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More "Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coughed. That us overwhelmed her. With what calmness this boy that she had not known an hour proposed to share the dangers of a situation that excited general pity but from which the bravest kept aloof either from ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... that I must be very discreet about giving Alathea presents, or she will be resentful and even suspect that my bargain is not entirely a business one. I am afraid I seemed a little too pleased at our interview; I must be indifferently aloof on Friday. ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... unforced. Olva had discovered also that Craven's devotion to his mother and sister was the boy's leading motive in life. Olva had only seen the girl, Margaret, once; she had been finishing her education in Dresden, and he remembered her as dark, reserved, aloof—opposite indeed from her brother's cheerful good-fellowship. But for Rupert Craven this girl was his world; she was obviously cleverer, more temperamental than he, and he felt this ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... to all coldly. There was a canker in her heart, and no one who saw that calm, beautiful face of hers dreamed how deeply the canker was eating. There were two men who held aloof from compliments and flattery. On the face of one rested a moody scowl; on the other, agony and remorse. These two men were Colonel Mollendorf and Lord Fitzgerald. The same thought occupied each mind; the scene in the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... to be done? Well, of course, there is only one way of abstaining, and that is, to abstain. But there are a great many different ways of abstaining. Light is not fire. And the more that Christian people feel themselves bound to stand aloof from common evils, the more are they bound to see that they do it in the spirit of the Master, which is meekness. It is always an invidious position to take up. And if we take it up with any heat and temper, with any ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... a poet: poets, with reverence be it spoken, do not make the best parents. Fancy and imagination seldom deign to stoop from their heights; always stoop unwillingly to the low level of common duties. Aloof from vulgar life, they pursue their rapid flight beyond the ken of mortals, and descend not to earth but when compelled by necessity. The prose of ordinary occurrences is beneath the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the United States squadron in these seas; much good was done in preventing new acts of piracy; but these wretches kept aloof and did not venture to sea as formerly, but some ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... at the same time have disposed them for war. The invasion of their country by two powerful armies from Kentucky, could leave no doubt of a disposition equally hostile on her part Congress, utterly destitute of the means for enforcing the treaties, either on the one side or the other, stood aloof, ruminating on the inexhaustible abundance of her own want of resources—and the abuse of herself ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... taciturnity increased as the brig got more and more south; he often mounted the poop, and there with folded arms, and eyes lost in vacancy, he stood for hours. His orders, when he gave any, were curt and rough. Shandon kept a cold silence, and kept himself so much aloof by degrees that at last he had no relations with Hatteras except those exacted by the service; James Wall remained devoted to Shandon, and regulated his conduct accordingly. The remainder of the crew waited for something to turn up, ready to take any advantage in their own interest. There ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... appearance in the Yard was a signal for a subdued hilarity. He drank and gambled with the roysterers; he babbled a cheap philosophy with the erudite; and he sold the necks of all to the highest bidder. Though now and again he was convicted of mercy or revenge, he commonly held himself aloof from human passions, and pursued the one sane end of life in an easy security. The hostility of his colleagues irked him but little. A few tags of Latin, the friendship of Moll, and a casual threat of exposure frightened ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... little group. 'Ah, your brother, Ernest!' said Max Schurz, drawing himself up a little more stiffly; 'he has found the light already, I believe, but he neglects it; still he is not with us, and he that is not with us is against us. You hold aloof always, Mr. Herbert, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... immediate and brutal success, its army of collaborators, to which one must submit, from the imposing leading man down to the prompter. How much more independent are we in the novel! And that's why, when the glamor of the footlights makes the blood dance, we prefer to exercise it by keeping aloof and to remain the absolute masters of our works. In the theater we are asked to submit to ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... Hodden held somewhat aloof from his fellow-passengers; but, finding perhaps that there was no general desire to intrude upon him, he condescended to become genial to a select few. He walked the deck alone, picturesquely attired. He was a man who paid considerable attention to his personal appearance. As ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... and laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be debased by association with this caterwauling wood and wire, this sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice of sick lovers leaning ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... serving as a cabin and dining apartment. There is no professed distinction of class in the passengers on board steam-boats in America. I found, however, that the higher grades, doubtless from the same causes that operate in other parts of the world, kept aloof ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... why he always kept a kihei, or mantle, on his shoulders; and for such a handsomely shaped, athletic young man, it was indeed a matter of wonder and speculation, considering the usual attire of the youth of those days. He also kept aloof from all the games and pastimes of the young people, for fear that the wind or some active movement might displace the kapa mantle, and the shark-mouth be ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... village. In his quiet unobtrusive fashion he had watched her closely when they encountered the man whom she introduced as her cousin; and he had fancied that her manner underwent a curious change when Marston Greyle came on the scene—she had seemed to become constrained, chilled, distant, aloof—not with the stranger, himself, but with her kinsman. This fancy had become assurance during the conversation which had abruptly ended when Greyle took offence at Stafford's brusque remark. Copplestone had seen a ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... his courage hot his foes to find: The King to fair Clorinda present spake; "If he go forth, remain not you behind, But of our soldiers best a thousand take, To guard his person and your own assigned; Yet let him meet alone the Christian knight, And stand yourself aloof, while they two fight." ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... paths, and presently I mentioned you and Colonel Rizzio among the interesting people I had met. He declared you were a true gentleman—spoke feelingly—a stranger at The Pleiad, though not to the Island. I explained how you had kept aloof on the ship coming down, how you seemed to be the prey of some devouring grief.... All that I said, he regarded with that terribly bright attention of his. It made me think of a pack of hounds tossing and tearing at a morsel, the way his faculties caught my sentences, hounds ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... brother was waiting! He didn't want any supper, he had something at the Cross Roads with the others. Yes! WHISKEY, if he wanted to know. People couldn't keep coffee and temperance drinks just to please him and his brother, and he wasn't goin' to insult the others by standing aloof. Anyhow, he had never taken the pledge, and as long as he hadn't he couldn't see why he should refuse a single glass. As it was, everybody said he was a milksop, and a tender-foot, and he was ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Germans, beaten back from Paris, vainly pounded the allied lines on the Yser; the Russians, after forcing their path through Galicia, defended Warsaw with desperation; while Wilson kept himself and his country strictly aloof from ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... a mere looker on in Europe, and hold myself as much as possible aloof from its quarrels and prejudices, I feel something like one overlooking a game, who, without any great skill of his own, can occasionally perceive the blunders of much abler players. This neutrality of feeling ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... it stood aloof. Before the nomination it was, naturally enough, looking out for some one who might be urged as a suitable competitor for Mr. Lincoln's place. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was then quite popular with a good many people ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... again, during the space of forty years, had found him "always reverent, hating all levity or flippancy," and was struck by his possessing "the noblest humility I have ever known." Lord Macaulay, who "had stood absolutely aloof," once having been permitted to glance at the proof-sheets of Guenevere, was "absolutely subdued" to "unfeigned and reverent admiration." The duke was the glad emissary who was "the medium of introduction," and he recognised in Macaulay's ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... be said that the bearers of the noblest names in the land flocked at first to the offices of Messrs. Gray and Graham. In fact the reverse, in the beginning, was the case. Members even of the more learned professions held aloof: indeed barristers and physicians never became eager clients. On the other hand, Messrs. Gray and Graham received many letters in such handwritings, such grammar, and such orthography, that they burned them ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... of the English, collected a great army, and led it to Legcaster, and there fought against the Britons, and made the greatest slaughter of the faithless people. While he was beginning the battle, King Ethelfrith saw their priests and bishops and monks standing aloof in a safer place, that they should pray and make intercession to God for their warriors: he inquired and asked what that host was, and what they were doing there. When he understood the cause of their coming, then said he, "So! ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... by various Names, And various Idols through the Heathen World. Say, Muse, their Names then known, who first, who last, Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery Couch, At thir great Emperors call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof? 380 The chief were those who from the Pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their Seats long after next the Seat of God, Their Altars by his Altar, Gods ador'd Among the Nations round, and durst abide ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... have given time to the vineyard, but nothing at all of myself. I held myself aloof and apart while Duty, like a stern taskmaster, urged me to the things I hated, merely to please Mother, who had done so much for me that she had the right to ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... that had so often led to triumph. Again they drifted apart, and Sullivan turned once more to his old friend, Sir Frank Burnand. Together they produced 'The Chieftain' (1894), a revised and enlarged version of their early indiscretion, 'The Contrabandista.' Success still held aloof, and for the last time Sullivan and Mr. Gilbert joined forces. In 'The Grand Duke' (1896) there were fitful gleams of the old splendour, notably in an amazing sham—Greek chorus, which no one but Sullivan could have written, but the ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Elfrida. She was both fair and wealthy, the sweetest of women, and of royal blood by her mother's side. So soon as her eyes fell on Eric she loved him, and no one thing did she desire more than to be his wife. But Brighteyes kept aloof from her, for he loved Gudruda alone; and so the winter wore away, and in the spring he went away warring, nor did he come back ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... informal way the "Captain Gething Search Company" was founded, and the syndicate, thinking that they had a good thing, began to hold aloof from their fellows, and to confer darkly in remote corners. They expended a shilling on a popular detective story entitled, "On the Trail," and an element of adventure was imported into their lives which brightened ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... pointed out to her charge that other Americans at Bellagio seemed far from approving her conduct. American ladies of a very different class, who were staying at the hotel, held aloof from her, and treated her with marked coldness whenever they met; declaring that her manners would be as objectionable in her own country, in good society, as they ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a source of astonishment to all. These healthy, happy, handsome young people, the babies that had been cast away or despised—it was wonderful! They gazed upon them in a kind of awe. A few of the older and women held aloof from the twins, but not in any offensive way, and the general disposition was to ignore the stain ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... of time. Those have been greatest in thought who have been best endowed with faith, hope, sympathy, and the spirit of effort. And next to them come the great stern, mournful men, like Tacitus, Dante, Pascal, who, standing as far aloof from the soft poetic dejection of some of the moods of Shelley or Keats as from the savage fury of Swift, watch with a prophet's indignation the heedless waste of faculty and opportunity, the triumph of paltry motive and paltry aim, as if we were the flies ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... interested in Miss Walton as in what she was saying, and when her words proved that she was a thoughtful woman, and could be the intelligent companion of any man, the distracting fear grew stronger that when she came to know him well, she would coldly stand aloof. The very thought was unendurable. In all the world, only in the direction of Annie Walton seemed there any light for him. So to gain time he instinctively sought to give a less serious turn to the conversation, by saying, "Come, Miss Walton, this is the best preaching ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... literally, Theresa," he explained; and I, who a moment before had almost touched him, now held myself aloof and heard him with a strange untried pity, new born in me. "I'm not speaking of what you call—spirits. It's something much more terrible." He allowed his head to sink heavily on his chest. "If I did not positively ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... during the last days of Turkish occupation, while the English advance was still halted before Gaza, and heroically enduring the slow death of desert warfare. There were German and Austrian elements present in the garrison with the Turks, though the three allies seem to have held strangely aloof from each other. In the Austrian group there was an Austrian lady, "who had some dignity or other," like Lord Lundy's grandmother. She was very beautiful, very fashionable, somewhat frivolous, but with fits of Catholic devotion. She had some very valuable ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... officers walked hastily away. Others hung aloof, shaking their heads. Lieutenant Trent led about a dozen men who pressed around Dave ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... walked side by side, like two champions in amiable confab before a friendly battle, intimately aloof from the gaping crowd which follows on the flanks ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... great humourist, without any very near relations, who had been a godson of Mr. Temple's grandfather. He had never invited or encouraged any intimacy or connection with the Temple family, but had always throughout life kept himself aloof from any acquaintance with them. Mr. Temple indeed had only seen him once, but certainly under rather advantageous circumstances. It was when Mr. Temple was minister at the German Court, to which we have alluded, that Sir ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Epistles, to the revelations of the dreamer of Patmos, but to so many learned doctors of the faith that it would take a week merely to enumerate the titles of their works all bearing on the mysterious subject. Our Holy Mother the Church has held aloof from any doctrinal pronouncements. The Antichrist has been predicted for the past thousand years. I recall as a boy poring over the map of the world which a friend of my mother had left with her. This lady my father called 'the angel with the moulting wings,' because she was always in an ecstatic ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... pleasant to be cuddled by this friendly baby, and Jan laid her cheek against the fluffy golden head; but all the time she was watching Tony. He reminded her of someone, and she couldn't think who. He maintained his aloof and unfriendly attitude till Ayah came to take the children to their second breakfast. Little Fay, however, refused to budge, and when the meekly salaaming ayah attempted to take her, made her strong little body stiff, ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... garb Flutters before his face, The cleaver dints his little roof Of furrowed wood; remote, aloof He sits superb and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... greater, which clings to us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners in the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection and indulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of his father's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip had been, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the woman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in his life,—his relation as a son,—was like ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... head on the table. While this was proceeding, I was conscious of that dual individuality of which I have already spoken, since while one part of me gave way, and could not resist, the other part in some extraordinary sense seemed standing aloof, much impressed. I was alone with my Father when this crisis suddenly occurred, and I was interested to see that he was greatly alarmed. It was a very long time since we had spent a day out of London, and ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the Ideal realm, aloof and far, Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are, Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan. Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows— Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows The brave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... gentlemen, some in military, some in fashionable civil attire, strolled up towards the crowd, but stood somewhat aloof and outside of it. The market people pressed closer and closer round the platform, listening with mouths open and eager eyes to the sermon, storing it away in their retentive memories, which would reproduce every word of it when they sat round the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of Anne's reign, a well-dressed horseman rode furiously down the Queen's Road, loudly proclaiming her Majesty's demise. The hoax answered, the funds falling with ominous alacrity; but it was observed, that while the Christian jobbers kept aloof, Sir Manasseh Lopez and the Hebrew brokers bought readily at the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... soul into the Supreme Soul. Standing like a stake of wood, and abstaining from all food he does only such acts as point to Emancipation. Or, he may wander about, devoted to Yoga. Even these are the eternal duties of a follower of the Religion of Nivritti. He lives aloof from his species. He is freed from all attachments. He never resides in the same place for more than a day. Freed from all bonds he roves over the world. Emancipated from all ties, he never sleeps on even the same river-bank for more than a day. Even this is the religion ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... evident to the world. Why should I rush for help to a new course, when I was only suffering from the consequences of a deed which had been the act of my intensest will? That would have been the logic of one who had desires to gratify, and I had no desires. But Bertha and I lived more and more aloof from each other. The rich find it easy to live ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... end of the year, with the hand of winter again pressed firmly upon the land, it seemed time could do no more; that the adaptation of the exotic to his new surroundings was complete. Already the past life seemed a thing interesting but aloof from reality, like the fantastic exploits of a hero of fiction, and the present, the insistently active, vital present, the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... do not like the trouble of seeing the men paid either for their wood or their labour; and their head servants of the kitchen or the wardrobe weary and worry them out of their best resolutions on the subject. They make the poor men sit aloof by telling them that their master is a tiger before breakfast, and will eat them if they approach; and they tell their masters that there is no hope of getting the poor men to come for their money till they have bathed or taken their breakfast. The latter wait in hopes that the gentleman will ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... tasks in the lonely forests; that he knew all the roughness, all the hardships, all the adventure, all the variety of the common life of that day; and that if he stood a little stiffly in this place, if he looked a little aloof, it was because life had dealt hardly with him? All his sinews had been stiffened by the rough work of making America. He was a man of the people, whose touch had been with them since the day he saw the light first in the old Dominion of Virginia. And the men who came after him, men, some of whom ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... very great daring and enterprising courage, whose good fortune is continually marred by such persuasions, that he keep himself close surrounded by his friends, that he must not hearken to any reconciliation with his ancient enemies, that he must stand aloof, and not trust his person in hands stronger than his own, what promises or offers soever they may make him, or what advantages soever he may see before him. And I know another, who has unexpectedly advanced his fortunes by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... friend politely to understand that I did not care for such pretty endearments; and, soon comprehending the force of my objection, he very sensibly desisted from bestowing further attention upon me, and thenceforth kept his handsome person reasonably aloof. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... himself. However, that and every thing else is unsettled, and Mr. Fox is to take nothing till the Inquiries are over. The Duke of Devonshire remains in the treasury, declaring that it is only for a short time, and till they can fix on somebody else. The Duke of Newcastle keeps aloof, professing no connexion with Mr. Pitt; Lord Hardwicke is gone into the country for a fortnight. The stocks fall, the foreign ministers stare; Leicester-house is going to be very angry, and I fear we are going into great confusion. As I wish Mr. Fox ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... aloof, as is his custom. He does not follow the fashion of his fellows; he resists the allurements of the nesting month; he waits. Whether it be for a late-coming insect necessary to the welfare of his nestlings, or for the thistle silk which ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... wrinkles, radiating out and downward from her high-peaked crown. Just once the noble head was lowered—as that of an ancient Greek philosopher to an inquisitive child—and the crimson-hawed eyes directed downward as, in a calm, aloof spirit of investigation, the Lady Desdemona took note of the fussy movements of ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... play of the other children, the young captive would stand aloof, and regard their sports with a vacant eye, or, drawing near to the palisadoes, he often passed hours in gazing wistfully at those endless forests in which he first drew breath, and which probably contained all that was most prized in the estimation of his simple judgment. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... all those who belonged to the Craft—according to the custom of the time, they all lived in the same quarter and were well known to each other—were persuaded or compelled to belong to the Guild. Here religion stepped in, for every Guild had its own patron saint, and if a craftsman stood aloof, he lost the protection and incurred the displeasure of that saint, so that, apart from considerations of the common weal, terror of how the offended saint might punish the blackleg forced men to join. Thus, St. George protected the armourers; ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... once more. Poor Mrs. Aliston, sitting aloof, and almost abandoned during the days of her niece's perturbation of mind, was the first to receive the benefit of the returning sunshine. Constance, for reasons which any woman can guess, had kept her anxiety, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... when questioned, declared that he had no will in his possession. At this time he kept aloof from the house and showed no disposition to meddle with the affairs of the family. Indeed, all through these trying days he behaved honestly, if not with high feeling. In recounting the doings of ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... he was in driving them away from his Republic. Sophocles was appointed a general at Athens for having written a good tragedy, and so novelists, dramatists, critics and makers of puns devoted themselves to making laws. George Sand was too much a woman of her times to keep aloof from such a movement. We shall now have to study her in her ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... been the only safeguard for him; but aside from the fact that his reputation of reckless huntsman and general scapegrace naturally kept aloof the daughters of the nobles, and even the Langarian middle classes, he dreaded more than anything else in the world the monotonous regularity of conjugal life. He did not care to be restricted always to the same dishes—preferring, as he said, his meat ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... but dropt down her head until her hair made a veil before her face, and moved that foot whereon he had set her shoe, gently back and forth as though the leather was stiff to her ankle, and I saw that she looked at it from under her heavy hair. But Mistress Marian still held aloof, and chewed upon her dark locks like a heifer on its cud. And her eyes were every whit as dark and solemn as a very cow's. Then the young lord laughed again, and cried out, "Ha! the ox-eyed June!" or some such apery, and went and kneeled before her in ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... point to hold Pao-yue aloof as her mother had in days gone by mentioned to Madame Wang and her other relatives that the gold locket had been the gift of a bonze, that she had to wait until such time as some suitor with jade turned up before ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80 My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom; No,—she denied me what was mine—my roof, And shall not have what is not hers—my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... have reason to alter your mind,' said Dare carelessly. 'Your success with your lady may depend on it. The truth is, captain, we aristocrats must not take too high a tone. Our days as an independent division of society, which holds aloof from other sections, are past. This has been my argument (in spite of my strong Norman feelings) ever since I broached the subject of your marrying this girl, who represents both intellect and wealth—all, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... officers are from the men, Captain West is still more aloof from his officers. I have not seen him address a further word to Mr. Mellaire than "Good morning" on the poop. As for Mr. Pike, who eats three times a day with him, scarcely any more conversation obtains ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... definitely established as in England now, the alternatives for trust are either to hold aloof in despair awaiting the debacle, to resist to the bitter end with a result like that which Stephenson said would occur if a cow attempted to stop his locomotive, or to try humbug and flattery. You do not flatter those you trust. We are not speaking of that delightful flattery ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... pit-box, and when I try to recall my condition during that evening, I can only picture it with all the paraphernalia of a dream. Of real pleasure or agitation I felt none at all: I seemed to stand quite aloof from my work; whereas the sight of the thickly crowded auditorium agitated me so much, that I was unable even to glance at the body of the audience, whose presence merely affected me like some natural phenomenon—something like a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... that Robin hight, Renown'd for pinching maids by night, Has bent him up aloof; And full against the beam he flung, Where by the back the youth he hung To ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... Edward IV.,[212] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had more than once endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern counties; but Lady Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse with him; she remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty retirement she was contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the Princess Mary, to whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her relations with the king had thus continued undisturbed until his second marriage. As the representative ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... for never before has such supreme authority and such great dignity fallen upon men previously so submissive and so insignificant.—Formerly the subordinates of an intendant or sub-delegate, appointed, maintained, and ill-used by him, kept aloof from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves except by humble protestations against the aggravation of taxation, concerned with precedence and the conflicts of etiquette,[3116] plain townspeople ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... friendly spirit had refused to "hold aloof" from her companions, as her mother had begged her to do, and at the end of three months she had learned things about most of them which interested her profoundly. One supported an invalid father, another had a family of six little brothers and sisters to care for, and still another had lost her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... restored to a proper and desirable Subordination." A few of the habitants joined his forces; fewer joined the invaders or sold them supplies—till they grew suspicious of paper "Continentals." But the majority held passively aloof. Even when France joined the warring colonies and Admiral d'Estaing appealed to the Canadians to rise, they did not heed; though it is difficult to say what the result would have been if Washington had agreed to Lafayette's plan of a joint French and American invasion ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... refused to take part in any election called by that Government and had continued to keep alive their own legislative assembly. Despite Walker's efforts to persuade them to take part in the election of delegates to the constitutional convention, they resolutely held aloof. Yet, as they became convinced that he was acting in good faith, they did participate in the October elections to the territorial Legislature, electing nine out of the thirteen councilors and twenty-four ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... Donatello alone seemed somewhat aloof from them. They formed part of the concert audiences, it is true; but they neither played bridge, quoits, nor cricket, nor knitted woollen articles, nor read magazines. The Duchessa employed her time with a piece of fine lace work, when she was not merely luxuriating in the sunshine, or ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... this man never awake? Would it never be dawn?" The children were chilled with the wind, but their elders would scarcely have felt an Arctic frost With growing impatience they waited, glancing at times at two women who held themselves somewhat aloof from the others; two women who had married again, and whose second husbands waited, ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... of the French revolution, he had felt and expressed all the enthusiasm of his countrymen for the establishment of the republic; but, after the commencement of its contests with the United States, he stood aloof from both those political parties which had divided America. Restrained by the official situation of his brother during the negotiations which had been carried on with England, he had forborne to express any opinion respecting ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... should be duly cared for, given more than common distinction; but Florence became a place from which even for his own sake and the sake of her whose spirit lived within him he must henceforth keep aloof. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... other hand, the feudal orders hold aloof, as what is at stake is their existence or non-existence, that is, property or expropriation. It is clear that absolute monarchy, in spite of all the servile homage of the bourgeoisie, perceives its true interest to lie on ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... and these in a few days' time were to go up and avenge the deaths of their fellow tribesmen. From the enthusiasm displayed amongst the little men, this was evidently carried unanimously, but I noticed two young men sitting aloof from the rest of the crowd and looking rather sullen and frightened, and as they did not join in the general warlike demonstrations, it was evidently their first fight. Here, however, I made Vic ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... that I can hold in my hand. Every human being that I come to know appears to me strangely and appallingly distinct and un-typical; of course one finds that many of them adopt a common stock of conventional ideas, but when you get beneath that surface, the character seems to me solitary and aloof. When people use words like 'democracy' and 'humanity,' I feel that they are merely painting themselves large, magnifying and dignifying their own idiosyncrasies. It does not uplift and exalt me to feel ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... it was a pity he ever joined the Army, for khaki clashed badly with most of Mrs. Gustus's colour theories. But he had never noticed that: his eye and his ear and his mind were all equally slow to appreciate clashings of any kind. He was rather aloof from comparison and criticism, but not on principle. He had no principles—at least no original ones, just the ordinary stuffy old principles of decency and all that. He never turned his eyes inward, as far as the passer-by could see; he lived a breezy ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... the principle of equality existing in a degree unknown in England. Can anything be more absurd than the differences of rank that divide the population of our provincial towns? The same thing is seen in the country, where the clergyman holds aloof from the village doctor, the farmer from the shopkeeper, both these from the village schoolmaster, and where, indeed, everybody thinks himself ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... becoming worldly, or only seeing the world, or both? and is a man very wrong for being after all only a man? Which is the most reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest? "That philosopher," Pen said, "had held a great place among the leaders of the world, and enjoyed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the manufacture and decoration of this beautiful paper-cloth, Hina's son, the demi-god Maui, held aloof from the work. In the making of tapa man's hand was tabu, yet he could not forbear an occasional suggestion when his mother created mystic designs for decoration of ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... way, so that I could the better understand their grievances and remedy them with justice to all parties concerned. So in conversing with men, women, and children, I gradually found out that Tim Hibblethwaite was in bad odor, and that he held himself doggedly aloof from all; and this was how, in the course of time, I came to speak to him about the matter, and the opening words of my story are the words of his answer. But they did not satisfy me by any means. I wanted to do the man justice myself, and see that ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... an assault, to be executed with his troops alone; for Philip now stood aloof, and refused to aid him. Richard had no objection to this; indeed, he rejoiced in an opportunity to show the world that he could succeed in accomplishing a feat of arms after Philip had attempted ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Mehetabel; Nancy, Anne; Patty, Martha; and Kezzy, Kezia. But the register recording most of these names had perished at Epworth in the Parsonage fire, so let us keep the familiar ones. Grown women and girls, all the six were handsome. They had an air of resting there aloof; with a little fancy you might have taken them, in their plain print frocks, for six goddesses reclining on the knoll and watching the harvesters at work on the plain below—poor drudging mortals ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... out victory and good fortune to his clients, according to the extent of their faith, and the weight of their purses. A few profane Cavaliers might make his name the burthen of their malignant rhymes—a few of the more scrupulous among the Saints might keep aloof in sanctified abhorrence of the 'Stygian sophister'—but the great majority of the people lent a willing and reverential ear to his prophecies and prognostications. Nothing was too high or too low—too mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his genius. The stars, his informants, ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... than ordinary interest. It used to be presided over by a patroon, who levied toll on all passing vessels. Right in the neighborhood are original Dutch settlements, and the descendants of the original immigrants hold themselves quite aloof from the English-speaking public. They retain the language, as well as the manners and customs, of Holland, and the tourist who strays among them finds himself, for the moment, distinctly a stranger in a strange land. The country ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... and reserved, shrinking from publicity and holding himself aloof from the human side of war. He was constitutionally unable to make a dramatic gesture before a multitude, or to say easy, stirring things to officers and men whom he reviewed. His shyness and reserve prevented ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... these aspirants Danjou kept somewhat aloof, amusing the Duchess with his green-room stories and making her laugh, a way of self-recommendation in certain cases not unsuccessful. But the time came when he thought matters sufficiently advanced: and one morning when she ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... passed slowly. Jack, of course, kept aloof, and I saw nothing and heard nothing of him. Where he was, or what he was doing, I could not tell. I could only conjecture. And all my conjectures led to the fixed conviction that Jack in his desperation had written to her, and ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... go round by any Halfway! If he takes a fancy to come here by it, and strikes your tracks as you two came into Skunk's Misery, the rest wouldn't take him long! I believe—hang on a minute, while I speak to Baker!" He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the dark of the cave where Baker stood aloof. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... reads exactly like the story of Goethe and Schiller. It was Schiller who held aloof and was full of fault-finding criticism: it was Goethe who made all the advances and did all the kindnesses. It was Goethe who obtained for Schiller that place as professor of history at Jena which gave Schiller the leisure needed for his dramatic work. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... a favorite cafe, which during the whole time the Empire lasted was also frequented by Protestants without a single dispute caused by the difference of religion ever arising. But from this time forth the Catholics began to hold themselves aloof from the Protestants; the latter perceiving this, gave up the cafe by degrees to the Catholics, being determined to keep the peace whatever it might cost, and went to a cafe which had been just opened under the sign of the "Isle of Elba." The name was enough to cause them to be regarded ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... introduction were going on, Herbert kept himself aloof, and, with his whip suspended over the stick on which he was riding, eyed Mad. de Rosier with no friendly aspect: however, when she held out her hand to him, and when he heard the encouraging tone of her voice, he approached, held his whip fast in his right hand, but very cordially gave ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the spring of 1843. But more than L16,000 had been paid, and Elizabeth looked with clear eyes toward this end of her task. Socially, she was as far aloof as ever; perhaps more so, for during the winter she had found her courage often fail her regarding the church services. The walk was long on wet or cold days; the boy was subject to croupy sore throat; and her heart sank at the prospect of the social ordeal through which she ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... forgotten that unlucky story about the fox-hunt, and ever since Hammond's return she had been as it were on her best behaviour, refraining from her races with the terriers, and holding herself aloof from Maulevrier's masculine pursuits. She sheltered herself a good deal under the Fraeulein's substantial wing, and took care never to intrude herself upon the amusements of her brother and his friend. She was not one of those young women who think a brother's presence an excuse for ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... after day brings commonplace occurrences or, at the best, trivial abnormalities to be explained to-morrow, that romance is dead, it is strange that Fate should have picked me, when, by custom and my own desire, I am aloof from all things turbulent, morbid, and uncanny, to play an unwilling part in so extraordinary a drama, or, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... took leave of all his friends, and repaired to London, where he made a remarkable appearance among the people of fashion. His own follies made Mrs. Gauntlet and Emilia hold aloof from him, and landed him for a time in the Fleet Prison. From this place the good offices of Emilia's brother, Godfrey Gauntlet, and Hatchway, released him, and the news of his father's death, who had died without making a will, hastened his departure. Peregrine, having thus succeeded to his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... communion; however, it would be a greater misfortune to you than grief to us. If your friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let them make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ventured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations for the union of the Churches: when you now urge us to petition our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... imagine the influence of the class sentiment which held Angouleme aloof from L'Houmeau. The merchant classes are rich, the noblesse are usually poor. Each side takes its revenge in scorn of the other. The tradespeople in Angouleme espouse the quarrel. "He is a man of L'Houmeau!" a shopkeeper of the upper town will tell you, speaking ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... result of outlandish birth and unrepublican education. Not that she had ever valued republicanism very highly; she was one of those who associated politics with noisy vulgarity in speech and dress, and therefore thanked fortune that women were permitted to keep aloof from it. But in the presence of this alien she found herself growing patriotic; that much-discussed abstraction, which we call our country (and which is nothing but the aggregate of all the slow and invisible influences which go toward making up our own being), ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... went away somewhat bewildered, for much had happened to me that morning which I found it hard to understand. Why had the Augusta kissed me? I took it that this was some kind of imperial jest. It was known that I kept aloof from women, and she may have desired to see what I should do when an Augusta kissed me, and then to make a mock of me. I had heard that she had done as much ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... were cursing in the voices of men and men weeping loosely like women. They cast off their outer garments when the room grew hot, and lounged half- naked; and of all of them, only two seemed to live aloof, like men among beasts—Emmanuel ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... concealment,—for if any of thy co-wives were to speak of it unto Vasudeva, he might be irritated with thee. Feed thou by every means in thy power those that are dear and devoted to thy lord and always seek his good. Thou shouldst, however, always keep thyself aloof from those that are hostile to and against thy lord and seek to do him injury, as also from those that are addicted to deceit. Foregoing all excitement and carelessness in the presence of men, conceal thy inclinations by observing silence, and thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in a garret aloof, And have few friends, and go poorly clad, With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, To keep the ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... were gloomy enough; we tried sometimes to sing, but for that we had not much spirits; and so the days passed away. It would have been surprising, even in a healthy climate, if disease had not attacked us under similar circumstances. For some time it stood aloof, but it came at last, and made ample amends for its delay by its violence. We had been about a month at Ou Trou, when one day we were all seated at dinner in a sort of courtyard, which being in shade served us as our mess-room ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... his father and Juana the Popess was, no doubt, the reason why she held herself aloof from this branch of the family and treated Jaime with ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... love of Heaven!" repeated Mrs. Somers, who, immovably grave, and sullenly indignant, kept aloof during this chase. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... over civil affairs. But as Laval and Duchesneau were both at war with Frontenac they naturally drew together. The alliance was rendered more easy by Duchesneau's devoutness. Even had he wished to hold aloof from the quarrel of governor and bishop, it would have been difficult to do so. But as an active friend of Laval and the Jesuits he had no desire to be a neutral spectator of the feud which ran parallel with his own. The two feuds soon became intermingled, and Frontenac, ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... list will serve to fix his preference. For my part, supposing other things equal, I greatly preferred the most populous college, as being that in which any single member, who might have reasons for standing aloof from the general habits of expense, of intervisiting, etc., would have the best chance of escaping a jealous notice. However, amongst those "other things" which I presumed equal, one held a high place in my estimation, which a little inquiry showed to be very far from equal. All the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... nothing of the vibration. There are some words that were made only to tell of Lady Mary, for her alone—bellissima, divine, glorieuse! Ah, how I have watch' her! It is sad to me when I see her surround' by your yo'ng captains, your nobles, your rattles, your beaux—ha, ha!—and I mus' hol' far aloof. It is sad for me—but oh, jus' to watch her and to wonder! Strange it is, but I have almos' cry out with rapture at a look I have see' her give another man, so beautiful it was, so tender, so dazzling of the eyes and so mirthful ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... to the forecastle. In the morning he discovered what he wanted to know. The men were aloof from him. He was conscious of eyes upon him whenever his back was turned, but while he faced them, no one would meet ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... marked. Best leave the affair to Aveline and me. You others must stand aloof and look disinterested but sympathetic. I'll speak to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... a habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign volubility they bloomed and spread and took on colour as do those tight little Japanese paper water-flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... literature must be struck with the religious seriousness that prevails in the writings of the more important authors. Every "master" who enjoyed the highest honor among his fellows in the hermetic art has a certain lofty manner that keeps aloof from the detailed description of chemical laboratory work, although they do not depart from the alchemistic technical language. They obviously have a leaning toward some themes that are far more important than the production of a chemical preparation can be, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... a mirthful tone of mind Comedy must hold them as much as possible aloof from all moral appreciation of its personages, and from all deep interest in their fortunes, for in both these cases an entrance will infallibly be given to seriousness. How then does the poet avoid agitating the moral feeling, when the actions he represents are of such a nature as must give ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... a few glances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew best pronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just as folks" than were either the twins or the sister, from all three of whom his impulses kept him amiably aloof. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... also to have been of an enquiring turn of mind and not to have held aloof from careful investigation of even small and commonplace matters; for this those disposed ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... kept well in the rear of the motley throng of voyagers, an elegant, lordly figure, approached only in sartorial distinction by the far-famed gambler, Sylvester Hornaday, who likewise held himself sardonically aloof from the common horde, occupying a position well forward where, it might aptly be said, he could count his ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... stream lazily trickles amid sand and sea-slime to the little estuary formed by the sea at its mouth. Between almost perpendicular cliffs the village lies like a solitary enclosure, where the inhabitants are separate and alone—aloof from the busy world—their horizon confined to a mere segment of vision. The same ever-rolling sea hath swung to and fro for ages in the same narrow creek, at the sides of which rise a cluster of huts, dignified with the appellation ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... of baking. It was the only occasion in the week when Mrs. Croom was sure to stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannah beside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen, and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon his upper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time that Ephraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered with delight. She always coveted more of her son's society. But when he came ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the carriage, but the black hands that were extended to him from every side barred his way, and much against his will he was obliged to linger long enough to give each of them a hasty grasp and shake. The only one who stood aloof was the black boy who had been Rodney's playmate when the two wore pinafores, and he leaned against the corner of the house and howled piteously. Rodney felt relieved when the coachman banged the door of the ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... silently appreciates the heroism which breathes through it; but the "supreme duty" of which it speaks appears to him only a "prostitution of faculties" and a "poor delusion." Milton, he thinks, ought to have kept entirely aloof from the brawl and remained quiet either in the intellectual circles of Italy or in the delicious seclusion of his library at Horton, leaving liberty, truth, and righteousness to drown or to be saved from drowning by ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... one of his hearers," says Mr. Robert. "The wager was promptly made. And who do you suppose, Torchy, was named as the most aloof and difficult man in New York for ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... again. It is impossible for you to offer any consolation, and the sight of her grief and misery will only result in unhappiness for yourself. Therefore, take my advice. I have given it very often, and I assure you those who did not take it expressed their regret afterwards. Hold entirely aloof from anything relating to your ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... the galleries, which were crowded to excess. This body of English gentlemen expressed their contempt more fully by that ominous stillness, so unusual in that assembly, than any eloquence could have done. Pitt stood aloof; dignified, contemptuous, and silent. Sheridan challenged from Rolle some token of satisfaction at the information; but Rolle merely returned that he had indeed received an answer, but that the House must ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... There was not even a rumor that he had ever taken an interest in any Cree girl. Of course she did not like him—not the way she did Win Beresford or even Onistah—but she was glad he held himself aloof. It would have greatly disappointed her to learn of any sordid ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... it looked not like a man's hand holding a sword.—But touching my master, he, like a prudent man, hath kept himself aloof in these broken times, until he could see with precision what footing he was to stand upon. Right tempting offers he hath had from the Lords of Congregation, whom you call heretics; and at one time he was minded, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... now head of the school, and from his constitutional want of geniality, he was so little of a boy that he had no sympathy from the others, and little authority over them. He simply kept aloof, holding his own way, and retiring into his own tastes and pursuits, and the society of one or two congenial spirits in the school, so as in no way to come in contact with ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should prevent him discharging the sacred duty which had been so long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and whispered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which they supposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles answered in an audible voice, "Yes, yes, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... when that point had, at last, been really reached, and the proceedings were of the most effective and striking character. Crowds flocked in from all sides. Montgomery shared fully in the popular acclamation, and only Oswestry, among the interested towns, stood somewhat aloof. The question of "priority," apparently, still rankled, and "some misunderstanding" spoilt the effect of what was intended to be a general business holiday. "Only two or three shops were closed, while the others remained open as usual," ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... he could get; and he saw that the Twins would be useful friends in the matter. But did they chance on him walking with their mother, or at tea with her, they held politely but gloomily aloof. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... truth is that not alone the prestige and good repute of our fair city have been marred, but material progress and prosperity have been affected. Population, capital, skill, brawn, industry, morality hold aloof—not wholly, of course, yet to a degree that is material and unfortunate. It is possible to remedy this, but not until we prove to the world that toleration and peace are to rule here, and that human life is not to be held as the cheapest thing ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Commodore remained in irons, and many were the conjectures concerning his ultimate fate. The power of life and death was known to be in the Admiral's hands, but no one thought that such power would be exerted upon a delinquent of so high a grade. The other captains kept aloof from Philip, and he knew little of what was the general idea. Occasionally when on board of the Admiral's ship, he ventured to bring up the question, but was immediately silenced; and feeling that he might injure the late Commodore (for whom he had a regard), he would risk nothing by ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... night I had been thinking of Miss Dudleigh, of whose visibly failing health various murmurs had reached me, and I felt, notwithstanding my determination to hold myself aloof from every one and everything that could in any way reopen my still smarting wound, I could more easily find the sleep I longed for if some word from the great house would relieve the suspense in which ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... Simplicius. By this event the four eastern patriarchs seemed to agree to accept the first four councils, and the unity of the Church to be quite restored, from which Alexandria had until then stood aloof; but the patriarch Paul came afterwards in suspicion of heresy and had to give way to Zoilus. Mennas was on the best terms with the emperor; he might easily have used the deposition of Silverius and the unlawful exaltation of Vigilius in 537 for increase of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... they are called, they have a fear of us, they do not understand our objects, and they keep aloof. They promise everything and do nothing; but for my excessive weakness we should go on, but we wait for a ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... from one woman to the other, he understood. He picked up the bundle and removed it to its mother's knee. All her soul passed into the look wherewith she thanked him. Swinny, tear-stained but inexorable, stood aloof, like rigid Justice, weighing her mistress ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... the middle of Dresden: not landing by any means. "No, be assured of it, ye Dresdeners, all flurried, palisaded, barricaded; no hair of you shall be harmed." After a day or two, the flurry of Saxony subsided; Prussians, under strict discipline, molest no private person; pay their way; keep well aloof, to south and to north, of Dresden (all but the necessary ammunition-escorts do);—and require of the Official people nothing but what the Law of the Reich authorizes to "Imperial Auxiliaries" in such case. "The Saxons ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had been to tell him everything, but she dare not. His manner discouraged her. He would begin to ask questions, questions which she could not answer without seriously incriminating herself. But her conscience would not allow her to stand entirely aloof from the tragedy in which her husband's scapegrace son was involved. She felt a strange, unaccountable desire to meet this girl Howard had married. In a quick undertone to the ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... forget his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he hastened back to the Tete-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof, and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region; now, he was involved in its rocky, ridgy, woody details. Here and there long vistas opened up to view, but, for the most part, his vision was circumscribed by towering cliffs and deep ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... calm and aloof all the days after the death. Only when she was alone she suffered till she ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... had every opportunity for studying social life at the French capital. Unlike the younger men of his times, he was doubtful, and held his judgment in suspense. The enthusiasm of even Fox seemed premature, and he held himself aloof from the popular demonstrations of admiration and approval that were everywhere going on. The fact is, Burke was growing old, and with his years he was becoming more conservative. He dreaded change, and was suspicious of the wisdom of those who set about such widespread innovations, and made such ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... men. He did not wait in ante-chambers or sit at wedding feasts; but severing all entangling and intricate threads of observance, followed the voice which called him to solitary places of illimitable prospect. It was not through disillusion or injustice, or wounded pride, that he walked aloof; but loneliness was his birthright, and from the hills and headlands to which solitude allured his steps he saw the dust of mad encounters rise to heaven, and the rent sails of foundering galleys. He ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... of the country may change but the Monarch remains, subject to no changes of Parliament, above and aloof from the strife of political parties, the steadying influence in times ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... and which illustrates the propensity to self-inspection and self-revelation which Cowper had in common with Rousseau. Huntingdon, like other little towns, was all eyes and gossip; the new comer was a mysterious stranger who kept himself aloof from the general society, and he naturally became the mark for a little stone-throwing. Young Unwin happening to be passing near "the Park" on his way from London to Huntingdon, Cowper gave him an introduction to its lady, in a letter to whom ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... combings of the main-hatch, or crouched in careless fashion on the shady side of the barricade, were laughing and talking, with blasphemous and obscene merriment hideous to contemplate; but he, with cap pulled over his brows, and hands thrust into the pockets of his coarse grey garments, held aloof from ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... as his own and whose foe was also the traditionary enemy of Russia, he would violate his promises, which he always held sacred, and give umbrage to Austria. The intolerant hatred of Alexander for all insurrections whatever induced him to stand aloof from a contest which jeoparded the stability of thrones, and with which in a political view, as an absolute sovereign, he had no sympathy. On the other hand, if Alexander remained neutral, his faith would be trodden under foot, and that by a power which he detested both ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... he was genial, kind, encouraging and in every respect a model. He obliged his pupils to write and understand as well as sound the notes. In his noble modesty he never held himself aloof as superior to others. When pupils were discouraged he reminded them how hard he had always been compelled to work, and assured them that equal industry would lead them to success. He gave the thumb ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... to do on his holiday; most likely he would be reading hard for his "Sam," as Billy called it. It seemed shabby of me to go off on a spree and leave him to drudge; but, as Hawkesbury said when I referred to the matter, it would just show him what he missed by holding aloof, and make him all the more ready to try to get ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... And his mild master treat him with disdain: He saw that all men shunn'd him, some reviled, The harsh pass'd frowning, and the simple smiled; The town maintain'd him, but with some reproof, And clerks and scholars proudly kept aloof. In each lone place, dejected and dismay'd, Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid; Or to the restless sea and roaring wind Gave the strong yearnings of a ruin'd mind: On the broad beach, the silent summer-day, Stretch'd on some wreck, he wore his life away; Or where ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... which cut across the gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the church. And it seemed as though the soul of the dead woman were soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a child's curls eddied round and round, floating upwards to the window and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which that ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with much leisure for study. The range of subjects treated dwindled more and more from year to year. The breadth and vigor of the early days were lost, the pragmatical and disputatious element gaining more and more ground. Unfortunately, "they stood aloof with a sort of horror from the richest and most exhilarating types of classic writing in their own tongue." The Hebrew Scriptures and many classics of Roman and Greek literature were still allowed; but no genuine literary development could take ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Gallegos, De Soto received the intelligence that the chief Ucita had taken refuge in a forest, surrounded with swamps, not far from the Spanish camp. The vainglorious Porcallo was exceedingly indignant that the Indian chief should presume to hold himself aloof from all friendly advances. He entreated De Soto to grant him the privilege of capturing the fugitive. De Soto complied with his request. The impetuous old man, fond of parade, and lavish of his wealth, selected a band of horsemen and footmen, all of whom were gorgeously apparelled for ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... the Canton River. The Chinese, from whom they are quite distinct, regard them as a remnant of the original population, which was dislodged by their invasion and forced to take refuge on the water. They gradually established intercourse with the conquerors of the land, but held themselves aloof. They marry only among themselves, have their own customs, and enjoy a practical monopoly of carrying passengers and messages between the steamers and the shore at Macao, Hongkong and Canton.[711] In the same way, the middle Niger above Gao possesses a distinct aquatic ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Gospel. They were alike in attending no prophetic school, and avoiding each of the great Jewish sects. Neither Hillel nor Shammai could claim them. They had no ecclesiastical connections; they stood aloof from the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Herodians and Essenes. They attracted similar attention, gathered the same crowds, and protested against the same sins. Rearing the same standard, they summoned men from formality and hypocrisy to righteousness and reality. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... that Ninitta naturally knew models, and might easily have enough of a feeling of comradeship remaining from the time when she had been a model herself, to lend or give them articles of dress. Unfortunately, she knew how Ninitta kept herself aloof from her old associates since the birth of her child, and the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Archimedes."—In the revival agitation which swept over America in the decades following 1830 practically all of the English Lutheran churches (the German churches, in part, stood aloof) caught the contagion in a malignant form and in great numbers. While even Prof. J. W. Nevin, Schaff's colleague at Mercersburg, in his book The Anxious Bench (1844), antagonized the extravagances of a movement which was germane to his own church, Lutherans such as Schmucker, Kurtz, Harkey, Passavant, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; 50 For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a long time aloof from her husband, a woman makes overtures of a very marked character in order to attract his love, she acts in accordance with the axiom of maritime law, which says: The ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... We know not when Death or disaster comes, Mightier than battle-drums To summon us away. Death bids us say farewell To all we love, nor stay For tears;—and who can tell How soon misfortune's hand May smite us where we stand, Dragging us down, aloof, Under the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... father's or his mother's vengeance. He was very sulky and disagreeable, and severely tried Richard's forbearance; but there were no fresh outbursts, and, on the whole, from one week to another, there might be said to be an improvement. He could not always hold aloof from one so good-natured and good-humoured as the little Duke; and the fact of being kept in order could not but have some beneficial effect on him, after such spoiling as ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... now the head of the cabal, who had all to gain and nothing to lose by the death of the Dauphin and Dauphine, from both of whom he had studiously held aloof, and who thoroughly disliked M. d'Orleans, did all in his power to circulate this odious report. He communicated it to Madame de Maintenon, by whom it reached the King. In a short time all the Court, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... classical spirit could not readily commend itself, till, after a more attentive perusal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing anything new and original. These were somewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... reason for the change that I dared not name to him, for his quick loyalty would then have made him stubbornly determined against change. I saw the swift turning of public opinion, the gradual approach to him among Liberals who had hitherto held aloof, and I knew that they looked upon me as a clog and a burden, and that were I less prominently with him his way would be the easier to tread. So I slipped more and more into the background, no longer went with him to his meetings; my use to him in public was ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her help in the day of need? Hers is the leper sin, and all stand aloof dreading to be ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... met Maria running from the boy's room, with her hair loose upon her shoulders, and she had stopped long enough to show a smiling face on the subject of her marriage. There were to be only Fletcher, Miss Saidie and himself as witnesses, he gathered, Wyndham's parents having held somewhat aloof from the connection—and within three hours at the most it would be over and the bridal pair beginning their long journey. Looking down from the next landing, he had further assurance of the sincerity of Maria's smile when ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... business quarters had for a time held aloof, but, in the absence of support from without and being enormously outnumbered, they were powerless, and the extreme party were now in absolute possession of the city. M. Thiers and the Assembly at Versailles had so far been unable to take any steps to ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... keeping ultimates everlastingly in the center of attention to the exclusion of mere puttering reforms. One of the things that will hasten the revolution is to spread the notion that it can come soon. If the Left Wing adopts impossibilist methods of campaign, I shall stand aloof, but if they push for Confiscation, Equality of Economic Status, and the speedy elimination of class privilege, and keep their heads, I shall go with them ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... after this that the "Centenary"—mispronounced in every manner conceivable—began to obsess the town. Superior and aloof persons, like the Orgreaves, had for weeks heard a good deal of vague talk about the Centenary from people whom intellectually they despised, and had condescended to the Centenary as an amiable and excusable affair which lacked interest ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... difficulty arose, collected his books, and, slinging on his satchel, looked to his schoolfellows, as if he had said, "Which of you will afford me a place where to lay my aching head?" All, however, kept aloof from him; he had caught the contagion, and the contagion, they knew, had swept the people away in vast numbers. At length he spoke. "Is there any boy among you," he inquired, "who will bring me home? You know I am a stranger, an' far from my own, ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... misfortune to you than grief to us. If your friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let them make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ventured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations for the union of the Churches: when you now urge us to petition our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very like an ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... just how they stood with anybody, and to show they resented the invasion of their newly won country by the Allies, the Greeks tried to keep proudly aloof. In this they failed. For any one to flock by himself in Salonika was impossible. In a long experience of cities swamped by conventions, inaugurations, and coronations, of all I ever saw, Salonika was the most deeply submerged. During the Japanese-Russian War the Japanese ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... beheld a goodly house and decorated apartments which were no idol's chamber. Then came the king and seeing her beauty and loveliness, went up to her to buss her; whereupon she fell down in a fainting fit and struck out with her hands and feet.[FN311] When he saw this, he held aloof from her in ruth and left her; but the matter was grievous to her and she refused meat and drink, and as often as the king drew near to her, she fled from him in fear, so he swore by Allah that he would not approach her save with her consent and fell ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... would soon have been up with the hounds again, when the fatal accident happened; and hence he was between eager riders in advance, not troubling themselves about what happened behind them, and far-off stragglers, who were as likely as not to pass quite aloof from the line of road in which Wildfire had fallen. Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for immediate annoyances than for remote consequences, no sooner recovered his legs, and saw that it was all over with ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... and France in a defensive though not an offensive alliance, and Prussia held entirely aloof from ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... introduction to her, but at last he consents to be taken to the house by his friend the musician Massival, and of course falls a victim. It cannot be said that she is a Circe,[496] nor that, as perhaps might be expected, she revenges herself for his holding aloof by snaring and throwing him away. Quite the contrary. She shows him special favour: when she has to go to stay with friends at Avranches she privately asks him to follow her; and finally, when the party pass the night at Mont Saint-Michel, she comes—uninvited, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Don Roderick?—E'en as one who spies Flames dart their glare o'er midnight's sable woof, And hears around his children's piercing cries, And sees the pale assistants stand aloof; While cruel Conscience brings him bitter proof, His folly, or his crime, have caused his grief; And while above him nods the crumbling roof, He curses earth and Heaven—himself in chief - Desperate of earthly ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... which warrant his claim to genius, if not to greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,—with them, but not of them,—coolly analyzing every sentence delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore to separate the gold from the dross. What was good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Aeetes held an assembly of the Colchians far aloof from his palace at a spot where they sat in times before, to devise against the Minyae grim treachery and troubles. And he threatened that when first the oxen should have torn in pieces the man who had taken upon him to perform the heavy task, he would hew down the oak grove ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... together to our better acquaintance, and I hope I shall very often see you at my table on board, for while I feel that discipline must be maintained, I have no belief in a captain holding himself entirely aloof from his officers, as if he were a little god. On the quarter-deck a captain must stand somewhat aloof, but in his own cabin I cannot see why he should not treat his ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... thus under no obligation to deceive deliberately. He can from the political standpoint avoid all negotiations which compromise his personal integrity, and he will thereby serve the reputation and power of his State no less than when he holds aloof from political menaces, to which no acts correspond, and renounces all political ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... Waitstill's advice. Not only did she shrink from the loving scrutiny of her sister's eyes, and the gentle probing of her questions, which would fix her own motives on a pin-point and hold them up unbecomingly to the light; but she had a foolish, generous loyalty that urged her to keep Waitstill quite aloof from ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 27th a message was received from Duck Lake from the Willow Indians, the band which had hitherto held aloof, in reply to a message sent to them by the Governor, that they would meet the Governor and Commissioners at the place designated by the Governor, the camp of the Hon. James McKay, about five miles from Carlton House. Accordingly, the next morning the Commissioners met them, ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... from which a story may be seen and told are many and various; but they may all be grouped into two classes, the internal and the external. A story seen internally is narrated in the first person by one of its participants; a story seen externally is narrated in the third person by a mind aloof from the events depicted. There are, of course, many variations, both of the internal and of the external point of view. These in turn must be examined, for the purpose of determining the special ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... me, I am only too happy to stand aloof and watch the little wretch play out her game. Most certainly it is your own affair, but you will permit me to be amused, will you not? And with your accustomed suavity forgive me, if I chance inadvertently to whisper ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... talker attempts the plan of showing off by firing cannon-shot when everybody else is content with musketry, then undoubtedly he produces an impression, but at the expense of insulating himself from the sympathies of the company, and standing aloof as a sort of monster hired to play tricks of funambulism for the night. Yet, again, if he contents himself with a musket like other people, then for us, from whom he modestly hides his talents under a bushel, in what respect is he different ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... stairs; and, the question whether Christopher were gone or not being an uninteresting one to the majority, the talking went on upon other matters. When Joey crept down again a minute later, Picotee was sitting aloof and silent, and he accordingly singled her out to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Beagle Association was formed, and more particularly when a section of the Peterborough Hound Show was reserved for them. Then they seemed to spring from every part of the country. In 1896 one became well acquainted with many packs that had apparently held aloof from the dog shows. There was the Cheshire, the Christ Church (Oxford), Mr. T. Johnson's, the Royal Rock, the Thorpe Satchville, the Worcestershire, etc., and of late there have been many more that are as well known as packs of Foxhounds. One hears ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... to alter your mind,' said Dare carelessly. 'Your success with your lady may depend on it. The truth is, captain, we aristocrats must not take too high a tone. Our days as an independent division of society, which holds aloof from other sections, are past. This has been my argument (in spite of my strong Norman feelings) ever since I broached the subject of your marrying this girl, who represents both intellect and wealth—all, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... and assenting to said treaties in all their provisions. This paper received the signatures of eight principal chiefs, among them Fueta Susta Hajo and eight subchiefs. Five of the principal chiefs, Jumper among them, stood aloof and would not sign. Miconopy, who was absent, sent word by Jumper that he would not abide by the treaty. Upon this the agent said he would no longer regard Miconopy as a chief, and said his name should be stricken from the council of the nation. This action on the part of the agent ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... rudely undeceived with respect to those nobles whom from afar he had so heartily admired. However that may be, he retained with them not only his frankness of speech, but also his full freedom of action. One of them, a knight, had always held aloof from the others, out of vanity and bad temper. Francis, far from leaving him to himself, always showed him affection, and finally had the joy of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... her absent-minded, distrait, aloof and generally useless. His family never see him. Their friends are bored to death with them—not that they are really less devoted or loyal, but her men friends withdraw, naturally refraining from "breaking in." He has no time between business ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and religious reform. I do not question that assurance, as far as Mr. Roshan Lal is himself personally concerned, and it may be true that the Samaj has never committed itself as a body to any political programme, and that many individual members hold aloof from politics; but the evidence that many others, and not the least influential, have played a conspicuous part in the seditious agitation of the last few years, both in the Punjab and in the neighbouring ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the window. It's Joe. He's my brother." The little girl, in spite of her evident satisfaction at the accomplishment of her purpose, yet kept quite aloof from the boy. Nor did the fact that he refused the money appear to bring her anything ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... a very inauspicious aspect, and promised little success to had adherents. Except a few French bishops, who unwillingly obeyed the king's commands in attending the council, all the other prelates kept aloof from an assembly which they regarded as the offspring of faction, intrigue, and worldly politics. Even Pisa, the place of their residence, showed them signs of contempt; which engaged them to transfer their session to Milan, a city under the dominion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... krallis ha nicobado la liri de los Cales - (The king has destroyed the law of the Gypsies); we are no longer the people we were once, when we lived amongst the sierras and deserts, and kept aloof from the Busne; we have lived amongst the Busne till we are become almost like them, and we are no longer united, ready to assist each other at all times and seasons, and very frequently the Gitano is the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... when she called him "Captain Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called "Captain Anerley" by ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... held most of the command aloof from the intrenchments, so as to start them out on the Danville Road early in the morning, supposing that Lee would be gone during the night. During the night I strengthened Sheridan by ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... most solemn and important prohibition—to refrain from all uncleanness caused by contact with death. Death is the wages of sin: the consecrated one was alike to keep aloof from sin and ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... and of lands, Far above the convent stands. On its terraced walk aloof Leans a monk with folded hands, Placid, satisfied, serene, Looking down upon the scene Over wall and red-tiled roof; Wondering unto what good end All this toil and traffic tend, And why all men cannot be Free from care and free from pain, And the sordid ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... brothers-in-law of the Princess Louise are in the wine trade and stock-broking business,—and all the old knightly blood of England is mingling itself by choice with that of the lowest commoners—what's the use of my remaining aloof, and refusing to go with the spirit of the age? Besides, Marcia loves me, and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... night was intense and quiet, a low hum of insects giving the effect of a congestion of life. The beauty of the soaring moon, the ebony canons of shadow under the mountain, the melancholy serenity of the perfect night, made Duane shudder in the realization of how far aloof he now was from enjoyment of these things. Never again so long as he lived could he be natural. His mind was clouded. His eye and ear henceforth must register impressions of nature, but the joy ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... pleasure of the Father: but we should hold as suspected or as heretics and of bad sentiments the rest who depart from the principal succession, and meet together wherever they please.... From all such we must keep aloof, but we must adhere to those who both preserve, as we have already mentioned, the doctrine of the apostles, and exhibit, with the order of the presbytery, sound teaching and an inoffensive conversation." [585:1] "The order of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... told them, "has promised to stay over here for the present to organise this undertaking. I, alas! am bound to remain always a little aloof, but the time may come, and very soon, too, when I shall be a free lance. On that day I shall throw my lot in with yours, to the last drop of my blood and the last hour of my liberty. Until then, trust Oscar Fischer. He ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... public life, rather than go 'the way that was not his way for an inch.' An Orleanist, an enthusiastic lover of Parliamentary institutions, he would not stoop with Guizot and Thiers to serve a King whose power was founded on corruption. A minister of the President, he held aloof as sternly from the despotism of the Empire as from the factions of the Republican Assembly. He never designed to conceal or soften the expressions of the most unpopular ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... fainting force declined; With lingering foot I followed him aloof; Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined, Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks, Yet woman's words ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... evidence was adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this story, and found,—which was in itself regarded as a suspicious circumstance,—that ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... is dressed in white, and altogether fulfils exteriorly ROPER'S description of "angelic." She carries a large bouquet of lilies and pale roses with a broad ribbon flowing from it. All the men but FARNCOMBE, who holds aloof, press round her, STIDULPH rising and joining them. The ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... two my senior, he was not nearly so strong, and was ill able to defend himself against much smaller boys. He seemed a gentle, well-disposed boy, and when others, on my first going to school, had attacked me, he had always stood aloof. Though I had not had much conversation with him, I could not bear to ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... neither fair nor saintly, but who, groaning under a deep sense of infirmity and manifold imperfection, feels the want, the necessity, of religious support; who cannot afford to lose any the smallest buttress, but who not only loves Truth even for itself, and when it reveals itself aloof from all interest, but who loves it with an indescribable awe, which too often withdraws the genial sap of his activity from the columnar trunk, the sheltering leaves, the bright and fragrant flower, and the foodful or medicinal fruitage, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there is no other way. Assume a friendship if you have it not, and presently the friendship will be real. You must be steadfast in intention; for the words that have held aloof from you are many, and to unloose all at once on a single victim would well-nigh brand you criminal. But you will make sure headway, and will be conscious besides that no other class of words in the language will so well repay the mastering. For these are words you do use, and need to use more, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of noble ladies Came the burghers' comely housewives, At the end the elder matrons. Only one in work-day garments Kept aloof from the procession, 'Twas the hostess from the ancient Tavern of the "Golden Button;" So demanded ancient custom. There—so learn we from the legend— Stood once in those heathen ages An old tavern; Fridolinus, When he first upon the island ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... in alpaca. His waxen face showed a morose commiseration. He noiselessly approached the bed—he seemed to have none of the characteristics of a man, but to be a creature infinitely mysterious and aloof from humanity—and held out to Sophia a visiting card in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... granted: young children are generally able to learn the sounds of a foreign language by imitation; students of college age can hardly ever do this well, and careful phonetic instruction is absolutely necessary with them. Whoever wishes to keep aloof from phonetic terms may do so; but not to know or not to apply phonetic principles is bad teaching pure and simple. The use of phonetic transcription, however, is a moot question. Its advantages are obvious enough: it insures a clear consciousness ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... the Lincolnian snappy and headlong manner was the fruit of study and deliberation. Apparently holding aloof from politics after his return from Washington, in 1849, Lincoln was earning a great name at the bar. His popularity was the wider as he did not disdain poor clients and often won a case without permitting any remuneration. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... up with her whole soul to the enjoyment of these glorious occasions. While Bonaparte, almost completely overwhelmed and disturbed, could have held aloof from these ovations of the people of Paris, they, on the contrary, filled the heart of his wife with pride and joy. While in the theatre, he shrank back, abashed, behind his wife's chair when the audience, learning his presence, filled their noisy plaudits and clamored to ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... arrangements in the car, he climbed modestly into the front seat next to the chauffeur, and would not be dislodged by Sypher's entreaties. He was just there, on guard, having no place in the vigorous atmosphere of their personalities. He sat aloof, smoking his pipe, and wondering whether he could invent a motor perambulator which could run on rails round a small garden, fill the baby's lungs with air, and save the British Army from the temptation of nursery-maids. His ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... erect, with arms folded over her chest, and her dark brows forming a bar across her forehead. I saw her in white bodice and green petticoat, her arms and neck bare, her feet in old slippers, her black hair loosely coiled and stuck with a silver pin. I saw her hold herself aloof and dubious, proud and coldly chaste. "Call me and I come," she seemed to say to me between her shut lips, "Call me and I follow you over the world like a dog at your heels. Send me into infamy and I go; expect me to woo you there and I will die sooner. Yours, if you will ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... added reasons which, combined, formulated themselves into the following arguments. "We don't really know much of the Americans though they have been buying and selling and marrying us for some time. Our insular trick of feeling superior has held us mentally aloof from half the globe. But presumably the United States was from the first, in itself, an ideal, pure and simple. It was. It is asinine to pooh-pooh it. A good deal is said about that sort of thing in their histories and speeches. They keep it before each other and ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of warmth and depth, was developed in such patriarchal orchestras— and this family feeling was ready to respond to the suggestions of a sympathetic leader. But just as, for instance, the Jews formerly kept aloof from our handicraftsmen, so the new species of conductors did not grow up among the musical guilds—they would have shrunk from the hard work there. They simply took the lead of the guilds—much as the bankers take the lead in our industrial society. ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... at last in a pause by the roulette table at the rear of the room. Curious to watch the game in being, he lingered there, head cocked shrewdly on one shoulder, a speculative pensiveness informing his eyes, his interest plainly aloof and impersonal. This despite the fact that his emotions of intestinal felicity were momentarily becoming more intense: the torchlight procession was in full swing, leaving an enduring refulgence ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... striking appeal to my dulled intelligence at that time. These were: the aloof attitude of Dr. Stacey, who seemed carefully to avoid me; and a curious circumstance which the second officer mentioned in conversation one evening as we strolled up and ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... workers still held aloof from these processions, although their haggard faces bore involuntary testimony to their sufferings. Although privation reigned supreme in their desolate homes, where there was often neither food nor light nor fire, they were too 'proud' to parade their ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... uncertainly as a chorus of raucous laughter came to his ears. He glared belligerently at a group of newcomers who stood aloof from his own gathering. Seven or eight of them there were, and they wore the gray with obvious discomfort. Slummers! Well, they'd hear something they could carry back with them when ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... not told her mother of her new friend. She had wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... matter or subject respecting the executive department or the person who presides in it (the king) comes before them it is debated on with the spirit of men, and in the language of gentlemen; and their answer or their address is returned in the same style. They stand not aloof with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe of sycophantic insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... him) You have always held yourself aloof from me. All my love has been powerless to gain an entrance into your heart. Now it is too late. I give up the ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... greater portion of the contents ran out. A general fight ensued, both parties accusing each other of being the cause of the loss. Knives were drawn, and wounds inflicted. The Englishmen, however, secured the prize, and had to continue the fight to preserve it. The two boatswains stood aloof encouraging their respective parties; while the doctor and Tidy, who attempted to act the part of pacificators, were knocked over, the Irishman narrowly escaping being thrown into the sea. The fight continued for some time, till the combatants, many of them badly wounded, sank down utterly exhausted. ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... course of the speeches that were made, much regret was expressed at the determination of Mr. Muntz to stand aloof from the party in this election, and it was hinted that if the Conservatives should retain the seat, Mr. Muntz personally would be to blame. Muntz heard it all pretty quietly, and at length, greatly to the astonishment of most who were ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... others. It was merely a matter of common or garden horse sense, as we call it in America. Warren has been systematically robbing the rich men of New York for three years, under various subterfuges. No wonder he could afford such gorgeous collections of art, keeping aloof from his associates in crime. His treasures, like those in many European museums were bought with blood. It is curious how a complex case like this smooths itself out so simply when the key is obtained. And you, Helene, have been the genius ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Court, M. de Lauzun was of course pressed by everybody to relate all he knew of the position of the two armies. But he held himself aloof from all questioners, and would not answer. On the day after his arrival he went to pay his court to Monseigneur, who did not like him, but who also was no friend to the Marechal de Villeroy. Monseigneur put many questions to him upon the situation of the two armies, and upon the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... unborn beauty: she Now in air floats high and free. Takes the sun and makes the blue;— Late with stooping pinion flew Raking hedgerow trees, and wet Her wing in silver streams, and set Shining foot on temple roof: Now again she flies aloof, Coasting mountain clouds and kiss't By the evening's amethyst. In wet wood and miry lane, Still we pant and pound in vain; Still with leaden foot we chase Waning pinion, fainting face; Still with grey hair we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found with my father in my mother's room was not among the folk who babbled on the roads and came prying into the stages with tiresome exclamations of "Really!" and "How in-tres-ting!" He kept aloof from them and from us all. All day long he wandered on the heads and hills of our harbour—a melancholy figure, conspicuous against the blue sky of those days: far off, solitary, bowed. Sometimes he sat for hours on the Watchman, staring out to sea, so still ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... another interval of delay, and Lidgerwood held aloof from the group at the fire, pacing a slow sentry beat up and down beside the ditched train, and pausing at either turn to listen for the signal of Dawson's coming. It sounded at length: a series of shrill ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... hand to hand to meet The foe, his javelin hurl'd, the point ill-aim'd On Idas glanc'd, who vainly kept aloof With neutral weapon. Phineus, stern he view'd, "With threatening frown, exclaiming;—"though no share "In this mad broil I took, now, Phineus, feel "The power of him whom thou hast forc'd a foe; "And take reciprocally wound for wound." Then from his side the weapon tore to hurl; But fast ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... days had been, while Rome was yet but young, when it stood far aloof in the gay green fields, the suburban villa of the proud Porcian house. Time passed, and fashions changed. Low streets and squalid tenements supplanted the rich fields and fruitful orchards, which had once rendered it so pleasant ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... were known to the whole band, for he protected all who fell into their hands, as far as lay in his power, frequently paying their ransom out of his own pocket; his entreaties had saved many a ship from burning, and he had always kept aloof from the bacchanalian orgies of his companions, for which reason they did not hold him in special regard, and always watched him with suspicious eyes. He had already made one attempt to escape, which had been pardoned, now ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... must here specify, for good reasons, that I held myself very strictly aloof from the Bohemians, save in business affairs. This was partly because I was married, and I never saw the day in my life when to be regarded as a real Bohemian vagabond, or shiftless person, would not have given me the horrors. I would have infinitely preferred the poorest settled employment ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... animated by selfishness, by jealousy, by greed for gain, by sentimentalism, or by hypocritical patriotism, Matius stands aloof, and stands perhaps alone. For him the death of Caesar means the loss of a friend, of a man in whom he believed. He can find no common point of sympathy either with those who rejoice in the death ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... confused way as of one half-stunned, Richard Frayne paced up and down the dining-room, hearing from time to time what was going on, for he had been sent out of his cousin's room by the doctor. Here he was conscious of the fact that his fellow-pupils all kept aloof, grouping together and talking in low tones. They were discussing the affray, he knew, and a word here and there told him that the causes of the encounter were ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... navies for such steps as these, taken in the interests of world uplift and world peace, could not fail to be more efficacious and less expensive than increase in fighting equipment. It would cultivate the spirit of pulling together and of a square deal rather than one of holding aloof and of ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... down the stairs in a storm of mental hysteria. His physical senses seemed to be numb, but the brain more than made up for this. It was writhing in an agony of fear, a chaos of racing tortures; yet in their midst one thing stood aloof with the firmness of rock. This was the belief—unassailable, absolute—that he could not by any human means turn from the direction his life was pointing. He felt this profoundly. His mind kicked and held back against it, but a great something was calmly impelling him on. He hated this ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... But Banion, aloof and morose, made his bed that night apart even from his own train. He had not seen Wingate—did not see him till the next day, noon, when he rode up and saluted the former leader, who sat on his own wagon seat and ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... lay behind the scenes. I painted the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained a ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Orange, Egmont, Horn, and others, openly avowed their hostility to him, and had already given their reasons to the King. Mansfeld and his son at that time were both with the opposition. Aerschot and Aremberg kept aloof from the league which was forming against the prelate, but had small sympathy for his person. Even Berlaymont began to listen to overtures from the leading nobles, who, among other inducements, promised to supply his children with bishoprics. There were none ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... permit him to seek a dance with Helen. Under existing conditions, it would provide quite a humorous episode, he told himself, to strike up a friendship with her. He could not imagine why she had adopted such an aloof attitude toward all and sundry; but it was quite evident that she declined anything in the guise of promiscuous acquaintance. And he, like her, felt lonely. There were several Americans in the hotel, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... kept himself aloof from the discussion; he listened, and had evidently an idea. He contented himself with ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... sun-browned face, and the golden glow of her silken brown hair. Willock's heart yearned toward her as only the heart of one destined to profound loneliness can yearn toward the exquisite grace and unconscious charm of a child; but to the degree that he felt this attraction, he held himself firmly aloof, knowing that wild animals are frightened when kindness beams without ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the Xavarian I thought I could discern division into factions ere we had reached Helium. There were those who gathered about Carthoris and myself whenever the opportunity presented, while about an equal number held aloof from us. They offered us only the most courteous treatment, but were evidently bound by their superstitious belief in the doctrine of Dor and Iss and Korus. I could not blame them, for I knew how strong a hold a creed, however ridiculous it may be, ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the personal confession was over now, and Gillian could go on to tell the rest of the Stebbing enmity, of Mr. White's arrival, and of the desire to keep his relations aloof from him. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stands, From the way-side dust and noise aloof, And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands To bless its ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the boys in Blue going on with their game laughing. When they had got their fill of it, they adjourned to Oulton Boar for 'Half a pint'; by-and-by in came the raging farmer for a like purpose; at first growling aloof; then warming towards the good fellows, till—he joined their company, and—insisted on paying ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... Dora was like one distraught. She held herself aloof from her sister, and still more from Andy, who, on his part, made a very ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... trampled upon, and then turned out of doors. The indignant world shall hear my story, the finger of scorn will be pointed at you. Your name will become a byword and a hissing. Respecterble women, respecterbly connected, will stand aloof and shudder." ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had interpreted her friend's face aright, she could no longer stand aloof, an amused and slightly satirical spectator. If Burt deserved some punishment, Gertrude did not, and she was inclined to guess the cause of the latter's haste to return to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... occasions they provide themselves with armfuls of stones, which, as they go up, they throw violently one by one at these imaginary beings, thus showing them that their company is neither required nor wished for, and that they had better keep aloof. If this simple precaution is used, the obliging and scorned spirits seldom interfere with the traveller's welfare. The hills close to the towns are simply covered with heaps of stones, so thrown at these mythical dwellers of the mountains. Such is the effect produced by ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... done; And the roses spring up by thy feet that the rocks of the wilderness wore. Ah! when thy Balder comes back and we gather the gains he hath won, Shall we not linger a little to talk of thy sweetness of old, Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail whence the Gods stood aloof to behold? ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... the Mayflower or the cavaliers, but you can read all about her ancestors in any history of America. She has such a strong sense of humour and the fitness of things, that she has adapted herself to the present, instead of remaining aloof and going to the wall as she told me so many of her ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... himself, he had answered her call; in consequence of that high devotion, he was now in prison, charged with a dreadful crime; but, instead of hastening to him, instead of standing by his side and proclaiming to the whole world her belief in his innocence, she deliberately stood aloof. It was almost as if she herself believed in his guilt! The world, at least, could draw ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... faith requires the security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. I can not too strongly urge a dispassionate treatment of this subject, which should be carefully kept aloof from all party strife. We must equally avoid hasty assumptions of any natural impossibility for the two races to live side by side in a state of mutual benefit and good will. The experiment involves us in no inconsistency; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... novelty to them—had attracted their attention; and having occasion to signal the arrival of a bark, the working of the uncouth arms of the instrument drew the children in half-frightened curiosity towards it, although the others held aloof, as if fearful of trespassing upon some work of the government, no doubt secretly guarded by the police. A few mornings later he was surprised to see upon the beach, near the same locality, a small heap of lumber which had evidently been landed in the early morning fog. The next ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, who were strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, and speak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keep aloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine some of the swords, but an American student said, "It would not be quite polite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they will bring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handle freely. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... slightest warning, and while he was at the far end of the room from her with his back toward her, he wheeled and rushed madly at her. Involuntarily the girl shrank back, extending her open palms toward the frightful creature as though to hold him aloof but a man upon either side of her, the two who had conducted her into the apartment, seized and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... large, square, strong, of two stories over a stoutly piered basement, and surrounded by two broad verandas, one at each story, beneath a great hip roof gracefully upheld on Doric columns. It bore that air of uncostly refinement which is one of the most pleasing outward features of the aloof civilization to which it, though ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... known women better—if he had been like me, for instance—he would have known that, for all her show of calm, she was no less agitated than he who stood before her and adored her. But he only saw her divinely aloof and himself most humanly mortal. Yet he took courage from her permission to speak again. "Madonna, ever since that sacred day when you gave me the rose that I carry next my heart, my mind has had no other thought but ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... vast fabric on the desert soil; O'er many a league the ponderous domes extend. And deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend; 70 A thousand jasper steps with circling sweep Lead the slow votary up the winding steep; Ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof, Bear on their branching arms the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... blot the starless dawn That hears our children tell, "Here rose the walls, now wrecked and gone, Our fathers loved so well; Here, while his brethren stood aloof, The herald's blast was blown That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof And ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... set my foot in the house from which I was thrust out with shame and insult such as no lady ever yet forgave. But, thank Heaven, I am not at your mercy at all. He to whom nature has drawn me all these years is my father—Oh, papa, come to me; is it for you to stand aloof? It is into your hands, with all the trust and love you have earned so well from your poor Grace, I give my love, my veneration, and my heart and soul forever." Then she flung herself panting on his bosom, and he cried over her. The next moment he led her to the house, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... public table, and shrunk from society. During the whole of the next morning, I kept aloof from the temptations of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... motions, scented hair and flower-wreaths, smiles and sparkling eyes, the graces of nature not wholly lost under the polish of civilization, you would say our Maori girls were very nice indeed. And so say all of us, although the Saint and the Little'un and O'Gaygun hold aloof from ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the forces of the manifest world but with those of the invisible world of which the manifest is the effect. Thus it does not imply an impoverishment, but an enrichment, of life. The true occult scientist does not stand aloof from the world, but is a lover of reality, because he does not desire to enjoy the unseen in a remote dream-world, but finds his happiness in bringing to the world ever fresh supplies of force from the invisible sources from whence this very world is derived, ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... which make life amiable and indolent—those sensations which soften, and allure, and vulgarise—were unknown to him; no domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... life—so especially fascinating to a young lawyer, but so irregular in its tendencies, and so inimical to steady professional labor—had begun to operate upon him. His father's prominent position in the politics of the state made it almost impossible that the son should stand aloof. In 1827, the same year when Franklin began the practice of the law, General Benjamin Pierce had been elected governor of New Hampshire. He was defeated in the election of 1828, but was again successful in that of the subsequent year. During these years, ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but it was too late to retrace his steps. With a glance at his holster, he rode boldly forward to the nearest shed. A dozen men hovered near him, but something in his quiet, determined manner held them aloof. Gilroy was on the threshold in his shirtsleeves. A single look showed him that Clarence was alone, and with a careless gesture of his hand he ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... me, I had never bound Her beauty to my darkness; that had been Too hard for her. Sadder to look so near Into a face all shadow, than to stand Aloof, and then withdraw, and afterwards Suffer forgetfulness to comfort her. I think so, and I loved her; therefore I Have no complaint; albeit she is not mine: And yet—and yet, withdrawing I would fain She would have pleaded duty—would have said "My father wills it"; would have turned away, As lingering, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... my companions, I knew that in no case would they take the trouble to interfere in my behalf; they had held aloof from the first, the general opinion (which I now perceive was not unjust) being that ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... ill-will. But having been convicted, he finds himself shunned by all but criminal society, and together with other influences, educational in character, he is frequently allured into a relapse. If a prisoner endeavours to behave himself in gaol and keep aloof from evil contagion, he is bullied by his fellow-prisoners, and even his keepers regard him with suspicion. The one twit him with being a white-livered coward, the other consider him to be either a sneak or a "deep fellow." He is almost sure to fall ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... hope still baffled still to be renewed; Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial Gain, Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's pain: Around him some mysterious circle thrown Repelled approach, and showed him still alone; Upon his eye sat something of reproof, That kept at least Frivolity aloof; 110 And things more timid that beheld him near In silence gazed, or whispered mutual fear; And they the wiser, friendlier few confessed They deemed him better than ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... exceptions; and one cavalier in particular appears to hold himself aloof, neither speaking to his neighbors nor mixing in the throng. As he does not look like a "sulky swell," rendered taciturn by an overweening sense of his own importance, he is probably either a new resident in the county or a "stranger from a distance"—which, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... Hadst courage. Is it fled? In other days Thy boast hath been that without native troops Or foreign aids, thy kindred and thyself Alone, were guard sufficient for the town. 560 But none of all thy kindred now appears; I can discover none; they stand aloof Quaking, as dogs that hear the lion's roar. We bear the stress, who are but Troy's allies; Myself am such, and from afar I came; 565 For Lycia lies far distant on the banks Of the deep-eddied Xanthus. There a wife I left and infant ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... is what the spiritualists would regard as a very powerful medium, but being a very earnest Christian, and afraid of getting led astray, she has kept carefully aloof from all circles and things of that nature. She came and opened her mind to me in the first place, to ask my advice as to what she had better do; relating experiences very similar to many ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... undeniable as are the miseries which that conquest inflicted on our Saxon ancestors from the time of the battle of Hastings to the time of the signing of the Great Charter at Runnymede. That last is the true epoch of English nationality: it is the epoch when Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon ceased to keep aloof from each other, the one in haughty scorn, the other in sullen abhorrence; and when all the free men of the land; whether barons, knights, yeomen, or burghers, combined to lay the foundations ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... them, they were ill provided with food for a protracted season. They had expected that Cartier would have an abundant crop growing round his establishment, but they found that he had not even broken the soil that year. They found, too, that the Indians held aloof, and would do naught to help them. The few stragglers whom they could attract by "firewater," had no stores of food, as they were too inert to till the soil, and depended merely on game and fish; feasting while it was abundant, and starving when ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... and the Secretary of State as a champion of Mrs. Eaton. As to the views of the Vice-President upon the all-absorbing question, we have no information. Not being one of the official advisers of the President, he probably kept entirely aloof from a controversy no doubt in every way distasteful ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... was particularly struck with a musket which was shown to him, and asked where the white men got hatchets hard enough to cut the tree of which the barrel was made! While he was thus engaged, his brother chief stood aloof, talking with the captain, and fondling a superb cock and a little blue-headed paroquet, the favourites of which I have before spoken. I observed that all the other natives walked in a crouching posture while in the presence of Romata. Before our guests left us, the captain ordered the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... judges are not chosen to represent the people in this sense. Their function is to interpret the laws. The legislators are responsible for the laws; the judges for the spirit in which they interpret and enforce the laws. We stand aloof from the reckless agitators who would make the judges mere pliant tools of popular prejudice and passion; and we stand aloof from those equally unwise partisans of reaction and privilege who deny the proposition that, inasmuch as judges are chosen to serve the interests of the whole people, they ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... noticed this—but then last night he had specially held aloof from her. No, no! It was no use dwelling upon it. He would not forgive. That chapter in her life was closed. To attempt to open it again would be ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... solitude. There is a little lonely church in the Dale, where a good simple-hearted pastor ministers; and there can we worship in a homely and hearty fashion; nor does the pastor take it ill that Mr. Truelocke keeps aloof from the prayers, but respects his scruples, and reveres his character. For proof thereof, I did not cease urging on Harry his careless promise, that our union should have our father's blessing on it; and the good pastor ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... other groups, the born artists with their responsive minds, the "home children" for whom everything centres in their own home-world, and who have in them the making of another one in the future; the critics, standing aloof, a little peevish and very self-conscious, hardly capable of deep friendship and fastidiously dissatisfied with people and things in general; the cheerful and helpful souls who have no interests of their own but can devote ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... soft; and had I seen Caesar, I should not now worship the deity I have raised on the pedestal of Imagination. I desire to foster the poetic feeling which, like a mountain mist, surrounds the ordinary habits and character of great men, and so I stand aloof and look on them. I exist on ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... of the dead woman were soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a child's curls eddied round and round, floating upwards to the window and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which that poor soul ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... amalgamation between the two races was reluctant and slow. The earliest Bengal immigrants sought wives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of India[1]; and although their descendants intermarried with the natives, the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence that the aborigines long retained ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... vineyards and of lands, Far above the convent stands. On its terraced walk aloof Leans a monk with folded hands, Placid, satisfied, serene, Looking down upon the scene Over wall and red-tiled roof; Wondering unto what good end All this toil and traffic tend, And why all men cannot be Free from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the doctrine of James Monroe, twice over President of the United States, that the United States should hold aloof from all interference with the affairs of the Old World, and should not suffer the Powers of the Old World ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Vaughan, dreams of alchemists—all these were his delight. Such were his companions, with the hills and hanging woods, the brooks and lonely waterpools; books, the thoughts of books, the stirrings of imagination, all fused into one phantasy by the magic of the outland country. He held himself aloof from the walls of the fort; he was content to see the heaped mounds, the violent height with faerie bulwarks, from the gate in the lane, and to leave all within the ring of oaks in the mystery of his boyhood's vision. He professed to laugh at himself and at his fancies of that ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... or careless. But nothing now can stop their entrance into a land where men begin to desire earnestly to read them for themselves. Not all, mind you. It is strange how careless and apathetic are the gentry of the land—they that one would have thought to be most eager, most forward. They stand aloof; and the richer of the trades' guilds will have little to say to us. But amongst the poor and unlettered do we find the light working; and in them are our chiefest ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... certain it was that in two weeks Myles was the acknowledged favorite. He made no protestation of virtue; he always accompanied the Prince in those madcap ventures to London, where he beheld all manner of wild revelry; he never held himself aloof from his gay comrades, but he looked upon all their mad sports with the same calm gaze that had carried him without taint through the courts of Burgundy and the Dauphin. The gay, roistering young lords and ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... the Smeaton drew near to the Bell Rock. During this time, Ruby kept aloof from his fellow-workmen, feeling disposed to indulge the sad thoughts which filled his mind. He sat down on the bulwarks, close to the main shrouds, and gazed back at the town as it became gradually less and less visible in the faint light of morning. Then he began to ponder ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life. And the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star. To all the victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says, "Ye must become as little children." For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else. Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... the testy Victorian tetrarchs are gone now or decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne Mansion remains virtuous and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back Bay, Rittenhouse Square. Its marble steps are scrubbed daily, the brass plate is reverently polished, and the lace curtains are as prim and superior as ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... laid her hand on his arm. She had held aloof for that long year, feeling that he was in the wrong. He had not acted as a Thorne should, and he could never be the same to her as in old days. But she had wanted her boy, nevertheless, right or wrong, and since Percival had pardoned him, and since it was partly Godfrey's hardness that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... me with a tumult of approbation; and many other speeches they heard from the ambassadors, both in my presence and afterward; yet none the more, as it appears, will they keep aloof from Philip's friendship and promises. And no wonder, that Messenians and certain Peloponnesians should act contrary to what their reason approves; but you, who understand yourselves, and by us orators are told, how you are plotted against, how you are inclosed! you, I fear, ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... had followed Mayor Morrison into the State House, had been holding aloof, politely, from a conference which seemed to have no bearing on the political situation. They hurried behind and overtook Stewart and the young lady at the head of the stairway; their spokesman asked ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... more ashamed to avow for himself than I should be to avow for him. It was all vague and vast, and it came out of the books that he read, and that filled his soul with their witchery, and often held him aloof with their charm in the midst of the plays from which they could not lure him wholly away, or at all away. He did not know how or when their enchantment began, and he could hardly recall the names of some of them afterwards. First of them was Goldsmith's "History of Greece," ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the iron road, We hurry by some fair abode; The garden bright amidst the hay, The yellow wain upon the way, The dining men, the wind that sweeps Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps - The gable grey, the hoary roof, Here now—and now so far aloof. How sorely then we long to stay And midst its sweetness wear the day, And 'neath its changing shadows sit, And feel ourselves a part of it. Such rest, such stay, I strove to win With these same ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the girl did not seem a light thing to the cure, and he thought of it anxiously, hoping and sometimes believing that the young man would be strong enough to hold himself aloof, unless Miss Grant should show herself worthy of a noble, not a degrading, love. The priest had kept his promise in going to see her; but until this rumour of Vanno's gambling reached him he had not been able to regret his failure. The responsibility of ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was sucking a lemon with a puzzled expression. Gallant, sweet-tempered, and always hopeful, Caesar could not understand his friend's passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race, however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn to himself not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he would have seen John, also sucking a lemon, but understudying his idol's nonchalant attitude and smile. John was sensible of an overpowering desire ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... possessed of marvellous few resources. I am quite ashamed of you. Now listen to me. I have thought deeply upon this subject, and am quite convinced that with some little trouble we may secure the co-operation of a most wealthy and influential body—one, too, that is generally supposed to have stood aloof from all speculation of the kind, and whose name would be a tower of strength in the monied quarters. I allude," continued Bob, reaching across for the kettle, "to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the type Pharasaic—the type to profess love for its kind, yet stay scrupulously aloof from the vanquished and court only the victors. Indeed, ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... soon come to understand that and her personal pride kept her aloof from any chance of snubs. But she would want a wider world presently that was not bounded by a grandfather or a fortune that had ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... still held aloof, as is his custom. He does not follow the fashion of his fellows; he resists the allurements of the nesting month; he waits. Whether it be for a late-coming insect necessary to the welfare of his nestlings, or for the thistle silk which alone makes ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... to hand to meet The foe, his javelin hurl'd, the point ill-aim'd On Idas glanc'd, who vainly kept aloof With neutral weapon. Phineus, stern he view'd, "With threatening frown, exclaiming;—"though no share "In this mad broil I took, now, Phineus, feel "The power of him whom thou hast forc'd a foe; "And take reciprocally wound for wound." Then from ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... seems quite himself," she said gravely. But she turned to cover the mirth in her eyes; it suffused her face, her whole charming personality. Then suddenly, at the moment the flow was highest, came the ebb. Her glance met Tisdale's clear, appraising look, and she stood silent and aloof. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... even her name could not be kept free from slander. And when he spoke to her on the subject, he did so rather with the view of proving to her how necessary it was that she should keep herself altogether aloof from such matters, than with any wish to make further inquiry. But he elicited the whole truth. "It is so hard to kill an old established evil," ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Government was approached in 1865 by Prussia in regard to the proposed Prusso-Italian treaty he should be found a supporter, even if an inactive and silent one, of this new arrangement. And it was equally natural that during the short war of 1866 between Austria and Prussia he kept aloof from any actual interference. It might even have been possible that France indirectly would have been found at that time on the side of Prussia, for there can be no doubt that Napoleon III would have liked to assist at that time Italy against Austria. But the Mexican ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... hold in my hand. Every human being that I come to know appears to me strangely and appallingly distinct and un-typical; of course one finds that many of them adopt a common stock of conventional ideas, but when you get beneath that surface, the character seems to me solitary and aloof. When people use words like 'democracy' and 'humanity,' I feel that they are merely painting themselves large, magnifying and dignifying their own idiosyncrasies. It does not uplift and exalt me to feel that I am one of a class. It ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you on the subject of war, human government, and church and family government. The more I reflect upon the subject the more difficulty I find, and the more decidedly am I of opinion that we ought to hold all these matters aloof from the cause of abolition. Our good friend, H. C. Wright, with the best intentions in the world, is doing great injury by a different course. He is making the Anti-slavery party responsible in a great degree for his, to say the least, startling ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... your own patch of garden written a little large over a few more acres. Again, as always, it was the dignity of the cities that impressed—an austere Northern dignity of outline, grouping, and perspective, aloof from the rush of traffic in the streets. Montreal, of the black-frocked priests and the French notices, had it; and Ottawa, of the grey stone palaces and the St. Petersburg-like shining water-frontages; and Toronto, consumingly commercial, carried the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... fact, and one to be deplored, that even the potato blight was made a party question in Ireland. If we except the Protestant and dissenting clergy, and a few philanthropic laymen, the upper classes, especially the Conservatives, remained aloof from the public meetings held to call attention to it, and its threatened consequences. The Mansion House Committee, which did so much good, was composed almost exclusively of Catholics and Liberals; and the same is substantially true of the meetings held throughout the country—in short, the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... preyed upon by petty feudal despots. They were seldom the object of violence on the part of the government; they enjoyed civil liberty, and were owners of a portion of the soil. But all the other classes of society stood aloof from this class, and perhaps in no other part of the world had the peasantry ever lived so entirely alone. The effects of this novel and singular kind of oppression deserve a very ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... the highest need of the Church was not victory but liberty. Through his friends, Fleury and Chevreuse, he favoured the recall of the Protestants, and he advised a general toleration. He would have the secular power kept aloof from ecclesiastical concerns, because protection leads to religious servitude and persecution to religious hypocrisy. There were moments when his steps seemed to approach the border of the undiscovered land where ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... feeling of shame crimson his face, no sinking of disgust oppress his heart, as he slipped into a house, where, although he kept aloof from actual contact with the ruffians, the details of an enormous crime of which he was the author were ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... was never put to the test. The two statesmen failed to agree on the Cabinet question; M. Jonescu kept aloof from office, and the post of second delegate fell to Rumania's greatest diplomatist and philologist, M. Mishu, who had for years admirably represented his country as Minister in the British capital. From the outset M. Bratiano's position was unenviable, because he based his country's ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... wisdom of all these latter times, in princes' affairs, is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof. But this is but to try masteries with fortune. And let men beware, how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared; for no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... his heroes, like Poe's, are images of himself. No matter what the raw material of his narrative poems may be, they become uniformly "Byronic" as he writes them down. And all this is "lyricism," however disguised. William Morris, almost alone among modern English poets, seemed to stand gravely aloof from the tales he told, as his master Chaucer stood smilingly aloof. Yet the "tone" of Chaucer is perceived somehow upon every page, in ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont's manner to Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... looked into it, and through it, and over it, and under it, with an eye that was predetermined to pry out a secret. Then he felt of every wheel, lever, cam, ratchet, drum, and other portion within reach of his fingers. Everything was immovable. Then he stood aloof from the machine, folded his arms, pursed up his lips, and cocked an eye at it, as if, by the mere force of intellect, he would compel the dumb thing to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... that anyone situated as Evelyn was could hold aloof from the party strife when civil war broke out during the course of this year. And, of course, he was on the Royalist side. But he did not serve long with the troops. Here is his own record of that military service,—'Oct. 3rd. To Chichester, and hence the next day to see the siege of Portsmouth; ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Whalley, Abbot Paslew was the second son of Francis Paslew Of Wiswall Hall, a great gloomy stone mansion, situated at the foot of the south-western side of Pendle Hill, where his brother Francis still resided. Of a cold and cautious character, Francis Paslew, second of the name, held aloof from the insurrection, and when his brother was arrested he wholly abandoned him. Still the owner of Wiswall had not altogether escaped suspicion, and it was probably as much with the view of degrading him as ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his reasons. He thinks them irreverent, sometimes, I fancy; but I am not sure. I never heard him say very much on the subject; but I know quite well that he would not like me to go. Don't you know, Miss Mitchell, that clergymen always have to stand aloof from so many things, because they are set up as examples for ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Smith, who had been inside a few clubs here and there, and who spoke, in a sketch of London, of its "forbidding" aspect, "a great, square, sullen mass of granite, frowning at you from under its heavy browed windows—an aloof, stately, cold ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between, But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... aristocracy changes, disappears, and decays; many of the great houses become extinct in the wars with France, or in the fierce battles of the Two Roses; the people gain by what the aristocracy lose. The clergy who keep aloof from military conflicts are also torn by internecine quarrels; they live in luxury; abuses publicly pointed out are not reformed; they are an object of envy to the prince and of scorn to the lower classes; they find themselves in the most ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... when, far out at sea, the crew of a small fishing-craft saw a column of smoke curling upward from the haunted shore. Was it a device of the fiends to lure them to their ruin? They thought so, and kept aloof. But misgiving seized them. They warily drew near, and descried a female figure in wild attire waving signals from the strand. Thus, at length, was Marguerite rescued, and restored to her native France, where, a few years later, the cosmographer Thevet ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... to the Council, and to assert the majesty of their numbers against their emigrant oppressors. But, though encouraged by some old transportationists amongst the magistrates, and by the government press, the scheme was too monstrous for success. The respectable expirees stood aloof, and even detested an organisation founded on the reminiscences of crime. A few noisy meetings and inflammatory speeches were sufficient to open the eyes of most to the gulf of caste into which their own protectors intended to fling them. The deputations to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... forgiven his own loss of the tiara. Yet even now they seemed to shrink from the creation of an antipope. Urban precipitated and made inevitable this disastrous event. He was now alone; the Cardinal of St. Peter's was dead; Florence, Milan, and the Orsini stood aloof; they seemed only to wait to be thrown off by Urban, to join the adverse faction. Urban at first declared his intention to create nine cardinals; he proceeded at once, and without warning, to create twenty-six.[65] By this step the French and Italian ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... expressed a wish to see him, neither would the Quaker nor Mrs. Roden have made strong objection. To whatever might have been her wish or her decision they would have acceded. It was by her word that the marriage had been declared to be impossible. It was in obedience to her that he was to keep aloof. She had failed to prevail with her own soft words, and had therefore been driven to use the ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... advisable at this date to send him to the penitentiary. Upon being told that he would have to remain at the hospital, patient again became morose, hypochondriacal, refused nourishment, and commenced to hold himself aloof from the other patients. His suspiciousness and vague persecutory ideas with reference to the personnel of the hospital became more pronounced, and he could see no other reason for being kept here than that the officials are continuing in ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... of it, ye Dresdeners, all flurried, palisaded, barricaded; no hair of you shall be harmed." After a day or two, the flurry of Saxony subsided; Prussians, under strict discipline, molest no private person; pay their way; keep well aloof, to south and to north, of Dresden (all but the necessary ammunition-escorts do);—and require of the Official people nothing but what the Law of the Reich authorizes to "Imperial Auxiliaries" in such case. "The Saxons themselves," Friedrich observes, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... account of his early connection with the L. & G. W. project, although he was holding himself more and more aloof from the new movements, and held forth often upon the value of conservatism. Miss Addison, who was related to the Lattimore family, was commissioned to invite the old General, who very unexpectedly consented. His son Will, as solicitor for the railway ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... become in it. Among the servitors or free scholars of their college was a young man, whom they had frequently noticed the last year, but never recollected having seen before. He shrunk, as it appeared in sensitiveness from every eye, kept aloof from all companions, as if he felt himself above those who held the same rank in the University. Herbert's gentle and quickly sympathising heart had ever felt pained, when he first went to college, to see the broad distinction made between the servitors ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... decision, the next day a small sealing vessel anchored in the Inlet. All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from the crew and conversed in another language. These two came ashore with part of the crew and talked in French with a wandering Hudson's Bay trapper, who often lodged with the Squamish people. Thus the women, who yet mourned over their dead warrior, knew ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... of the Greek cities held aloof from the confederation, so that only about fifteen or sixteen states were brought to unite their resources against the Barbarians; and even the strength of many of those cities that did enter into the alliance was divided by party spirit. The friends of aristocratical government were almost invariably ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... and they are fighting for independence! For what? [Uproar. A voice: "Three cheers for independence!" and hisses.] I could wish so much bravery had a better cause, and that so much self-denial had been less deluded; that the poisonous and venomous doctrine of State rights might have been kept aloof; that so many gallant spirits, such as Jackson, might still have lived. [Great applause and loud cheers, again and again renewed.] The force of these facts, historical and incontrovertible, cannot be broken, except by diverting attention by an attack upon the North. It is said that ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... than at this time. Those who had been her bravest defenders now rose against her; and she would probably have perished had the whole Italian people taken part in the war. But the insurrection was confined almost exclusively to the Sabellians and their kindred races. The Etruscans and Umbrians stood aloof, while the Sabines, Volscians, and other tribes who already possessed the Roman franchise, supported the Republic, and furnished the materials of her armies. The nations which composed the formidable conspiracy against Rome were eight in number—the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... should go over to your communion; however, it would be a greater misfortune to you than grief to us. If your friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let them make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I ventured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof from all Roman Catholics who came with the intention of opening negotiations for the union of the Churches: when you now urge us to petition our Bishops for a union, this, I conceive, is very like an act ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... to hold myself absolutely aloof from everything in the most remote degree savouring of participation in this mad scheme, for many reasons; but I had no objection to the dropping of a hint to Polson now and then, for I considered that by so doing I should strengthen my influence with him. I wanted him to acquire the ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... chap, with a chest like a working bullock. He was rather darker than a Samoan or a Tahiti man, owing to a seafaring life, and had straight, black hair. He only spoke as a rule when he was spoken to, and kept himself pretty much aloof from the rest of the hands, though he wasn't by ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke
... commoner, made himself one of the passengers at once; but Byron held himself aloof, and sat on the rail, leaning on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy, from the gloomy Rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. There was in all about him that evening much waywardness; he spoke petulantly ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... his isolated acknowledgments of the inherent value of knowledge—he conceives its utility wholly in the comprehensive and noble sense that the pursuit of science, from which as such all narrow-minded regard for direct practical application must keep aloof, is the most important lever for the advancement of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... rather increased than diminished her natural timidity. Brinley, on the other hand, professed to know no fear, but according to his theory that ways and means were his care, and that the domestic affairs of his household were his wife's, and beyond his jurisdiction, held himself aloof and said never a word to the recalcitrant servant, confining what upbraiding he did exclusively to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... have been there five minutes when Mrs. Sewall came strolling along the aisle, accompanied by Miss Oliphant. She, who usually held herself so aloof, was very gracious this afternoon, smiling cordially at left and right, and stopping now and again to present her niece. I saw her recognize Mrs. Jackson and then smilingly approach her. We all rose as our hostess got up and beamingly put her ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... presides in it (the king) comes before them it is debated on with the spirit of men, and in the language of gentlemen; and their answer or their address is returned in the same style. They stand not aloof with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe of sycophantic insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... inquiries) that he had left the town. No! Ruth's funeral passed over in calm and simple solemnity. Her child, her own household, her friend, and Mr Farquhar, quietly walked after the bier, which was borne by some of the poor to whom she had been very kind in her lifetime. And many others stood aloof in the little burying-ground, sadly watching that ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... freely admitted that this council has sometimes gone further in political action than some of the churches have been altogether prepared for. From the first, so representative a Nonconformist as the late Dr Dale of Birmingham stood aloof from it, on the ground that it tended to divert the energy of the churches from the proper channels and to involve them too deeply in political controversy. In this action he was supported by many of the more ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... it, Natalia Victorovna, that you have kept aloof so long, from what after all is—let disparaging tongues say what they like—a unique centre of intellectual freedom and of effort to shape a high conception of our future? In the case of your honoured mother ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... jewel in its crown of old houses, Tudor Place, now the home of Armistead Peter, junior, sits high and aloof on the heights of Georgetown. Its southern front, shown here, is the one most familiar to everyone, and it is the view that I looked out on every day of my life for more than a score of years from my father's ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... material round the leg from the knee to the ankle, and high loose boots of untanned leather with the hair inside. The transformation greatly pleased the peasants, whose hatred of the French uniform had hitherto caused them to stand aloof from him, and they now patted him on the shoulder, shook his hand, and drank glasses of vodka, evidently to his health, with great heartiness. Julian could, as yet, scarcely believe that all this was not a dream. From the day that he had crossed ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... a very small class, but powerful by their wealth, their intelligence, and their influence over those whom they employed. They had held aloof from the agitation which began in 1892, because they did not themselves care for the franchise, not meaning to spend their lives in the Transvaal, and because they knew that political disturbances would interfere with the mining industry. The leading ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... Ruse? Mr. Ruse was not an experiment. He had already served as the City's Chief Magistrate, and had filled many remunerative offices with Reformers. Being of a modest and retiring disposition, he was now holding aloof from the honors sought to be thrust upon him. He had begged his friends to take some new candidate, he had pleaded his well-known dislike of office and the pressing demands of his private affairs. But, nevertheless, zealous as he was in the ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... his side, the stamp of death was on his face. The biting finger of agony had drawn lines upon his haggard brow. A great fear was upon him, and he gripped my hand with the cold grasp of death itself. In that darkened room it seemed to me I saw the angel of peace standing by the bed, but it stood aloof, as one often offended. It seemed to me at the head of the bed the demon of eternal darkness bent over, whispering to him: 'It is too late! it is too late!' The dying man looked at me—oh, such a look! May you never be called upon ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... brilliantly lighted Milan, he had looked in at the vivid little scene with a certain eager tolerance,—there was much, after all, that was attractive in this side of life, so much that was worth cultivating; he blamed himself that he had stood aloof from it for ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their work of vengeance; they were mad with their sufferings. As well might a man try to snatch her prey from a puma robbed of her whelps, as to turn them from their purpose. With the men it was otherwise, however. Some of them mingled in the orgie indeed, but more stood aloof watching with a fearful joy the spectacle in which they did not share. Near me was a man, a noble of the Otomie, of something more than my own age. He had always been my friend, and after me he commanded the warriors of the tribe. I went to him and said, 'Friend, for the sake of the honour ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... of suffering, and at this moment, a look of baffled and restless longing, as if life had been for her a festival whose sounds came from a hopeless distance. Yet there was something in the expression of the mouth, that suggested a consistent standing aloof from herself and her desires. The lines of the face could never have been drawn by mere diffusive, emotional habits. Thought had left as many traces as feeling in the firm drawing. The quality of the face was of that indefinable ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... from the charge of his two haughty brothers. He had his own estates to administer — no light task for a youth not yet eighteen — and his large household to order; and though Griffeth gave him every help, Llewelyn and Howel stood sullenly aloof, and would not appear to take the least interest in anything that appertained to Dynevor, although they gave no reason for their conduct, and were not in other ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... very straight. Her little aquiline profile against the passing street lights was as aloof as imperial ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... spectators in a mirthful tone of mind Comedy must hold them as much as possible aloof from all moral appreciation of its personages, and from all deep interest in their fortunes, for in both these cases an entrance will infallibly be given to seriousness. How then does the poet avoid agitating ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... state of wonderment and bad passions, I fear. I went straight to Lady Racial, my dear. There was nothing else for it but to go and speak. She is truly a noble woman—serves us in every way. As she should!—much affected by sight of Evan, and keeps aloof from Beckley Court. The finger of Providence is in all. Adieu! but do pray think of Miss Carrington! It was foolish of her to offend me. Drives and walks-the Duke attentive. Description of him when ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... procession was winding out through gas-lit murky hallways into the pale dawn-light slanting over the walls of the gravel-paved, high-fenced compound built against the outer side of the prison close. He would wait on, always holding himself discreetly aloof from the middle breadth of the picture, until the officiating clergyman had done with his sacred offices; would wait until the white-faced wretch on whose account the government was making all this pother and taking all this ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the wood, and to his surprise gave him his crossbow and bolts, enjoining him strictly to lie quiet, and if any ill-looking fellows should find him out and come to him, to bid them keep aloof; and should they refuse, to shoot them dead at twenty paces. "Honest men keep the path; and, knaves in a wood, none but fools do parley with them." With this he snatched up Gerard's axe, and set off running—not, as Gerard expected, towards Dusseldorf, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... numerous houses and apartments from time to time. Apartments were costlier and fewer than houses. Since she was doomed to live alone, anyway, she might as well have a house. Her neighbors would more easily be kept aloof. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... was Grisell's victory, though Bernard still held aloof from her all the ensuing day, when he was really the better and fresher for his long sleep, but at bed-time, when as usual the pain came on, he wailed for her to rub him, and as it was still daylight, and her father had gone out in one ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the bandbox which he carried, his mission should have been menial; but he bore himself wholly unlike one subdued to petty employments. His steady, gray eyes showed a glint of anticipation as he turned in at the gate of the high, broad, brown house standing back, aloof and indignant, from the roaring encroachments of trade. He set his burden down and, ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... man picked up from his new roommate, Tom Anstey, a soft-eyed, soft-voiced, helpful and sunny young man from Virginia. Anstey was one of the best-liked men in his class, but the new plebes at first held almost aloof from Dodge. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... situation clear, let me hark back a little. Japan, beating China in the war of 1895, took and occupied Port Arthur. Japan later, compelled by hostile demonstrations on the part of Russia backed up by France and Germany, restored Port Arthur to China. Note the holding aloof of England here. The actual text of the ultimatum delivered was that the possession of ceded territory by Japan would be detrimental to the lasting peace of the Orient. Japan was bitterly humiliated and an Asiatic never forgets or forgives. Japan bided her time. Russia's duplicity ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Lower still, toward the south, Achernar seemed to reserve his gracious prestige, whilst, across the invisible Pole, the beneficent constellations of Crux and Centaurus exhibited the very paralysis of hopelessness. Worst of all, Jupiter and Mars both held aloof, whilst ascendant Saturn mourned ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... In the political contests of our day it is to be observed that the combatants are much more prone to imitate the bigotry of Pompey than the generosity of Cesar, condemning, as they often do, those who choose to stand aloof from electioneering struggles, more than they do their most determined opponents ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... elsewhere, so reassume 80 My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom; No,—she denied me what was mine—my roof, And shall not have what is not hers—my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... answer will their nice reclaim, Whose heads are proof Against all reason, and in spite of shame Will stand aloof; 'Twould cherish further libels on thy fame, Should these thee move. Stand firm, my Dryden, maugre all their plots, Thy bays shall flourish ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... realisation of these. Even at old Featherstone's funeral, her one emotion is of pitiful sorrow over that loveless mockery of all human pity and love; and for the "Frog-faced" there is no feeling but sympathetic compassion for his apparent loneliness amongst strangers, who all stand aloof and look askance on him. Into all Lydgate's plans, into the whole question of the hospital and all he hopes to achieve through means of it, she throws herself with swift intelligence, with active, eager sympathy, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... A thousand torches flamed aloof; From many cups, with golden gleam, Sparkled the red metheglin's stream: To grace the gorgeous festival, Along the lofty-windowed hall The storied tapestry was hung; With minstrelsy the rafters rung Of harps that with reflected light From the proud gallery glittered bright: While gifted ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Country on this subject, condensed into a maxim for the use of posterity by one of his most distinguished successors—to cultivate free commerce and honest friendship with all nations, but to make entangling alliances with none. A strict adherence to this policy has kept us aloof from the perplexing questions that now agitate the European world and have more than once deluged those countries with blood. Should those scenes unfortunately recur, the parties to the contest may count on a faithful performance of the duties incumbent on us as a neutral nation, and our own citizens ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... have always held yourself aloof from me. All my love has been powerless to gain an entrance into your heart. Now it is too late. I give ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... Monarchy by its religious sanction now confirms all our political order; in George III.'s time it confirmed little except itself. It gives now a vast strength to the entire Constitution, by enlisting on its behalf the credulous obedience of enormous masses; then it lived aloof, absorbed all the holiness into itself, and turned over all the rest of the polity to the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... upon her shoulders, and she had stopped long enough to show a smiling face on the subject of her marriage. There were to be only Fletcher, Miss Saidie and himself as witnesses, he gathered, Wyndham's parents having held somewhat aloof from the connection—and within three hours at the most it would be over and the bridal pair beginning their long journey. Looking down from the next landing, he had further assurance of the sincerity of Maria's smile when he saw the lovers meet and embrace within the shadow of the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... thousands of students are flocking to their investigation, and are going out to try their tentative knowledge in College Settlements and City Missions and Children's Aid Societies. The best instincts of generous youth are becoming enlisted in these living themes. And why should our daughters remain aloof from the most absorbing work of modern city life, work quite as fascinating to young women as to young men? During many years of listening to college sermons and public lectures in Wellesley, I always noticed a quickened attention in the audience whenever the discussion touched politics ...
— Why go to College? an Address • Alice Freeman Palmer
... of the testy Victorian tetrarchs are gone now or decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne Mansion remains virtuous and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back Bay, Rittenhouse Square. Its marble steps are scrubbed daily, the brass plate is reverently polished, and the lace curtains are as prim and superior as William Washington ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... mourn over the dead, and who would sooner see my dead body deposited by that of the colonel's, than any other on earth. I was determined not to be mourned for in that way, by the desperate villains. I therefore kept aloof from their society. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; 50 For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... ambassadors, for the last few weeks, had been less supercilious than his colleagues; he had participated less than formerly in the affairs of the German congress, and while Roberjot and Jean Debry were raising their arrogant and haughty voices in every session of congress, Bonnier kept aloof. He even held no further intercourse with his own countrymen; and his tall and imposing figure, with the proud and gloomy countenance, was seen no longer every night as heretofore in the drawing-rooms of the wives of Roberjot and Debry. He kept aloof from society as he kept aloof from the congress, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... world, he was affectionately known as Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. He stood aloof from political and ecclesiastical controversies, and was fond of telling a story to illustrate how little reasoning went to forming partisans. A minister catechizing a raw plowboy, after asking the first question, "Who made you?" and getting the answer "God," asked him, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... disposed to be pliant and easy about what is not fatal. And because machinery is the bane of politics, and an inward working, and not machinery, is what we most want, we keep advising our ardent young Liberal friends to think less of machinery, to stand more aloof from the arena of politics at present, and rather to try and promote, with us, an inward working. They do not listen [lviii] to us, and they rush into the arena of politics, where their merits, indeed, seem to be little appreciated as yet; and then they complain of the reformed constituencies, ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... occasions, something so decisive and emphatic, that one entirely approves of the course of the male in not meddling or offering any suggestions. It is the wife's enterprise, and she evidently knows her own mind so well that the husband keeps aloof, or plays the part ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... degrees and all unconsciously, braced both mind and body;—something broadening and uplifting in the wide free outlook from every headland; something restorative of the grip of life in the rush and roar of the mighty waves and the silent endurance of the rocks; something so large and aloof and restful in the wide sweep of sea and sky; something so hopeful and regenerative in the glorious exuberance of the spring—the flaming gorse, the mystic stretches of bluebells, the sunny sweeps of primroses, the soft uncurlings of the bracken, the ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... of the Inquisition I am not standing aloof from the Church, but I am treading in her footprints. Bloodshed and persecution form no part of the creed of the Catholic Church. So much does she abhor the shedding of blood that a man becomes disqualified ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... accomplished swordsman, but it would have been unwise to send him against Quentin. Ugo himself was a splendid shot and an expert with the blade, and it was not cowardice that kept him from taking the affair in his own hands. It was wisdom, cunning wisdom, that urged him to stand aloof and to go up to his wedding day with no scandal at his back. But the unexpected, the miraculous had happened. His friend, his brother prince, his unwitting tool, had gone down like a log, his vaunted skill surpassed by the marksmanship and ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... had at one time been a nun, or, perhaps, merely a novice in a convent, and to this day there have been preserved on her face timidity and a pale puffiness—a modest and sly expression, which is peculiar to young nuns. She holds herself aloof in the house, does not chum with any one, does not initiate any one into her past life. But in her case there must have been many more adventures besides having been a nun: there is something mysterious, taciturn and criminal in her unhurried speech, in the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... she did not care much for the emotional kind. Perhaps her intensest feeling was the desire to feel intensely, but being half ashamed of this desire she rarely dwelt on it; she pursued her way, calm and aloof and proud. She was beautiful and found pleasure in the contemplation of herself, and though she did not discuss her appearance as her stepsisters discussed theirs, she spent a good deal of time on it and much ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... sole authority of the Scriptures, and the doctrine of salvation by faith alone; but on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper he went farther in his dissent from the Church of Rome. This made Luther and his followers stand aloof when cordial fellowship was ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... freed them from bondage. With respect to Israel, God is like one who receive many fields as an heritage, but one he purchased himself, and the one he earned was dearest to his heart. I will reign alone over you, as My possession, I and none other, so long as you keep yourselves aloof from other peoples. If not, other peoples shall reign over you. But if you obey Me, you shall be a nation, not only free from care, but also a nation of priests, and ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the soul of the dead woman were soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a child's curls eddied round and round, floating upwards to the window and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which that ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the manufacture and decoration of this beautiful paper-cloth, Hina's son, the demi-god Maui, held aloof from the work. In the making of tapa man's hand was tabu, yet he could not forbear an occasional suggestion when his mother created mystic designs for decoration ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... Margaret's fears with playful words, promising to be more discreet in the future, and keep aloof from the Earl, and in a short time they were back in the ballroom, and he, at least, was dancing as merrily as if there was no such ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... with them was the unwearying chirping of the field-crickets. "How busy they are at their work," thought the count, "what a hurry they are in; it sounds as if each one were madly reeling the thread off a spool. How those spools hum, how feverish is the unrest in them." He felt agreeably aloof from this unrest. As he dozed off, the voices seemed to withdraw, to become subdued. "Yes, yes, it must be so, the restless voices move away, die away, and then—quiet. Yes, it will be so—perhaps—we ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... it was evident to Aunt Faith that her niece looked beyond her present sphere, and cherished a hidden ambition to shine in the highest circles of the queen cities of America,—Boston, New York, and Washington. With this inward aim, Sibyl Warrington held herself somewhat aloof from the young gentlemen of Westerton; there were, however, two whom she seemed to favor in her gentle way, and Aunt Faith watched with some anxiety the progress of events. Graham Marr was a young collegian, the only child of a widowed mother who ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... levity of frivolous amusement. Apart from the other prisoners was seated a recluse, whose appearance excited the attention of the two visitants; a deep cloud of dejection overshadowed his features, and he seemed studiously to keep aloof from the obstreperous revelry of his fellow-captives. There was in his manner a something inducing a feeling of commiseration which could not be extended to his callous 21 companions in adversity. His decayed habiliment indicated, from its formation and texture, that he had seen ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... she saw or heard ever puzzled her, there was always somebody, young or old, to enlighten her innocent perplexity; and with each illumination she shrank a little less aloof from this shabby wisdom gilded with "art," which she could not choose but accept as fact, but the depravity of which she never was entirely able ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Aeronautics, 1909, to combine theory and practice. The National Physical Laboratory. Growth of the factory under Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, 1909-16. Its services to aviation. Private makers of aircraft stand aloof. The designing office at the factory. Its services during the war. Famous factory types of aeroplane—the B.E., the F.E., the S.E., the R.E. The question of stability; work of Mr. Lanchester and Professor Bryan. The story of Mr. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... which He is leader.'[26] What then ought to be the attitude of the Church to the industrial questions of our day? While some contend that the social question is really a religious question, and that the Church is untrue to its mission when it holds itself aloof from the economical problems which are agitating men's minds, others view with suspicion, if not with hostility, the deflection of religion from its traditional path of worship, and deem it a mistake for the Church to interfere ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... me as his companion beyond the very natural one of a desire to enjoy the use of my purse. When he found that he had lost his influence over me, and that the move he attempted to regain it the more I kept aloof from him, his whole manner towards me in private changed, though in public, especially in presence of the captain and lieutenant, it ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... We proceeded to our cove, where we went on shore, and found a small family of Indians, who appeared to be greatly terrified at our approach, and all ran away except one. A conversation between this person and Tupia soon brought hack the rest, except an old man and a child, who still kept aloof, but stood peeping at us from the woods. Of these people, our curiosity naturally led us to enquire after the body of the woman, which we had seen floating upon the water: And they acquainted us, by Tupia, that she was a relation, who had died a natural death; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Chancellor, Hardwicke, to Newcastle in 1748, "the Confederacy will be restored and made whole, and become a real strength; if you do not, it will continue lame and weak, and much in the power of France." Frederick however held cautiously aloof from any engagement. The league between Prussia and the Queen of Hungary, which England desired, Frederick knew in fact to be impossible. He knew that the Queen's passionate resolve to recover Silesia must end in a contest in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... of beads about his long fingers, his eyes averted, the King heard each in turn. Then he looked up. His glance, deliberately ignoring Guise, settled upon the Duke of Retz, who held aloof. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... aware of the sharp eyes and tongues round the table, but Harmony did not understand. She had expected moral support from his presence, and failing that she sank back into the loneliness and depression of the day. Her bright color faded; her eyes looked tragic and rather aloof. She ate almost nothing, and left the table ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... here was something different, something he had not known. He began by exerting his powers of fascination in a lazy, careless way. To his astonishment the said powers were not overwhelming. If Jane was fascinated she was not conquered. She remained sweet, simple, direct, charmingly aloof. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... devotion, he was now in prison, charged with a dreadful crime; but, instead of hastening to him, instead of standing by his side and proclaiming to the whole world her belief in his innocence, she deliberately stood aloof. It was almost as if she herself believed in his guilt! The world, at least, could draw no ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... on with his planting. Ephraim, standing a little aloof, somewhat warily since his brother's threatening advance, kept repeating his one remark, as mocking as the snarl of a mosquito. "Thomas Payne's got your girl, Barney. Say, did you know it? ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... evil custom of political parties is hereby forbidden. Old political offenders are all pardoned. We shall, however, not be able to pardon those who deliberately hold themselves aloof and disturb ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... each other, nevertheless Mariano saw enough of the sisters, to create in his breast feelings of the tenderest pity—especially for the younger sister, whom he thought rather pretty than otherwise! As for the Jew, he kept aloof from all the captives, but seemed to have a good understanding with the pirate captain, and to be acquainted with several ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... my character, and set me, while still young, in an utterly false social position," said Raphael after a pause. "Family ties, weak ones, it is true, bound me to a few wealthy houses, but my own pride would have kept me aloof from them if contempt and indifference had not shut their doors on me in the first place. I was related to people who were very influential, and who lavished their patronage on strangers; but I found neither relations nor ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... have not the assured urbanity of the Florentine, who, while he scorns you in his soul as a barbarian, will trade with you, eat with you, and humour you, certainly without betraying his contempt. But the Fiesolano is otherwise; quarrelsome he is, and a little aloof, he will not concern himself overmuch about you, and will do his business whether you come or go. And I think, indeed, he still hates the Fiorentino, as the Pisan does, as the Sienese does, with an immortal, cold, everlasting hatred, that maybe nothing will altogether ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... father's father, and his battles overworn; Then he told of Signy and Sigmund, and the changing of their lives; Tales of great kings' departing, and their kindred and their wives. But his song and his fond desire go up to the cloudy roof, And blend with the eagles' shrilling in the windy night aloof. So he made an end of his story, and he sat and longed full sore That the days of all his longing as a story might be o'er: But the wonder of the people, and their love of Sigurd grew, And green grew the tree of the Volsungs, as the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... fortune is continually marred by such persuasions, that he keep himself close surrounded by his friends, that he must not hearken to any reconciliation with his ancient enemies, that he must stand aloof, and not trust his person in hands stronger than his own, what promises or offers soever they may make him, or what advantages soever he may see before him. And I know another, who has unexpectedly advanced his fortunes by following ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of confiding her domestic woes to David Grieve. But though under the terms of his agreement with her father, which included one meal in the back parlour, the assistant and she were often thrown together, he had till now instinctively held her aloof. His extraordinary good looks and masterful energetic ways had made an impression on her schoolgirl mind from the beginning. But for him she had no magnetism whatever. The little self-conceited creature knew it, or partially knew it, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the business quarters had for a time held aloof, but, in the absence of support from without and being enormously outnumbered, they were powerless, and the extreme party were now in absolute possession of the city. M. Thiers and the Assembly at Versailles had so far ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... of sentimental brotherhood among all mankind, is on the contrary one of the most cynical utterances of an undisputable moral truth, disparaging to the nature of all mankind, that ever came from Shakespeare's pen. Achilles keeps himself aloof from his fellow Greeks, and takes no part in the war, sure that his fame for valor will be untarnished. Ulysses contrives to provoke him into a discussion, and tells him that his great deeds will be forgotten and his fame fade into mere shadow, and that some ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... to Csar (though he was not changed in his opinions), and passed over to Greece, where he was finally overcome by the dictator, and owed his subsequent opportunities for study to the clemency of his conqueror, who gave him pardon after the battle of Pharsalia. All the rest of his life was passed aloof from the storm that raged around him, the circumstances of his proscription and pardon being the only indication of his personal connection with it. He died in the year 28 B.C., after the temple of Janus had been closed the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... the groups of great landowners that had formed in the later Han period. The nucleus of that group was a family named Ts'ui, of which there is mention from the Han period onward and which maintained its power down to the tenth century; but it remained in the background and at first held entirely aloof from direct intervention in high policy. Another family belonging to this group was the Hsia-hou family which was closely united to the family of Wen Ti by adoption; and very soon there was also the Ssu-ma family. Quite naturally Wen Ti, as soon as he came ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... protesting his great innocence, and swearing he had never in this world beheld a whip like that described. The soldiers, finding no whip, were beginning to believe his word when Rashid, who had remained aloof, observing that the cabman's wife stood very still beneath her veils, assailed her with a mighty push, which sent her staggering across the room. The whip was then discovered. It had been hidden underneath her petticoats. They had given the delinquent a good beating then and there. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... deal of what he meant, for one of the Baptist ministers of Philadelphia had said to me, with some shame, that at first it used actually to be the case that when Dr. Conwell would enter one of the regular ministers' meetings, all would hold aloof, not a single one stepping forward to meet or ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... did, humbly and at a distance, for Sir Jervas is, and always will be, magnificently aloof from all and sundry—but you ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... independence! For what? [Uproar. A voice: "Three cheers for independence!" and hisses.] I could wish so much bravery had a better cause, and that so much self-denial had been less deluded; that the poisonous and venomous doctrine of State rights might have been kept aloof; that so many gallant spirits, such as Jackson, might still have lived. [Great applause and loud cheers, again and again renewed.] The force of these facts, historical and incontrovertible, cannot be broken, except by ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... disagreeable, and severely tried Richard's forbearance; but there were no fresh outbursts, and, on the whole, from one week to another, there might be said to be an improvement. He could not always hold aloof from one so good-natured and good-humoured as the little Duke; and the fact of being kept in order could not but have some beneficial effect on him, after such spoiling as his had ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... narrative, to describe the pomp in which a luxurious and affluent aristocracy, that in general held itself aloof from familiar intercourse with those it ruled, displayed its magnificence to the eyes of the multitude, on an occasion of popular rejoicing. Long lines of senators, dressed in their robes of office, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the roof The sun, the stars and . . . God! For proof — Between the twisting chimney-pots A pointing finger, old, aloof! ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... With advancing ideas of religious liberty, the odious sense once attached to these words is largely modified, and heretic is often used playfully. Dissenter and non-conformist are terms specifically applied to English subjects who hold themselves aloof from the Church of England; the former term is extended to non-adherents of the established church in some other countries, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... records, he was disgusted, and with the conservative party, then fortunately holding the reins of executive and legislative power, he resolved that the government of the United States should stand aloof from ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... into an epithet and repeated ad nauseum, but all of them themselves from head to foot, through and through, provincial bourgeois. With one word, lying and stupidity, stupidity and lying. In this society there is no possibility of drawing a free, full breath. I hold myself aloof from them, and have declared quite decidedly that I will not join their communistic union of artisans, and will have nothing to ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... not mean that strategy should hold itself aloof from logistics and make arbitrary demands upon it; for such a procedure would result in making demands that logistics could not supply; or, through an underestimate of what logistics can supply, in refraining ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... sprightly race, disporting" for the time being, on the "margen green" of Father Thames. A particularly lively, pleasant, entertaining, well-mannered boy was Gerald, but, all the time, Marian was feeling that he was holding aloof both from her and Edmund, never allowing either of them the opportunity of speaking to him alone, for even a minute; and his manner, whenever Edmund either spoke to him or looked at him, was such as to betray to her that he was ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... checkers. The Winklesteins were making themselves solid with the music-hall clique. In and out among the different groups darted the Prodigal, as volatile as a society reporter at a church bazaar. And besides these, always alone, austerely aloof as if framed in a picture by themselves, a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... look at Mandy Ann, who had at first been appalled at the advent of the baby, and for a while kept aloof even from Ted, when the "Hatty" was in. Then she rallied and, like Jake, was ready to do battle with any one who hunched their shoulders at Miss Dory. She had two good square fights with Ted on the subject, and ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... form of speeches by leading men of the day. But the Greeks have objectivity in a far more important sense than this. Their objectivity is no literary device but a quality of mind. They have the power of standing aloof from matters in which they are personally interested, and surveying them from outside like impartial spectators, with the keenest interest, but without bias. As the Delphic priestess in the act of prophecy lost ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... man I'm after," said Chief Fleck. "We have the goods on old Hoff, but we have nothing incriminating against Frederic yet. The very fact that he holds aloof from his uncle's activities makes me think he is engaged in more important work. He's just the type the Germans would ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... immediately followed. Peter was armed with a pistol and rapier; but his pistol and powder had been rendered useless by swimming the river, and he had nothing to depend on but his rapier. The creature at first was afraid of the pistol, and kept aloof; but seeing no fire issue from it, it came nigher and nigher, and seemed determined to have a scuffle with Carruthers for the possession of the thicket. At length it shook its head, grinning with disdain, and motioned him to fling the pistol away as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... room with the boy's arm linked in his. And the woman's face on the wall smiled behind them—the smile of a witch, mysterious, derisive, aloof, yet touched with that same magic with which Piers had learned even in his infancy to charm away the evil spirit that ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the Boys, all as Busy as Bees They are building a Little House under the Trees With funny red walls and mossy green roof Where Wendy may live from danger aloof. ...
— The Peter Pan Alphabet • Oliver Herford
... astonishing what healthful improvement takes place—how the poor heart, before starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond mother, with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... was one who kept his interest alive. It was the white horse. In the camp holding himself aloof, as if superciliously refraining from close contact, on the trail this horse took to revealing his antagonism. He would stand a short way from him while they grazed, lay back his ears and whisk his tail, and, whenever ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... once began to correct, he would appear to endorse whatever he left uncorrected, and thus make himself responsible, not only for any interpretation that might be placed on his poems, but, what was far more serious, for every eulogium that was bestowed upon them. He could not stand aloof as entirely as he or even his friends desired, since it was usual with some members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages which, without these, it was declared, would be a stumbling-block to future readers. But he disliked being even to this extent ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... important social duty and ought on no account to be omitted, as it entitles host and hostess to the help of all their guests in the event of illness or adversity taking place in their family. If, however, they do not conform to this social obligation, their neighbours and friends stand aloof, and do not so much as move a finger to help them. Should one of the family fall ill, the four nearest male neighbours are called in. These men fetch the doctor, and do all the nursing. They will even watch by the invalid at night, and so long ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... and he became the founder of a flourishing church in Hare Court, London. His preface bears the date of September, 1688; and, at a good old age, he followed Bunyan to the celestial city, in 1689. It is painful to find the author's Baptist friends keeping aloof because of his liberal sentiments; but it is delightful to witness the hearty affection with which an Independent minister recommends the work of a Baptist; and truly refreshing to hear so learned a man commending most earnestly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her purpose, whilst nothing could be better counterfeited than her innocence of his. But when now fired and on edge, he proceeded to drop hints of his design and views upon me, after he had with much confusion and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long aloof from it as she thought proper) of understanding him, without now affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying out into those violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck with the better grace and effect to the character of a plain, good sort of woman, that knew no harm, and that ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... prefer not to so often accuse others; but more than forty years of revolutionary and public life and experience have taught me to discriminate between deep convictions and assumed ones—to highly venerate the first, and to keep aloof from the second. Gold is gold, and pinchbeck is pinchbeck, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... handed the document, and Yussuf walked straight to where the head-man was standing aloof, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him inside his house, where he made him ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of the cattle seemed to be arrayed against each other, sending up great clouds of dust as they ran toward each other, locked horns and engaged in desperate conflict. It was noticed, however, that the muleys kept well out of harm's way, standing aloof from the herd and looking on ready to run at the shake of a horn in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... phosphate deals have made him rich in an un-Hayesboro-like way, and all the boys are in business for him in different states, except the oldest one, who is Congressman from this district, and one other who is in a Chicago bank. Yes, I know I have the most satisfactorily aloof family in the wide world. I can just go on feeding on their love and depend upon them not to interfere with any of my plans for living life. However, if anything happens to me I can be sure that their love will spring up ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... vacuity, vacancy; tabula rasa [Lat.]; exemption; hiatus &c (interval) 198; lipotype^. truant, absentee. nobody; nobody present, nobody on earth; not a soul; ame qui vive [Fr.]. V. be absent &c adj.; keep away, keep out of the way; play truant, absent oneself, stay away; keep aloof, hold aloof. withdraw, make oneself scarce, vacate; go away &c 293. Adj. absent, not present, away, nonresident, gone, from home; missing; lost; wanting; omitted; nowhere to be found; inexistence &c 2 [Obs.]. empty, void; vacant, vacuous; untenanted, unoccupied, uninhabited; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... The speech was made at the Chillicothe town where Lord Dunmore treated with the Ohio tribes for peace in the August after Logan had written his letter, but it was not spoken in the council. Logan held aloof from the council, and Dunmore sent to his cabin for him. It is said by some that his messenger was the great renegade Simon Girty, who had not yet turned against his own people, and was then, with ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... the snow of Ida, or ivory of Corinth; or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather? This is all. Be wise; I will make you friends, and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking. Do you stand upon that, by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen in 't.—Sister [my lord attend you in the banqueting-house,] ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... Windsor, had to boast some distinctions, which kept him aloof from the boys of his time. He was of that inordinate size that, like Falstaff, four square yards on even ground were so many miles to him; and the struggles which he underwent to raise himself when down might have been matter of instruction to a minority member. In the entrance to his Dame's gate ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... require? (37) "If a man be proved to be a thief, a filcher of clothes, a cut-purse, a housebreaker, a man-stealer, a robber of temples, the penalty is death." Even so; and of all men Socrates stood most aloof from such crimes. ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... deserve concealment,—for if any of thy co-wives were to speak of it unto Vasudeva, he might be irritated with thee. Feed thou by every means in thy power those that are dear and devoted to thy lord and always seek his good. Thou shouldst, however, always keep thyself aloof from those that are hostile to and against thy lord and seek to do him injury, as also from those that are addicted to deceit. Foregoing all excitement and carelessness in the presence of men, conceal thy inclinations by observing silence, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fiery glow Of conflagration, rolling floods of flame. 'Quick, father, mount my shoulders; let us go. That toil shall never tire me. Come whatso The Fates shall bring us, both alike shall share One common welfare or one common woe. Let young Iulus at my side repair; Keep thou, my wife, aloof, and follow as ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... attached to every train; for you will find the tender-hearted Abolitionist, in despite of his African sympathies, when it is a question of personal contact or association, quite as earnest in keeping those "innocent blacknesses" aloof, as the haughtiest Southerner. On the present occasion there was no such distinction of races. I do not think the contraband was conscious of the effect produced by his lordly presence; it was probably simple accident which brought him so often in my neighborhood; but, wherever I moved ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... her of their good faith, the four other republics have offered to name President Iglesias of Costa Rica as the first President of the Diet which is to govern the republic. But Costa Rica still holds aloof ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 35, July 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the church besides the officiating persons and the small marriage party and their attendants. The two valets sat aloof superciliously. The rain came rattling down on the windows. In the intervals of the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old Mrs. Sedley in the pew. The parson's tones echoed sadly through the empty walls. Osborne's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she had little patience for remembering dates and facts, and was not capable of Patty's steady plodding. Though both Maud Greening and Kitty Harrison had become more friendly, Vera Clifford and Muriel still held aloof from Patty, and it was owing to them that an unpleasant incident occurred one day which caused the latter much distress. Patty's talent for drawing was well known in the school; she was clever at portraits, and with a few rapid lines could make excellent ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... sides in the feuds that have been carried on throughout the Blue Ridge Country and thereby got themselves enthralled, while others, more tactful, managed to keep aloof and remain friends with ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... led him on into an intimacy with foreigners, and into a regard and consideration for them quite unknown to previous Pharaohs, and in contradiction to ordinary Egyptian prejudices. Egypt was the China of the Old World, and had for ages kept herself as much as possible aloof from foreigners, and looked upon them with aversion. Foreign vessels were, until the time of Psamatik, forbidden to enter any of the Nile mouths, or to touch at an Egyptian port. Psamatik saw that the new circumstances required an extensive change. The mercenaries, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... attitude of holding aloof from English influences is the only remedy against that peril and for ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... him well above Dickens, and, in the opinion of the present writer, it places him above even Balzac. But there are points wherein, according to that same opinion, he approaches much nearer to Balzac and Dickens than to the other and greater artistic creators: while in one of these points he stands aloof even from these two, and occupies a position—not altogether to his advantage—altogether by himself in his class of artistic creation. All the six from Thackeray to Shakespeare—one might even go farther back and, taking a more paradoxical example, add Rabelais—are, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... convicted, he finds himself shunned by all but criminal society, and together with other influences, educational in character, he is frequently allured into a relapse. If a prisoner endeavours to behave himself in gaol and keep aloof from evil contagion, he is bullied by his fellow-prisoners, and even his keepers regard him with suspicion. The one twit him with being a white-livered coward, the other consider him to be either a sneak or a "deep fellow." He is almost sure to fall and identify himself ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down." For her father's sake, she rejoiced in the success of the enterprise. Of the second season, she writes, "The new craze flourishes. The first year, Concord people stood aloof; now the school is pronounced a success, because it brings money to the town. Father asked why we never went, and Anna showed him a long list of four hundred names of callers, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... quite determined to hold myself absolutely aloof from everything in the most remote degree savouring of participation in this mad scheme, for many reasons; but I had no objection to the dropping of a hint to Polson now and then, for I considered that by so doing I should strengthen my influence with him. I wanted him to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." At that time the Shechinah departed from him; for it is said (Ps. li. 12), "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation;" and the Sanhedrin kept aloof from him, for it is said (Ps. cxix. 79), "Let those that fear thee turn unto me." That this ailment lasted six months is proved from 1 Kings ii. 11, where it is said, "And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... ate the dinners provided; he sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions for me,—always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had before been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the associations of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's a good fellow,—always on hand "; "never talks much, but does the right thing at the right time"; "is not as unpunctual as he used to be,—he comes early, and sits through to the end." "He ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... who had held aloof from Bathurst came forward and expressed their deep regret for what ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... trees that closely stand With roots and branches interwoven fast, May aid awhile each other in the blast; But as when giant pines at length give way The groves below must share the ruin vast, So men who seemed aloof from Fortune's sway Fall crushed beneath the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... the general night, A certain few who stood aloof had said, "See you upon the horizon that small light— Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... called upon his friends and High Heaven to "watch his smoke," was the next to wring Dill's hand, and Lannigan followed, while the Judge forgot the priceless year of which he had been robbed and elbowed Porcupine Jim aside to greet him. Only Uncle Bill stood aloof turning his jack-knife over and over nonchalantly in the pocket of his ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... I said, "in my country the Government does not care to know what does not concern it. It sits aloft and aloof. The Government does not care for the chatter of all the young fools in ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... a pensive, withdrawn look—'aloof,' I guess the word is—like she was too tender a flower, too fine for this rough stuff, and had ought to be in the home that minute telling a fairy story to the little ones gathered at her decently clad knee. I don't know how she done it, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... In the long drop of nightdress from shoulder to peeping toes, her hair cascading straight but full of electric fluff to her waist, she was as vibrant and as eupeptic as Diana, and as aloof from desire. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Vauquelin kept himself aloof while Lanyard and a young officer helped the girl to the seat to the right of the pilot, and strapped her in. When Lanyard had been similarly secured in the place on the left, the two sat, imprisoned, some ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... she, for to behold the rout, To see man, woman, boy, and beast, to toss the world about; Some kneel, some crouch, some beck, some cheek, and some can smoothly smile, And some embrace others in arm, and there think many a wile; Some stand aloof at cap and knee, some humble and some stout, Yet are they never friends in deed until they once fall out: Thus ended she her song, and said before she did remove, The falling out of faithful friends, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... time we had reached the head of this canyon; and my first sight of Monument Valley came with a dazzling flash of lightning. It revealed a vast valley, a strange world of colossal shafts and buttes of rock, magnificently sculptored, standing isolated and aloof, dark, weird, lonely. When the sheet lightning flared across the sky showing the monuments silhouetted black against that strange horizon the effect was marvelously beautiful. I watched until ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... this attitude of yours is merely passive, sullen, negative, as it mainly is, despairing of our capacity and anticipating a future of gloom, it is no game for man or woman. It is certainly the opposite of that for which I plead. Do not stand aloof, despising, disbelieving, but come in and help—insist on coming in and helping. After all, we have shown a good deal of courage; and your part is to add a greater courage to it. There are glorious ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... America, and was the author of books on Milton and Fenelon, and on social subjects. The elevation and amiability of his character caused him to be held in high esteem. He did not class himself with Unitarians of the school of Priestley, but claimed to "stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... different. They, the stately ones, stood quite aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Zamians, on the other hand, rolled down stones, and hurled burning stakes, javelins[178], and wood smeared with pitch and sulphur, on the nearest assailants. Nor was caution a sufficient protection to those who kept aloof; for darts, discharged from engines or by the hand, inflicted wounds on most of them; and thus the brave and the timid, though of unequal merit, were exposed ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... write in haste and with people talking all round me, from whom politeness will not let me sit altogether aloof. But read carefully and you will understand me. At least I hope this letter won't be quite so barbarous as the monstrosities which the usher from Osnabruck sends you every day: they sound like the spells of witches to bring up their familiar spirits, or the enchantments "Fecana kageti", &c., which ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... when his true character appeared, the only use he made of the estate was to leave the clothes of his family drying on the fence. Taniera was still the friend of the house, still fed the poultry, still came about us on his daily visits, Francois, during the remainder of his stay, holding bashfully aloof. And there was stranger matter. Since Francois had lost the whole load of his cutter, the half ton of copra, an axe, bowls, knives, and clothes— since he had in a manner to begin the world again, and ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... muttered. He returned to the porch, walking heavily. In body and in mind he felt listless. There seemed to be something or some one inside him—a newcomer—aloof from all that he had regarded as himself—aloof from his family, from his work, from his own personality—an outsider, studying the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... flushed with conquest, glittering with all kinds of festivity; and not an individual in bad spirits in Europe, but Napoleon himself. Yet in later times the court has changed; "the Emperor keeps singularly aloof from society; the splendid court-days are no more; the families are withdrawing into coteries; the beauties of former years have lost much of their brilliancy, and a new generation equal to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... ridiculous verses on the experts. James Boswell went down on his knees and thanked Heaven for the sight of them, and, feeling thirsty after these devotions, drank hot brandy and water. Dr. Parr was not less readily gulled, and probably the experts, like Malone, who held aloof, were as much influenced by jealousy as by science. The whole story of young Ireland's forgeries is not only too long to be told here, but forms the topic of a novel ('The Talk of the Town') by Mr. James Payn. The frauds in his hands lose neither their humour ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... arises from the religious difficulty—that sad legacy from the past, of which, fortunately, a new land like America knows nothing. The Pope and all strict Catholics stand coldly aloof from the government, ready to give trouble whenever opportunity offers. But I have faith in Italy. She will conquer her enemies, and once again be a great power worthy of her glorious past. All her troubles, however, are ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I found, from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blind man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum was profoundly ignorant, and a broken-down gentleman who had run ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... the German headquarters was William Howard Russell of the Times, respecting whom—perhaps because he kept himself somewhat aloof from his colleagues—a variety of scarcely good-natured stories were related; mostly designed to show that he somewhat over-estimated his own importance. One yarn was to the effect that whenever the Doctor mounted his horse, it was customary for the Crown ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... morning. But surely, Eames, we two need not stand on ceremony? I am particularly anxious for you to come to-night. Can't you really manage it? I want you to meet Malipizzo and say a few nice words to him. You are too aloof with that man. There is nothing like keeping on the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... retreat to the rear of the room out of the general melee; for he was shrewd enough instantly to comprehend that, while there might be fatal danger to him in the crowd, there was but little when he stood aloof: God's Bishops were not wont to be murdered deliberately in public. Yet it did not save him from arrest, for Raynor glanced at the Protector, and reading the order in his face stalked back and clapping Morton on the shoulder said ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Lewis did not for a moment forget his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he hastened back to the Tete-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof, and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region; now, he was involved in its rocky, ridgy, woody details. Here and there long vistas opened up to view, but, for the most part, his vision was circumscribed by towering cliffs and deep ravines. Sometimes he was down in the bottom ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... we wise, Him also, though the chorus of the throng Be silent, though no pillar rise In slavish adulation of the strong, But here, from blame of tongues and fame aloof, 'Neath a ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... settlement but a thriving village, from which Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook had long since departed. Before his death (1851) the fires of controversy had sunk to ashes; but Cooper never got over his resentment at the public, and with the idea of keeping forever aloof he commanded that none of his private papers be given to biographers. It is for lack of such personal letters and documents that no adequate life of Cooper has ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... utterly away. Its law, its literature, its manners, its faith, went with it. Nothing was a stronger proof of the completeness of this destruction of all Roman life than the religious change which passed over the land. Alone among the German assailants of Rome the English stood aloof from the faith of the Empire they helped to overthrow. The new England was a heathen country. Homestead and boundary, the very days of the week, bore the names of new gods who ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... made no answer to this question, and seemed as if she had not heard it, but presently it appeared that her silence had been caused by the effect of consideration, for at length she said, still retaining her aloof attitude: ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... avenues nearest the great balconies. More than once he visited the grotto where he had first seen her; but it was not the same. The occasional crack of a rifle on the walls no longer fired him with the interest he had felt in the beginning. Forty-eight hours had passed and she still held aloof. What could it mean? Was she ill? Had she collapsed after the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... as Tarentum, he suddenly crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western sea, where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his cause. In this again he was doomed to disappointment, for the rich Campanian towns, notably Capua, richest of all, held aloof till they knew for certain who ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... it became a part of Canada. Some of the Hudson's Bay Company's employes were not in their hearts pleased at the transfer, and the probable change in their position in a country where they had been so long masters. Although these men stood aloof from the insurrection, yet their influence was not exercised at the commencement of the troubles, in favour of peace and order, or in exposing the plans of the insurgents, of which some of them must have had ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... to go back as to go forward, and so she was left lamenting. With stern, inflexible faces, master and mistress watched their property depart, then returned to the house, while Uncle Lusthah mended the harness temporarily and took the carriage back to its place. Standing aloof, Zany had watched the scene, wavering between her intense desire to go and her loyalty to Miss Lou. The sick girl had conquered, the negress winning an heroic victory over herself. When she entered the back door of the mansion, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... avarice, and excessive pleasures a longing for them, amidst luxury and a passion for ruining ourselves and destroying every thing else. But let complaints, which will not be agreeable even then, when perhaps they will be also necessary, be kept aloof at least from the first stage of commencing so great a work. We should rather, if it was usual with us (historians) as it is with poets, begin with good omens, vows and prayers to the gods and goddesses to vouchsafe good success to our efforts ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... ministers belonging to them were eclectics or quasi-Presbyterians, like Baxter himself, making the most of untoward circumstances, while the stricter Presbyterians, who sighed for the perfect model, held aloof. Perhaps the majority of the State-clergy all over the country consisted of these two classes of Presbyterians baulked of their full Presbyterianism,—the Rigid Presbyterians, who would accept nothing short ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... edge of the moors. Allerston lies at right angles to the main road. It is full of quaint stone cottages, and is ornamented by the square tower of the church and the cheerful brook that flows along the road side. The church at Ebberston stands aloof from the village at the edge of the small park belonging to the Hall. The situation is a very pleasant one, and the building attracts one's attention on account of the wide blocked-up arch that is conspicuous in the south ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... was glad to avoid women of Althea's stamp. For some time he had preferred to associate with the common people, among whom he found his best subjects, and kept far aloof from the court circles to which Althea belonged, and which, thanks to his birth and his ability as an artist, would easily have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... time he had heard her call him by that filial title, or indeed anything more than "Old Smith" or the "Old Man." It was the first time in three months that she had spoken of him at all, and the master knew she had kept resolutely aloof from him since her great change. Satisfied from her manner that it was fruitless to question her purpose, he passively followed. In out-of-the-way places, low groggeries, restaurants, and saloons; in gambling hells and dance houses, the master, preceded by Mliss, came and went. In the reeking smoke ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... broth and bread and a bottle of wine. Mentu broke the bread and filled the beaker, while Sema stood aloof and gazed with troubled eyes at the unhappy face of the young master. Silent, they watched him eat and drink, grieved because of the visible effort it required and because no life or strength returned to him with the breaking ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... this, he will bring his wife and Susanna with him. You cannot think how keenly alive the Philadelphians are becoming to the glory it will be to rid Canada of French rule, and found an English-speaking colony there. The Quakers still stand aloof, and talk gloomily of the sin of warfare; but the rest of the people heed them no whit. They have furnished and equipped a gallant band to join General Amherst, and they are kindling with a great enthusiasm in the cause. Even our old friend Ebenezer Jenkyns has been talking ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to a more ridiculous degree. Tempest twitched to jeer openly at Susan, whose exhibition was really timid and modest and not merely excusable but justifiable. But he dared go no further than holding haughtily aloof and casting vaguely into the air ever and anon a tragic sneer. Susan would not have understood if she had seen, and did not see. She was treading the heights, her eyes upon the sky. She held grave ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... with labor, the powerful limbs instinct with some one poignant longing. One idea: there it was in the tense, rigid muscles, the clutching hands, the wild, eager face, like that of a starving wolf's. Kirby and Doctor May walked around it, critical, curious. Mitchell stood aloof, silent. The figure touched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... absolute exile from public life, rather than go 'the way that was not his way for an inch.' An Orleanist, an enthusiastic lover of Parliamentary institutions, he would not stoop with Guizot and Thiers to serve a King whose power was founded on corruption. A minister of the President, he held aloof as sternly from the despotism of the Empire as from the factions of the Republican Assembly. He never designed to conceal or soften the expressions of the ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... we add, for the gorgeous residences, notably in Georgia and South Carolina, built by the nobility and gentry of the republic, and inherited by the descendants of the old colonial aristocracy. What wonder, that they held themselves aloof from the manual laborer, black or white, and that they were uncontaminated by the attrition of commercial competition. In the summer the family sought the cooler climate of old Kentucky or Virginia, or farther north to Saratoga, Long Branch, or some one of the then attractive ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the observation of the resident Consuls-General and of the foreign colony, and dinners, riding and hunting parties, pig-sticking, and excursions on horseback into the outlying country were planned for their honor and daily entertainment. Had the conspirators held aloof from these, the residents might have asked, since it was not to enjoy themselves, what was the purpose of their stay in Tangier; and so, to allay suspicion as to their real object, different members ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... his claim to genius, if not to greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,—with them, but not of them,—coolly analyzing every sentence delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore to separate the gold from the dross. What was good and productive he was ready to recognize and assimilate; leaving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... indeed the case. All eyes were turned upon Hector when he entered the royal saloon. Many of Mazarin's friends came up and shook hands with him warmly, while the adherents of Beaufort and Vendome stood aloof from him with angry faces. Presently the door opened, and the queen, closely followed by Mazarin and a train of ladies ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... this sultry day of late July the garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and Soho seemed more than ever the disenchanted home of rapscallionism. Alone, the Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily painted, with its blue tubs and the dwarf trees therein, retained an aloof and Frenchified self-respect. It was the slack hour, and pale trim waitresses were preparing the little tables for dinner. Soames went through into the private part. To his discomfiture Annette answered his knock. She, too, looked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... grandfather and his guide were apparently in high spirits. Their laughter smote harshly upon me. It seemed to shut me out,—to lift a barrier against me. The world lay there within the radius of that swaying light, and I hung aloof, hearing her voice and jealous of the very companionship and sympathy ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... of liberty. It could have become the asylum of Polish literature and science; but it became only too soon the battlefield of political passions and combats. Some of her scholars however kept themselves entirely aloof from the strife. Macherzinski's and Muczkowski's learned works, already mentioned above; a history of Polish Literature by Wisznewski; and a new Polish Dictionary, by ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... there seemed to her delicate mind a something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were little accustomed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... always conquered when she called him "Captain Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called "Captain Anerley" by every one ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Varney," said the Earl of Leicester, who had stood aloof for a moment to mark the reception of Sussex; and advancing to the entrance, he was about to pass on, when Varney, who was close behind him, dressed out in the utmost bravery of the day, was stopped by the usher, as Tressilian and Blount had been before him, "How is this, Master ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind. Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should always keep aloof from public ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... who has been standing aloof and moody in the background.] Come, Mr. Davis, we must have ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... from Johnson. This, as I have pointed out before, is the very last stone in our consolidation with the continent, which, at present, is to be regretted.... A great access of Jews to Freemasonry is to be expected; hitherto they have held aloof to some extent, but the 'abolition of the Idea of God' is tending to draw in those Jews, now greatly on the increase once more, who repudiate all notion of a personal Messiah. It is 'Humanity' here, too, that is at work. ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... of seeing the men paid either for their wood or their labour; and their head servants of the kitchen or the wardrobe weary and worry them out of their best resolutions on the subject. They make the poor men sit aloof by telling them that their master is a tiger before breakfast, and will eat them if they approach; and they tell their masters that there is no hope of getting the poor men to come for their money till they have bathed ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... groups, the born artists with their responsive minds, the "home children" for whom everything centres in their own home-world, and who have in them the making of another one in the future; the critics, standing aloof, a little peevish and very self-conscious, hardly capable of deep friendship and fastidiously dissatisfied with people and things in general; the cheerful and helpful souls who have no interests of their own but can devote themselves to help anyone; the opposite class whose life is ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be debased by association with this caterwauling wood and wire, this sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... to the devil," said Charles Osmond, smiling a little, but sadly. "Except in that old legend, however, I don't think Christianity ever mentions tongs. If you can't love your enemies, and pray for them, and hold out a brotherly hand to them, perhaps it were indeed better to hold aloof and keep as quiet ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... change, but that seems to make hardly any difference. The new Peter (Miss EDNA BEST) is as good as any of them. Graceful of shape and lithe of limb, he is still essentially a boy, the realised figure of BARRIE'S fancy; a little aloof and inscrutable; romantic, too, in his very detachment from the sentiment of romance that he provokes. Miss FREDA GODFREY, the new Wendy, would have seemed good if we had not known better ones. To be frank, she looked rather too mature for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... consequence of some little indiscretions of her brother at the time when he was set free in the world—the result of the popular superstition held by him that "the world owed him a living,"—she held herself aloof from ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... through the door the lieutenant gave her one appreciative glance, then returned to his aloof pedestal of indifference. Obviously his pattern was to stand in majestic splendor and allow the girls to fawn somewhere down near his shoes. These lads with a glamour boy complex almost always gravitate toward some occupation which will ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... meet you again," he observed, with a somewhat aloof air, as she came out on the porch and sank listlessly into a wicker chair. "The last time I met you you were hard at work ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... some spring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as to account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved flowers so well, Bebee could not feel aloof from ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Nothing was a stronger proof of the completeness of this destruction of all Roman life than the religious change which passed over the land. Alone among the German assailants of Rome the English stood aloof from the faith of the Empire they helped to overthrow. The new England was a heathen country. Homestead and boundary, the very days of the week, bore the names of new gods who ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... sailed from Aden, a young gentleman came on board for a passage down to Natal. I soon found out that he was a seaman, though he took no part in the navigation of the brig, but when he discovered, as I had done, her character, kept himself aloof from the captain and officers, and, indeed, everybody on board. He did well; for, to my mind, it would be hard to find a greater villain in existence than Captain Redman. I would have liked to have spoken to him, to tell him that he might trust me if the worst came to the worst ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... a feudal court, a council of the King's tenants; it became, after 1295, a national assembly. Edward's plan was that the three estates—clergy, barons, and commons: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work—should be represented. But the clergy always stood aloof, preferring to meet in their own houses of convocation; and the archbishops, bishops, and greater abbots only attended because they were great holders of land and ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... stubborn pride that shrank from the slightest dependence, a self-reliance that would not falter, but would steadfastly hold aloof, and she knew that in one thing, at ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... being summoned by Master Freake to a discussion with their lordships, with whom was Margaret, aloof and icy. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... far in his footsteps stray— He must seek me would he undo the wrong. Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all Behind low boughs the trees let down outside; And the sweet pang it cost me not to call And tell you that I saw does still abide. But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof, For the wood wakes, and you are ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... favourable subjects, and the fact that the missionary carries medicines with him and attempts to heal, and that without money and without price, aids the missionary cause by bringing him into friendly communication with many who would doubtless hold themselves aloof from any one who approached them in no other character but that of a teacher ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... Sophie are faint shades leaving no impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof, looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng. It is Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by her father's infatuation for the Du Barry—an infatuation which, beginning within a month of Marie Leczinska's decease, ended ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... task,—not Clio nor her sisters, but the spirit of heavenly power and heavenly wisdom; his mind reverts to that story of Orpheus which had always had so singular and personal a fascination for him; of Orpheus, who, holding himself aloof from the mad amorists of Thrace, was by them torn to pieces during the orgy of the Dionysia, and sent rolling down the torrent of the Hebrus; and he prays to ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... knees and thanked Heaven for the sight of them, and, feeling thirsty after these devotions, drank hot brandy and water. Dr. Parr was not less readily gulled, and probably the experts, like Malone, who held aloof, were as much influenced by jealousy as by science. The whole story of young Ireland's forgeries is not only too long to be told here, but forms the topic of a novel ('The Talk of the Town') by Mr. James Payn. The frauds in his hands lose neither ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... accomplished with drawn swords, loud shouts, and imprecations, so as to attract the attention of several persons, who, alarmed by the tumult, looked out from their windows, as well as of one or two passengers, who, keeping aloof from the light of the torches, lest they also had been maltreated, beheld the usage which our fellow citizen received in the High Street of the burgh. And although these revellers were disguised, and used vizards, yet their disguises were well known, being a set of quaint masking habits ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... may advise you and others may swear That nicotine poison your nerves will impair, And if from the weed you'd just kept aloof From heartburn and palsy you'd surely been proof— For a man who had died at a hundred fifteen Was hastened away ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who own him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathises as he views them round, far as the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof from them in his own mind, and holds supreme counsel only with his own breast. An outcast from Heaven, Hell trembles beneath his feet, Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind are his ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Sulla. We shall see how by an exhaustive process the Romans, after a series of defeats, were at last driven to employ as generals-in-chief the two rivals who were now subordinates and were thus carefully kept aloof. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... ever favoured a winner, and had thronged about the fort, expecting presents galore from the strong people who had ousted the French. But instead of presents the English gave them only kicks and curses; and so they held aloof. Now, however, on hearing that Champlain had returned, the Indian dwellers along the Ottawa river and in Huronia flocked to the post. Hardly more than two months after his arrival, a fleet of a hundred and forty canoes, with about ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... was a world of dreams, of hopes, of purposes, which he would have been more ashamed to avow for himself than I should be to avow for him. It was all vague and vast, and it came out of the books that he read, and that filled his soul with their witchery, and often held him aloof with their charm in the midst of the plays from which they could not lure him wholly away, or at all away. He did not know how or when their enchantment began, and he could hardly recall the names of some of them afterwards. First of them was Goldsmith's "History of Greece," which made ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, or flounce in the robes of magistracy, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... incident in a frightful reign of terror. The emperor kept aloof from his capital, but he filled Rome, and the whole empire, in fact, with spies and informers. The slightest accusation or suspicion was sufficient for the blood-thirsty tyrant. On a mere unproved charge Roman ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... whim, refused introduction to her, but at last he consents to be taken to the house by his friend the musician Massival, and of course falls a victim. It cannot be said that she is a Circe,[496] nor that, as perhaps might be expected, she revenges herself for his holding aloof by snaring and throwing him away. Quite the contrary. She shows him special favour: when she has to go to stay with friends at Avranches she privately asks him to follow her; and finally, when the party pass the night at Mont Saint-Michel, she comes—uninvited, though ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Aloof within the day's enormous dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... being gauger, farmer, and poet, Burns took a lively interest in everything affecting the welfare of the parish and the well-being of its inhabitants. For this was no poet of the study, holding himself aloof from the affairs of the world, and fearing the contamination of his kind. Burns was alive all-round, and always acted his part in the world as a husband and father; as a citizen and a man. He made himself the poet of humanity, because he himself was so intensely human, and joyed and sorrowed ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... by the side of the "poor slave" they could not be saved, and the slave often begged his master to accept the terms of salvation. A few great planters who were not touched by the religious fervor of the time held aloof, and the poorer whites and the slaves came to accept the view that these were the rich men who could not be saved, and commonly said ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... zest to the popular acclaim when that point had, at last, been really reached, and the proceedings were of the most effective and striking character. Crowds flocked in from all sides. Montgomery shared fully in the popular acclamation, and only Oswestry, among the interested towns, stood somewhat aloof. The question of "priority," apparently, still rankled, and "some misunderstanding" spoilt the effect of what was intended to be a general business holiday. "Only two or three shops were closed, while the others remained ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... the impotence of isolation, and opens up to them the unbounded possibilities of corporate activity. Hence, liberty on its positive side becomes merged in national service, in the broad sense of the fulfilment of the duties of citizenship. Thus he is an enemy of freedom who holds himself aloof from his fellows and declines to bear his share in the general burden. If, then, the State calls upon all its subjects to join together in undertaking the supreme task of national defence, every true lover of liberty must respond "Here ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... alliance, defensive and offensive, formed before this between the Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared herself content with the first alliance, which was defensive only, and which bound them to help each other, but not to join in attacking any. The Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies, and again turned their thoughts ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... deplorably led, they could agree on no policy, and their warmest supporters in the Press and in the country were the first to admit that the formation of an alternative Conservative Administration was unthinkable. Nevertheless, there could be no rival for the leadership. Mr. Balfour, aloof, indifferent, without enthusiasm, and without convictions, although discredited in the country and harassed in his attempts to save his party from Protection, remains in ability, Parliamentary knowledge, experience and skill, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... held aloof, seeing that our Armada must be lost. The pilots on board the flagship—men of experience of that coast—told the Duke at this time that it was not possible to save a single ship of the Armada; for that with the wind as it was in the north-west, they must all needs go on ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... towards her, and ere long had completely won her heart by coaxing her into his lap and praising her glossy curls. Mary, whose sensitive nature shrank from the observation of strangers, and who felt that one as handsome as George Moreland must necessarily laugh at her, kept aloof, and successfully eluded all his efforts to look under her bonnet. This aroused his curiosity, and when he saw her move away to a distant part of the vessel, he followed her, addressing to her the remark with which we commenced this chapter. As George had said ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... David Pollard had been holding aloof and keeping very quiet—a habit of his, often displayed for long periods. About this time, however, Mr. Pollard returned, with a triumphant twinkle in his eyes. He had been hard at work upon, and had perfected, an improved device ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... a sinecure of handsome endowment, so handsome, indeed, as to warrant an occasional draft upon his talents for the entertainment of her Majesty's immediate circle, which held itself as far as possible aloof from the court, and was disposed to be self-reliant for its amusements. Daniel had entered upon the vocation of courtier with flattering auspices. His precocity while at Oxford has found him a place in the "Bibliotheca ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... lasted but a day. I was a great deal with Colonel Clark in the few weeks that followed before his departure for Virginia. He held himself a little aloof (as a leader should) from the captains in the station, without seeming to offend them. But he had a fancy for James Ray and for me, and he often took me into the woods with him by day, and talked ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Ignace Vard and his daughter had no part. Their meals were served in their sitting-room, so that they missed that great acquaintance-maker, the dinner table. Kasia, remembering the warning she had received, kept aloof from every one; and Vard's ironical manner was enough to keep every one aloof from him. However he did not notice it, for he had discovered, among the books in the library, three novels by Mr. John Galsworthy, and they absorbed ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... doth his impress show, To look aloof on earthly ladies all. And never could my curious eye discern A dame of worth for London Pleasure's love, But one, and she doth shine as silver dove. Of self-bred soil, of London is her race; For whom in challenge ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... unison, and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth at all—voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for God. They were not human voices, and, hearing them, Evelyn had imagined angels bearing tall lilies in their hands, standing on wan heights of celestial landscape, singing their clear ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Ranald," said his wife, warmly; "nor his father either, for that matter. I never did till this last week. They have kept aloof from everything, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... should treat it as a tribute to the importance of social work. Three times he was offered a seat in the Cabinet, but he refused each time, because official position would fetter his special work. He kept aloof from party politics, and was only roused when great principles were at stake. Few of the leading politicians satisfied him. Peel seemed too cautious, Gladstone too subtle, Disraeli too insincere. It was the simplicity and kindliness of his ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the only safeguard for him; but aside from the fact that his reputation of reckless huntsman and general scapegrace naturally kept aloof the daughters of the nobles, and even the Langarian middle classes, he dreaded more than anything else in the world the monotonous regularity of conjugal life. He did not care to be restricted always to the same dishes—preferring, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... quiet, aloof settlement of pleasant houses and gardens, prosperous and idle. Rye might be called a city of trade, Winchelsea of repose. She spreads her hands to the sun and ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... description of the hells (twenty-two in all)[31] from the fourth and twelfth books of Manu's code. These rules may be accepted as a true reflexion of what was taught to the people by stringent Brahmanism as yet holding aloof from Hinduism. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, and Ephraim's sons held aloof, watching the sport from the roof, but never descending to take part in them. At the back of the house stood a small brick enclosure, in which Ephraim prepared the daily meat for his people after the custom of the Jews. Once the rude door of ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... also at liberty to tell Overton that Captain Cortland is wholly convinced of his innocence, and so, I know, is Lieutenant Hampton. But some of the men in the company, and more especially in the squad room, are holding aloof from Corporal Overton, are ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... somewhat aloof from his fellow-passengers; but, finding perhaps that there was no general desire to intrude upon him, he condescended to become genial to a select few. He walked the deck alone, picturesquely attired. He was a man who paid considerable attention ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... near to the semicircular cage where the condors, in evening dress and white boa around the neck, surveyed the garden with the aloof manner of the higher aristocracy. Gertie waited for an advance; this did not come. Miss Loriner, at the command of Lady Douglass, furnished the hour, and a scream of dismay was given, followed by the issuing of orders. Henry must conduct them out of this ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... and had never been more exemplary. By profession as well as by character, he had always held himself aloof from women; he seemed to hate them more than ever. The mere rustling of a silken petticoat caused his hood to fall over his eyes. Upon this score he was so jealous of austerity and reserve, that when the Dame de Beaujeu, the king's daughter, came to visit the cloister of Notre-Dame, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... stout, Brought her husband's horse and his armour out, Clothed the warrior, and bid him go An angel of vengeance upon the foe; Then turned her in, and from the roof, Beheld the battle, far aloof. ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... glances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew best pronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just as folks" than were either the twins or the sister, from all three of whom his impulses kept him amiably aloof. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... have been. And others, not so old, Bask in the sunshine of my fairy tales. The lovers see new ways to woo; And wives see ways to use old brooms. Some nights I see the jeweled opera crowd Who seem aloof but inwardly are fond of me Because I've caught the gracious beauty of their pets. Then some there are who watch my changing face To catch new history's shadow As it falls from day to day. And at the noiseless ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... name, untold wealth—imagine all these, and you can form some idea of the effect that he would be sure to produce among us. My supremacy was shaken. Dazzled by my reputation, he began to seek my friendship, but I received him coldly, and without the least regret he held aloof from me. I took a hatred to him. His success in the regiment and in the society of ladies brought me to the verge of despair. I began to seek a quarrel with him; to my epigrams he replied with epigrams which always ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... heroes, like Poe's, are images of himself. No matter what the raw material of his narrative poems may be, they become uniformly "Byronic" as he writes them down. And all this is "lyricism," however disguised. William Morris, almost alone among modern English poets, seemed to stand gravely aloof from the tales he told, as his master Chaucer stood smilingly aloof. Yet the "tone" of Chaucer is perceived somehow upon every page, in spite ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... in my last about the four Princes, I now know not to be true with respect to the Duke of Gloucester, who has held aloof from all cabal with them, and even declared in the House of Lords that ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... weary victim pant awhile. - Yet would I not have time to ascertain What passes in me; would not snuff beforehand The coming storm. 'Tis sure I fled in vain; But more than fly I could not do, whatever Comes of it. Ah! to ward it off—the blow Was given so suddenly. Long, much, I strove To keep aloof; but vainly. Once to see her - Her, whom I surely did not court the sight of, To see her, and to form the resolution, Never to lose sight of her here again, Was one—The resolution?—Not 'tis will, Fixt purpose, made (for ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... landing by any means. "No, be assured of it, ye Dresdeners, all flurried, palisaded, barricaded; no hair of you shall be harmed." After a day or two, the flurry of Saxony subsided; Prussians, under strict discipline, molest no private person; pay their way; keep well aloof, to south and to north, of Dresden (all but the necessary ammunition-escorts do);—and require of the Official people nothing but what the Law of the Reich authorizes to "Imperial Auxiliaries" in such case. "The Saxons themselves," Friedrich observes, "had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to have remained longer than most of the chief cities aloof from the main contest. She had her own wars with Pisa, beginning with a private quarrel at the Emperor's coronation (in which we are expressly told that both parties united), and afterwards with Siena; and the great houses did a certain amount of private fighting; "but still the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... Sullivan turned once more to his old friend, Sir Frank Burnand. Together they produced 'The Chieftain' (1894), a revised and enlarged version of their early indiscretion, 'The Contrabandista.' Success still held aloof, and for the last time Sullivan and Mr. Gilbert joined forces. In 'The Grand Duke' (1896) there were fitful gleams of the old splendour, notably in an amazing sham—Greek chorus, which no one but Sullivan could have written, but the piece could not for a moment ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... She bent on me her gaze, so difficult to resist, and smiled at me with the corners of her lips, so subtly irresistible. I felt a rush of fire sweep through all my being, and something she must have noted, for she gave back a bit and stood more aloof along the rail. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... this moment a new and most unsuspected enemy appeared upon the scene. The "Alliance," which had stood aloof during the heat of the conflict, now appeared, and, after firing a few shots into the "Serapis," ranged slowly down along the "Richard," pouring a murderous fire of grape-shot into the already shattered ship. Jones thus tells the story of this ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... from which I was thrust out with shame and insult such as no lady ever yet forgave. But, thank Heaven, I am not at your mercy at all. He to whom nature has drawn me all these years is my father—Oh, papa, come to me; is it for you to stand aloof? It is into your hands, with all the trust and love you have earned so well from your poor Grace, I give my love, my veneration, and my heart and soul forever." Then she flung herself panting on his bosom, and he cried over her. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... and the white race never really united or amalgamated outside of Canada. The Indian has always held aloof from us, and even as late as Sitting Bull's time that noted cavalry officer said to the author that the white people who simply came over in the Mayflower could not marry into his family on that ground. He wanted to know why they ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... this cloth with the gazelles and let it not leave thee, for it was my companion when thou west absent from me and, Allah upon thee! if thou chance to fall in with her who worked these gazelles, hold aloof from her and do not let her approach thee nor marry her; and if thou happen not on her and find no way to her, look thou consort not with any of her sex. Know that she who wrought these gazelles worketh every year a gazelle cloth and despatcheth it to far countries, that her report ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... curious interest. She made no more sex appeal to him than he did to her, and that was none at all. The first thing that had moved him in the child was the friendlessness back of her spitfire offense. She knew no women, no other girls. The conditions of life kept her aloof from the ones she met casually once or twice a year. She suspected their laughter, their whispers about the wild girl on Piceance Creek. The pride with which she ignored them was stimulated by her sense of inferiority. June had read books. She felt the clothes she made were ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this story, and found,—which was in itself regarded as a suspicious circumstance,—that on that very day he had returned from Campania to ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... general remark. Some of the more charitable expressed a confident opinion that the curate had committed a crime; others decided, with more penetration, that he was going mad. From Miss Cope he kept carefully aloof. It had been arranged at that fatal interview that their engagement should be kept secret until the return of the Vicar, whose sanction must be obtained before the affair could be made public. Miss Cope was aware that the curate had two sermons to prepare in addition to his parish duties—for he ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... constellations, and nearest to them, so near as to seem only a few million miles away in the great emptiness into which everything had resolved itself, shone the sun, a ball of red-tongued fires. The Angel was but a voice now; the bishop and the Angel were somewhere aloof from and yet accessible to the ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... speaking in hard, aloof accents, after the manner of one who, having been interrupted in her work by unwelcome intruders, is still determined to perform her duty toward them, as a matter of distasteful necessity. Shades of the obsequious landladies of the South! The tired guests quailed ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Granada, in the heart of their great conquest; and it is a most beautiful church, of a mingled Saracenic plateresque Gothic, as the guide-books remind me, and extravagantly baroque as I myself found it. I personally recall also a sense of chill obscurity and of an airy gallery wandering far aloof in the upper gloom, which remains overhead with me still, and the yet fainter sense of the balconies crowning like capitals the two pillars fronting the high altar. I am now sorry for our haste, but one has not so much ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... upward. He saw at once that Colin designed this cup as a means of bringing misfortune upon Marietta: perhaps to give out, when it should be in her possession, that it was the present of some successful lover in the town, or the like, so that all decent people would thereafter keep aloof from Marietta. Therefore Monsieur Hautmartin resolved, in order to prevent any evil reports, to profess himself the giver. Moreover, he loved Marietta, and would gladly have seen her observe more strictly toward himself the sayings of the gray-headed priest Jerome, "Little children, love one another." ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... and the old sail of a boat placed slantways against the side of a rock, he squatted on the beach, determined, whether he lived or died, to find a home on the island. The islanders were no strangers to the character of the poor forlorn creature, and kept aloof from him,—none of them, however, so much as his own son; and, for a time, my friend the minister, aware that he had been the pest of every community among which he had lived, stood aloof from him too, in the hope that at length, wearied out, he might seek for himself ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the church. And it seemed as though the soul of the dead woman were soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a child's curls eddied round and round, floating upwards to the window and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... paced the centuries continually since the coming of the friars. One might have asked of her the kindness of a fellow-feeling. She and he alike were so habited as to show the world that their life was aloof from its "idle business." By some such phrase, at least, the friar would assuredly have attempted to include her in any spiritual honours ascribed to him. Or one might have asked of her the condescension of forbearance. "Only fancy," said ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... at the idea that his holding aloof from this advertising custom might be set down to his ambition of being a "swell doctor." The method, however, seemed entirely proper to Alves, who hadn't the professional prejudices, and whose experience with the world had taught her to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... could venture to approach. I know that exile is hard. It is very easy for us here to preach. Exile is and must be hard, but I feel confident that under the guidance of the high officers there, under whom you will find yourselves, you will take care not to ignore the Indian; not to hold apart and aloof from the Indian life and ways; not to believe that you will not learn anything by conversation with educated Indians. And while you are in India, and among Indians, and responsible to Indians, because you are as ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... the month. Meanwhile, Jose had never for a moment permitted Carmen to leave his side. The child chafed under the limitation; but Jose and Dona Maria were firm. Juan lived with the priest; and Lazaro lurked about the parish house like a shadow. The Alcalde and his constable remained discreetly aloof. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... unfamiliar with the laws, customs and privileges of the several provinces of his Netherland dominions as he was with the language of their peoples. He spoke and wrote only Castilian correctly, and during his four years' residence at Brussels he remained coldly and haughtily aloof, a foreigner and alien in a land where he never felt at home. Philip at the beginning of his reign honestly endeavoured to follow in his father's steps and to carry out his policy; but acts, which the great emperor with his conciliatory address and Flemish sympathies could venture upon ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... at once discern in the darkness who it was that opened the door, and he remained an aloof black shape against the moon-glare, lifting his cap and saying, "I am sorry to knock you up at this hour," so for a minute Marion had the amusing joy of seeing him as he appeared to other people, remote and vigilant and courteous and really more hidalgoesque than the occasion ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... jail at Bridgeport there was one person, who, upon finding himself a prisoner, held himself aloof from the rest, declining to make any acquaintances or to engender any friendships, and this person was the quiet-looking man who had been arrested by the express company, and whose name was ascertained ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... were the nominees of the Southern or Democratic party; and Bell and Everett, a kind of compromise, mostly in favor in Louisiana. Political excitement was at its very height, and it was constantly asserted that Mr. Lincoln's election would imperil the Union. I purposely kept aloof from politics, would take no part, and remember that on the day of the election in November I was notified that it would be advisable for me to vote for Bell and Everett, but I openly said I would not, and I ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... somewhat bewildered, for much had happened to me that morning which I found it hard to understand. Why had the Augusta kissed me? I took it that this was some kind of imperial jest. It was known that I kept aloof from women, and she may have desired to see what I should do when an Augusta kissed me, and then to make a mock of me. I had heard that she had done as ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... seven in the morning. It was only then that the inhabitants, who had hitherto held themselves aloof, watching the movements of the strangers from under the brushwood, began to assemble from all sides. A few words in German spoken from the balloon dissipated their fears, and, recovering from their mistrust, they hastened immediately to lend assistance to the aeronauts ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... notably the "Praise of Folly," the "Colloquia" and "Adagia"; he has been regarded as the precursor of the Reformation; is said to have laid the egg which Luther hatched; aided the Reformation by his scholarship, though he kept aloof as a scholar from the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... alienated from his cousin; he revolted from the man that would have murdered him; and he had displayed his caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a displeasure which all his dissimulation could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of Oubacha; for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more fatal than his open enmity. After the settlement on the Ily this feud continued to advance, until it came under the notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which all the Tartar chieftains made to his ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... your Heavenly Master must the account be rendered. There shall enter into Heaven nothing that maketh a lie. If our lives are not quite genuine and honest here, we are locking ourselves out of Heaven. Let us, as citizens of no mean city, keep aloof from the hypocrite, the teller or maker of a lie, and speak every man truth with his neighbour. Again, I think that as citizens of Heaven, we ought to take very good heed to our words. You know how our streets and lanes in this world are ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... feeling more unhappy than I had ever before done. The midshipmen of the corvette kept aloof from me, fancying that my cousin had communicated some ill news, or perhaps that I was in disgrace. I don't know. I was glad that no one came and spoke to me. The dinner hour at last arrived, and I went into the ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... irresistible passion. The drama opens on board a ship in which the Cornish knight, Tristan, is bearing Isolde, the unwilling Irish bride, to King Mark of Cornwall. As the vessel is nearing the land, Isolde sends Brangoena to the Knight, who is also in love with her, but holds himself aloof by reason of a blood-feud, and orders him to appear at her side. His refusal turns Isolde's affection to bitterness, and she resolves that he shall die, and that she will share death with him. She once more calls Tristan, and tells ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... fox-skin cap.'" The prisoners were at once sent by these raiders to Fremont, who was at that time on the American River. He immediately disclaimed any part in the affair. However, instead of remaining entirely aloof, he gave further orders that Leese, who was still in attendance as interpreter, should be arrested, and also that the prisoners should be confined in Sutter's Fort. He thus definitely and officially entered the movement. Soon thereafter Fremont started south through ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... years ago, there stood here, several times, a little boy, who wished to sell his toys, but he always kept aloof from the other children; he stood with serious countenance and with both hands tightly clasped around his wooden box, as if he feared it would slip away from him; but on account of this gravity, and because the boy was so small, it caused him to be remarked, and often he made the best bargain, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... the Thuringian Forest, aloof from the stir and roar of life, lies a Kur-Ort little known to the English world. Its waters are analogous to those of Schwalbach, its air is as pure, its scenery more beautiful, and its prices half those of the Taunus Wald. Its people still retain their primitive charm, unspoilt ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... palace-window and reaches the nostrils of a monarch. It is but an example, obvious to the sense, of the innumerable and secret channels by which, at every moment of our lives, the flow and reflux of a common humanity pervade us all. How superficial are the niceties of such as pretend to keep aloof! Let the whole world be cleansed, or not a man or woman of us all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Franquetot, was the Marquise de Gallardon, absorbed in her favourite meditation, namely upon her own kinship with the Guermantes family, from which she derived both publicly and in private a good deal of glory no unmingled with shame, the most brilliant ornaments of that house remaining somewhat aloof from her, perhaps because she was just a tiresome old woman, or because she was a scandalous old woman, or because she came of an inferior branch of the family, or very possibly for no reason at all. When she found herself seated next to some one whom she did not know, as she was at this moment next ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... keep my innermost Me Fearless, aloof and free Of the least breath of love or hate, And not disconsolate At the sick load of sorrow laid on men; If I could keep a sanctuary there Free even of prayer, If I could do this, then, With quiet ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... had no associates; indeed from his earliest days he had kept aloof from boys of his own age. It was not that he was morose, or proud or ill-tempered, but he appeared to have no sympathy with them, and thus, though possessed of many qualities which would have won him friends, he had not a single friend of his own rank or ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... selfishness. To be alone in the world, not to have a friend, to have neither wife nor child, what happiness! That hard-hearted miser, who for forty years had had only other people's children to cuff, who lived aloof from the world, without even a dog, with a deaf and dumb gardener older than himself, was he not an example of the greatest happiness possible on earth? Without a responsibility, without a duty, without an anxiety, other ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... perpetual flux, where the balance of power between the upper and middle and poorer classes has been swiftly altering during the last sixty years, no statesman can continue to serve the public if he adheres obstinately to the views with which he started in life. He must—unless, of course, he stands aloof in permanent opposition— either submit to advocate measures he secretly mislikes, or else must keep himself always ready to learn from events, and to reconsider his opinions in the light of emergent tendencies ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... my fainting force declined; With lingering foot I followed him aloof; Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined, Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks, Yet woman's words ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... prompted, made up the actors' faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the flowers and in the sweetness of the sun, he lived again the past, telling her of the days when, knowing his danger, he had held himself aloof, declining to come to her lord's house with the familiarity of a kinsman, because the pang of seeing her often was too great to bear; and relating to her also the story of the hours when he had watched her and she had not known his nearness or guessed ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... with arms folded over her chest, and her dark brows forming a bar across her forehead. I saw her in white bodice and green petticoat, her arms and neck bare, her feet in old slippers, her black hair loosely coiled and stuck with a silver pin. I saw her hold herself aloof and dubious, proud and coldly chaste. "Call me and I come," she seemed to say to me between her shut lips, "Call me and I follow you over the world like a dog at your heels. Send me into infamy and I go; expect me to woo you there and I will die sooner. Yours, if you will have me; nobody's, anybody's, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... quickly at this unusual generosity, yet she was, she realized, more startled than surprised. For had not little Rose been the one creature Martin had loved and to whom he had enjoyed giving pleasure? It had been charming—the response of the big, aloof man to the merry child of seven, but that child was now a woman, and, in all probability, a beautiful one. Wasn't there danger of far more complicated emotions which might prove even uprooting in their ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... cerulean garb Flutters before his face, The cleaver dints his little roof Of furrowed wood; remote, aloof He sits superb and panic-proof In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... part of the personal confession was over now, and Gillian could go on to tell the rest of the Stebbing enmity, of Mr. White's arrival, and of the desire to keep his relations aloof from him. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the fair young figure came toward the hearth and stood by her chair, resting a hand on her shoulder. The judge brightened, without knowing what it was that suddenly heartened him, and David came out of his corner under the stairs, as he never did, unless she was in the room. Only William held aloof after a formal bow. At the sight of her, smiling and radiant, the sullen anger within him glowed like a covered fire under a sudden breeze. She had not been punished enough; her face was far too bright, her manner far too frank. When she approached him and tried to speak to him in a tone ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... them, barely to be seen for the trunks of giant trees intervening, was a smoothly-rounded mountain. Majestic and aloof it soared, dwarfing all near it—the termitary which, yesterday, had been but waist-high. There was their eventual goal; but meanwhile their immediate surroundings roused their greater interest—and ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... its walls, From the wayside dust aloof, Where the apple-boughs could almost cast Their fruitage on its roof: And the cherry-tree so near it grew, That when awake I've lain, In the lonesome nights, I've heard the limbs, As they creaked against the pane: And those orchard trees, O those orchard ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... between Lady Carbury and her daughter was constrained and far from pleasant. Hetta, thinking that she was ill-used, kept herself aloof, and would not speak to her mother of herself or of her troubles. Lady Carbury watching her, but not daring to say much, was at last almost frightened at her girl's silence. She had assured herself, when she found that Hetta was disposed to quarrel with her lover and to send ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... tribunes sought to establish a law that should set bounds to the power of the Consuls, and this law the nobles hindered that it should not be passed. Now among the nobles (who were mostly of the younger sort, for the elders held aloof from the matter) the chief mover was one Kaeso Quinctius, a youth of singular strength and courage, and that had won for himself great renown in war. This man was wont to drive the tribunes from the market-place and scatter the people, and when Virginius, ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... and his friends began to indulge the hope that the change would prove to be lasting. But his resolutions of amendment soon yielded to the influence of his evil companions, from whom he found it very difficult to keep aloof. He was of a rash, impulsive disposition, and he soon forgot his good resolves, and ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild . . . I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... countess, who was a sister of the Count of Flanders. He immediately invited the nobility of Brittany to a grand banquet, but only one knight of any renown presented himself at the feast, the rest all holding aloof. With the wealth of which he had possessed himself he levied large forces and took the field. He first marched against Brest, where the garrison, commanded by Walter de Clisson, refused to acknowledge him. After three days' hard fighting the place was taken. Rennes ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... storm aloof, And kiss away the tears they weep! Ye skies, that make their only roof, Look gently on ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... gone by I have given time to the vineyard, but nothing at all of myself. I held myself aloof and apart while Duty, like a stern taskmaster, urged me to the things I hated, merely to please Mother, who had done so much for me that she had the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... and Kezzy, Kezia. But the register recording most of these names had perished at Epworth in the Parsonage fire, so let us keep the familiar ones. Grown women and girls, all the six were handsome. They had an air of resting there aloof; with a little fancy you might have taken them, in their plain print frocks, for six goddesses reclining on the knoll and watching the harvesters at work on the plain below—poor drudging mortals ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Atlantic. I used to like to go down there and fraternize with the blue-fishers, or the annual squads of sea-bass takers. Sometimes, along Montauk peninsula, (it is some 15 miles long, and good grazing,) met the strange, unkempt, half-barbarous herdsmen, at that time living there entirely aloof from society or civilization, in charge, on those rich pasturages, of vast droves of horses, kine or sheep, own'd by farmers of the eastern towns. Sometimes, too, the few remaining Indians, or half-breeds, at that period left on Montauk peninsula, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... cross crowning the front glistened in fresh paint, while on the interior walls shone cheap lithographs of the Madonna and Christ. The old padre, proud and jealous as a bridegroom over his bride, directed the young friar here and there, himself standing aloof and studying with an artist's eye every effect in color and drapery. The only discordant note in the interior was the rough benches, in the building of which Father Norquin himself had worked, thus following, as he repeatedly ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... his clients, according to the extent of their faith, and the weight of their purses. A few profane Cavaliers might make his name the burthen of their malignant rhymes—a few of the more scrupulous among the Saints might keep aloof in sanctified abhorrence of the 'Stygian sophister'—but the great majority of the people lent a willing and reverential ear to his prophecies and prognostications. Nothing was too high or too low—too mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his genius. The ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... suit was cut after the newest city fashion, and the one young man seemed in danger of presenting himself, and begging to be allowed to fetch and carry for her also. Several of the older women, with motherly hearts, had spoken to her, but she had continued to sit aloof, discouraging all advances. It was not because she was of an unsociable nature, but the struggle to keep back the tears of homesickness took all her attention. There was no place on the little steamer where one might be alone, so ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... be discarded, by which the various organs of the body have been professionally treated as separate and independent considerations, even to the extent of being dealt with, in cases of disease, as totally aloof from one another and conveniently classed as proper subjects for submission to the expert opinion of that superior class of physicians who devote their attention exclusively to special organs and ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... pairs. They were quiet, waxy pale, dressed always neatly in soft black hat, white shirt, long black coat, and varnished boots. In the face of a general gabble they seemed to remain indifferently silent, self-contained and aloof. To occasional salutations they ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... John continued to be aloof of manner and went to his work without attempting to empty the skimmed milk as usual, or to strain the new milk which stood at the top of the long cellar stairs. Elizabeth skimmed and strained and put the shelves in order. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... has now six squadrons on the field. Barons d'Alverne and Peitevins Duke Naimes Has mustered in the seventh. They may count Full forty thousand knights. How good their steeds, How finely wrought their arms! They stand aloof Within a shady vale. With his right hand He gives to these his blessing. Joseran And Godselmes their ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... the Carpentry Shop on my way to town. I saw Baxter many times at his bench. Even then Baxter's eyes attracted me: he always glanced up at me as I passed, and his look had in it something of a caress. So the home of Starkweather, standing aloof among its broad lawns and tall trees, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... sister? Remember He expects you to lift them up by your prayers and efforts, and bear them to Him. He waits with open arms. Whom by kind words and loving deeds, and earnest prayer, have you drawn toward Him? Or whom have you driven from Him, by reproof, fault-finding, and holding yourself aloof? You are afraid the church will be desecrated by the gathering of our young people; they will have such a pleasant, happy time in their weekly meetings, that they will not reverence God's house. Think you, you are more pleasing in His sight, you who turn out of the way the lame and ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... the fonda and his family, who had come so warmly to welcome the strangers, were now hovering aloof, silent and suspicious, their spirits dashed by the contemptuous looks of Lady Vale-Avon and the Duchess. Standing in semi-darkness, the landlord's face was a blur of brown shadow, featureless, save for a pair of enormous eyes burning with an emotion which was no longer hospitality. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... committed for slight offences, some for heavy crimes. These women were able to recognise in an instant that this prisoner was of a different order from themselves. Those who were not fallen into the depths, treated her with some respect; but the lowest either held aloof from her or jeered at her—mostly the latter. Alice took all meekly; did what she could for the one or two that were ailing, and the three or four who had babies with them; spoke words of Gospel truth and kindly sympathy to such as would ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the eastern horizon; the entire countryside had the solemn stillness of a summer night; our footfalls and the ceaseless song of the katydids were the only sound aloof. Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the road, which, in the short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As we approached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in which no light shone, ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... wings are the rays of the sun. The panel of "The Unattainable in Art" might well be called "The Struggle for the Beautiful." It pictures the unending struggle with the gross and stupid, both objective and subjective, that confronts the champion of the beautiful. Art stands serene, aloof, unassailable in the center of the fray. The panel of "Pegasus" shows the winged steed of the poets controlled by a true aspirant, attended by ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... (487-488) This may have been one cause of alienation, but a more powerful one was the negotiation which was commenced in the year 484 between Odovacar and Illus, the last of the many insurgent generals who disturbed the reign of Zeno. At first Odovacar held himself aloof from the proposed confederacy, but afterwards (486) he was disposed, or Zeno believed that he was disposed, to accept the alliance of the insurgent general. In order to find him sufficient occupation nearer home, the Emperor fanned into a flame the smouldering embers of discord ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... drawing near to London, opinion there had settled, for the time at least, upon a line of policy. Surviving leaders who had been defeated in the great battle, men high in rank who had been absent, some purposely standing aloof while the issue was decided, had gathered in the city. Edwin and Morcar, the great earls of north and middle England, heads of the house that was the rival of Harold's, who seem to have been willing to see him ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... habit in their younger days of doing things of the kind not less infrequently than once a week. The moralists wagged their heads as the fountain of all truths, and asserted that such success was a very bad thing for the young. The swaggerers, who held somewhat aloof, but who had never done anything in their lives, put on more side than usual and endeavoured to carry matters off that way, oblivious, as ever, of the laughter round the corner. Lastly, there was that other class, the crabbed and the crusty, who ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... the influence of the class sentiment which held Angouleme aloof from L'Houmeau. The merchant classes are rich, the noblesse are usually poor. Each side takes its revenge in scorn of the other. The tradespeople in Angouleme espouse the quarrel. "He is a man of L'Houmeau!" a shopkeeper of the upper town will tell you, speaking of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... partly from the abundance of its idioms. The Mandchou is the only one of any of the civilised languages of the world with which the writer of these lines has any acquaintance, whose grammar stands far aloof from the rest in wonderful singularity; the most remarkable feature of which is the want of some of those conjunctions generally considered as indispensable, and which are certainly of the first utility. The result of this peculiarity is that such a combination of other parts of speech ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
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