding, judging it was evil. In France they subdued their insurgent thoughts—and what that sacrifice meant to them in the lonely night watches I have been privileged to learn—and surrendered, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... the dead monarch to bow at the shrine of the new dispensors of wealth and power. This extraordinary tumult, in the silence of midnight, conveyed to Maria and Louis the first intelligence that the crown of France had fallen upon their brows. Louis was then twenty-four years of age, modest, timid, and conscientious. Maria was twenty, mirthful, thoughtless, and shrinking from responsibility. They were both overwhelmed, and, falling upon their knees, exclaimed, with gushing tears, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man; and as they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain—as they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean, they felt themselves rewarded for all their labours and all their difficulties. They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and pursuing the Indian road through the interval of the hills, arrived ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... America; for if ever men required plucky endurance and self-denial it was the poor fellows who had to keep, or endeavour to keep, blockade-runners if not slavers from communicating with the stormy shores of Florida and South Carolina. They are too modest now to tell us what they went through. Perhaps forty years hence they will do as I am doing, and recount some of their adventures, which I am convinced would quite put into the shade anything I or my boat's crew ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... the body, transparency, and depth of ultramarine, nor its natural and modest hue, commercial cobalt blue works better in water than that pigment in general does; and is hence an acquisition to those who have not the management of the latter. Resisting the action of strong light and acids, its beauty ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... Haughty appear, subservient, Obsequious or indifferent! What languor would his silence show, How full of fire his speech would glow! How artless was the note which spoke Of love again, and yet again; How deftly could he transport feign! How bright and tender was his look, Modest yet daring! And a tear Would at the proper ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... that a large Academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand seven hundred forty and three persons, which, by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the current number of wits in this island {50}. These are to be disposed into the several schools of this Academy, and there pursue those studies to which their genius most inclines them. The undertaker ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... afraid," he said, "to trace our forest glades by night, respected stranger, to whom I am perhaps bound to do honour as my successor in the charge of these walks, here seems to be a modest damsel, who will be most willing to wait on thee, and be thy bow-bearer.—Only, for her mother's sake, let there pass some slight form of marriage between you—Ye need no license or priest in these happy days, but may be buckled like beggars in ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... experience, considerable reading, and, what was most surprising, a jolly sense of humor and a fund of anecdotes which he related extremely well. The evening was a decided success, perhaps the best evidence of it coming at the last, when, at John's suggestion that they supplement their modest potations with a "night-cap," Mr. Carling cheerfully assented upon the condition that they should "have it with him"; and as he went along the deck after saying "Good night," John was positive that he ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... objective reality, since it was an idle illusion to fancy we could get at that, but in the growth of this conviction itself, and in the prosperous adventure of the whole soul, so courageous in its self-trust, and so modest in its dogmas. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... not done in a moment. At first I certainly was occasionally annoyed by Pussy's inconsistencies. She would profess to be so refined, that a speck of dirt on her white coat made her unhappy; so delicate, that she could not endure to wet her feet; so modest, that she could not bear to be looked at while she was eating; while at the same time she would scamper into the dirtiest hole after a mouse, and then devour the nasty vermin with a satisfaction quite disgusting to a well-bred sporting ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... bawbees, Padre," said Miss Mapp in an aside. "So modest in her demands. Oh, she's stopped! Somebody has given her sixpence. Not another rubber? Well, perhaps it is rather late, and I must say good-night to my flowers before they close up for the night. ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... very pleasant Studdy; and then he tolde me alle about theire getting up the Masque of Comus in Ludlow Castle, and how well the Lady's Song was sung by Mr. Lawes' Pupil, the Lady Alice, then a sweet, modest Girl, onlie thirteen Yeares of Age,—and he told me of the Singing of a faire Italian young Signora, named Leonora Barroni, with her Mother and Sister, whome he had hearde at Rome, at the Concerts of Cardinal Barberini; and how ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... now turned questioningly upon the Frogman. Finding himself the center of observation, he swung his gold-headed cane, adjusted his big spectacles and after swelling out his chest, sighed and said in a modest tone ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... If he hadn't been holding my nose, I certainly would have had a good grin at him. Me the best under thirty pounds in the Province of Quebec, and him asking if I was a fighting dog! I ran to the Master and hung down my head modest-like, waiting for him to tell my list of battles; but the Master he coughs in his cap most painful. "Fightin' dawg, sir!" he cries. "Lor' bless you, sir, the Kid don't know the word. 'E's just a puppy, sir, same as you see; a pet dog, so to speak. 'E's a regular ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... and, though he professed to make shoes, his manners were good and modest, and he bowed low as he begged the king not only to allow him to take the measure of his foot, but also to suffer him to place a healing ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... not envy her. "Who ever saw such wild barbarians? Girls?—more like men!" and at these words the snake, My secret, seemed to stir within my breast; And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed: "O marvellously modest maiden, you! Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus For wholesale comment." Pardon, I am shamed That I must needs repeat for my excuse What looks so little graceful: "men" (for still My mother went ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... abundant measure. In the community of hens was there with this a great difference of character observable. Some snatched greedily, whilst they drove the others away by force; others, on the contrary, kept at a modest distance, and picked up well pleased the corn which good fortune had bestowed upon them; others, again, seemed to enjoy for others more than for themselves. Of this noble nature was one young cock in particular, with a high comb, and a rich cape of ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... Jack Canuck is modest; That's why he chooses rears, And sees the front seats taken ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... least in size comes the violet. For "the flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly," and has taken a modest place in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... one had ever heard him play, . . he pursued his favorite amusement in solitude, and was amply satisfied, if when questioned on the subject of music, he could find an opportunity to say with a conscious-modest air, "MY instrument is the 'cello." That was quite enough self-assertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence, White foxes stay, with seeming innocence: That crafty kind with daylight can dispense. Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race, That loyal subjects scarce can find a place: Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd: Truth speaks too low: hypocrisy too loud. Let them be first to flatter in success; Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press. Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call, 20 To make their solemn show at heaven's Whitehall, The fawning ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... was remarkable for his great physical attractiveness. In addition to his fine appearance, he was exceedingly social in his tastes and was consequently a highly agreeable guest. He cultivated the muses to a modest degree, and I have several of his poetical effusions, one of which was addressed to me. In spite of the admiration he commanded from both men and women, irrespective of creed, life seemed to present to him but few allurements. Archbishop Hughes ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... in a wagon and then in a tent, and smiling pleasantly at the trees we planted, and bringing us lunch where we were working away, dragging down stones for the house which progressed so slowly, though father's ideas wore modest. ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... Symmachus (that most excellent ornament of mankind) liveth in safety, and for the obtaining of which thou wouldst willingly spend thy life, that man wholly framed to wisdom and virtues, being secure of his own, mourneth for thy injuries. Thy wife liveth, modest in disposition, eminent in chastity, and, to rehearse briefly all her excellent gifts, like her father. She liveth, I say, and weary of her life reserveth her breath only for thee. In which alone even I must grant that thy felicity is diminished, she consumeth ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... what,' added the old partner, coming up at this moment, 'it's a perfect treat to me, Mr. Franz, to have a young man like you in my house! You're your father over again, and I can't praise you more. He was the most modest, unobtrusive man in all our town, and yet knew more of his business than all of ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... this campaign is also very modest and unique, and is worthy of a place in this record. In it ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... fortified, and the prince keeps up a modest military organization. In driving about the city we observed long rows of dwelling-houses, rose-tinted, with pretty verandas and latticed windows, besides numerous large and well-arranged public structures devoted to educational purposes; some for teaching music, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... believe; mostly far away from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image of their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his own little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant actions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer. They are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately vindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly maddened into all manner of delirious clamors, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... high altar of universal praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by their nature; that is, with modest splendour and unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully employed as it can be, in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the public ornament. It is the public consolation. It nourishes ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... office of the Countryman that Joel Chandler Harris made his first venture into the world of print, shyly, as became one who would afterward be known as the most modest literary man in America. When Colonel Hunter found out the authorship of the bright paragraphs that slipped into his paper now and then with increasing frequency, he captured the elusive young genius and set it to work as a regular ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... lady that day, in case of her death, to take care of her grand-daughter; and I thought in my own mind that, in time to come, if one of my boys should take a fancy to her, I should make no objections, because she was always a good, modest-behaved girl; and, I'm sure, would make a good wife, though too delicate for hard country work; but, as it pleases God to send you, madam, and the good gentleman, to take the charge of her off my hands, I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... blue eye to heaven, and crown imperial unveils its regal splendor to the sun; when the modest grass, inhabiting the whole earth, stoops [30] meekly before the blast; when the patient corn waits on the elements to put forth its ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... don't think it as bad as Ada supposes, so don't be uneasy, though it is a pity she has told you so much of the gossip respecting them. I do not believe any harm of that girl Kalliope; she has such an honest, modest pair of eyes. I dare say she is persecuted by that young Stebbing, for she is very handsome, and he is an odious puppy. But as to her assignations in the garden, if they are with any one, it is with Gillian, and I see ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I, mumbling something meant to be modest. "Who the devil am I, then, to cause all this fracas? Heaven grant, not the new 'prefect,' or the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... in the spring, like morning in the east, arrayed in crimson and purple; bearing itself, not proudly but gracefully in modest green, among the more stately trees in summer; and ere it bids adieu to the season stepping forth in robes of gold, vermilion, crimson and variegated scarlet,—stands the queen of the American forest, the ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... other end was exchanged for a steady strain, and it soon became perfectly evident that the hook had become entangled in something at the bottom. Now Escombe's stock of fishing tackle was of exceedingly modest proportions, so much so, indeed, that the loss of even a solitary hook was a matter not to be contemplated with indifference, therefore he brought all his skill to bear upon the delicate task of releasing ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... State. This Voysin had the one indispensable quality for admission into the counsels of Louis XIV.—not a drop of noble blood in his veins. He had married, in 1683, the daughter of Trudaine. She had a very agreeable countenance, without any affectation. She appeared simple and modest, and occupied with her household and good works; but in reality, had sense, wit, cleverness, above all, a natural insinuation, and the art of bringing things to pass without being perceived. She kept ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... coming off its veranda and gazing down the street, as if sighting over gun-barrels at the bridge, were wont to reckon the distance "nigh on to forty rod." There were "Boston Stores" and "Great Emporiums" and shops, modest as they were small, in that forty rods of Hillsborough. Midway was a little white building, its eaves within reach of one's hand, its gable on the line of the sidewalk overhanging which, from a crane above the door, was a big, golden spool. In its two windows were lace and ribbons and ladies' ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the chief's barn, Sercombe had paired with Annie of the shop oftener than with any other of the girls. That she should please him at all, was something in his favour, for she was a simple, modest girl, with the nicest feeling of the laws of intercourse, the keenest perception both of what is in itself right, and what is becoming in the commonest relation. She understood by a fine moral instinct what respect was due to her, and what respect she ought to show, and was therefore in ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Obed was extremely modest in what he told concerning his own small beginning. Max, having also read in one of the clippings that a pair of gilt-edged silver black foxes were worth all the way up to $30,000, was, of course, ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... had grown to dearly love the crusty, abrupt, peculiar old man, who wore the goodness of his heart like a mantle about him, yet so modest with it. They never knew, until after he had left them, how much good he had quietly done in his morning walks about Canfield. How he had bought poor little lame Katie Gregg a great wax doll, that could speak and cry; filled the pantry of the hard-working ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... out, "Ah no, you are praying to our dear Jesus." Dropping on her knees before me she would begin to pray too. She was several times whipped by her grandmother, because she said, she would never have any other husband but our Lord. She could never make her say otherwise. She was innocent and modest as a little angel; very dutiful and endearing, and withal very beautiful. Her father doted on her, to me she was very dear, much more for the qualities of her mind than those of her beautiful person. I looked upon her as my only consolation on earth. She had as much affection for ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... can never efface. A lieutenant then in the Third Virginia Regiment, I happened to be on the rear guard at Newark, and I counted the force under his immediate command by platoons as it passed me, which amounted to less than 3,000 men. A deportment so firm, so dignified, so exalted, but yet so modest and composed, I have never seen in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... way over the Towans towards St. Ia, as happy as a king. Everywhere the sun seemed to be shining. At his feet the wild thyme grew in profusion. Acres upon acres were made purple by this modest flower. The sea was glorious with many coloured hues, the whole country-side was beautiful beyond words. What wonder that he was happy! He was young and vigorous, the best and most beautiful girl in the world loved him, and his future ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... in a street off Piccadilly; they got out; the unknown paid and led the way into a house, whose front door presented a modest brass door ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... blessings on it, and may you never forget it more, my son. Oh, it is impossible that you should forget it! You will become a man, you will make the tour of the world, you will see immense cities and wonderful monuments, and you will remember many among them; but that modest white edifice, with those closed shutters and that little garden, where the first flower of your intelligence budded, you will perceive until the last day of your life, as I shall always behold the house in which I heard your voice for the ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... for hire. In England they absolutely must motor from The Club to the flying-field in a "powerful Rolls-Royce car." The British aviators of fiction are usually from Oxford and Eton. They are splendidly languid and modest and smartly dressed in society, but when they condescend to an adventure or to a coincidence, they are very devils, six feet of steel and sinew, boys of the bulldog breed with a strong trace of humming-bird. Like ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... she is a woman now, and can decide for herself. As for me, I will not be your partner. I have a small royalty on your coal, and that is enough for me; but Grace shall do as she pleases. My child, will you go to the brilliant future that his wealth can secure you, or share my modest independence, which will need all my love to brighten it. Think before you answer; your own ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Saxe was in no haste with his tale. Jean Saxe shuffled his feet, licked his dry lips, and caught at his breath. His throat was drier than Villon's had ever been, and Villon's was the driest throat in Amboise. A modest man, though an innkeeper, Jean Saxe did not know which way to look now that he was, for the moment, the centre of the world. Either the grey eyes, their lids no longer drooping, searched him out, or Commines' stern gaze stared him down, or, worst of all, he met the sardonic light with ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... days that are no more," said the MEMBER FOR SARK, looking on animated scene from modest quarters on a back bench. "Feel thirty years younger. Am transported as by a magical Eastern carpet to times when DON JOSE rushed about the country, fluttering his Unauthorised Programme, bearding barons in their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... It was modest enough, and from her knowledge of the man Emma felt that he was to be trusted for more than his word. But he asked an impossible thing. She could not imagine herself consenting to marry any man, but the reasons why she could not marry Daniel ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Revolution in the Point of Good Breeding, which relates to the Conversation among Men of Mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first Distinctions of a well-bred Man, to express every thing that had the most remote Appearance of being obscene, in modest Terms and distant Phrases; whilst the Clown, who had no such Delicacy of Conception and Expression, clothed his Ideas in those plain homely Terms that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of Good Manners was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at first very modest. It had been agreed that her husband should pay her an annual pension of fifteen hundred francs. She would have been well satisfied to earn a like sum by her literary efforts. She established herself in a small mansarde, a sort of garret, and managed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... success: a true love for the business. This was the more unquestionable, as the theatrical art was not then surrounded with all those foreign ornaments and inventions of luxury which serve to distract the attention and corrupt the sense, but made its appearance in the most modest, and we may well say in the most humble shape. For the admirers of Shakspeare it must be an object of curiosity to know what was the appearance of the theatre in which his works were first performed. We have ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... There came a modest knock at the room door, and Petite, got up in truly French fashion, entered. She was a rosy-cheeked, round-faced girl, with sparkling black eyes, and rolls of black hair, picturesquely arranged on the ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Modest and simple as he always was, never seeking power with inordinate ambition, simply that he might use power; still he was never afraid to assume responsibility when it was his duty ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... fine, modest gayety about the meal. In front of Mrs. Minister stood a very large yellow bowl filled with what she called rusk—a preparation unfamiliar to me, made by browning and crushing the crusts of bread and then rolling them down into a coarse meal. A bowl of this, with sweet, rich, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... Virginia shore, not over a third of a mile below Captina Creek, empties Grave Yard Run, a modest rivulet. It would of itself not be noticeable amid the crowd of minor creeks and runs, coursing down to the great river through rugged ravines which corrugate the banks. But it has a history. Here, late in October or early in November, 1772, young George Rogers Clark made his first stake ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... an accidental sally of love and resentment; of my reverence for modest genius, and my aversion for insolent pedantry. The sixth book of the AEneid is the most pleasing and perfect composition of Latin poetry. The descent of AEneas and the Sibyl to the infernal regions, to the world of spirits, expands an ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... shall do that which will be of advantage to his cause. And as for me, since I am human, and have come here from the West after a long interval, it is impossible that some of the necessary things should not escape me. So it behoves you, without any too modest regard for my opinion, to say outright whatever is going to be of advantage for ourselves and for the emperor. Now in the beginning, fellow officers, we came here in order to prevent the enemy from making ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... Lamborn is nothing more or less than a request that his party may be tried by their professions instead of their practices. Perhaps no position that the party assumes is more liable to or more deserving of exposure than this very modest request; and nothing but the unwarrantable length to which I have already extended these remarks forbids me now attempting to expose it. For the reason given, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... observer it was just a common photograph of a cheap summer hotel. It hung sumptuously framed in plush, over the Widow Morris's mantel, the one resplendent note in an otherwise modest home, in ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... sano, writing verses and rowing on his college crew. He is married to an American wife, is a professor at Princeton, and understands the spirit of America better than most visitors who write clever books about us. He has the wholesome, modest, cheerful temperament of the American college undergraduate, and the Princeton students are fortunate, not only in hearing his lectures, but in the opportunity of fellowship with such ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... not understood. These are glaciers? How they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty, modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. Snowe a favorite ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... kinder wanted to see the tooth. I had hearn Thomas J. read a good deal about Prince Siddartha, Lord Buddha, and how he wuz "right gentle, though so wise, princely of mean, yet softly mannered, modest, deferent and tender hearted, though of fearless blood," and how he renounced throne and wealth and love for his people, to "seek ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... words more. There is at Sampigny, in Lorraine, a modest country-house, which was, in fact, my home. Your troops passed through the place, and for no military reason that I can discover they reduced this house to ruins. I know that that is a small price to pay for the honour of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... moment the leader of the House. Though he has still some of the ingenuous shyness of youth—though he is modest with all his honours—though he has charmed everybody by the utter absence of swagger and side in his dazzling elevation—there is a ready adaptability about Mr. Asquith to a Parliamentary situation, which is as astonishing as it is rare in men who have spent their lives in the atmosphere ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... as we have said, was closed, concealed from view by large lumbering shutters, and made secure by heavy bars of wood. So we must enter by the passage or vestibule on the right side, and that will conduct us into a modest atrium, with an impluvium on one side, and on the other the triclinium or supper-room, backing the shop. Jucundus had been pleasantly engaged in a small supper-party; and, mindful that a symposium should lie within the number of the Graces and of the Muses, he ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... forward, looking steadily in her eyes. "Did I but pretend when I said I never could forget you? Ah, mademoiselle, you are too modest." ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... full of such modest depreciations of himself and his work, interspersed with earnest prayers (too sacred and private to be reproduced here) that God would forgive him the past, and help him to perform His holy will ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... his hand, and was silent. All at once a brighter light illumined the fair lady's face, and she addressed herself to speak, first uttering a modest cough— ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... traveller, who returned from Rheims to Auvergne, had stolen a copy of his declamations from the secretary or bookseller of the modest archbishop, (Sidonius Apollinar. l. ix. epist. 7.) Four epistles of Remigius, which are still extant, (in tom. iv. p. 51, 52, 53,) do not correspond with the splendid ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... and it may have been copied from an older painting; but at best it is a harsh and disagreeable likeness, painted at least a century after Knox's death. It was engraved for Dr. M'Crie's work; and, on a large scale, there is a most careful engraving of it, by a very ingenious and modest artist, Mr. William Penny ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... taught; and farther had pursued A theme so grateful as a world renew'd; But dubious thoughts disturb'd the Hero's breast, Who thus with modest mien the Seer addrest: Say, friend of man, in this unbounded range, Where error vagrates and illusions change, What hopes to see his baleful blunders cease, And earth commence that promised age of peace? Like a loose pendulum his mind is hung, From wrong to wrong by ponderous passion swung, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Marina, who we now heard was the mistress and interpreter of Cortes, the Spanish leader. She for her part listened gravely, watching me the while with her tender eyes, but no more, for of all women Otomie was the most modest, as she was the proudest ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... be glorious to trace its course down to Vienna!" Bertalda exclaimed, with warmth; but immediately resuming the humble and modest demeanour she had recently shown, she paused ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... ladies have, but without success, tried to negotiate for the possession of the youngest. Never before had we seen such fair faces, such dainty limbs, such exquisite eyes, as were possessed by the Gipsy occupants of that caravan. Annie was as modest and gentle-voiced and mannered as she was beautiful; and there came a flush of trouble over her fair face as she told us that not being able to read or write had 'been against' her all her life. There was more refinement about Annie and her mother than we had discovered ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... commending The most extraordinary thing I have heard about mine is, that it being talked of at lord Arran's table, Doctor King, the Dr. King of Oxford, said of the passage on my father; "It is very modest, very genteel, and VEry TRUE." I asked my Lady Cardigan if she would forgive my making free with her grandmother;(887) she replied very sensibly, "I am sure she would not have hindered any body from writing against me; why should I be angry at any ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... lonely beat inside the fence and recalled the thrill that had animated him with the certainty that Vesta Philbrook would turn out to be the girl, his girl. The disappointment had been so keen that he had almost disliked Vesta that first day. She was a fine girl, modest and unaffected, honest as the middle of the day, but there was no appeal but the appeal of the weak to the strong from her to him. They were drawn into a common sympathy of determination; he had paused there to help her because she was outmatched, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... money, but garments and furniture, beds, tables, chairs, The Nazareth ladies will welcome—Come! Is there a Christian who cares For God's poor and the Christ-welcomed children, who will not respond in some way To the modest appeal of these ladies, who care for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... judge of art, and has the best collection of "Barbizons" in America. Any one can get from his private secretary, J. J. Toomey, a card of admission. As early as Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one, Mr. Hill had in his modest home on Ninth Street, Saint Paul, several "Corots." Mr. Hill is fond of good horses, and has a hundred or so of them on his farm of three thousand acres, ten ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Saracens threatened to kill him, if he did not discover where the ancient monks had concealed themselves. He answered, that death did not terrify him, and that he could not ransom his life by a sin in betraying his fathers. They bade him put off his clothes: "After you have killed me," said the modest youth, "take my clothes and welcome: but as I never saw my body naked, have so much compassion and regard for my shamefacedness, as to let me die covered." The barbarians, enraged at this answer, fell on him with all their weapons ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the Parade—a suggestive mouthful. But then the Parade is such a modest little affair. The town itself is flung down a steep hill, at the mouth of a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle and stand up ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... his ignorance was feigned, as is often the case in these instances of arrested mental development. However that may have been, on the occasion of this visit I found him marvellously improved, his hair cut, his nondescript garments evolved into a modest sort of livery, his vocabulary no longer a series of grunts, his very pantomime more elastic. Margarita never changed her old methods of communication with him, but the rest of us, at Miss Jencks's earnest entreaty, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Mothers' Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and a great friend of Miss Clack's (to whom she left nothing but a mourning ring)—had bequeathed to the admirable and meritorious Godfrey a legacy of five thousand pounds. After receiving this handsome addition to his own modest pecuniary resources, he had been heard to say that he felt the necessity of getting a little respite from his charitable labours, and that his doctor prescribed "a run on the Continent, as likely to be productive of much future benefit to his health." If I wanted to see him, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Lindsay. "Your uncle is innately modest, Miss Gray, and never speaks of anything that bears the slightest resemblance to boasting. See, the grave solemnity with which he smokes while I say this proves the truth of my assertion. Well, since he has never told you, I will tell you myself. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... with which I was swallowing my food. In the meantime Doctor Gozzi, to whom she had sent notice of her arrival, came in, and his appearance soon prepossessed her in his favour. He was then a fine-looking priest, twenty-six years of age, chubby, modest, and respectful. In less than a quarter of an hour everything was satisfactorily arranged between them. The good old lady counted out twenty-four sequins for one year of my schooling, and took a receipt for the same, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... entries in the "Northumberland Household Book," to present a strong contrast to the ordinary dietary allowed to the members of a noble and wealthy household, especially on fish days, in the earlier Tudor era (1512). The noontide breakfast provided for the Percy establishment was of a very modest character: my lord and my lady had, for example, a loaf of bread, two manchets (loaves of finer bread), a quart of beer and one of wine, two pieces of salt fish, and six baked herrings or a dish of sprats. My lord Percy ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... this, Belle knew what was going on—she had the news. Little, in the daily round of the town and its wide territory, got by the modest scrim curtains of Belle's place; she became Kate's reporter. Men would say this was the principal attraction for Kate, and that the cooking came second—not so. The real reason Belle got the gossip of the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the only woman, certainly ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... had much pleased him—for it was long before his smile of retrospective pleasure faded from his pleasant mobile face. Morris's trust and confidence in him had been extraordinarily pleasant to him: and modest and unassuming as he was, he could not help a secret gratification at the thought. What a handsome fellow Morris was too, how gay, how attractive! He had his father's dark colouring, and tall figure, but much of his mother's grace and charm had gone to the modelling of that thin sensitive ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... there are grave lamentations enough over the failures of humanity to render our homilies unnecessary. Ned Hinkley was not a gentleman, and the only thing to be said in his behalf, is, that he was modest enough to make pretensions to the character. As he once said in a ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... fleet, a well-guarded frontier, and a warlike population, it would at least be safe from the worst consequences of a defeat. But what chances of escape are there for you, with an enemy so close at hand?" Gustavus Adolphus displayed the modest diffidence of a hero, whom an overweening belief of his own strength did not blind to the greatness of his danger; John George, the confidence of a weak man, who knows that he has a hero by his side. Impatient to rid his territories as soon as possible of the oppressive presence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... environment; the woman who has wit and perspective enough to be stimulated by novel conditions and kindled by fresh influences, who is susceptible to the vibrations of other people's history, is safe to be fairly intelligent and extremely agreeable, if only she is sufficiently modest. I think my neighbour found me thoroughly delightful after he discovered my point of view. He was an earl; and it always takes an earl a certain length of time to understand me. I scarcely know why, for I certainly should not think it courteous ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... from her hand, muttering a proffer to assist her. They walked away together. For the second time the loafers at Adonia saw Latisan escorting a strange woman along the street, and this one, also, was patently from the city, in spite of her modest attire. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... them and doom them; but the impressions of the senses are more vivid, and the passions wait on them. As that group draws nearer, one sees, by the light of this Poet's painting, a fair young matron, with subdued mien and modest graces, and an elder one, leading a wilful boy, with a 'confirmed countenance,' pattering by her side; just such a group as one might see anywhere in the lordly streets of Palatinus,—much such a one as ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... I had given her half a franc, a modest recompense enough as I thought. The following story would seem to show that the good people of Arcis have not yet become imbued with modern ideas about money, also that they have a high notion of the value of truth. To my dismay I learnt next morning ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... are called) they know merely by books and pictures. But thank God, who has put into the hearts of Christian people the tendency towards God—just in the same way does good company tend to make men good; high- minded company to make them high-minded; kindly company to make them kindly; modest company to make them modest; honourable company to make them honourable; and pure company to make them pure. If the young man or woman live with such, look up to such as their ideal, that is, the pattern which they ought to emulate—then, as a fact, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... this for my health. On the contrary I had two very definite purposes; the first, which I could probably compass, was to save Miss Falconer from further intercourse with Blenheim and to conceal the presence of the wounded, helpless Firefly from his enemies; the second, surprisingly modest, was to make the four Germans prisoners and hand them over in triumph to the gendarmes of ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... adventurers gave every evidence of the desire to be modest in their demands. They did not even enter the village—nor seek to do so until the place of the camp had been decided upon. Even Jose was not allowed to precede the others in search of kindred. He and his wife Ysobel watched the terraces, and the courage of the latter grew weak ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a large cocked hat. 'Monsieur desires to see the abattoir? Most certainly.' State being inconvenient in private transactions, and Monsieur being already aware of the cocked hat, the functionary puts it into a little official bureau which it almost fills, and accompanies me in the modest attire - as to his head - ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... and also of compromise, and no rule connected with the stage can be pushed quite home to its apparent logical conclusions: therefore one must have some amount of appropriate scenery, and costumes may not be flagrantly incongruous; but when once these modest demands have been satisfied the audience will be well content with mounting in which nothing more is involved if the play be well written and acted, and agreeable in style to its taste; and we ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... of Blonay are neither extensive nor very elaborate. We entered by a modest gateway in a retired corner, and found ourselves at once in a long, narrow, irregular court. On the left was a corps de batiment, that contained most of the sleeping apartments, and a few of the others, with the offices; in front was a ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... institutions. So it fell out that, thanks to the young attorney's skilful management, Mme. de Grandlieu's income reached the sum of some sixty thousand francs, to say nothing of the vast sums returned to her by the law of indemnity. And Derville, a man of high character, well informed, modest, and pleasant in company, became ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... very modest-looking young mulatto girl, of small features and slender frame, with a little child (apparently not more than a year old) in her arms, evidently the daughter of a white man. "Now, who bids for Margaret ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... her modest maidenhood Was like a noose about her throat; but yet She ate some of ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... all the world and would never say a shameful word to any man or woman or do a shameful deed. [28] He looked for this because he saw that, apart from kings and governors who may be supposed to inspire fear, men will reverence the modest and not the shameless, and modesty in women will inspire modesty in the men who behold them. [29] And his people, he thought, would learn to obey if it were plain that he honoured frank and prompt obedience even above virtues that made a grander show and were harder to attain. [30] ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... Fools, leave off your Drunken fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... came in with the supper, a tin of biscuits, a glass of milk for the mistress, and a modest pint of beer for the master, with a little cheese and butter. Afterwards Edward smoked two pipes of honeydew, and they went quietly to bed; Mary going first, and her husband following a quarter of an hour later, according to the ritual established from the first days of their marriage. Front and ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... case of this kind of thing that I ever knew was that of my poor friend Melpomenus Jones, a curate—such a dear young man, and only twenty-three! He simply couldn't get away from people. He was too modest to tell a lie, and too religious to wish to appear rude. Now it happened that he went to call on some friends of his on the very first afternoon of his summer vacation. The next six weeks were entirely his own—absolutely nothing to do. He chatted awhile, drank two cups of tea, then ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... said the guide, whose meek and modest nature shrank from viewing himself in colors so favorable. "Can this be truly so? I am but a poor hunter and Mabel, I see, is fit to be an officer's lady. Do you think the girl will consent to quit all her beloved settlement ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... maiden's eye; While all amazed at Heaven's steepness, You gaze into its liquid deepness, And see some beauties that excel— Visions to dream of, not to tell— A downward soul of living hue, So mild, so modest, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... dangerous coral reefs, and by the reputed ferocity and cannibalism of the natives. These are Negritos, and are commonly spoken of as most abject savages. They are not, however, without distinctions of rank; they are clean, modest, moral after marriage, and most strict in the observance of prohibited degrees. Unlike the Australians, they use bows and arrows, but are said to be incapable of striking a light, and, at all events, find the process so difficult that, like the Australians and the farmer in the Odyssey,(1) ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... knocker; it was Helena who, delighted to have anything happen, ran to the door to welcome the Reverend Mr. Crofton as if he were a congenial friend of her own age. She could behave with more or less propriety during the stately first visit, and even contrive to lighten it with modest mirth, and to extort the confession that the guest had a tenor voice, though sadly out of practice; but when the minister departed a little flattered, and hoping that he had not expressed himself too strongly for a pastor ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... would beggar any thesaurus of its descriptive reserves, and yet leave their beauty almost unhinted. A drop-curtain were here a vain simile; the chromatic glories of colored postal-cards might suggest the scene, but then again they might overdo it. Nature is modest in her most magnificent moods, and I do not see how she could have a more magnificent mood than Madeira. It can never be represented by my art, but it may be measurably stated: low lying sea; the town scattering and fraying everywhere into outlying hamlets, villas and cottages; steep ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... was adorned with Greek marble columns thirty-eight feet high. Hortensius lived in a house on the Palatine, afterwards occupied by Augustus. The residence of his friend Atticus, on the Quirinal, was more modest, whose chief ornament was a grove. Pompey surrounded his house ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... lies buried in her well Those modest names the graven letters spell Hide from the sight; but, wait, and thou shalt see ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... became evident that our new acquaintance was a keen sportsman, but he talked in quite an easy modest way of what he had done, and at last I felt obliged to join in, telling of our adventures with the bears, and asking if he had seen ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... all modest, lovely, and in light drapery, singing hymns in praise of Ganesa on the Rat, the god of ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the finer the artist the more natural his signature in style. And fine artists like to subscribe to the great tradition of their craft, that the work is everything, the workman only someone in the fair light of its effect; the name is added out of pride but not vain-glory, with that modest air with which a hero turns the conversation from himself. Naturalness and mastery arrive at the same moment; students cannot sign their works naturally. Du Maurier's signature passed through many transformations, and there were times, too, when the artist was quite undecided ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... contract was marked by no special incident; only when the notary, with a low, modest voice read the clause by which the General made Mademoiselle d'Estrelles heiress to all his fortune, Camors was amused to remark the superb indifference of Mademoiselle Charlotte, the smiling exasperation of Mesdames ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com
|
|
|
