"Disinclination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether any kind of people could live permanently in the tropical forest and retain energy enough to carry on cultivation. Nowhere in the world is there such steady, damp heat as in these shadowy, windless depths far below the lofty tops of the rain forest. Nowhere is there greater disinclination to work than among the people who dwell in this region. Consequently in the vast rain forests of the Amazon basin and in similar small forests as far north as Central America, there are today practically no inhabitants except a mere handful of the poorest ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... satisfied her. She had freely expressed the anxiety caused by Sylvia's first appearance on the domestic horizon, but for a year or two, in his wife's absences in pursuit of health, he had heard little of her apprehensions. Marian's own disinclination for a college career had, from the beginning, seemed to him to interpose an insurmountable barrier to parental guidance in that direction. His wife's attitude in these new circumstances of the return of her aunt's protegee struck him as wholly ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... inconceivable to me in high collars or any sort of masculine garment. But her soul was bony, and at the base of her was a vanity gaunt and greedy! When she wasn't in a state of personal untidiness that was partly a protest against the waste of hours exacted by the toilet and partly a natural disinclination, she had a gypsy splendour of black and red and silver all her own. And somewhen in the early nineties she met and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... healthy practical life, art which knows not the necessity of earning the daily bread, loses the best part of its force and its reality. It is only the flower of luxury. It is not—(what in the greatest, the only great, artists it is)—the sacred fruit of human suffering.—Olivier felt a disinclination to work, a desire to ask: "What is the good of it?" There was nothing to make him write: he would let his pen run on, he dawdled about, he had lost his bearings. He had lost touch with his own class of men and women patiently plowing ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... sacrifice of Christ, or to his Divine nature, and lastly not a few are withheld by moral cowardice from daring to bestow the pains upon the unbeliever which his condition requires. But from whichever of these sources the disinclination to understand him comes, its effect is equally disastrous to the unbeliever. People do not mind a difference of opinion, if they feel that the one who differs from them has got a firm grasp of their position; or again, if they feel that he ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... for any Morlock skull I might encounter. And I longed very much to kill a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing one's own descendants! But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... upon Leith. He found good reason to believe that the report of his exploits had spread far and wide in England, and that British sea-captains were using every precaution to avoid encountering him. British vessels manifested an extreme disinclination to come within hailing distance of any of the cruisers, although all three were so disguised that it seemed impossible to make out their warlike character. One fleet of merchantmen that caught sight ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... with justice claim no more than the average man who produces little, the man who is so idle that he shirks producing anything may with equal justice claim as much wealth as either. His constitutional fault, and his constitutional disinclination to mend it, are both of them due to society, and society, ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... to young lovers Archie felt a disinclination to speak of what had happened, or of the services which Marjory MacDougall had rendered him. As it was naturally supposed that he had lost his way in the woods on the previous day, and had not reached ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... at first been supported in his position by the French ambassadors, who had felt or affected disinclination for peace, but who had subsequently, thrown the whole of their own and their master's influence on the side of Barneveld. They had done their best—and from time to time they had been successful—to effect at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prevent your talking of this; but I thought you would like to be prepared, if this affair should any how happen to become your business, though your late discussion With the Duc de Chaulnes will add to your disinclination ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... rather marked, won't it?" hesitated Mrs Bosenna. She had as small a disinclination as any woman to find herself the central figure in a show, and Cai (had he known it) was attacking one of the weakest points in her siege-defences. But to accept this offer—or (if you prefer it) to grant the favour—meant ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Hatzfeldt (who had a French wife). Foreign names were at a premium: Brassier, Perponcher, Savigny, Oriola. It was presumed that they had greater fluency in French, and they were more out of the common. Another feature was the disinclination to accept personal responsibility when not covered by unmistakable instructions, just as was the case in the military service in 1806 in the old school of the Frederickian period. Even in those days we were breeding stuff for officers, even as high as the rank of regimental commander, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... crowd always does, but particularly a foreign, Sunday-best bourgeois crowd. Aaron wandered and wandered, finding the tram terminus and trying blank, unfinished street after street. He had a great disinclination ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... President, which was adopted. Mrs. Gordon said she had noticed that when questions were put to the meeting not more than a dozen timid voices could be heard saying "aye," or "no." The ladies must not sit like mummies, but open their mouths and vote audibly. This disinclination to do business in a business-like way, is discreditable. (Cheers). Mrs. Gordon's hint was taken, and unequivocal demonstration of voices was made thereafter upon the taking of each vote. Long before the time arrived for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the munificence displayed by the middle classes in England, in their silver plate and other domestic utensils. But the people of Russia, and Mexico also, can make no mean display of silverware.(284) Here luxury is only a symptom of the disinclination or inability of the inhabitants of the country to use their capital in the production of wealth. How much richer would Spain be to-day, if it had employed the idle capital spent in the ornamentation of its churches in constructing roads and canals!(285) Most nations in a low state of civilization ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... the highest value. At no time had the Church been so strong or so popular as at the Revolution, and the reconciliation of the Nonconformists would have doubled its strength. It is doubtful whether the disinclination to all political change which has characterised it during the last two hundred years would have been affected by such a change; but it is certain that the power of opposition which it has wielded would have been enormously increased. As it was, the Toleration Act established ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... Abram would accept nothing from the king of Sodom—not even to a shoe-latchet—from patriarchal pride, or disinclination to have any intercourse with idolators. But he did not prevent his young warriors from eating his bread in their hunger. It was not the Sodomites he wished to rescue, but Lot, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... in spite of your disinclination to study, you have gone through college, and most creditably. Dr. Witherspoon himself has written me of your career. Does that say nothing ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Cambridge, Coleridge pursued his studies with a great deal of regularity and in his first year won the prize for a Greek ode. But after awhile his industry slackened, and a kind of dreamy idleness—implying no languor of the soul or common reluctance to mental work, but rather, it would seem, a disinclination to work in the usual grooves, and do what was expected of him—took possession of the young scholar. "He was very studious, but his reading was desultory and capricious," writes a fellow-student. "He was ready at any time to shed his ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... facts of modern life is the disinclination to accept at apparent value the scientific and other evidence there is to prove that consciousness persists after the death of the physical body. There is in existence a large amount of such evidence and much of it is offered ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... fact any essential distinction between bishops and presbyters: a church of foreigners was set up in London, to present a pattern of the pure apostolic constitution as an example to the country. The government which had acquired such a thorough mastery over the clergy developed an open disinclination to the old forms of constitution in the church. Who could have said, so long as things remained in the path thus once entered upon, whither ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... hilarity. Even the mere suggestion of going upstairs to dress for dinner was a sufficient reason for an explosion of merriment. If noise was an evidence of having a good time these people were having the time of their lives. Personally I felt a little out of my element. I had still a lingering disinclination to pretend to a ubiquity of social acquaintance that I did not really possess, and I had never learned to laugh in a properly boisterous manner. But my wife appeared ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... they are, however, in conflict with each other. [Psychoanalytically regarded, to the soul is here assigned the property which is desired but is not present, while that which is undesired but actually present in the soul (inclination and disinclination) is projected into the external world.] ... How long O soul wilt thou yet be needy, and flee from every sensation to its opposite, now from warmth to cold, now from cold to warmth, now from hunger to satiety, now from satiety to hunger?" (Fleischer Herm. a. d. Seele, pp. 14 ff.) ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... willingness, readiness, inclination; arrangement, disposal; propensity, inclination, proneness, proclivity, bias, bent. Antonyms: indisposition, unwillingness, disinclination. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... disinclination for industry of any legitimate sort was well known to all the party, Mr. Hurd's innocently expressed but barb-pointed question brought a general smile, and Pelgram permitted himself the luxury of a ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... beard and finger-nails, presiding over the samovar, rolls up his eyes in holy horror at the thoughts of waiting upon an unhallowed Ferenghi, and it requires considerable pressure from the younger and less fanatical men to overcome his disinclination; he probably breaks the glass I drank from after ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... more or less nearly to union with France and England was, in Bismarck's view, a good reason why Prussia should stand fast in its relations of friendship with St. Petersburg. [506] The policy of neutrality, which King Frederick William and Manteuffel adopted more out of disinclination to strenuous action than from any clear political view, was advocated by Bismarck for reasons which, if they made Europe nothing and Prussia everything, were at least inspired by a keen and accurate perception of Prussia's own interests in its present and future relations ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the Catholic Question had begun to agitate the rustic mind with controversial debates. A Popish blacksmith had produced a strong Protestant reaction by declaring that, as soon as the Emancipation Bill was passed, he should do a great stroke of business in gridirons; and the disinclination of the Shepperton parishioners generally to dim the unique glory of St Lawrence, rendered the Church and Constitution an affair of their business and bosoms. A zealous Evangelical preacher had made the old sounding-board vibrate with quite a different sort of elocution from ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the sloop the next morning, and Captain Godfrey welcomed him on board and invited him to remain during the day and assist in refitting the vessel. The Indian did not refuse in words to do so, but his looks and movements plainly indicated his disinclination ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... even as he stood staring at a white wall in front of him, a sudden apathy had fallen upon him, also a strong disinclination to move hand or foot; in fact, he remembered laughing stupidly, and pulling out his cigarette case with the intention of soothing a distinct sense of irritation aroused by something which hammered incessantly upon his inner consciousness, warning ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... not easily humbled. Next morning the pirates still showed a disinclination to give in, and the British fleet resumed the offensive in order to compel ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Partly disinclination, I suppose, and partly because of circumstances over which I had no control. You see, Tantlatch, here, was down with a broken leg when I made his acquaintance,—a nasty fracture,—and I set it for him and got him into shape. I stayed some time, getting my strength back. I was the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... became more evident. We must conclude, however, that Mendez, whose object in marrying her appears to have been fully as much the soothing of his pride as the gratification of his love, was not influenced by her disinclination, for when he started for Aquila on the 7th, every preparation had been made for the wedding on ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Stacy dryly, "I think you didn't like his marriage. But I'm glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account of that ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... acknowledging the King because of their Mephiboseth lameness of distance—as if they were more distant from England than the other American colonies. Their "lameness" and "ineptness" and "impotence" plainly arose from disinclination alone. It is amusing to hear them speak of themselves as "exanimated outcasts," hoping to be animated by the breath of Royal favour. Their "script" was no doubt "the transcript of their loyal hearts" when they supplicated the continuance of the Royal ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... me, and I date from it a distinct disinclination to tamper with myself, or to deliver what I had to deliver in phrases which, though they might be conciliatory, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... at least in this last illness the husband and wife were frequently together. Their love for each other, new revived and soon to close, seemed to exclude any thought of the children. We hear expressly that Mr. Bronte, from natural disinclination, and Mrs. Bronte, from fear of agitation, saw very little of the small earnest babies who talked politics together in the "children's study," or toddled hand in hand over the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... time forward it was only on the very rarest occasions that he could be persuaded to touch anything connected with journalism. His curt and spirited remarks about his experiences in connection with the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung justified his disinclination to engage in any work connected with the public press. My appreciation was all the greater, therefore, when, without any persuasion on my part, he wrote a full report on Tannhauser for the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. This appeared in October or November, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... miles, and before breakfast," muttered the old fellow sourly; but he drew a long breath as if he were trying to master his disinclination, and then turning to Lawrence with a grim smile he cried, "Now, look here, cripple against invalid, I'll race you; fair walking, and Mr Preston ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... their disinclination to leave the girls without such protection as they could give them, the boys saw that the course advised was the best to be pursued, and told their Hindoo friend that they agreed to follow his counsel, thanking him in the warmest ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... ordinary joys of life but wanted complete emancipation. The qualifications necessary for a man intending to study the Vedanta are (1) discerning knowledge about what is eternal and what is transitory (nityanityavastuviveka), (2) disinclination to the enjoyment of the pleasures of this ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... distance, debating whether he should go away or remain. Much depended upon Madame d'Aragona's character, he thought, and of this he knew nothing. Some women are attracted by indifference, and to go away would be to show a disinclination to press the acquaintance. Others, he reflected, prefer the assurance of the man who always stays, even without an invitation, rather than lose his chance. On the other hand a sitting in a studio is not exactly like a meeting in a drawing-room. The ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... these bricks differ sensibly one from another. The two curved faces being at different distances from the centre, are of unequal lengths, while, as the lower oblique edge is some inches below the upper in the curve, these two edges have different directions. In their disinclination to use stone voussoirs, the Assyrian builders here found themselves compelled to mould bricks of very complicated form, and the way in which they accomplished their task speaks volumes for ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... call of distress, he threw the bridle back on Bettie, and slipping the shotgun through the sling on the saddle, hurried over to me, not giving Bettie much thought. The horse has always shown the greatest disinclination to leaving Pete, but having her own free will that time, she did the unexpected and trotted to a herd of mules not far off, and as she went down a little hill the precious shotgun slipped out of the sling to the ground, and the stock ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... yaks knew this part of the country well. I noticed that, whenever I lost the track, all I had to do was to follow them, and they would bring me back to it again. When I drove them away from the track, they showed a great disinclination to move, whereas they proceeded willingly enough while we were on the highway. No track was visible except here and there, where the footmarks of the last nomads, with their sheep, ponies, and yaks, had ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... seemed suddenly like a nightmare. The memory of the train, underground for part of the way, with its stuffy odors, made him shiver. The hot, dusty, unmade street, with its hideous rows of stuccoed villas, loomed before his eyes and confirmed his swiftly born disinclination to taking at once this final and ominous step. Something all the time seemed to be drawing him in another direction, the faint magic of a fragrant memory—a dream, was it—that he had carried with him unconsciously through ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Shakspeare's historical and biographical views, could he have done so safely and without a compromise of principle. He would have avoided such an inquiry, not only in deference to the acknowledged rule which does not suffer a poet to be fettered by the rigid shackles of unbending facts; but from a disinclination also to interfere, even in appearance, with the full and free enjoyment of those exquisite scenes of humour, wit, and nature, in which Henry is the hero, and his "riotous, reckless companions" are subordinate in dramatical excellence only to himself. The Author ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... against taxable securities under an excessively high income tax schedule—even if confined to larger incomes—must necessarily have upon the eligibility of corporate securities for investment purposes. The conclusion seems unescapable that the resulting degree of disinclination to invest in such securities coupled with the impulse to dispose of existing holdings would bring about liquidation, severe shrinkage of values and more or less pronounced demoralization in the investment market—a condition of ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... decorum. Once I found another rabbit torn to pieces,—by the Hyena-swine, I am assured,—but that was all. It was about May when I first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage, a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk. My Monkey-man's jabber multiplied in volume but grew less and less comprehensible, more and more simian. Some of the others seemed altogether slipping their hold upon speech, though they still understood what I said to them at that time. (Can you imagine ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... the matter, conscious only of the fact that each time he had opened his lips to mention it, he had felt a marked but purposeless disinclination to do so. He consoled himself now with the reflection that the information would be more or less valueless until the afternoon, and he forthwith proceeded upon the investigation which he had ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disinclination to go back to circumstances which happened thirty years past, has prevented an earlier answer to your letter. In the extract you have sent me from Mr. Jefferson's writings, it is said—"Bayard" (alluding to his deposition) ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... attitude, and must be lifted and placed in the right position. It is some time before relaxation is so complete as that. At first the head and spine will come up like a ramrod, perfectly rigid and stiff. There will be the same effort either to assist or resist; the same disinclination to give up; often the same remark, "If you will tell me what you want me to do, I will do it;" the same inability to realize that the remark, and the feeling that prompts it, are entirely opposed to the principle that you are wanted to do nothing, and to do nothing with an effort is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... expect me to give you?" rather scornfully demanded Trevanion, who had not been at all pleased at Nancy's constant disinclination for his society and her sudden preference ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... here showed no disinclination to being photographed, but they wanted wang (money) for posing. Usually I had to pay one florin to each, or fifty cents if the hair was not long. At other times nothing would induce them to submit to the camera. A young woman recently married had a row with her ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... medicine, chiefly in that masterly eloquence by which so many of them are distinguished. Who shall say that they might not also have reached a high degree of eminence in philosophical discussions and ontological theories? They have always abstained from such studies by reason of a natural disinclination, which does them honor, and which has saved them in modern times, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, from the innumerable evils which afflict society everywhere else, and by which it is ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... great toe, which had been severely bitten by a vampire in the night. And here let me say, that the popular disbelief of vampire stories is only owing to English ignorance, and disinclination to believe any of the many quaint things which John Bull has not seen, because he does not care to see them. If he comes to those parts, he must be careful not to leave his feet or hands out of bed without mosquito curtains; if he has good horses, he ought not to leave them exposed ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... than astonished at the altered demeanour of the man. He was fast disarming me. His unexpected behaviour had subdued my ire; and, all consideration of consequences apart, I now felt a complete disinclination for the combat! Was it too late to stay our idle strife? Such was my reflection the moment after; and, with an effort conquering my pride, I ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... words very seriously, and proceeded to ask myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may not care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my whole existence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which that existence ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the disinclination of the bishops to enter into the consideration of the real difficulties that beset the kingdom, and the open hostility of the Pope and of Philip the Second[1078] to any assembly that bore the least ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... with the lover. And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... present undertaking. His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north of England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle, he expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of the English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim, who was to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army, prevented his executing this design. Other plans having in like manner failed, he stated that ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... farmers' horses enjoyed such part of their Sunday rest as was permitted them after bringing heavy loads of rural parishioners to their public devotions. The Sunday church-going was by no means so carefully observed in these days as in former ones, when disinclination was anything but a received excuse. In Parson Leslie's—the doctor's grandfather's—day, it would have condemned a man or woman to the well-merited reproof of their acquaintances. And indeed most parishioners felt deprived of a great pleasure ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... insist on talking to me about it; I am glad if they like it, but do not much care if they don't. I am no more interested in it than in a worn-out suit of clothes that I have given away. It was thus with disinclination that I began to read The Magician. It held my interest, as two of my early novels, which for the same reason I have been obliged to read, did not. One, indeed, I simply could not get through. Another had to my mind some good dramatic scenes, but the humour filled ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... the text of Scripture which says that it is better to lose an eye and an arm and enter into the kingdom of heaven, than to save both, and fall into hell. His piety was wholly interior. It consisted in the perpetual exercise of the presence of God. He had a natural disinclination for devotional practices as they are in vogue among ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being interviewed on the front veranda by Therese and Melicent, ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... him what information it is that I require of him; and if he evinces any disinclination to speak, I shall add that he will be kept without food or drink until he communicates it," placidly ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... unaccountable manner. Count Barezewski begged his guest to give him a few details of the terrible fire at Moscow, which had caused so much misery and distress to both Russians and French. The Russian seemed to feel a very great disinclination to comply with his host's request; however, when he reflected upon the hospitality and kindness he was receiving, he knew not how to refuse. His voice betrayed excessive emotion as he described the sad sight of this immense conflagration; but as soon as ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... years dissatisfaction with this doctrine has been making itself more and more loudly expressed. Along with an increasing belief in the extension of the state's administrative capacities has gone an increasing disinclination to leave men's moral and cultural activities to the political organization. The ideal of the Kulturstaat is now sufficiently discredited. Men are coming more and more to recognize the part played in life by non-political organizations and to insist on the importance of preserving the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... question him as to the cause of this change in plans, for since those three days that her father had kept himself locked in his workroom at home the girl had noticed a subtle change in her parent—a marked disinclination to share with her his every confidence as had been his custom since the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... from the beginning of his acquaintance with Hewett that the latter showed no disinclination to receive news of Kirkwood. As Clem's husband, Joseph was understood to be perfectly aware of the state of things between the Hewetts and their former friend, and in a recent conversation with Mrs. Hewett he had assured himself that she, at all events, would ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... and in exceeding conformity with the most received doctrines," returned the stranger, slightly gaping, either from want of rest the previous night, or from disinclination to so grave a subject; "but it hath little connexion with present duties. My charge beareth especial concern with the further destruction of the Indians, rather than to any inward searchings into the condition of our own mental misgivings, concerning any right ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... moving a little nearer, till at length she was at his side with her fore-paw upon his arm; a minute more and she had placed it around his neck, and was rubbing her soft furry cheek against his. Our ancestor, on his part, betrayed no disinclination to receive her caresses, but returned them with equal ardour. The old beaver, seeing what was going on, turned his back upon them, and suffered them to be as kind to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... servants were just as trying as the Indians and the negroes, and in particular showed a lawless disregard for their masters' property, an indifference to the authority of the weal-public, and a lazy disinclination to work; one writer describes them as "tender fingered in cold weather." The Mt. Wollaston lot that followed Morton to Merry Mount were but the forerunners of hundreds of others. The Bradstreets' servant, John, may be taken as a type of many refractory bound servants. He was brought ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... solicitous attention, considered as one of the brilliant central ornaments of a ballroom, not as one of its indispensable wall-decorations. The experience seems to be so particularly pleasant to the majority of American women, indeed, that they show the greatest disinclination to sharing it one with the other—a disinclination made manifest by that habit of reviling each other which I mentioned as the second great aim and occupation of our countrywomen abroad. That there should be very little kindness and fellow-feeling, and a great deal of envy, hatred, malice and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence. His aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were both typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than his complete suppression of every reference to his own people. I had come to believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... wretched Ireland,' as she calls it, and in a moment of mental depression she entered the characteristic query,'Cui bono?' in her diary. To the same faithful volume she confided complaints even of her beloved Morgan, but the fact that she could find nothing worse to reproach him with than a disinclination for fresh air and exercise, speaks volumes for his marital virtue. A more serious trouble came from failing eyesight, which in 1837 threatened to develop into total blindness. It was in this year, when things seemed at their darkest, that a pension of L300 a year was conferred on her ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... She would see him at his place in Berkshire in the most flattering aspect; his surroundings as lord of the manor, and owner of one of the finest old places in the county, would lend dignity to his insignificance. Lesbia at first expressed a strong disinclination to go to Rood Hall. There would be a most unpleasant feeling in stopping at the house of a man whom she had refused, she told ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... modified by an undefined tradition of purifying fires. Although this may not have been the case with the clergy and others who were familiar with controversy, there was certainly among them also a strong disinclination to pronounce any decided or dogmatical opinion about that unknown future. This is traceable in the various writings elicited by the omission of the latter part of the third article in the Revision under Archbishop Parker; and is more palpably evident ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... ingratitude, disinclination, displeasure, , AO, CP: evil intention, an ill turn, . his unances against his will, ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... of the South has, in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform, fully, their Constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service, who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, it is my judgment that the South is right, and the North is ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... can quite understand," nodded the superintendent. "I am aware of the disinclination of the members of one upper class to interfere with the members of another upper class. The fact that you made a protest at all is what has convinced me that yourself and Mr. Dalzell were in the room at the time with a worthy instead of an unworthy motive. Worthy motives are not punished at the Naval ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... on grasping the drift of this epistle, exhibited symptoms of distress. She flung out her arms in a dramatic attitude, and confided to the audience her disinclination to take over the unwelcome task of becoming duenna to her niece. There was no other course open to her, apparently; the idea of sending the girl home by the next train, or of hastily packing her own box and departing somewhere on urgent ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... disdain to saddle others with the cost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in the supernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs. Even leading members of the 'Fourth Estate' are constantly declaring their disinclination for religious criticism, and express particular anxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly theological.' Their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour to keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. And yet seldom does a day pass in which this self-imposed ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... departure, and waiting for a re-enforcement, since they were too few in number to attempt it alone. They might, it is true, have joined some of the parties of emigrants who were on the point of setting out for Oregon and California; but they professed great disinclination to have any connection with the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... he showed human weakness and gave way to long moods of despondency, at times inclining to murmur bitterly at his lot, he suffered no serious reverses. He patiently, even in the face of positive disinclination, maintained his duties. He remembered how often the Divine Man, in his shadowed life, went apart for prayer, and honestly tried to imitate this example, so specially suited to one as ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the law was the beautiful heiress to select? She showed no inclination to marry Francis Bacon, and she was backed up in this disinclination by her relatives, the Cecils. The head of that family, Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's Lord High Treasurer, was particularly proud of his second son, Robert, whom he had succeeded in advancing by leaps and bounds until ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... men, in a vessel they had built, to the Napo, in search of provisions. It can be imagined by those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which they had descended. The idea then seized them to commit themselves to the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. So onward they went. From the Napo they emerged into the main Amazons, and, after many and various adventures ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... or to that consciousness working through comparatively thick and gross veils of matter. After the Coulomb difficulty there was a cessation almost entirely of these phenomena in the Theosophical Society. Two reasons led up to that: first, the utter disinclination of H.P.B. herself to continue to expose herself to the attacks of people with regard to her good faith. She was so maligned and slandered, so many friends turned against her and spoke of the powers she possessed as fraudulent and as tricks, that when her Master raised her from the bed that might ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... of the ordnance factories rested with the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who belonged to the Ministry of the day. No supplies could be obtained by the former unless with the permission and by the order of the latter. The system conduced to a lack of sympathy of motive, which caused a disinclination on the one part to ask for what on the other there would be more than a disinclination to give. This tended to crystallise the national proneness to defer until the emergency arose the measures necessary to meet it. It followed, then, that while ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... the enemies of those men to desecrate their bodies and graves. There is not now, and probably has not been for years, any danger of such desecration, and the only reason I can see for still keeping it a secret is the natural disinclination on the part of the family ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... be determined with exactness when Borrow relinquished the unequal struggle against adverse circumstances in London. He had met with sufficient discouragement to dishearten him from further effort. Perhaps his greatest misfortune was his disinclination to make friends with anybody save vagabonds. He could attract and earn the friendship of an apple-woman, thimble-riggers, tramps, thieves, gypsies, in short with any vagrant he chose to speak to; but his hatred of gentility ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... him to come. Many times he has asked him to drive me out, or to attend me to a concert or the theatre, as he knew that I wished to go, and he had business that required his attention, or felt a disinclination to leave home. In not a single instance, when I thus went out, would not my pleasure have been increased, had my husband been my companion; and yet I liked the company of Westfield—perhaps too well. The remains of former feelings may still have lingered, unknown to me, in my heart. But I was ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... from the beginning. The Indians were very slow to act, and those in control manifested a decided disinclination to meet with favor the propositions submitted to them. A little more than three years after this organization the Commission effected an agreement with the Choctaw Nation alone. The Chickasaws, however, refused to agree to its terms, and as they have a common interest with the Choctaws ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... author, Mr. Robertson was, in his lifetime, unknown; for with the exception of one or two addresses, he never published, having a singular disinclination to bring his thoughts before the public in the form of published sermons. As a minister, he was beloved and esteemed for his unswerving fidelity to his principles and his fearless propagation of his religious views. As a ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Batty she felt an amused affection; she was interested in the unfortunate Charles. She felt her life widening pleasantly and, as she crunched again down the gravel drive, the orchids in her hand, she felt a disinclination to go home. She wanted to walk under the great trees which, spread with brilliant green, made a long avenue on the other side of the road; to wander beyond them, where a belt of grass led to a wild shrubbery overlooking the ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... once asked Massieu, "What is laziness or idleness?" "It is a disgust from useful occupation; a disinclination to do anything; from which result indigence, want of cleanliness and misery, disease of body and the contempt of others." In writing this answer the gestures and looks of Massieu were in perfect accordance with the ideas that might be supposed to exist with him and the words he ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... to give, and for the first time in his life exhibited a disinclination to leave the shore. One of his fellow-boatmen, at last, said to him, "Why thin, Barny O'Reirdon, what the divil is come over you, at all at all? What's the maynin' of your loitherin' about here, and the boat ready and a lovely fine breeze ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have proved a powerful argument to induce Cardan to remain at Sacco, albeit he had little scope for his calling. That he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination to sponge upon his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, when this scheme was proposed to him, vetoed it at once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, for Cardan has left it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat (it was now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the murmur of the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to their dinner) seemed to have induced a general disinclination to the effort of speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known to be tired in body or mind, and who was always debating something—it seemed to matter very little what—even he, I thought at first, was ready to let the discussion drop. But presently it became clear that he was ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... goes without exercise and begins to accumulate fat, that fat gradually deposits itself and not alone about the waist; it invades the muscular tissue all over his body even to his heart. As this accumulation grows there come with it a muscular slackness and a disinclination to exercise. The man is carrying greater weight and with less muscular strength to do it. No wonder that when he tries to exercise he gets tired. He is out of condition. Hence he begins to revolve in a vicious circle. He knows that he needs ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... illusions, if we were so fortunate as to have them, inevitably be lost?" he asked, provoked into an assurance of his interest by the serene disinclination ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... America was that, while hitherto we have never hesitated in England to adopt any process or invention that was a distinct advance, whether it came from America or anywhere else, they on the other hand have shown a disinclination to adopt anything British; but they have now adopted our Wheatstone automatic system. That system is at work between New Orleans and Chicago, and New York and New Orleans—1,600 miles. It has given them so much satisfaction that they are going to increase it very largely; so that we really have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... though the apprentice would willingly have continued the conversation, his companion's evident disinclination to pursue it compelled him to desist. In this way, they reached the doctor's residence, where Leonard was immediately ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted from the ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... the frankness of his speech, and the cordial ring of his sympathetic laugh, it occurred to him that the change in Graham must be ascribed to something that had gone wrong in the meeting with Isaura the evening before; and remembering the curtness with which Graham had implied disinclination to converse about the fair Italian, he felt perplexed how to reconcile the impulse of his good nature with the discretion imposed on his good-breeding. At all events, a compliment to the lady whom Graham had so admired could ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the men of the upper classes regarded it as a burden and a vexatious interference with their liberty. It was not necessarily that they had any desire to be vicious, nor indeed would marriage be much of a hindrance to vice; it was that they desired to be free. The cause of their disinclination was the same as it is sometimes alleged to be now—the increasing demands of women, their increasing unwillingness to bear the natural responsibilities of matrimony, their extravagant expectations, and the impossibility of there being two masters in one house claiming ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... to him with a face that in all its mortal agony seemed to ask congratulation. The power of making confession was gone, and when Raynald would have offered to take him in his own arms, both he and the Prince showed disinclination to the move. So thus they still remained, while the young knightly priest spoke the words of Absolution, and then, across the solemn darkness of the garden, amid the light of tapers, the Host was borne from the Chapel, while the low subdued ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half-hour between tea-time and dressing for dinner, when the two young women, sometimes under dripping umbrellas, would let the right omnibus follow the wrong one toward Fleet Street twice and thrice in their disinclination to postpone what they had to say to each other. It was also before Elfrida's invasion of the library and fee-simple of the books, and before she had said there many things that were original, some that ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... not accompany us. He had pleaded a disinclination to leave his mother so soon after their long separation. At the time we thought his conduct strange, but in return for the assistance that Queen Barreto had given us, we promised him a share of ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... prepare to co-operate with the insurgents who were shortly to unfurl their banner beneath the shadow of St. Canice's; and the crowds who hung on their words vowed their determination to do so. But in Kilkenny, as in every town they visited, the patriot leaders found the greatest disinclination to take the initiative in the holy war. There as elsewhere the people felt no unwillingness to fight; but they knew they were ill prepared for such an emergency, and fancied the first blow might be struck more effectively elsewhere. "Who will draw the first blood?" asked Finton Lalor ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... different it is at the dance-hall where we are going," she went on, not heeding his disinclination for the subject. "They'll keep it up till dawn and drink between every dance. There's not a party of the kind the whole winter through that doesn't see the steps of some young girl set toward destruction. Oh, I can't ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... bored with it, be at the mercy of moods. I am speaking here solely of the possible adventures of mind and soul; it is good, wholesome, invigorating, to be tied to a work in life, to have to discharge it whether one likes it or no, through indolence and disinclination, through depression and restlessness. But we ought not to be immured among conventions and received opinions. We ought to ask ourselves why we believe what we take for granted, and even if we do really believe it at all. We ought not to condemn people who do not ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mules. His arms were pinioned, and, as they forced his bulky body into this miserable conveyance, he exclaimed,—-"Cradles for infants, and a cradle for the old man too, it seems!" 4 Notwithstanding the disinclination he had manifested to a confessor, he was attended by several ecclesiastics on his way to the gallows; and one of them repeatedly urged him to give some token of penitence at this solemn hour, if it were only by repeating the Pater Noster ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... him for all the rest of his life. It will be remembered that when Lorenzo de' Medici first met Lucrezia Donati he had been taken to some evening company, much against his will. In the present instance, it was the lady who showed disinclination to go into society, and her recent widowhood gave her good reason for her feeling in the matter; but, won over by the entreaties of her friends, da preghi vinta, she finally consented to go. What she wore and how she looked, and ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... lacking." Thus he blurted out after a look behind him into the adjoining room of death. "I can't say what; nor can I explain my own unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district attorney is satisfied, and so, I'm afraid is the coroner; but I'm not, and I feel ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... columns. His godson, afterwards the Rev. Francis Thackeray, has told us how the great man once took him to a conjuring entertainment and, having secured him a good place, explained "Now, I must leave you awhile, and go and make a five-pound note." And in such a manner, in haste and with disinclination, was often produced what James Hannay calls "the inimitable, wise, easy, playful, worldly, social sketch ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Heredith. On his own showing he then acted sensibly enough in a delicate situation, and was afterwards reluctant to accept the invitation to the moat-house. With one of his reticent evasions he slurred over his reason for changing his mind, but Colwyn guessed that it was due to the feminine disinclination to bury an old romance. Violet had probably written and ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... exasperating way he seemed to do whenever they were getting on particularly well.... She remembered how he had bolted from that masquerade which had begun so happily. He had said he was ill, but she had never completely slain the suspicion that his illness sprang from ennui and disinclination. ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... call him "Sir John" because if he isn't a knight he might think I was trying to make fun of him and then he might retaliate by calling me "Sir Henry," and I should hate that). (Aloud) The chief symptoms are a steady loss of appetite and a disinclination to work. I was recommended to consult you by my friend, Mr. Bolter, as I think I explained in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... I was now satisfied in my own mind that this was some artful attempt of his to communicate with the lady, and had she fallen in with it, I should have immediately informed you, the proper authorities. But whether from stupidity, dread, disinclination, a direct, definite refusal to have any dealings with this man, the lady would not—at any rate did not—pick up the ball, as she might have done easily when she in her turn passed the table on ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... ascended the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... to overcome them. Salvation for the individual is escape from the individual distress at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. And damnation can be nothing more and nothing less than the failure or inability or disinclination to make that escape. ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... was general, and yet not a few clung to the legal-tender notes as a permanent and standard currency. While the argument in favor of contraction was prosecuted with great force, the possibility of going too fast, even in the right direction, was conceded by the wisest financiers. The natural disinclination of the American people to entrust unrestricted power to any officer was frequently and forcibly expressed. The policy of funding the obligations bearing interest was admitted on all hands, and for this purpose the sale as well as the direct exchange of bonds was approved. But ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... he had a great deal to put up with," said Miss Wentworth, through her tears. She had, like most simple people, an instinctive disinclination to admit that anybody was or had been happy. It looked like an admission of inferiority. "Mamma's death, and poor Tom," said the elder sister. As she wiped her eyes, she almost forgot her own little feminine flutter of expectancy in respect to Mr Proctor himself. Perhaps it was not going ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as to the advisability of establishing civil governments in Cebu, Bohol and Batangas. In the first of these places the people were sullen and ugly. In the second there was a marked disinclination on the part of leading citizens to accept public office. There had been a little scattering rifle fire on the outskirts of the capital of the third very shortly before our arrival there, but the organization of all these provinces was recommended by the military authorities, and we decided to ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... shoulders as it were, into the entangled affairs of the Netherlanders, and it was Elizabeth of England, more than ever alarmed at the schemes of Alencon, who had pushed forward this Protestant champion, notwithstanding the disinclination of Orange. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in kind led his counterpart in the towns to oppose the War Department in its efforts to establish through railroad lines because they threatened to impair local business interests. A striking instance of this disinclination towards cooperation is the action of Petersburg. Two railroads terminated at this point but did not connect, and it was an ardent desire of the military authorities to link the two and convert them into one. The town, however, unable to see beyond its ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... livery business, and when combined with much beer and wine drinking, irregular eating and a disinclination for regular exercise, culture becomes a positive menace to health. Of this danger to the German, their own great man Bismarck spoke in the Abgeordnetenhaus in 1881: "Bei uns Deutschen wird mit wenigem so viel Zeit totgeschlagen wie mit Biertrinken. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... those he hoped to influence. Some of them took these books and promised, with the air of men who were conferring a great favour, that they would read them. As a rule, when they returned them it was with vague expressions of approval, but they usually evinced a disinclination to discuss the contents in detail because, in nine instances out of ten, they had not attempted to read them. As for those who did make a half-hearted effort to do so, in the majority of cases their minds were so rusty and stultified by long years of disuse, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Pokanoket chief been denominated a king. If not a Charlemagne or a Louis XIV., he yet possessed elements of true greatness. While he lived his mind evidently guided, as his will dominated and prolonged, the war. This is saying much, for the Indian's disinclination to all strenuous or continuous exertion was pronounced and proverbial. Philip's treatment of Mrs. Rowlandson must be declared magnanimous, especially as, of course, he was but a savage king, who might reasonably request us not to measure him by our rules. The other party ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... only require a suitable atmosphere to be developed. Miss Starbrow will value at its proper worth the instruction you will give her; and as to subjects, she has added nothing to what she had written to us, except that she does not wish you to force any study on the girl to which she may show a disinclination, but rather to find out for yourself any natural aptitude she may possess. And what she particularly requests of us is, that no questions shall be put to her and no reference made to her early life in London. She wishes the girl to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... is low; though for this too (as we shall immediately see) there are other causes. During the revulsion, on the contrary, interest always rises inordinately, because, while there is a most pressing need on the part of many persons to borrow, there is a general disinclination to lend.(287) ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... to draw his father's attention to the fact that the waggon was not moving, but his feeling of disinclination even to speak was growing upon him, and he was riding bent forward in silence, noticing what appeared to be a bed of whitish mist spreading among the trees, when his father startled him out of his thoughtful musings ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... lead them to become creditable and useful members of society; and however well disposed a child may be, there is but one sad and melancholy resource for it at last, that of again joining its tribe, and becoming such as they are. Neither is there that disinclination on the part of the elder children to resume their former mode of life and customs that might perhaps have been expected; for whilst still at school they see and participate enough in the sports, pleasures, or charms of savage life to prevent their acquiring a distaste to it; and when the time ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... opinions of the Crees, it is difficult to give a correct account, not only because they shew a disinclination to enter upon the subject, but because their ancient traditions are mingled with the information they have more recently obtained, by ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... nearly two years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occasional translations from the classics, for one of which he received a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in literary merit. Still he never made much figure at college, his natural disinclination to study being increased by the harsh treatment he continued ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... not promising; and, indeed, the corpulent little Pole showed great disinclination to talk about the young lady who had so laid hold of Calabressa's heart. But Calabressa was not to be denied, when it was the welfare of the daughter of Natalie ...
— Sunrise • William Black |
