"Unostentatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her religion and politics. Said the Low Church parson: "An earnest Christian woman, sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that true woman's heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... full of questions, and with ready answers. He is highly cultivated, and writes for the Westminster,"—a man who respected formalities and could preserve decorum in his own household, but liked a simple, unostentatious mode of living—in brief, he was a true English gentleman. Mrs. Hawthorne has drawn his portrait with only ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... the while the microbe was getting in some unostentatious but clever work. A week later Shoeblossom began to feel queer. He had occasional headaches, and found himself oppressed by a queer distaste for food. The professional advice of Dr. Oakes, the school doctor, was called for, and Shoeblossom took up ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... another human being the perpetual object of whose life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even of her own excellence that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence it came. She had seen the world—its glories without being dazzled; its vices and follies without being infected by them. She had suffered often and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... Miss Babs Wheeler and Mr. Graper were so to speak the north and south poles of the little group upon the improvised platform from which Lady Harman was to talk to the gathering. She would have liked the support of Mr. Brumley, but she couldn't contrive any unostentatious way of bringing him into the business without putting it upon a footing that would have involved the appearance of Sir Isaac and Mrs. Pembrose and—everybody. And essentially it wasn't to be everybody. It was ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... small tea-table between them. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms and plants. Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable and unostentatious. There was not a chair to be seen which might not have held the giant's frame. San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what was good. If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse turned out to be capable of four times the work. If he bought ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... friends—this is right,—but of that of any person, any chance-comer, about whom they know nothing. Who is not open to flattery? and if he seems not to be exposed to it, is it not that he is too shrewd or too refined to be beguiled by any but what is delicate and unostentatious? A man never considers who it is who praises him. But the most dangerous, perhaps, of all kinds of vanity is to be vain of our personal appearance, most dangerous, for such, persons are ever under temptation—I may say, ever sinning. Wherever they go they carry their snare with them; and their ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... and again sauntered in, this time with the theater crowd. Our first visit had been so quiet and unostentatious that the second attracted no attention or comment from ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... deposited it in the glass case of a fashionable jeweller, of whom it was purchased by the humble rehearser of this legend, in the hope that it may be allowed to sparkle on a fair lady's finger. Purified from the foul fiend, so long its inhabitant, by a deed of unostentatious charity, and now made the symbol of faithful and devoted love, the gentle bosom of its new possessor need fear ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... II. was King, in 1681. After the Revolution, Nonconformists and Catholics were no longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the Established Church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. But the spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the Whigs were as unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... of a Quaker, and even gay little Mrs. Fielding, who had been divorced, and was a daughter of the railroad king, Lowell Lang, said that she hated Newport and Easthampton because the women dressed so much. She dressed more beautifully than any other women at Marlborough Gardens, but was quite unostentatious and informal. ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... good sense to give up these enjoyments without a murmur, when higher claims called for her undivided care. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well; and the robin will doubtless be repaid for the unwearied patience with which she performs her unostentatious duties. Some people are inclined to think domestic labour dishonourable, and the cares of house-keeping a burden; but our feathered friend is wiser than they. She does with her might what she finds to do, and she does it heartily. Every act of duty, faithfully and cheerfully performed, ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... looked tropical, and which were as green during the rigors of winter as during the doubtful blessings of summer, stood on the slopes, their thousand bayonets guarding against trespass where only pressing necessity could drive a human foot. Sheep-sage, which grew low upon the ground, and unostentatious and dun, was found here, where no flocks came to graze; this was the one life-giving thing which ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... over it; you may not particularly admire it, but you will find no fault with it. Second-rate painting pleases one person much, and displeases another; but first-rate painting pleases all a little, and intensely pleases those who can recognise its unostentatious skill. ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... appeared sanctioning the mighty undertaking. It was made known at Vladivostok by the Czarevitch (now Nicholas II.) in the course of a lengthy tour in the Far East; and he is known then to have gained that deep interest in those regions which has moulded Russian policy throughout his reign. Quiet, unostentatious, and even apathetic on most subjects, he then, as we may judge from subsequent events, determined to give to Russian energies a decided trend towards the Pacific. As Czar, he has placed that aim in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the family estate had always attended to its cultivation, and was properly called a gentleman farmer. Unostentatious and frugal, he never lacked means, in spite of bad harvests or unexpected losses, to assist the younger members of the family in starting in life, or to help forward any ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... on a bed in the unostentatious lodging in the Rue de Vaugirard where Damour had brought him. The surgeon had pronounced the wound mortal, giving him but a few hours to live. For long after he was gone Philip was silent, but at length he said "You heard ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as smoky, but I thought it less so than the central parts of London. The manufactures, for the most part, are carried on in an unostentatious way, in small scattered shops, and no where make the noise and bustle of a single great iron works. Compared with them Sheffield is a seat of elegant arts, nevertheless compared with the cotton and silk trades, it must be regarded as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... political position, there was nothing in their situation to challenge the jealousy of their associates. They moved in one of the many circles of cultured and agreeable people, which, despite the mandate of a M'Allister, formed a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; they entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the career of the Baroness had not been unearthed. That the widow of Judge Lawrence, the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... visitor at the Casino. These simple and unostentatious funerals are very impressive. The priests always walk bareheaded through the streets on these occasions, and on many others. Indeed, the priestly head seems ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Christianity as seen in the best type of social settlement. This double character of inwardness and practicality seems to me to be essential to its success; and incorporation will certainly help it to be maintained. The rule should be simple and unostentatious, and need indeed be little more than the "heavenly rule" of faith, hope, and charity. This will involve first the realization of man's true life within a spiritual world-order, his utter dependence upon its realities and powers of communion with them; next his infinite ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... vigorous mind from his severe and brilliant discoveries. We can now only lament the (almost) premature death of this high-ranked philosopher, this great benefactor to the arts, and deep promoter of science, whose mortal remains were consigned to his unostentatious tomb, at Geneva, in one of the finest evenings of summer, followed by the eloquent and amiable historian, De Sismondi, and by other learned and illustrious men. One may apply to his last moments at Geneva, (where he had arrived ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... a white cloth gown of elegantly-simple cut, that revealed with unostentatious art the lovely lines of the slender shape. A knot of white and golden freesias, exhaling a clean, delicate perfume, was fastened at her breast; her wonderful red-brown hair was shaded by a broad-brimmed brown felt hat of Vandyke shape, with creamy drooping plumes. The rare promise ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... subtle and seductive harmonies and balances of which the delicacy dawns on him as he gazes. The more he looks the more will he get of that curiously gratifying thrill which comes of the recognition of unostentatious rightness. ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "GAM," a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... her, when the little thing drew back with evident disgust, exclaiming, "No, no; you have a red face! Mamma says I must never kiss anybody with a red face." The poor Queen probably seldom received such a plain statement of facts in return for her condescension. Her unostentatious goodness and amiable character have now become matter of history. One of the most characteristic traits of her life was her ordering of her own funeral with a privacy and simplicity more touching than any royal pomp, specifying that her coffin should be carried to the grave by four sailors—a ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a kind heart, and was ever just and generous in his dealings. Wholly unostentatious himself, the humblest felt at ease in his presence. Possibly no incumbent of the great office was more easily accessible to all classes and conditions. Courteous at all times, no guards were necessary to the preservation ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... a most enjoyable one to all, but it was especially delightful to three couples who early paired off together, and in a quiet unostentatious fashion dropped into the rear. Captain and Mrs Staunton had naturally much to say to each other upon matters interesting only to themselves; while as for Violet and Rex, Blanche and Lance, this was their first opportunity for an exchange of these sweet nothings in which lovers ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... of the house's interior was one of well-chosen but unostentatious comfort, and the materials and furnishings used were all so nicely adapted to their setting that only to more discerning eyes than those of the Stuarts' neighbours would they have expressed unusual ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... only in the interests of humanity, that Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcoming examination and outshine him in the eyes of Miss Haysman; and you will perceive, too, how Miss Haysman fell into some common feminine misconceptions. The Hill-Wedderburn quarrel, for in his unostentatious way Wedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill-veiled rivalry, became a tribute to her indefinable charm; she was the Queen of Beauty in a tournament of scalpels and stumpy pencils. To her confidential friend's secret annoyance, it even troubled her conscience, for ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... is the splendid pile commenced by Charles V, intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the Moslem kings. With all its grandeur and architectural merit, it appeared to us like an arrogant intrusion, and passing by it we entered a simple, unostentatious portal, opening into the interior of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... wife, since our separation by consent, has been in the receipt from me of an annual income of L600, while all the great charges of a numerous and expensive family have devolved wholly upon myself. I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hat-band, or other such ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... work in the slums and by individuals who mingle with and study the actual condition of the very poor. The extent of good accomplished by these few who are giving their lives to uplifting society's exiles is little understood, because it is quiet and unostentatious; yet through the instrumentality of the silent workers, thousands of persons are annually kept from starvation and crime, while for many of them new, broad, and hopeful horizons are constantly ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the dark influence of political crime, drawn within the vortex of secret confederacy, and subsequently yielding up his life to the outraged laws of that country which he assisted to distract. It is in scenes like these that the unostentatious magnanimity of the pious Irish wife or mother may be discovered; and it is here where, as the night and storms of life darken her path, the holy fortitude of her heart shines with a lustre proportioned to the depth of ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... there is no architecture in Folkestone. But Folkestone, like other towns, is just as full of architecture as a wood is full of trees. As the train winds on its causeway over the sloping town you perceive below you thousands of squat little homes, neat, tended, respectable, comfortable, prim, at once unostentatious and conceited. Each a separate, clearly-defined entity! Each saying to the others: "Don't look over my wall, and I won't look over yours!" Each with a ferocious jealousy bent on guarding its own individuality! Each a stronghold—an island! And all careless of the general effect, but making ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... city of roses, so is this Mormon Saints' Rest a city of lilacs and tulips. The flowers, at least, are saintly, and they are surely loved. Scarce a home, however obscure, is without them, and the simple, unostentatious manner in which they are planted and gathered in pots and boxes about the windows shows ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... verse-forms, will delight in his simple 'vitty' songs of the Delectable Duchy. He is a patriotic Cornish-man sure enough ... as good as anything of the kind written by the dialect-poets of Lancashire or Dorset ... it is a thing to rejoice over, this little easy-going, unostentatious book." ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod returned in a casual manner through the house. Of his sang-froid under ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... they teach the people that preceptors ought to be in the place of gallants. They systematically corrupt a very corruptible race (for some time a growing nuisance amongst you), a set of pert, petulant literators, to whom, instead of their proper, but severe, unostentatious duties, they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of gay, young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets. They call on the rising generation in France to take a sympathy in the adventures and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... plains. Perhaps considering that the city has not extended much in the direction of East Terrace, it may be a little too far for public convenience, but this is a question that admits of doubt. It is a neat and unostentatious brick building, at which the Rev. Mr. Woodcock performs service, whose exertions amongst the natives in the West Indies have stamped him both as a christian and a philanthropist. The two churches are calculated to hold ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... day for me when Simon Newcomb met me at the door of the Cosmos Club, of which he was then president, and presented me as his guest to one and another of the select company of men who formed its membership. He moved among them as unostentatious and simple-mannered as he had been as a boy, with a catholic interest in all the varying topics which held the sympathies of the crowd, and able well to hold his own whatever might be the field of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... particularly endeared this brave and justly-famous Boer officer to us were his straightforwardness and unostentatious manner, his truthfulness, and the utter absence of affectation that distinguishes him. I am certain that he has written his simple narrative with candour and impartiality, and I feel equally certain, from what I know of him, that this most popular ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... unostentatious manner the Chaplains of all denominations have worked with devotion and energy in their ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the young lady was assisted to alight; entering the house, she was received by an elderly female, who immediately conducted her to a private room, which contained a bed and furniture of a neat but unostentatious description. The carriage drove away, and Julia remained several hours in the house. At about nine o'clock in the evening, the carriage returned, and she was assisted to enter, being apparently in a very ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... that they are just such a strange mixture of good and evil as men are every where else. There is not among them an approach to that constant stream of benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor which we have in England, nor yet the unostentatious attentions which we have among our own poor to each other. Yet there are frequent instances of genuine kindness and liberality, as well as actions of an opposite character. The rich show kindness to the poor in expectation of services, and a poor person who has no relatives ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... ring is given by the man immediately after the announcement of the engagement to the woman, who wears it on the third finger of her left hand. It should be a small and unostentatious one. Diamonds, rubies, moonstones, sapphires, and other precious stones ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... time, if he had come down to a wheelbarrow now! (Cries of "Toff!" and "Aristocrat!" from the more extreme Guys.) He did not understand those expressions of disapproval—a wheelbarrow with one leg missing was surely an unostentatious conveyance enough. Well, they had met that evening to discuss the means to be taken to obviate the depression in the important branch of out-door industry in which, if he did not mistake, they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... in the Fields. Miss Newcome, gorgeous of attire, supported by Tryphena in her very best, first marched proudly up the aisle, and then came the corporal, in full uniform, even to his stock, and adorned with medals and clasps which told of his warlike achievements, backed by Mr. Terry in an unostentatious suit of black broadcloth. Shortly before the close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesiastical manner, called the parties up, and put them through their catechism. The corporal answered with military precision ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... glance they were somewhat disappointed in the quiet, unostentatious general rooms. The suite assigned them—at a hundred and twenty francs a day—was comfortable, was the most comfortable assemblage of rooms either had ever seen. But there was nothing imposing. This impression did not last long, however. They had been misled ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... our professional connection disposed of, we both agreed that, as mammon was not our master, nor his service that in which we desired to spend our lives; as our desires were temperate, and our habits unostentatious, we had now abundance to live on—abundance to leave our boy; and should besides always have a balance on hand, which, properly managed by right sympathy and unselfish activity, might help philanthropy in her enterprises, and put solace ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... England. And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a little time his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished greatly two years before, and ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... one of the former sort, and Amy was another; so life had been a kind of poem to them since they married—not only harmonious and happy, but earnest, useful, and rich in the beautiful benevolence which can do so much when wealth and wisdom go hand in hand with charity. Their house was full of unostentatious beauty and comfort, and here the art-loving host and hostess attracted and entertained artists of all kinds. Laurie had music enough now, and was a generous patron to the class he most liked to help. Amy had her proteges among ambitious young painters and sculptors, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... in a Chelsea square of some repute, was small and unostentatious, but was painted a spotless white and possessed, even from the outside, an air of quiet and unassuming elegance. A trim maid-servant opened the door and ushered him into a drawing-room of grey and silver, with a little faded ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of diminishing gradually into what tailors call "a morning coat," or a morning coat which ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... of unostentatious means. Andrew lost him in Drury Lane and found him again in Piccadilly. He was generally alone, never twice with the same person. His business was scattered, or it was his pleasure that kept him busy. He struck the observer as ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... with grave dignity above the meaner crowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timid glances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone and impassive,—yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to have become royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remote dignity and the nearer civilized world acquired the status of ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... which the lesser nobility, the clergy, and the magistracy meet together, exerts a great influence. The judgment and mind of the region reside in that solid, unostentatious society, where each man knows the resources of his neighbor, where complete indifference is shown to luxury and dress,—pleasures which are thought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelve acres of pasture land,—a purchase coveted for years, which has probably given rise ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the floors in one of the buildings in one of the streets that slope precipitously from the Strand to the Thames Embankment, there is a door that would be all the better for a lick of paint, which bears what is perhaps the most modest and unostentatious announcement of its kind in London. The grimy ground-glass displays ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... its unostentatious front, and, at length, humbly adorning almost all the scattered villages of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... so much to him in later years. He entered Phillips Exeter Academy in the fall of 1887, and was graduated in 1890. Almost at once he achieved, utterly without effort, a popularity rare in its quality. Because of his relation with his schoolmates and his unostentatious way of looking after the welfare of others, he soon came to be known as Ma Newell, and this affectionate sobriquet not only clung to him through all the years at Exeter and Harvard, but followed him after graduation whithersoever ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... habits, similar in style to those already furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House, then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality. "Occasionally," adds the judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... quantity of other miscellaneous work inseparable from the conduct of a political movement in which crisis followed crisis with bewildering rapidity, were managed year after year from Mr. Bates's office in the Old Town Hall with a quiet, unostentatious efficiency which only those could appreciate who saw the machine at work and knew the master mechanic behind it. Of this efficiency the September demonstrations in 1912 ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... the rich from the poor in their camouflage, but the really rich in character are easily discernible, arrayed in modest garbs as unostentatious and serviceable as those of the nightingale or the thrush. Like all great people the melody of their lives eclipses their array until only the soul-thrilling memories of what they are or were remain to gladden the weary pilgrim on life's road. The indigo bunting is arrayed in ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... of human beings. She moved about the house with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity. Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she had a strong, controlling will, which all around her felt and acknowledged. From the moment she drew the fan from my hand, at my mother's bedside, to the hour I left her dwelling, she ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... it is a very plain plant, Makes no conspicuous show, But the internal appearance is lovely Of the unostentatious Potato. ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... No one will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house her home for months together,—ministered to its sick, miserable, and ignorant inmates,—put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as it fell on his pillow, the rude soldier kissed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... and unostentatious as the veery's does not appeal to the hurried or the preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased myself with imagining a resemblance between it and the poetry ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... bibliographer's copy of the Bibliotheque Francaise De La Croix du Maine, in six volumes, covered in like manner with ms. notes by the same hand. To a man of M. Barbier's keen literary appetite, this latter must prove an inexhaustible feast. I was shewn, in this same well-garnished, but unostentatious collection, GOUJET'S own catalogue of his own library. It is in six folio volumes; well written; with a ruled frame work round each page, and an ornamental frontispiece to the first volume. Every book in the catalogue has a note subjoined; ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of mechanics in the highest of terms. Women are employed in various capacities in nearly every line of work that was exhibited in this department, and Miss Gleason probably stands as an example of the real but unostentatious work of many women who understand the intricacies of machinery fully as well as men with the same ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Hawthorne have in common that tranquil and subdued manner which I have chosen to denominate repose; but, in the ease of the two former, this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an unambitious, unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before me the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong undercurrent ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... out. Lavish expenditure, and a too confiding faith in their native dependants has often brought the usual result. But many of my readers will associate with the name of Purneah or Bhaugulpore planter, recollections of hospitality and unostentatious kindness, and memories of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... was done under an affectation of sympathy that was deeply touching. Two constables kept order, but appeared to enjoy the fun. Now, in any other country but Ireland, and perhaps, indeed, we may also except Spain and France and Italy, a simple thing is done in a simple, unostentatious manner. That does not suit the genius of our people, which tries to throw around the simplest matter all the pomp and circumstance of a great event, and in the evolution thereof every man, woman, and child is supposed to ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... cherish his memory. Then he gave Potts his watch as a keepsake, and handed him forty dollars, with which he desired Mr. Potts to purchase a tombstone. He said he would prefer a plain one with his simple name cut upon it, and he wanted the funeral to be as unostentatious ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... general public relation to his country, what will strongly impress a close observer was his unostentatious, self-sacrificing, long-enduring devotion to his duty. He indulged in no recreations, he visited no public places seeking applause; but quietly, as the earth in its orbit, he was always at his post. Along our whole Indian frontier, ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... Genji, "they can never be so tall as to look over the blind. They must be standing on something within. But whose residence is it? What sort of people are they?" His equipage was strictly private and unostentatious. There were, of course, no outriders; hence he had no fear of being recognized by them. And so he still watched the house. The gate was also constructed of something like trellis-work, and stood half open, revealing ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... by Sam Spooner from Boston, who sat at his left, and with a gentle touch on the arm, reminded him in a careless whisper, that Citizen Peabody, although a very unostentatious man, was no democrat; nor was it certain the ladies would all be inclined to father ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Philanthropist has contributed to its relief and preservation. Of this we are very certain, the splendid and indefatigable Hero of Slaughter and Vain-glory did not traverse a more extensive field, nor expose himself more courageously to personal danger, than our meek and unostentatious Hero of Medical Benevolence. In point of true magnanimity, I apprehend the spirit of Caesar would very willingly confess, that his own celebrated attempts to reduce Gaul and Britain were low and little achievements, when compared to the unexampled efforts ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... Peabody was simple and unostentatious. He was scrupulously neat and tasteful, but there was nothing about him to indicate his vast wealth. He seldom wore any jewelry, using merely a black band for his watch-guard. Display of ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... and St. Donat's Castles, died November 28th, 1866, at Dimlands, in the 94th year of her age. Deceased could claim a Royal Welsh lineage, being the 34th in unbroken descent from Ynyr, King of Gwent and Dyfed. Her long life was distinguished by unostentatious acts of charity and ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... exceeding tact in confronting the prejudices of the King and the priesthood. He took no pains to conceal his birth and lineage in the most aristocratic country of the world. Considering that he was only second in power and dignity to an absolute monarch, his life was unostentatious and his habits simple. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... courtyard, lantern in hand, and let itself into the garage. Despite the dimness, I recognized Miss Falconer's chauffeur, the man she had addressed as Georges when they left the rue St. Dominique. The very link I needed, provided I could get into communication with him in some unostentatious way. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... will take it as a compliment when I say that Beck of Beckford (ALLEN AND UNWIN) should form part of the holiday equipment of all of us whose brows are not too exalted to enjoy it. In her unostentatious way Miss FRANCIS knows how to provide ample entertainment, and she has nothing to learn in point of form. When we are introduced to the Becks they are proud and poor, having impoverished themselves in the process of removing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... islands seem to resemble the early disciples of our dear Savior. Their simple and unostentatious piety, their firm, manly devotion to truth, and steady resistance to error, their willingness to leave all for Christ, reminds us of the disciples of Antioch and Rome, who perilled life and happiness to prove their devotion to the cross. ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... radical, but quiet and unostentatious about it. She looked on me and Hildreth as ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the greater number, there would be no disposition to interfere. Of Christianity, the common judgment in that body, and among those in the capital who are of the same general rank, is for the most part favorable. It is commended for its modesty, for the quiet and unostentatious manner in which its religious affairs are managed, and for the humble diligence with which it concerns itself with the common people and the poor, carefully instructing them in the doctrines of their religion, and relieving liberally their necessities. I am ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... nightfall, and the people who had tickets to view the Fisherman's Palace passed in a steady and orderly procession over the broad deck; through the smart main ward with its polished oak floor; through the operating-room, and through the comfortable, unostentatious club-room, which had been designed by Lewis Ferrier. Robert Cassall was silently ecstatic now that the pinch of his work was over; and he had good reason to be proud, for no prettier or more serviceable piece of work was ever bought ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Round a camp-fire one will hear tales of Africa, New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, America from Alaska to the Horn, Madagascar, and other strange countries that would be a mine of information to a writer of books of adventure—tales told in the main with truth and accuracy, and in the quiet, unostentatious manner of the habitual digger to whom poverty, riches, and hardships come all in their turn as a matter ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... hold among poets, just as we behold a "lily of the field" without comparing it with other flowers, but satisfied with its own pure and simple loveliness; or each separate poem may be likened, in its unostentatious—unambitious—unconscious beauty—to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... miles in the interior, and constantly crowd his yard. There they sit, in almost perfect silence, receiving their goods, and making payment in gold-dust and ivory. Towards us Mr. Bannerman showed himself most hospitable, yet in a perfectly unostentatious manner. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... of quiet and unostentatious enjoyment, there were, besides the ordinary rubs and ruffles which disturb even the most uniform life, two things which particularly chequered Mrs. Butler's happiness. "Without these," she said to our informer, "her life would have been but too happy; and perhaps," she added, "she had need of some ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... children were occupied with the preceding conversation, Col. Malcome had donned his fur-lined overcoat and stepped across the yard to Deacon Allen's cottage. The good people were quite embarrassed to behold so smart a visitor in their unostentatious little parlor, but the colonel, by his gentlemanly grace, soon placed them at their ease. After a few moments' conversation on general topics, he asked, casually enough, who was the owner of the fine mansion he had noticed in his rambles ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... coat round the arm of the chair, which formed a very comfortable sofa; and these two men stood for an hour and a half, to give me the advantage of it, apparently without any idea that they were performing a deed of kindness. I met continually with these acts of hearty unostentatious good nature. I mention these in justice to the lower classes of the United States, whose rugged exteriors and uncouth vernacular render them ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... House, seventeen miles on the way to Richmond. Detachments of a Vermont and a New York cavalry regiment composed the reconnoitring party, and the whole was commanded by Gen. Crawford, a clever and unostentatious soldier. We bivouacked that night near Raccoon Ford, on the river Rapidan. No fires were built; for we knew that the enemy was all around us, and we slept coldly and imperfectly till the gray of Sunday morning. At daylight we galloped into the main street of Orange Court House, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... lawyer, a great statesman, a great debater, and a great writer. 2. By their valor, by their policy, and by their matrimonial alliances, they became powerful. 3. Samuel Adams's habits were simple and frugal and unostentatious. 4. Flowers are so fragile, so delicate, and so ornamental! 5. They are truly prosperous and truly happy. 6. The means used were persuasions and petitions and remonstrances and resolutions and defiance. 7. Carthage was the mistress of oceans, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... Mrs. Drury, upsetting all her arrangements, implying that it had been presumptuous to exert any authority without relationship. It did seem hard that the claims of kindred should be only recollected in order to unsettle her plans, and offend her unostentatious tastes. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a few days afterwards, similar demonstrations of respect awaited them; and they continued to live in the neighbourhood, greatly esteemed and beloved by all who knew them—esteemed for their many virtues, and beloved for their simple and unostentatious manners. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... it proper that their understandings should enjoy a holiday, while they are unbending their minds with verse, it may be expected that such Readers will resemble their former selves also in strength of prejudice, and an inaptitude to be moved by the unostentatious beauties of a pure style. In the higher poetry, an enlightened Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the wisdom of the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wherever these appear, simplicity accompanies them, Magnificence herself, when legitimate, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... There was nothing professorial about his appearance, except his great spectacles, through which he gazed benignly at the luxuriant growth of plants, as he advanced, his hands in the pockets of his plaid shooting-coat. He was dressed as any other man might be in the country; he had selected an unostentatious plaid for the material of his clothes, and he wore a colored tie, which just showed beneath the wave of his thick beard. He trod slowly but firmly, putting his feet down as though prepared to prove his right to the ground he ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... served again to start visions of a simplicity essentially Cromwell-like, of sturdy plainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously through the world. This day there had predominated a fine leisurely person immaculately clothed, and riding on an unexceptional machine, a mysterious person—quite unostentatious, but with accidental self-revelation of something over the common, even a "bloomin' Dook," it might be incognito, on the tour ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... city was quiet and unostentatious and so devoid of the pomp and pageantry of a victorious general as to cause question in the minds of some as to whether or not this was the man expected. His dress was plain in the extreme, and bore upon it no insignia of rank; yet those there were, of insight, who saw in his every aspect ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit. The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... middle of the covert, came to the riders assembled at the cross roads on the outskirts of the wood in gusts, fitful indeed, but not so fitful that Nora, on the distrained foxy mare, was not able to gauge to a nicety the state of his temper. From the fact of her unostentatious position in the rear it might safely be concluded that it, like the wind, was still rising. The riders huddled together in the lee of the trees, their various elements fused in the crucible of Sir Thomas's wrath into a compact and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... charge of an extremely amiable and ineffectual poor army-class young woman whose name I never knew. They were, I think, two remarkably illmanaged and enterprising children. I seem to remember too, that it was understood that I was not a fit companion for them, and that our meetings had to be as unostentatious as possible. It was Beatrice who insisted upon ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of old-world traditions and colonial antecedents. So, when Miss Frere was invited to one of the best houses in the city to spend the evening, she was not surprised to find only a moderate little company assembled, and dresses and appointments on an easy and unostentatious footing, which now is nearly unheard of. There was elegance enough, however, both in the dresses and persons of many of those present; and Betty was quite in her element, finding herself as usual surrounded by attentive and admiring ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... women workers was not confined to public advocacy; it showed itself in unostentatious and unremitting help to those who worked with him or came to him for advice. Such advice was not confined to large questions of policy: he spent himself as faithfully on the smallest points of detail which made for the efficiency of the work. His knowledge furnished "briefs" ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... act of unnecessary cruelty when that strife was over, and the victory was won. He had not bound his victim till the new flight of that victim had compelled him; nor had he spoken even one harsh word to him. He had captured him fairly and bravely too, and in the most quiet and unostentatious manner had handed him over to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... of S. David's, a learned, pious, and unostentatious man. He left L200 in his will to the poor of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... came to Rose when she was ready for it, and showed her what a noble profession philanthropy is, made her glad of her choice, and helped fit her for a long life full of the loving labor and sweet satisfaction unostentatious charity brings to those who ask no reward and are content ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... was a simple thing, an unostentatious remembrance; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions. Rodney loyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business, but every spire and frond and leaf of green in this winter wreath shed off the secret, magnetic meaning ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Unostentatious as was this greeting, 'Lena felt that there was more sincerity in it than all that had gone before, and the tears gushed forth involuntarily. Mentally styling her, the one "a baby," and the other "a fool," Mrs. Livingstone and Carrie returned to the parlor, while Mrs. Graham, calling a servant, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... despite their immense wealth and their political importance, were simple, unostentatious people, who seemed to devote most of their thoughts to their children, their garden, their dwarf trees, and their breed of cocker spaniels. They took their social duties lightly, though their home was a Mecca for needy relatives on the search for jobs. They gave ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... 'Royal Court,' was held on the morning of the 17th of February: a grander gathering, it was said, than even the great one held by Lord Canning in 1859. The scene was one of remarkable splendour—a splendour alien to the simple and unostentatious tastes and habits of the chief actor in it, but which he knew how to use with effect when taking his place as Suzerain in an Assembly of Princes. To aid us in conceiving it, we must have recourse to the picture sketched at the time in one of ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... a trying situation for us—very trying. There seemed to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after the end ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... fashionable is peculiar and characteristic. From the toe of his boot to the crown of his hat, there is that unostentatious, undefinable something about him distinctive of his social position. Professional men, every body knows, have an expression common to their profession. A purblind cyclops could never mistake the expression of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... at Trinity College, Dublin, taking honours; and was ordained Deacon in 1847, and Priest in 1848. He remained as Second Master for some years at the Grammar School, being much esteemed among neighbouring clergy for his unostentatious manners and general worth. He frequently officiated in the Parish Church. Eventually he went to Chester, as Curate of St. John's Church in that city, where he remained many years, taking pupils. There was probably a talismanic attraction in the name of Grosvenor; Eaton Hall, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... man, that Father Philip, by the way," he went on, looking round the table. "In his quiet, unostentatious way, in his little room up there in the old house of Our Lady of Rest, as they used to call it, he has done more real work for the Church than, I am afraid, a good many of us have done with all our ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... once, in Massachusetts, a public institution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and mortar; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, that any future additions will tend to make this spot a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, inflame local or state pride, but can never be an effectual, economical agency ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... of Mr. Hyams, found herself left to the same invaluable assistant, and, realizing her failure, would at once become cheerful and take what was offered. Mr. Hyams' methods of business were quiet and unostentatious, and rumor had it that he might retire at any time ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... economic hopes. The action of the Recess Committee will be explained, and the concession of their demand by the establishment of a 'Department of Agriculture and other rural industries and for Technical Instruction for Ireland,' will be described. This will complete the story of a quiet, unostentatious movement which will some day be seen to have made the last decade of the nineteenth century a fit prelude to a future commensurate with the potentialities ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... confirmed celibate. His home life was a model of order and decorum, his home as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring. An elder sister presided at his board, as simple, kindly and unostentatious, but as methodical as himself. He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also of horses and dogs and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... easy to ridicule what they did not always understand, and very rarely met with. But men of far higher genius than this monarch, Selden, Usher, and Milton, must first be condemned before this odium of pedantry can attach itself to the plain and unostentatious writings of James I., who, it is remarkable, has not scattered in them those oratorical periods, and elaborate fancies, which he indulged in his speeches and proclamations. These loud accusers of the pedantry of James ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to be martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a simple duty and nothing ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... well as we had begun. I do not say that Miss Belsize was in a bad temper, but emphatically she was not pleased, and I for one had the utmost sympathy with her displeasure. She was simply but exquisitely dressed, with unostentatious touches of Cambridge blue and a picture hat that really was a picture. Yet on a perfect stranger in a humid rockery she was wasting what had been meant for mankind at Lord's. The only consolation I could suggest was that by this time Lord's ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... occasion arose a case of pretended "tuft-hunting," which I, who stood by a silent observer, could not but feel to involve a malicious calumny. Naturally it happened that coroneted carriages, superb horses, and numerous servants, in a town so unostentatious and homely as the Manchester of that day, drew the public gaze, and effectually advertised the visit of the Laxton ladies. Respect for the motive which had prompted this visit coperated with admiration for the distinguished personal qualities of Lady Carbery, to draw upon her from ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... calmness and intrepidity of a martyr this reverend and learned prelate, maligned indeed by the fanatics of his own and succeeding ages, but reverenced and beloved by those who best knew his innate worth, unostentatious charity, and pure piety of soul. In the words of a worthy Presbyterian divine of last century,—"His inveterate enemies are agreed in ascribing to him the high praise of a beneficent and humane disposition. He bestowed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... already wealthy enough; but then such liberal gifts are heralded in the newspapers, and his name is blazoned forth as the great philanthropist; and—it really is so troublesome to give to the suffering poor; besides, the world seldom hears of deeds of unostentatious charity. Now, we are one of those plain people who like to look at things in the light of common reason, without regard to high-sounding titles, or lofty associations; and it is our unpretending opinion that the God of ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... men and women are to be found who exhibit a fervent piety and a zeal for religion which render them worthy of being named after the Annas, the Aquilas and the Priscillas of the New Testament. They attract not indeed the admiration of the public, because true piety is unostentatious and seeks a "life hidden ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... must be confessed, that when the circumstances are taken into consideration, which have already been detailed, when Lander first visited the Eboe country, his conduct was not exactly regulated by prudence or policy, in proceeding towards a country, not in the simple guise and unostentatious manner of the solitary traveller, but attended by a force sufficient to excite the fears and jealousy of the native chiefs, and to instil into their suspicious minds the belief, that the travellers, whom they had formerly seen in their country, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... precincts of St. James's and the unostentatious environs of St. Martin's church being very short, in less than half an hour the count's messenger returned with the wished-for reply. It was with pain that he opened it, for he saw, by the state of the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... He expressed his conviction that the wide-spread poverty of the bishops is caused by their being required to maintain "venerable but costly palaces." He says that he and many of his fellow-churchmen would prefer to lead plain and unostentatious lives, but they are not allowed to do so; that they would much prefer to devote a portion of their income to charity and other worthy purposes rather than to be compelled to spend it in useless ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... hand and foot and in all honour to the service of his Sovereign, and that no family or private ties must stand between him and any duty that service may call on him to perform. On the other hand, without relinquishing this principle, it is often possible, by a little tactful and unostentatious redistribution of troops, to avoid placing a soldier in so unenviable a position as taking part in an attack on his own home. Sometimes, however, this is impossible, as in the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... the 4th, the following occurrences, in the house of commons, marked at once the estimation in which Sir Robert was held by public men, and his own singular and unostentatious character. Lord John Russell introduced to the house the circumstance of the honourable baronet's decease, and said:—"It is impossible not to lament that hereafter this house will be no longer guided by that long and large experience of public affairs, by that profound knowledge, by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with drugget pinned down with highly-polished brass rods. Nowhere were there any flowers or mirrors to be seen. The salon, too, with its polished floor, which I traversed on my way to the drawing-room, was decorated in the same cold, severe, unostentatious style. Everything in it looked bright and solid, but not new, and pictures, flower-stands, and articles of bric-a-brac were wholly absent. In the drawing-room I found some of the young princesses seated, but seated with the sort of correct, "company" ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... can be explored at a very slight expense. The exiled prince, with his companions, travelled in the most unostentatious manner. He felt quite secure in his wanderings, as but few of the emigrants had penetrated those distant regions. From Copenhagen he passed to Elsineur, visiting all objects of historic interest. Crossing the Sound at ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... charmed by Filomena's grace and beauty, that at the end of three days' courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less joyfully than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the English ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it proved, to a life of ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... him through the shop, up stairs, into the private part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest adventures I ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of village business. The two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir for ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the congregation. At first we were not a little disturbed by the irregularity, and the clergymen who leaned over the pulpit to listen looked as if they would have said, "This must be put a stop to"; but the prayer, which was short, went on, so simple, so sincere, so evidently unostentatious and indeed beautiful, so in hearty sympathy with the occasion, and in desire for a blessing on it, that when it closed, all said, "Amen! Amen!" It was a pretty remarkable conquest over prejudice and usage, achieved ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... out with that unostentatious simplicity which characterized the brother and sister, and was their secure claim to perfect equality with their entertainers, that Jim, on discovering his sister's absence, and fearing that she might be carried by the current towards the bar, had actually SWUM THE ESTUARY to Indian Island, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... these expenses, he was as careful to avoid extravagance as if his private purse had to be drawn upon to pay. In New York he lived frugally,[30] and he resolved to continue, in Philadelphia, the same unostentatious way of living, not only on his own account, but for the benefit of those connected with the government who could not afford to spend more than their salaries. His example had a most salutary effect. An illustrative case may be cited. When Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, was appointed ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... well enough that unostentatious immodesty is no part of your partner's programme. Of course, you will find yourself by-and-bye in a sort of perpetual parade ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... regard him merely as a man of business; others, as a politician; all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom. Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character, which gives the nameless grace to real excellence, may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know that true worth is always void of glare and pretension. But the man of letters, who speaks of Liverpool, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... had accumulated about $20,000 worth of property. He had a neat and comfortably furnished home, presided over by his wife, an intelligent woman of color, who was often seen driving with him in his own unostentatious carriage. He was sought by the wealthiest people of the city whom he lavishly entertained at his home, doing them the honor of waiting on them in person himself, although he had a number of slaves who could ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... were made in the most unostentatious way, largely to look over the ground and see what he could pick up for America. His first offices in Henrietta Street were very modest rooms. Unpretentious as they were, they represented a somewhat ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... were miserably tired and worn—but we were posted. Yes, it is fair to claim that. In fact, erudition is a pale name for it. New Zealand was the only subject; and it was just beautiful to hear us ripple it out. And with such an air of unembarrassed ease, and unostentatious familiarity with detail, and trained and seasoned mastery of the subject-and oh, the grace ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and sent Rousseau to attics and solitudes,—so that, in his humble but pleasant home, with his young wife, with whom he lived amicably, he could see his friends, the great men of the age, and bestow an unostentatious charity, and maintain his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... poetic contrivance!—we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches—soils no satin paper—vows no vows—no, he is above such humbug. His motto is evidently deeds, not words. And what does he do? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... was one of those friends who are never anxious as to what they may get in return for what they give, feeling sure that they will in their turn get more than they give. Most of his friends felt for him that deeply-seated respect which is inspired by unostentatious virtue, and many of them dreaded his censure. But Horace made no pedantic display of his qualities. He was neither a puritan nor a preacher; he could swear with a grace as he gave his advice, and was always ready for ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... oppression everywhere, and many a man whose fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice has writhed under his terrific indignation and rebukes. He was the most simple and unostentatious of men in his habits, having few wants, and those easily supplied. To his honor be it said that he never took from a client, even when his cause was gained, more than he thought the services were worth and the client could reasonably afford to pay. The people ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... there is nothing insular or narrow about it. It is informal, nonchalant, tolerant, sanguine, adaptive, patient, candid, puts up with things, unfastidious, unmindful of particulars; disposed to take short cuts, friendly, hospitable, unostentatious, inclined to exaggerate, generous, unrefined,—never meddlesome, never hypercritical, never hoggish, never exclusive. Whitman shared the hopeful optimistic temperament of his countrymen, the faith and confidence ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... His funeral was unostentatious but the attendance was very great. He was laid in the Abbey of Dryburgh, by the side of his wife, in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... supplemented the other: military and naval efficiency on the one hand and pacific interpenetration on the other. The former has been often and adequately described; the latter has not yet attracted the degree of attention it merits. For one thing, it was unostentatious and invariably tinged with the colour of legitimate trade and industry. Practically every country in Europe, and many lands beyond the seas, were covered with networks of economic relations which, without being always ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon |
