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More "Laconic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Hesitantly following this laconic advice, I soon found myself near a tree whose branches were sheltering a guru with an attractive group of disciples. The master, a bright unusual figure, with sparkling dark eyes, rose at my approach ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... of lofty contempt passed over the brow and lip of Agesilaus. But with national self-command, he replied gravely, and with equal laconic brevity, "If Pausanias hath committed a trivial error that a fine can expiate, so be it. But talk not of fines till ye acquit him of all treasonable connivance with ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... petrified, and this outburst of the grief of the usually haughty and laconic young man filled him with ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Villavicencio says they do sometimes intone fragments of prose in their festival orgies. They manifest little curiosity, and little power of mimicry, in which wild men generally excel the civilized.[99] The old Spartans were never so laconic. In conversation each says all he has to say in three or four words till his companion speaks, when he replies in the same curt, ejaculatory style. A long sentence, or a number of sentences at one time, we do not remember of hearing from the lips of ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... written to Wilfrid a full account of her interview with her father. Wilfrid's reply was laconic. "If you cannot stand a week of the brogue, give up Besworth, by all means." He made no further allusion to the place. They engaged an opera-box, for the purpose of holding a consultation with him in town. He wrote ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to try the issues of immediate battle. Their blind rancour found expression in the curt and pithy harangue of Sthenelaidas, one of the five Ephors, a college of magistrates which in recent years had greatly encroached on the authority of the kings. Sthenelaidas spoke with true laconic brevity. "I don't understand," he said, "all the fine talk of these Athenians. They have told us a great deal about their own merits, but have not said a word in answer to the charges brought against them. Even if we accept ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... the General's glass, and he said 'this was a great country, which would soon send Young America out on the world to proclaim manifest destiny.' I said amen, and the punch disappeared into his depot, as he concluded. It was clear his inards warmed, he beginning to brighten up soon after. With a laconic air, he touched me on the elbow, and said, 'Somehow, it seems to touch the right place—I declare it does! I am half inclined to the belief that General Pierce sups formidably of this just before he talks about winding things up in a straight sort of way, all of which he ultimately ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... nothing suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he will make in the most peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... for several hours, and it was some time before I found out, by a chance expression, that he was attending some meeting or committee of working-men. I begged him to take me there with him. But I was stopped by a laconic answer— ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... toast has not made a satisfactory apology to me before the hand of my watch points to the hour, I will thrash him till he does. I am an officer in the English army, and always keep my word.' A small band of Australians was in the cabin. One and all of them applauded this laconic speech. It was probably due in part to these that the offender did not wait till the six ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... thirteen officers present some were for retreating to Point Isabel, others for intrenching upon the spot, and only four for pushing ahead. The general, after hearing all opinions, settled the question by the laconic declaration, "I will be at Fort Brown before to-morrow night if I live." In the morning ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... And I pointed to a cottage-door at which I suddenly espied the old woman whose handling of the roller-towel had so impressed me. "Where," I shouted, addressing her, "where is the wounded man?" "Took away," was the laconic reply. "Took away!" I said; "and who has had the impudence to take ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... he, "has negotiated like a merchant; I will capitulate as a soldier." He sent a herald, therefore, to Ferdinand, offering to yield up his castle, but demanding a separate treaty. (15) The Castilian sovereign made a laconic and stern reply: "He shall receive no terms but such as have been granted to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... in this laconic description of the homely dreamer a richness of beauty which no efforts of the artist can adequately portray; and in the concise dialogue of the speakers, a simple sublimity of eloquence which any commentary ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hard fighting, was within a march of Trento. The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's territory. Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an ungrateful part, took up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram: 'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,' he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do you obey likewise.' Someone murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief, 'we will march ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... The laconic Bosko returned his all sufficing "Oui, monsieur," to the request that he would bring Mademoiselle Joan's French maid to Princess Delgrado, since it was in Alec's mind that ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... thrice, pausing between whiles. The envelope bore the London postmark. Then he took out his cigar case, selected a promising weed, and wrapping the laconic note prettily round one of his scented matches, lighted it, and the note flamed pale in the daylight, and dropped still blazing, at the root of the old tree he stood by, and sent up a little curl of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Lady Chatterton observed to him significantly—"Nobody at home, Willis."—"Yes, my lady," was the laconic reply, and Lord Herriefield, as he took his seat by the side of his wife in the carriage, thought she was ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... after this, the friend in question was likewise approached for a political contribution, whereupon he handed out $100 for himself and the same amount for Vanderbilt. On being told of his debt, Vanderbilt declined to pay it, closing the matter abruptly with this laconic pronunciamento, "When I give anything, I give it myself." At another time Vanderbilt assured a friend that he would "carry" one thousand shares of New York Central stock for him. The market price rose to $115 a share and then dropped ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... the interesting complications that were being woven for him in the hot-hearted frontier community of which he was now a part; for Merrifield and Sylvane, as correspondents, were laconic, not being given to spreading themselves out on paper. His work in the Assembly and the pre-convention campaign for presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He was eager that a reform candidate should be named by the Republicans, vigorously ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... cave; that is why the earth is shaking." Down below the ghosts are received by Tulmeng, lord of the nether world. Often he appears in a canoe to ferry them over to the further shore. "Blood or wax?" is the laconic question which he puts to the ghost on the bank. He means to say, "Were you killed or were you done to death by magic?" For it is with wax that the sorcerer stops up the fatal little tubes in which he encloses the souls of his enemies. ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... The Caledonia was effective in putting the Queen Charlotte out of action. When the larger British ships surrendered, the smaller craft were compelled to follow the example, and the squadron yielded to Perry after three hours of battle. It was in no boastful strain but as the laconic fact that he sent his famous message to the nation. He had met the enemy and they were all his. It was leadership—brilliant and tenacious—which had employed makeshift vessels, odd lots of guns, and crews which included militia, sick men, and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... before dared to picture them in the role which to my mind they never before occupied—that of organizers. I started the trip to see the real French Army in the most open but unexpectant frame of mind. For weeks I had read only laconic official communiques that told me nothing. I saw well-fed officers in beautiful limousines rolling about Paris with an air that the war was a million miles away. The best way now to explain my enthusiasm is to give the words of a famous ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a laconic tribute to the marvels about him but it was uttered with so much vehemence that there was no mistaking its sincerity. Evidently, terse as it was, its ring of fervor satisfied Mr. Ackerman for ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... Although my laconic little diary does not show it, I was fiercely resolved upon returning to the Seminary. My father was not very sympathetic. In his eyes I already had a very good equipment for the battle of life, but mother, with a woman's ready understanding, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... lawyer friend of Stanton's had only just seated himself on the foot of Stanton's bed when an expressman also arrived with two large pasteboard hat-boxes which he straightway dumped on the bed between the two men with the laconic message that he would call for them again in ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... are not treated with great indulgence, nor rewarded by many commendations; for the English are laconic and reserved towards their domestics; but an approving nod and kind word from master or mistress, goes as far here, as an excess of praise or indulgence elsewhere. Neither do servants exhibit any animated marks of affection to their employers; yet, though quiet, they are strong in ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... radicalism in design, and balked; King was a man given to few words; he was resolved to throw convention to the winds and trust his judgment; he refused to build the boat on other lines. Converse felt compelled to let Chouteau pass on the question; in time the laconic answer came: "Let King put the beams where ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... work at its best, perhaps the fullest; whereby I mean that inspection of his intellectual labour has always restored to me the time so wisely occupied in regarding it, proving that there is goodness, virtue, essence in it, past all fellowship with ephemeral things. There is a true, not a laconic, logical, and prophetic inference in it that is apropriately styled, "time"; the finest embodiment of musical equipoise; felt to a "tick"; no faltering, barbaric, or false quantities, but a sustained and equable, uniform tone of chromatic ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... Downing-street ... a stranger might suppose them paid to insult, rather than to oblige ... from the clerk at the railway depot to the secretary of the office where a man is compelled to go about passports, the same laconic rudeness is observable." How the American mind must have been galled, when a cabinet minister said, "not at home" to a free and enlightened citizen, who, on a levee day at the White House, can follow his own hackney-coachman into the august ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Englishman rejoined them after this laconic interview, Blythe greeted him with a ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... Chichi, on presenting the feather of an Eagle to Oglethorpe, is very expressive in his own laconic explication. By a little paraphrase it may be understood to import: "The Eagle has a sharp beak for his enemies, but down on his breast for his friend. He has strong wings, for he is aspiring; but they give shelter to feeble ones, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the death of Mazarin, when he was no longer capable of transacting any business, the president of the ecclesiastical assembly inquired of the king "to whom he must hereafter address himself on questions of public business." The emphatic and laconic response was, "To myself." ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... that everybody would not be just as delighted to read it. The first time my book weighed on me was one morning when a thin, meagre little letter came to me, which turned out to be only a card bearing the laconic inscription,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the laconic answer from the foremost airship; and then Lennard saw twenty-five winged shapes circle round the observatory and drop to rest one by one in perfect order, just as a flock of swans might have done, and, as ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... armies near a place reputed unhealthy, when one of his officers requested a furlough. The reason being asked, and given, that the place was unhealthy, and the applicant feared to die an inglorious death from fever: Napoleon replied, in his accustomed laconic style, "Go to your post; men ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... was the laconic answer. "I couldn't stand it being cooped up back there. My ankle felt a lot better, and I took French leave, as it were. I sneaked out and I crawled over toward the Hun trenches. And say, I've got some information that the K.O. will give his eye teeth to have. They're raising ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... with laconic candor, as he gracefully mauled the subject of discussion. "I gets 'em over to the frawg-pawnd up back of Lumkins's ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... destruction, loss and gain, with the miracle of the Marne as the first great sign of the turning of the tide. On September 3 the Paris Government moved to Bordeaux, on the 5th the retreat from Mons ended, on the 13th Joffre, always unboastful and laconic, announced the rolling back of the invaders, on the 15th the battle of the Aisne had begun. What an Iliad of agony, endurance and heroism lies behind these dates—the ordeal and deliverance of Paris, the steadfastness of the "Contemptibles," ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... even the good cheer gave him more satisfaction than the presence of Dominie Sampson, from whom, in his own juridical style of wit, he contrived to extract great amusement, both for himself and one or two friends whom the Colonel regaled on the same occasion. The grave and laconic simplicity of Sampson's answers to the insidious questions of the barrister, placed the bonhomie of his character in a more luminous point of view than Mannering had yet seen it. Upon the same occasion he drew forth a strange quantity of miscellaneous and abstruse, though, generally ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... speeches with as little remorse as he would have driven the point of his lance through a laced doublet. Sir Piercie Shafton, a man of rank and high birth, by no means encouraged or endured this familiarity, and requited the intruder either with total neglect, or such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for the rude spearman, who affected to converse with him ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... French opera, "Le Devin du Village." Diderot was also a warm partisan of the Italians. Pergolesi's beautiful music having been murdered by the French orchestra players at the Grand Opera-House, Diderot proposed for it the following witty and laconic ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... This laconic epistle Del Ferice carefully directed to Don Giovanni Saracinesca at his palace, and fastened a stamp upon it; but he concealed the address from Temistocle. The second letter was longer, and written in his own small and ornate ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... particular member of the force was an unusually tough nut to crack. In the heart of Tony was the drench of a chill wave. He was no coward, but he knew he had no such unflawed nerve as this man. Through his mind there ran a common laconic report handed in by Rangers returning from an assignment—"Killed while resisting arrest." Alviro did not want Ranger Roberts to write that ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... your dad—an', anyhow, I know the horses," was the laconic answer. "So you're back. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... should be, then. I am a Romanoff by marriage merely, But I do feel a rare belittlement And loud laconic brow-beating herein! ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... in France he formed the acquaintance of Franklin, who recommended him to Washington. He came to America and offered himself "to fight as a volunteer for American independence." "What can you do?" asked the commander. "Try me," was Kosciusko's laconic reply. Washington was greatly pleased with him, and made him his aid. He became a colonel in the engineer corps, and superintended the construction of the works at West Point. After the war he returned home and led the Poles in their struggles for independence. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... applause? No—"A vulgar narrative of uninteresting incidents"—was the laconic character given of it in that monthly publication in which, from its reputed impartiality, I most hoped for just ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... apparatus, and offered so much comfort and so much wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was impossible, to be sure, that in one's amused researches one had not missed a cupboard ingeniously disguised somewhere. And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the message of the laconic monosyllable "Hot" on silver taps, and the discretion of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and creator of these marvellous microcosms had "understood." The cosy virtue of littleness, and the entire ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... calling upon one now to see the finish," was the laconic reply. "If he doesn't take a hand in the matter at once there'll soon be a finish to the chief actor. You can't do anything when British justice is perverted through cowardice and partiality. Simon Stubbles rules the parish, and will continue ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... residence at Sydney I find as the result of one day's experience, the following laconic and somewhat enigmatical memorandum: "Is this grass?" The question implies a doubt, which it would not be easy for any person unacquainted with the circumstances of time and place, to solve: but the reader, when he has seen the explanation, will understand why very pleasing associations are connected ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... morning I was reported and examined, and the letter addressed to the governors was opened and read. It was laconic, but still, as most things laconic are, very ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... Joshua, in his usual laconic way; "the winter's set in, and any day may be worse'n the day before. Old Merk is down to twenty-four, and we want to peg ahead,—that's what we want ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... Sylvia; "there's one from George—it's a little disappointing, but you can read it. As usual, he's laconic." ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but forcible. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hunt him down like a wolf, and shoot him with as little ceremony, or stab him in his bed, or waylay him in his walks of recreation. He even wrote the hero of San Jacinto to that effect. The latter replied in a note of laconic brevity: ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... four—one for one. Pardieu! if we may believe the signs Grimaud is making, we are about to have to do with a very different number of people. What is it, Grimaud? Considering the gravity of the occasion, I permit you to speak, my friend; but be laconic, I beg. What ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the course of preparation to-day, for Leam had never been more laconic or more candidly disdainful than she was now; and what sweetness the pomegranate flower might hold in its heart was certainly not shaken abroad on the surrounding world. She answered when she was spoken to, because even Leam felt the constraining influences of society, but her eyes, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... rhinoceros; and is prepared to dare all things. Like an excellent soldier, like an excellent citizen. He contrives, arranges; leads, covertly drives the domineering Broglio, by rule of contraries or otherwise, according to the nature of the beast; animates all men by his laconic words; by his silences, which are still more emphatic.... Sechelles, provident of the future, has laid in immense supplies of indifferent biscuit; beef was not attainable: Belleisle dismounts his 4,000 cavalry, all but 400 dragoons; slaughters 160 horses per ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to things, handles that are easy to grasp; while your ponderous Johnsonian phraseology distends and exaggerates, and never peels the chaff from the wheat. Johnson's periods act like a lever of the third kind,—the power applied always exceeds the weight raised; while the terse, laconic style of later writers is eminently a lever on the first principle, and gives the mind the utmost purchase on the subject ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... evening, whether he sat in his white surplice at the organ on Sundays, leading the singing with his strong tenor voice, or whether he were in the workshop with the boys, he was always a centre of magic and fascination to her, his voice, sounding out in command, cheerful, laconic, had always a twang in it that sent a thrill over her blood, and hypnotized her. She seemed to run in the shadow of some dark, potent secret of which she would not, of whose existence even she dared not become conscious, it ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... said Guthrie, with laconic significance, and climbed in beside the driver. They flipped through the night at thirty miles an hour, which was as much as Tryon dared risk on such a road. The Glendora was about ten miles off. Gay, furled in the big coat and kindly ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... a tall, muscular man of a distinguished appearance. His hair was white. His face was handsome and good to see. He was laconic in speech, but his eyes were closely observant of all within their range, and they asked searching questions. He had a reverent soul, wisely tolerant as to creeds, and he loved his country with a passion which absence from ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Catamaran, and swim towards him, that the sailor suspected the proximity of a shark. At the same instant, also, he remembered the interrogatory that had been addressed to him by little William, and his own laconic reply designating the individual as a hammer-head. From these various circumstances he could tell that there was a shark bearing down upon him; but in what direction he could not conjecture, until the hurried words of Snowball ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... imagination is not the source of beauty, for although no scene seizes so strongly on the imagination, yet there are scenes "more beautiful than Runnymede." And though instances of self-contradiction as laconic and complete as this are to be found in few writers except Alison, yet if the arguments on the subject be fairly sifted from the mass of confused language with which they are always encumbered and placed in ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... perhaps inexplicable; Mr. Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made some fatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly, and business-like step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at once: "A telegram, very laconic." Speedily the wires were flashing the following very important missive: "Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next train.—Forsyth." And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow expressive of despatch and intellectual effort, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... o'clock in the morning before they reached the bank. The gold was taken out and deposited in the vaults, and the three went up to the Hall. They brought out brandy and refreshed themselves, after which John remarked, in his usual laconic style, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... supplies, and it might be months or even years before he returned to that particular post again. He was ceaselessly wandering. More or less the Royal Northwest Mounted Police kept track of him, and in many reports of faraway patrols filed at Headquarters there are the laconic words, "We saw Bram and his wolves traveling northward" or "Bram and his wolves passed us"—always Bram AND HIS WOLVES. For two years the Police lost track of him. That was when Bram was buried in the heart of ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... have been inspired with the ambition of a moralist, and distributed Hermae, or stone busts of Mercury, about the city and the public roads, which, while answering a similar purpose to our mile-stones, arrested the eye of the passenger with pithy and laconic apothegms in verse; such as, "Do not deceive your friend," and "Persevere in affection to justice;"—proofs rather of the simplicity than the wisdom of the prince. It is not by writing the decalogue upon mile-stones that the robber would be terrified, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... again a disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the very beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his most-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold's tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... add that the exhibition of these archives was accompanied by an infinite number of spoken details which seemed to make the identity of the Marquis de Sallenauve indisputable. On all other subjects my father is laconic; his mental capacity does not seem to me remarkable, and he willingly allowed his mouthpiece to talk for him. But here, in the matter of his parchments, he was loquaciously full of anecdotes, recollections, heraldic knowledge; in ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... January, 1872, Pittia returned with bad news. Bedden had sent me a laconic message that "he should not call again, and that his people declined to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... familiarity with the language—far more than is required for simply reading a book. Though there are few provincialisms, and all classes of the people use the same words—except the words of foreign origin, which are used only by the upper classes—the peasant always speaks in a more laconic and more idiomatic way ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... cross between Machiavelli and Paganini. If he knew any thing about the wonders and curiosities of Moscow he kept it a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite, dignified, and gentlemanly—never refused to drink a glass of beer with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public functionaries ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... look or touch. When he was not near her, when she could not see the speechless passion in his eyes, or feel the tremor of his lips when they answered the demand of hers, then the anger lasted longer. Once or twice, when he was away from home, his letters, with their laconic taking of her love for granted, made her sharply displeased; but when he came back, and kissed her, she forgot everything but his arms. Curiously enough, the very completeness of her surrender kept him so entirely ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the hasty summons, heard the message before the clerk had time to write it out. His lips were closely compressed as he put his own hand on the key and sent these laconic sentences: "O. K. Keep perfectly dark. Will manage from ...
— The Denver Express - From "Belgravia" for January, 1884 • A. A. Hayes
... German guns might be thundering in front of the fortifications. The communiques from Joffre became less frequent and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in one sense. Her exits ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All right—I've done—you may take it or ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... himself of this laconic order, and soon afterwards returned, stating not only that there was no rope, but that the hook alluded ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... on the table," was the laconic message: on reading which I inserted my key, swung the heavy door outward, and opened the lighter inner door. The note was lying on the table and I brought it out to the landing to read by the light of ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... general instructions for all the voyages were repeated with a laconic brevity that would have made other men, not accustomed to look death in the face, turn pale. In case of a submarine attack, the transports that carried guns were to come out from the line and aid the patrol of armed vessels, attacking the enemy. The ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... plates and dishes were still upon the table. He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony, or to partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he answered our salutation with a laconic "good-morning," and scarcely even looked at us. At the very first glance, it was easy to see that he came from Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in which one finds men of his gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head rose above those of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... congratulate you both," Constance breathed, realizing the import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. "I'm sure I hope you'll ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Way of Thinking and the Style must be Laconic: Much must be contained in a little Compass. Brevity of Diction adds new Life to a good Thought: And since every perfect Stroke ought to be a distinct Representation of a particular Feature, Matters shou'd be so order'd, that ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... political bondage, what were nations and their ambitions, in comparison with a society where mind and morals had the glorious license of Olympians and could follow the unobstructed paths of inclination in realms controlled only by fancy! Napoleon's greeting was laconic, "Vous etes un homme." This flattered Goethe, who called it the inverse "ecce homo," and felt its allusion to his citizenship, not in Germany, but in the world. The nineteenth-century Caesar then urged the great writer to carry out an already-formed design ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... prevail upon him, cannot make him share my audacity. He calls it a mad scheme, which will exhaust us and come to nothing. Without the advice of an experienced pilot, with no other compass than a book, which is not always very clear, because of its laconic adherence to set terms, our poor bark is bound to be wrecked on the first reef. One might as well put out to sea in a nutshell and defy the billows of the vasty deep. He does not use these actual words, but his gloomy estimate of the extreme difficulties to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... November 1893, with happy memories of the World's Fair and to good news from Colorado. "Telegram ... from Denver—said woman suffrage carried by 5000 majority," she recorded in her diary.[386] This laconic comment in no way expressed ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... with any detailed description. Artists will especially delight in the view of a fourteenth-century church close to the castle, with its chancel with creepers growing over it, and peeping out between the stones; and historians will be interested in the laconic inscription on its walls, 'rebuilt in 1438, a year of war, death, plague, and famine.' If such artists as Brewer, or Burgess, would only come here and give us drawings of these streets (of one especially, taking in the cathedral at the end, with its ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... that subject. Hank Brown would have rambled along the trail of many words and eventually have told Jack some things that he ought to know—only Hank Brown came no more to Mount Hough lookout station. A stranger brought Jack's weekly pack-load of supplies; a laconic type of man who held his mind and his tongue strictly to the business at hand. The other men who came there were tourists, and with them Jack would not talk at all ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... obvious resemblance. In his early childhood, while he lived among the peasants, he became familiar with their mode of thought and speech, and it entered into his being, and became his own natural mode of expression. There is in his daily conversation a certain grim directness, and a laconic weightiness, which give an air of importance and authority even to his simplest utterances. This tendency to compression frequently has the effect of obscurity, not because his thought is obscure, but rather because ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of Mississippi, showing that the hands of that officer were more than full. [Footnote: The letter, however, did not reach Johnston till after he had been relieved of command.] On the 10th Johnston had forwarded a laconic dispatch, saying, "On the night of the 8th the enemy crossed at Isham's Cavalry Ford; intrenched. In consequence we crossed at and below the railroad, and are now about two miles from the river, guarding the crossings." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 873.] On the 11th he telegraphed, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... with which he introduces phrases, in the unalterable formula of his adipose periods badly sewed together with the thread of conjunctions and, finally, in his wearisome habits of tautology. Nor was his enthusiasm wakened for Caesar, celebrated for his laconic style. Here, on the contrary, was disclosed a surprising aridity, a sterility of recollection, an incredibly ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... days longer. He took a hack from the depot when they arrived in Boston, and drove to the Revere House, instead of going up in the horse-car. He entered his name on the register with a flourish, "Bartley J. Hubbard and Wife, Boston," and asked for a room and fire, with laconic gruffness; but the clerk knew him at once for a country person, and when the call-boy followed him into the parlor where Marcia sat, in the tremor into which she fell whenever Bartley was out of her sight, the call-boy discerned ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... matter for some moments, chewing energetically the while, then, having delivered himself with the same delicacy and skill as before of his surplus tobacco juice, made laconic reply: ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for silence. He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town, and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read coldly the laconic text. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... of her lids he betrayed his self-consciousness. "I suppose so." He kept to the most laconic form of speech in order to leave no opening ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... "Perhaps," was Donald's laconic reply, "but those women and children will be safe in Vera Cruz under the guns of Admiral Fletcher's fleet by daylight, or I'm ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... the other would-be mediator; for he hated to see the two principal parishioners of his tiny cure at enmity. First he tackled James Moore on the subject; but that laconic person cut him short with, "I've nowt agin the little mon," and would say no more. And, indeed, the quarrel ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... struggle,—the best part of the engineer's life. Starr re-read his letter. He pondered over it in all its bearings. He much regretted that just a line more had not been added by Ford. He wished he had not been quite so laconic. ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... our wary senior is infectious, and we confess ourselves so far disenchanted by it, that, when we go into a library, the lettering on the backs of nine-tenths of the volumes contrives to shape itself into a laconic Hic jacet. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... tea in to Mr. Rattar, she seemed to read in his first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy, laconic way. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... come up from the interior, he sailed on the 3rd of September for England. On the 8th, when on his way to Gibraltar, he wrote an account of the battle to his brother, to whom he had previously sent a very laconic communication, stating ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... Throughout his whole life he suffered from this neglect of early instruction. His letters, particularly, though they always "displayed the goodness of his heart, and frequently the strength of his native genius, with a certain laconic mode of expression, and an unaffected epigrammatic turn," were "fearfully and wonderfully made," the despair of his correspondents and ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... his chair, and went forward to the new-comer. 'You are not long behind us, then,' he said, with laconic disquietude. 'I thought you were ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... afterwards depends, and whose terms are repeated in every following page to the very dazzling of eye and deadening of ear (a division, we regret to say, as illogical as it is purposeless), otherwise than by a laconic reference to the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and the bald, laconic message was delivered one winter evening at the door, the mother bent her head low; and later, when she found speech and had dropped the corner of her apron, was heard to whisper to herself, "'Twas the Almighty's will." Then ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... imaginative faculty not elsewhere found in American verse. His poetry belongs more peculiarly to universal art, so pure in general is its philosophic content and so free from any temporal trait is the style; but it is as distinguished for the laconic expression of American ideas, minted with one blow, as his prose is for the constant breathing of the American spirit. It is the less possible to define the American traits in Emerson, because they constituted the man. He was as purely an American type as Lincoln. The grain of the man is in his ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... I ever heard of booze going to the knee," was Charlie's laconic rejoinder. "It's generally ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... between the classical apologue and the fable in The Nights is that while AEsop and Gabrias write laconic tales with a single event and a simple moral, the Arabian fables are often "long-continued novelle involving a variety of events, each characterised by some social or political aspect, forming a narrative highly interesting in itself, often exhibiting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... During the negociations which followed, the Burmese monarch had made vigorous preparations for its continuance; and when the armistice had nearly expired, in reply to the proposals made for peace by the British commanders, this haughty and laconic answer was given, "If you wish for peace, you may go away; but if you wish either money or territory, no friendship can exist between us. This is Burmese custom." The reply was seconded by the advance of 60,000 Burmese troops along the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, gravely, 'I know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable remark several ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of their eyes." Yet this sentiment is a fair specimen of the stern stuff of which Mr. St. John's creeds and opinions are made up.[8] Nevertheless, the volumes are entertaining, and in proof we have carved out a few laconic extracts: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... P.B. is on the table," was the laconic message: on reading which I inserted my key, swung the heavy door outward, and opened the lighter inner door. The note was lying on the table and I brought it out to the landing to read by the light of the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... influence of his injurer's glance and presence, would acknowledge whatever misdeed, debt, and even crime was attributed to him, responding to the demand if what his accuser said was true, with the invariable and laconic words: "What ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... negotiated like a merchant; I will capitulate as a soldier." He sent a herald, therefore, to Ferdinand, offering to yield up his castle, but demanding a separate treaty. (15) The Castilian sovereign made a laconic and stern reply: "He shall receive no terms but such as have been granted ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... guest to arrive. He shuffled in without answering the laconic greetings accorded him, and his usually mild eyes ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... was within a march of Trento. The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's territory. Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an ungrateful part, took up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram: 'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,' he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do you obey likewise.' Someone murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief, 'we ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... spirit of clique. All the other married men had objected, but the Harrisonites ultimately carried their point. Of the two principal opponents, Ludlow was fairly talked off his feet by the voluble patois of Loewenberg, and Benson completely put down by the laconic and inflexible Sumner. So far so bad, but worse was to follow; for after the horses had been ordered, and most of the ladies, including the Robinsons, bonneted and shawled for the start, the lionne, who had, doubtless, heard of the unsuccessful attempt to blackball her, and wished to make a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the Mexican capital, for Mr. Davis to interview President Huerta, with safe conduct (this being about as safe as nonskid tires) to Mexico City. Mr. Davis was asked if he would make the trip. In less than two hours back came this laconic cable: ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... foreboding. I was delighted to write a book, and it never occurred to me that everybody would not be just as delighted to read it. The first time my book weighed on me was one morning when a thin, meagre little letter came to me, which turned out to be only a card bearing the laconic inscription,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... however, I received a laconic note from him, which, notwithstanding its shortness and seeming gayety, I knew well signified that something not calculated for laughter had occurred. I went, and found that his new Majesty had deprived him of the seals and secured his papers. We looked very blank at each ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having challenged Wilkes, who was then sheriff of London and Middlesex, received the following laconic reply: "Sir, I do not think it my business to cut the throat of every desperado that may be tired of his life; but as I am at present High Sheriff of the City of London, it may shortly happen that I shall have an opportunity of attending you in my civil capacity, in which ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... William's laconic reply; and the young gentleman proceeded to tell him, that having been employed in recovering Lady Laura from those who had carried her off, he had learned in the course of his inquiries in London that she was likely to be heard of ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... robber on a large scale, or religion to men who measure excellence by forbidden meats, or geography to those who represent the earth in this guise. Yet, though few of our ideas are in common, there are many words; the verbosity of these anti-Laconic oriental dialects [11] renders at least half the subject intelligible to the most opposite thinkers. When the society is wholly Somal, I write Arabic, copy some useful book, or extract from it, as Bentley advised, what is fit to quote. When Arabs are present, I usually read out a ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the matter in the parlour, colonel; t'wont put you out a mite," the gambler suggests, with a laconic air. He will not trouble M'Carstrow by waiting for his reply. No; he leads the way, very coolly, asking no odds of etiquette; and, having entered the apartment, invites his comrades to take seats. The dignity ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... on, nobody left the canyon except on weekly 'copter-lifts to the ranch grazing lands for fresh supplies. Fortunately, that area was undisturbed, and so were its laconic occupants. They neither knew nor cared what went on in the world outside; what cities were reported destroyed, what forces triumphed or went down into defeat, what ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... think," the chauffeur answered in the laconic way he affects sometimes, but there was an odd smile in his eyes, almost like defiance—of me, or of Fate. I didn't know which but I should ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... too close, and a bath afterward," was his laconic order; and a modest tip facilitated things and provided ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... preparations for war, sent ambassadors to the Florentine Republic, to assert her innocence of the crime imputed to her by public opinion, and did not hesitate to send excuses even to the Hungarian court; but Andre's brother replied in a letter laconic and threatening:— ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... orator of a style so copious and diffuse, it was singular how admirably laconic he could become when he chose. During dinner, while occupied with the viands, he would express himself with the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... her fingers, as when one plays on the Piano.' You discern, not without interest, across that dim Revolutionary Bulletin itself, how she bears herself queenlike. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of Laconic brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm words. "You persist then in denial?"—"My plan is not denial: it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." Scandalous Hebert has borne his testimony as to many things: as to ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... after) "that the sum intended for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, should be given to the Wesleyan Methodists, who are now, and who may be hereafter, connected with the British Wesleyan Conference." I believe Lord Sydenham's laconic reply was, that he had to do with religious bodies in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... hit on a "perfect cure"? (What ails me I am not quite sure that I'm sure) To Nice, where the weather is nice—with vagaries? The Engadine soft or the sunny Canaries? To Bonn or Wiesbaden? My doctor laconic Declares that the Teutonic air is too tonic. Shall I do Davos-Platz or go rove the Riviera? Or moon for a month in romantic Madeira? St. Moritz or Malaga, Aix, La Bourboule? Bah! My doctor's a farceur and I am—a fool. I will not try Switzerland, Norway, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... promptness he started at once for Washington, arriving there the 8th of March. The laconic conversation which took place between the President and the general has been reported ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... reign half a shekel of silver and 1 gur of wheat from the royal storehouse were paid to five men who had brought a flock of sheep to the King's administrator in the city of Ruzabu. The following laconic letter also tells the same tale: "Letter from Tabik-zeri to Gula-ibni, my brother. Give 54 qas of meal to the men who have dug the canal. The 9th of Nisan, fifth year of Cyrus, King of Eridu, King of the World." The employer ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... said Bilot, with a broad grin, "one must be very virtuous indeed to make use of the laconic style so highly esteemed by the ancients. However, as I am devoted to your lordship, I will answer in a ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a letter which was to await him at Aden—I besought him to relieve my suspense. That he had found my letter was indicated by a telegram which, reaching me after weary days and in the absence of any answer to my laconic dispatch to him at Bombay, was evidently intended as a reply to both communications. Those few words were in familiar French, the French of the day, which Covick often made use of to show he wasn't a prig. It had for some persons the opposite effect, but ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... gates to the Perse grounds, and a tall, shadowy figure leaves it to hurry through the shrub lined walks to the massive doors. A watchman in the garden salutes him. The tall figure dips his umbrella in response, characteristically laconic. A footman lifts his hand to his forelock at the top of the steps and throws open the doors without question. This visitor is expected, it is plain to be seen; a circumstance which may or may not explain the nervousness ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Hampton wished to build a meeting-house, the committee wrote him a letter stating the reasons why a certain valuable and centrally situated piece of land owned by him would be the most advantageous site for the proposed building. His reply was in the laconic style characteristic of his manner ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... distinguished from taught or brought. Secondly, in this place it is out of accord with wrought, which is correctly spelled. If Messrs. Plummer and Mosely would be logical, let them write wrought as wrot—or perhaps plain rot would be still more correct and phonetic, besides furnishing a laconic punning commentary on simple spelling in general. The Phoenician's editorial column is conducted with laudable seriousness, the item of "The Power of Books" being well worthy of perusal. What could best be spared from the magazine are the vague jokes and cartoons, purposeless "fillers" ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Russians captured... and Hindenburg's still counting..."). And all you could find in the papers was the General Staff report that "at one place the fighting has been very severe; up to the present we have made some twenty-six thousand prisoners," etc., and even this laconic sentence lost in the middle of the regular communique beginning: "Yesterday on the Belgian coast, after ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache, and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of doubtful experiments, that seldom ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the doctor's dose Is quite a decent tonic. Thy presence, too, makes all things new, And five-act plays laconic. And, with thee by, the earth's the sky, And your "day out" is my day, While tailors' bills are daffodils, And Saturday is Friday! When thou art here, love, Just where you are, Far things are near, love, Near things are far. Beef-tea is wine, love, Champagne is beer, Wet days are fine, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... your father, and enquire—what time it will be most convenient for him to receive my visit, and I will come to Town immediately to the time appointed and accompany you to the Rural Shades and Fertile Fields of Hants. You must excuse the laconic Style of my Epistle as this place is damned dull and I have nothing to ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple And look with laconic, black eyes? Or is sleep coming over you again, ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... wearied way. 'Well, well, we'll see what we can do for him.' At the same time he rang a tiny hand-bell. A boy, rather the worse for printer's ink, appeared at the summons. Mr. Lancaster handed him Ernest's careful manuscript unopened, with the laconic order, 'Press. Proof immediately.' The boy took it without a word. 'I'm very busy now,' Mr. Lancaster went on in the same wearied dispirited manner: 'come again in thirty-five minutes. Jones, show these gentlemen into a room somewhere.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... same laconic reply as those preceding it. Seeing the firmness of our Commandant-General and the crowds of peasantry gathering from all parts, the enemy's courage was damped, and his second in command, Captain Samuel Hood, came out to ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... course. In Guadeloupe, one of the Carib strongholds, he landed a number of men without due precaution. They were attacked by the natives. Fifteen of them were wounded, four of whom died. Some women who had been sent ashore to wash the soiled linen were carried off. Ponce's report of the event was laconic: "I wrote from San Lucas and from la Palma," he writes to the king (August 7th to 8th). "In Guadeloupe, while taking in water the Indians wounded some of my men. They shall be chastised." Haro, ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... Donald's laconic reply, "but those women and children will be safe in Vera Cruz under the guns of Admiral Fletcher's fleet by daylight, or I'm ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... of Moscow he kept it a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite, dignified, and gentlemanly—never refused to drink a glass of beer with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public functionaries with whom we came in contact during the course of our rambles ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... you both," Constance breathed, realizing the import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. "I'm sure I hope you'll ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... against the Russians in the Crimea (an English translation of his book had appeared in 1785). The satire upon this gallant soldier's veracity appears to be quite undeserved, though one can hardly read portions of his adventures without being forcibly reminded of the Baron's laconic style. It is needless to add that the amazing account of De Tott's origin is grossly libellous. The amount of public interest excited by the aeronautical exploits of Montgolfier and Blanchard was also playfully satirised. Their first imitator in England, Vincenzo Lunardi, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... for the Falls," was the laconic answer; and, without knowing why he should particularly wish to do so, Mr. Carrollton ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... divining his thoughts; "here's somebody who will clear it up." And I pointed to a cottage-door at which I suddenly espied the old woman whose handling of the roller-towel had so impressed me. "Where," I shouted, addressing her, "where is the wounded man?" "Took away," was the laconic reply. "Took away!" I said; "and who has had the impudence to take ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... swift lifting of her lids he betrayed his self-consciousness. "I suppose so." He kept to the most laconic form of speech in order to leave no opening ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Caesar imitated laconic brevity when he announced to Amintius his victory at Zela, in Asia Minor, over Pharna'c[^e]s, son of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... for St. Petersburg, was his laconic reply, as he looked around for another chair. Everything was littered with books and papers, and at last he leaned over and lifted the dress from the chair to place it on the bed, as the easiest way of securing a seat in ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... so much renowned of old in all contracts, which [521]Tully so earnestly commends to Atticus, Plutarch in his Lysander, Aristotle polit.: Thucydides, lib. 1, [522]Diodorus and Suidus approve and magnify, for that laconic brevity in this kind; and well they might, for, according to [523]Tertullian, certa sunt paucis, there is much more certainty in fewer words. And so was it of old throughout: but now many skins of parchment will scarce serve turn; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that I have ever encountered from a reviewer was the laconic and cynical remark (commenting upon my rather altruistic belief in the duty of giving one's best thought to the conversational circle), that "Nowadays, people don't talk: if they have any good ideas, they save them and write them ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... him with intense interest, his countenance gradually lighting into a smile of pleasure, and the instant Mr. Wharton concluded his laconic reply he turned on his heel and left the apartment. The Whartons, judging from his manner, thought he was about to proceed in quest of the object of his inquiries. They observed the dragoon, on gaining the lawn, in earnest and apparently pleased ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... when upon a given subject, are exceedingly laconic, and neither answer my desires nor the purpose of letters; which should be familiar conversations, between absent friends. As I desire to live with you upon the footing of an intimate friend, and not of a parent, I could wish that your letters gave me more particular accounts of yourself, and of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... visit him. To start the conversation, Lady Heloise asked him who he was and what was the matter with the child; also what crime he had committed and where they were taking him with such an escort. Kohlhaas doffed his leather cap to her and, continuing his occupation, made laconic but satisfactory answers to all these questions. The Elector, who was standing behind the hunting-pages, remarked a little leaden locket hanging on a silk string around the horse-dealer's neck, and, since no better topic of conversation offered itself, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fellow sharply as he got into the wagon and noticed nothing in his disfavor. His laconic account of himself was borne ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... Mr Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made some fatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly, and businesslike step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at once: 'A telegram, very laconic.' Speedily the wires were flashing the following very important missive: 'Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next train.—Forsyth.' And ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the porter, Lady Chatterton observed to him significantly—"Nobody at home, Willis."—"Yes, my lady," was the laconic reply, and Lord Herriefield, as he took his seat by the side of his wife in the carriage, thought she was not as handsome ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... separated from the Hellas by bad weather, and in returning to the rendezvous at Spetzia, he lost two of his masts and two men, in a hurricane off Cape Malea. Shortly after his return to Poros, where he was again compelled to refit, he received the following laconic communication from Lord Cochrane, in which all mention ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... A laconic announcement of the German General Staff on July 14, 1915, bore momentous news, although its modest wording scarcely betrayed the facts. It read: "Between the Niemen and the Vistula, in the region of Walwarga, southwest of Kolno, near Przasnysz and south of Mlawa, our troops ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... side of the conductor. 'What are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he will make in the most peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but withering ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Stokes; you've told me, and may consider that you've done your duty in doing so," replied the skipper, grimly laconic. "But I'm not going to ease down till seven bells, my hearty, unless we run across Dick Haldane's ship before, when we'll go as slow as you like and bear up again on our course to ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... this essay. The late Bert Leston Taylor, a journalist whose journalism had a literary facet of critical brilliance, once declared that he could not perceive the excellence of Francis Thompson's poetry. When someone suggested that it might be that he was not spiritual enough, the retort was laconic and crushing, "Or, perhaps, not ecclesiastical enough." Like most good retorts Taylor's had more wit than truth. He was obsessed by the notion, prevalent among a certain class of literary critics, that Francis Thompson's fame was the artificially stimulated applause of a Catholic coterie, whose ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... approached him, that my chances were but indifferent. I found him as "close as a clam." Our conversation was very brief; his answers laconic. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... can't tell you here,' was the laconic reply of my companion; 'come, let's go. You are sure that is the lady,' he continued, when we had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... and Harry Higginson had attended to Alfred, Mr Clare and Walter took care of Drake. He was very laconic in his replies to their questions, and made light of the injury; but he was faint from the wound in the head, and his sleeveless arm was so stiff as to be ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'abrupt and laconic structure' of Glover's periods appears at the very commencement of Leonidas, which has something military in its movement, but rather the stiff gait of the drilled soldier than the proud march of the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Ramsey was laconic in response to inquiries upon this subject. When someone remarked: "You served him right for calling you a boob and a poor fish and so on before all the society, girls ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... friend in question was likewise approached for a political contribution, whereupon he handed out $100 for himself and the same amount for Vanderbilt. On being told of his debt, Vanderbilt declined to pay it, closing the matter abruptly with this laconic pronunciamento, "When I give anything, I give it myself." At another time Vanderbilt assured a friend that he would "carry" one thousand shares of New York Central stock for him. The market price rose to $115 a share and then dropped to $90. A little later, before setting ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... of his lance through a laced doublet. Sir Piercie Shafton, a man of rank and high birth, by no means encouraged or endured this familiarity, and requited the intruder either with total neglect, or such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for the rude spearman, who affected to converse with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of the interesting complications that were being woven for him in the hot-hearted frontier community of which he was now a part; for Merrifield and Sylvane, as correspondents, were laconic, not being given to spreading themselves out on paper. His work in the Assembly and the pre-convention campaign for presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He was eager that a reform candidate should be named by the Republicans, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... intimate with Thurlow, and long flattered himself with the hopes of succeeding to some valuable appointment in the law; but, several good things passing by, he lost his patience and temper along with them. At last he addressed this laconic application to his patron: 'The Chief Justiceship of Chester is vacant; am I to have it?' and received the following laconic answer—'No! by God! Kenyon ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the direction the Cambridge horse-car took when I found it, and I hinted to the driver my anxieties as to why he should be starting east when I had been told that Cambridge was west of Boston. He reassured me in the laconic and sarcastic manner of his kind, and we really reached Cambridge by the route ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they, as we have stated, were infrequent, so laconic, in reality, that they were mere exclamations rather than speech. But each time an explanation had been asked concerning the state of France, the Englishman openly drew out a note-book and requested those about him, the wine merchant, the abbe, or the young noble to repeat ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... outside then rushed in and dispersed the representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act as an annex to a protocol. Here, however, we have the source of half the evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... chiefly pleased with that close mode of oratory, which in a laconic manner states the facts, and forms an immediate conclusion: in that case, it is obvious how necessary it is to be a complete master of the rules of logic. Others delight in a more open, free, and copious ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... explanations in which were harder to understand than conundrums. Although greatly averse to following the notary's advice as to seeking Claudet's assistance, he found himself compelled to do so, but was met by such laconic and surly answers that he concluded it would be more dignified on his part to dispense with the services of one who was so badly disposed toward him. He therefore resolved to have recourse to the debtors themselves, whose ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." None of the drafts help us with facts about the enemy; the politics; the country and our allies, the Russians. In sober fact these "instructions" leave me to my own devices in the East, almost as much as K.'s laconic order "git" left me to myself when I quitted Pretoria for the West ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... his destined calling, which was to be that of a farmer. Throughout his whole life he suffered from this neglect of early instruction. His letters, particularly, though they always "displayed the goodness of his heart, and frequently the strength of his native genius, with a certain laconic mode of expression, and an unaffected epigrammatic turn," were "fearfully and wonderfully made," the despair of his correspondents and the ridicule ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... located the wireless telegraph station from where Commander Peary flashed to the civilized world his laconic message, "Stars and Stripes nailed to the ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Courtenay gave him.(514) A young man may correct and improve, and rise from a first fall; but an elderly formed speaker has not an equal chance. Mr. Hamilton,(515) Lord Abercorn's heir, but by no means so laconic, had more success. Though his first essay, ii was not at all dashed by bashfulness; and though he might have blushed for discovering so much personal rancour to Mr. Fox, he rather seemed to be impatient to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... slept the clock round; their watches run down, their sense of the very date blurred. Since the Colonel had made the last laconic entry in the journal—was it three days or ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Sweetwater's equally laconic reply; and, the road taking a turn almost at the moment of his speaking, he leaned forward and pointed out a building standing on the right-hand side of the road, with its feet in the water. "That's it." said he. "They described it well enough for me to know it when I see it. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... of the conversation fell upon his shoulders. Fitz, no great talker at any time, was markedly quiet. He had nothing to offer for the general delectation. His remarks upon all subjects mooted were laconic and valueless. The duties as temporary host occupied him for the moment, and his thoughts were obviously elsewhere. His attitude towards Eve had been friendly, but rather reserved. There was no suggestion of sulkiness, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... heard in the valley of the Mississippi, give us, then, a man who is called a "sawed-off" by those who love him—a very thick, very short, very tobaccofied, strong man in cavalry pants, with a jacket of the heaviest chinchilla—a restless, oathful, laconic, thirsty, never-drunk "editor." It is a man after the sailor's own heart. It is a man, too, well known to the gamblers, and they ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... of those foreign adventurers who swarm in every country, and who styled himself Comte Armand de la Tremouille. He seems to have been a blackguard of unusually low pattern, for, after he had extracted from her some L200 of her pin money and a few diamond brooches, he left her one fine day with a laconic word to say that he was sailing for Europe by the Argentina, and would not be back for some time. She was in love with the brute, poor young soul, for when, a week later, she read that the Argentina was wrecked, and presumably every soul on board had perished, she wept very many ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... to our own reserve, shyness, formality, or under whatever other name we please to designate, and seek to hide its unamiable synonym, pride. Vanity, always a free, is not seldom an agreeable talker; but pride is ever laconic; while the few words he utters are generally so constrained and dull, that you would gladly absolve him altogether from so painful an effort as that of opening his mouth, or forcing it to articulate. Self-love ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to the Lesnoi Kamchadals, who returned from here, we muffled ourselves from the biting air in our heaviest furs, took seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little in the keen air, my driver pointed away to the northward, and exclaimed ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... to this country to offer his services to Congress. "What can you do?" asked Washington. "Try me," was the laconic reply. In course of time, he was sent to Schuyler as engineer of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... they protested against this presence as "a breach of privilege, and inconsistent with that dignity and freedom with which they had a right to deliberate, consult, and determine." The Governor's laconic reply was,—"I have no authority over His Majesty's ships in this port or his troops within this town; nor can I give any orders for their removal." The House, resolving that they proceeded to take part in the elections ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... (the latter but little distinguishable from the soap), and at an eating-house there was displayed the sign of a plump fish transfixed with a gaff. But the sign most frequently to be discerned was the insignia of the State, the double-headed eagle (now replaced, in this connection, with the laconic inscription "Dramshop"). As for the paving of the town, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... without sugar when it was a high-priced luxury brought painfully in small quantities from the Orient, and assured one another that it was not a necessary article of diet. At last we all agreed to Karstens's laconic advice, "Forget it!" and we spoke of sugar no more. When we got on the ridge the chocolate satisfied to some extent the craving for sweetness, but we all missed the sugar sorely and continued to miss it to the end, Karstens as much ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... the duty which every one owes to his country."[1] A certain Sieur de Jarville, accompanied by other true Burgundians, undertook to report the proceedings to Charles,—a duty usually falling to the share of the presiding officer of the ecclesiastical chamber. The message which he carried was laconic but sturdy: ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... closed the door, and the carriage turned into Piccadilly Circus. The woman did not pay very much attention to him. She made a laconic explanation, the sort of explanation one ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... of a regalia, I sat waiting the advent of my friend Barescythe—Barry for short—to whom I had addressed a laconic note, begging him to visit me at my ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Translation of Juvenal and Persius, Mr. Creech did the 13th Satire of Juvenal, and subjoined Notes. He also translated into English, the verses before Mr. Quintenay's Compleat Gardiner. The Life of Solon, from the Greek of Plutarch. Laconic Apophthegms, or Remarkable Sayings of the Spartans, printed in the first Volume of Plutarch's Morals. A Discourse concerning Socrates's Daemon. The two First Books of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... nomenclature). The modelling of the head is quite masterly. Niccolo is looking rather to the left; his keen and hawklike countenance, and his piercing eyes, deep set and quivering within pendulous eyelids, give a sense of invincible logic and penetration. The laconic, matter-of-fact mouth, and the resolute jaw add strength and courage to the physiognomy: the nose and its disdainful nostrils are those of the haughty optimate. The head is, however, less fine than the face: a skull ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... Grammarian gave a consequence to the books in the eyes of Amru, and made him scrupulous of giving them away without permission of the Caliph. He forthwith wrote to Omar, stating the merits of John, and requesting to know whether the books might be given to him. The reply of Omar was laconic, but fatal. "The contents of those books," said he, "are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they are, the Koran is sufficient without them; if they are not, they are pernicious. Let them, therefore, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... folded this laconic epistle, put it in his pocket, and gave the order for departure. His voice, which rang above the east wind, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... a first-class compartment in the rear of the train at Paddington, they waited at first patiently and then impatiently for it to start. At last, unable to understand the delay, one of them put out his head and asked a passing official when the train was going. "It has gone" was the laconic reply. The coach which they had chosen was not attached to the rest of the train, and they were not so meticulously careful about examining tickets on the Great Western system as they are to-day. When the belated passengers did eventually reach Oswestry, the crowd was still there. ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... your health. I saw my young cousin before I set out—she is more charming than ever. I am sure by the time you return she will be the finest woman in England." Lord Nelville said nothing—and Mr Edgermond was also silent. Some other words passed between them, very laconic, though extremely friendly, and Mr Edgermond was going, when suddenly turning back, he said, "Apropos, my lord, you can do me a kindness—they tell me you are acquainted with the celebrated Corinne: I don't much like forming new acquaintances, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... scarcely any important trace remains, except a kind of diary which contains under one date the laconic statement, "Married two wives this morning." The insane ingenuity of the biographer would be quite capable of seeing in this a most suggestive foreshadowing of the sexual dualism which is so ably defended in Fifine at the Fair. ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... following morning, while the Burgesses were engaged in animated debate, they were summoned to attend Lord Dunmore in the council chamber, where he made them the following laconic speech: "Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses: I have in my hand a paper, published by order of your House, conceived in such terms, as reflect highly upon his majesty, and the Parliament of Great Britain, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Europe is not curious in the matter, and will be easily satisfied. A few copies of the annual Budget are published; they are certainly not in everybody's reach. The statement of receipts and expenditure is prodigiously laconic. I have now before me the estimates prepared for 1858, in four pages, the least blank of which contains just fourteen lines. The Finance Minister sums up the receipts and the outgoings, both ordinary and extraordinary. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... her if she liked him, and she gave me the same laconic answer. So I, too, dismissed the topic. There was a little mystery in Mary's manner about this time. If she did not like Mr. Gardner she did like young Randolph, a Southerner, and a student, who walked ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... worship enough this nobility of soul in her, and he celebrated it to Boardman with the passionate need of imparting his rapture which a lover feel. Boardman acquiesced in silence, with a glance of reserved sarcasm, or contented himself with laconic satire of his friend's general condition, and avoided any comment that might specifically apply to the points Dan made. Alice allowed him to have this confidant, and did not demand of him a report of all he said to Boardman. A main fact of their love, she said, must be their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... where much was said in few words, was so usual in the whole country of Laconia, that it is still known as the laconic style. ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... last act, I approached that truly dreadful five-page speech, which after a laconic "Go on!" from the young minister is continued through several more pages, I actually trembled with fear, lest her ennui should find some unpleasant outward expression. However, I dared not balk at the jump, so took it as bravely as ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... the cottage of the lame old man who had fired such a broadside of lurid words at Gregory, as he stood on the fence opposite. With a crutch under one arm and leaning on his gate, Daddy Tuggar seemed awaiting them, and secured their attention by the laconic ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... said that the Duke of Wellington declined the invitation to the Lord Mayor's civic dinner in the following laconic speech:—"Pray remember the 9th November, 1830."—"Ah!" said Sir Peter Laurie, on hearing the Duke's reply, "I remember it. They said that the people intended on that day to set fire to Guildhall, and meant to roast the Mayor and Board of Aldermen."—"On the old system, I suppose, of every man cooking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... man found his own way at a rate which allowed him to complete the survey in six days. Foreign telegrams, however, and political intelligence, as well as the turmoil of the great cities, were strange to him, and here he greatly valued Posty's laconic hints, who, visiting the frontier, was supposed to be in communication with those centres. "Posty says that the Afghans are no makin' muckle o' the war," and Hillocks would sally forth to enjoy Sir Frederick Roberts' great march, line by line, afterwards enlarging thereon with much ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... wrote him a letter which was to await him at Aden—I besought him to relieve my suspense. That he found my letter was indicated by a telegram which, reaching me after weary days and without my having received an answer to my laconic dispatch at Bombay, was evidently intended as a reply to both communications. Those few words were in familiar French, the French of the day, which Corvick often made use of to show he wasn't a prig. It had for some ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For instance, if anyone asked, "Is Socrates at home?" one, as if backward and disinclined to answer, might say, "Not at home;" or, if he wished to speak with Laconic brevity, might cut off "at home," and simply say "No;" as, when Philip wrote to the Lacedaemonians to ask if they would receive him in their city, they sent him back merely a large "No." But another ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... sentiment is dressed out with wit and acuteness. There is fancy in them, or at least a phantom of it; for they contain an example of the misapplication of every mental faculty. The authors have found out the secret of being diffuse, even to wearisomeness, and at the same time so epigrammatically laconic, as to be often obscure and unintelligible. Their characters are neither ideal nor real beings, but misshapen gigantic puppets, who are set in motion at one time by the string of an unnatural heroism, and at another by that of a passion equally unnatural, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... yielded at his look or touch. When he was not near her, when she could not see the speechless passion in his eyes, or feel the tremor of his lips when they answered the demand of hers, then the anger lasted longer. Once or twice, when he was away from home, his letters, with their laconic taking of her love for granted, made her sharply displeased; but when he came back, and kissed her, she forgot everything but his arms. Curiously enough, the very completeness of her surrender kept him so entirely reverent of her ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... simply expressive of the writer's thanks; but without a single jest, or the least invitation to continue the correspondence. Such a billet displeased me; nevertheless I determined to persevere. Six long letters were the result, for each of which I received a few laconic lines of thanks, with some declamation against his enemies, followed by a joke on the abuse he had heaped upon them, asserting that it was extremely natural the strong should oppress the weak, and regretting ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... is in this laconic description of the homely dreamer a richness of beauty which no efforts of the artist can adequately portray; and in the concise dialogue of the speakers, a simple sublimity of eloquence which any commentary could only weaken. While our feelings are excited by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... confirmation of the facts which led up to Marco Polo's conducting a wife to Arghun of Persia, who lost his spouse in 1286. In the eleventh moon of that year (say January, 1287) the following laconic announcement appears: 'T'a-ch'a-r Hu-nan ordered to go on a mission to A-r-hun.' It is possible that Tachar and Hunan may be two individuals, and, though they probably started overland, it is probable that they were in some way connected with Polo's first and unsuccessful attempt to take the girl ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... towards ingratitude as he was soft to misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... no longer it is true with the frenzy he had displayed at Dover when every moment seemed packed with peril, but still with eagerness; and not a paper mentioned Kunitz. On the Saturday he did find the laconic information in the London paper he had ordered to be sent him every day that the Grand Duke of Lothen-Kunitz who was shooting in East Prussia had been joined there by that Prince—I will not reveal ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... board of democratic trustees because of his federal politics; and, years afterward, he gave his son his only lesson in politics at the end of a letter, addressed to him when at Kenyon College, in this laconic sentence: "My son, beware of ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... daily round of her life she was always busy; not restlessly, but constantly, and always silently, busy. She was even more silent than her laconic half-breed hired woman, Rada. There was no talk with her gloating husband which was not monosyllabic. Her canary sang, but no music ever broke from her own lips. She murmured over her lovely yellow companion; she kissed it, pleaded with it for more song, but the only music at her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Secondly, in this place it is out of accord with wrought, which is correctly spelled. If Messrs. Plummer and Mosely would be logical, let them write wrought as wrot—or perhaps plain rot would be still more correct and phonetic, besides furnishing a laconic punning commentary on simple spelling in general. The Phoenician's editorial column is conducted with laudable seriousness, the item of "The Power of Books" being well worthy of perusal. What could best be spared from the magazine are the vague jokes ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... figures and ornaments as to be ridiculous and disgusting. It is like a circus clown dressed up in gold tinsel Dickens gives a fine example of it in Sergeant Buzfuz' speech in the "Pickwick Papers." Among other varieties of style may be mentioned the colloquial, the laconic, the concise, the diffuse, the abrupt the flowing, the quaint, the epigrammatic, the flowery, the feeble, the nervous, the vehement, and the affected. The manner of these is sufficiently indicated by the adjective used ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... brief, contracted, terse, concise, condensed, sententious, laconic, succinct, summary, epigrammatic, pithy; limited, inadequate, insufficient, deficient, scanty; abrupt, curt, uncivil; lacking, shy, unsupplied; crisp, friable, brittle. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the seat; and Maurice, according to the manners and customs of infuriated Britons, gave utterance to a very laconic word of bad import below ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... generalizing. Returning to particulars, Mr. Nicholas B. confided to his sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his misanthropically laconic manner that this supper in the woods had been nearly "the death of him." This is not surprising. What surprises me is that the story was ever heard of; for granduncle Nicholas differed in this from the generality of military men ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... you've told me, and may consider that you've done your duty in doing so," replied the skipper, grimly laconic. "But I'm not going to ease down till seven bells, my hearty, unless we run across Dick Haldane's ship before, when we'll go as slow as you like and bear up again on our course to ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... have already said, Solomin sat silent the whole time; but when Markelov began enlarging upon the hopes they put on the factory workers, Solomin remarked, in his usual laconic way, that they must not depend too much on them, as factory workers in Russia were not what they were abroad. "They are an extremely ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... myself," was the laconic answer. "I couldn't stand it being cooped up back there. My ankle felt a lot better, and I took French leave, as it were. I sneaked out and I crawled over toward the Hun trenches. And say, I've got some ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... charming than ever. I am sure by the time you return she will be the finest woman in England." Lord Nelville said nothing—and Mr Edgermond was also silent. Some other words passed between them, very laconic, though extremely friendly, and Mr Edgermond was going, when suddenly turning back, he said, "Apropos, my lord, you can do me a kindness—they tell me you are acquainted with the celebrated Corinne: I don't much like forming new acquaintances, but I am quite curious to see ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... opportunity of distinguishing himself; and as he has already served four years, there is a fair chance of his getting his promotion when he returns home.' The rest is private," observed the admiral, when he had concluded this somewhat laconic epistle. "And now, Jack, I congratulate you, my lad," he continued. "You have been quite long enough on shore to rub up your shore manners, and that is as long as a midshipman ought to remain at home. How soon ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... an English translation appeared in London. The object of the author was to answer all Anderson's charges and imputations. This Horrebow did categorically, and hence come these Chapters, though it must be added that they owe their laconic celebrity to the English translator, the author being rather profuse than otherwise in giving his predecessor ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... of my residence at Sydney I find as the result of one day's experience, the following laconic and somewhat enigmatical memorandum: "Is this grass?" The question implies a doubt, which it would not be easy for any person unacquainted with the circumstances of time and place, to solve: but the reader, when he has seen the explanation, will understand why very pleasing ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the Church are no more free from jingles on names than those of any other institution. Familiar to many is the laconic epitaph on ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... in the matter, and will be easily satisfied. A few copies of the annual Budget are published; they are certainly not in everybody's reach. The statement of receipts and expenditure is prodigiously laconic. I have now before me the estimates prepared for 1858, in four pages, the least blank of which contains just fourteen lines. The Finance Minister sums up the receipts and the outgoings, both ordinary and extraordinary. Under the head of Receipts, he lumps the whole of "the direct ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... Joe told me the story in his own very laconic fashion, I am sure that it was much more interesting than I can make it. I'll do the best I ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... words employed. It is thus an admirable vehicle for story-telling. It recognizes no gender, and scorns the use of the plural number except accidentally. "'E" stands for "he" "she" or "it," and "dem" may allude to one thing, or may include a thousand. The dialect is laconic and yet rambling, full of repetitions, and abounding in curious elisions, that give an unexpected quaintness to the simplest statements. A glance at the following vocabulary will enable the reader to understand Daddy Jack's dialect ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... working with the utmost dispatch at mourning-garments for a funeral which was to take place that day, in a few hours. They did not speak to me after making room for me near the stove, and the only words they exchanged with each other were laconic demands for scissors, thread, etc.; and so they rapidly plied their needles in silence, while I, suddenly transported from the cold brightness without into this funereal, sweltering atmosphere of what looked like a Black ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and a cool, laconic stare the clerk turned the book toward her. "Reckon people round here ask ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... to such an instinct. Women, in particular, had played ducks and drakes with his career. Weakly chivalrous, mindlessly gallant, he lacked the faculty of learning by experience—especially where the other sex were concerned. "Predestined to be stung!" was, his first wife's laconic comment on her ex-husband. She, for instance, was undoubtedly the blameworthy one in their marital failure, but she had managed to extract a ruinous alimony from him. Twice married and twice divorced, he was traveled through the Orient to write ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... rigged with a dipping lug and a spritsail; so, no sooner had crusty old Draper given his laconic answer to Mr Chisholm, than the latter sang out to Larrikins, who was ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... acting!" was his laconic comment. "A very uncommon character, that of Mr. Howard Van Burnam. I do not think you ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... magic that served his literary palate with still finer food. He wrote with temperateness, and in pitying love of human nature, in the instinctive hope of helping it to know and redeem itself. His quality was philosophy, his style forgiveness. And for this temperate and logical and laconic work—giving nothing to the world for its mere enjoyment, but going beyond all that to ennoble each reader by his perfect renunciation of artistic claptrap and artistic license—for this aim he needed ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... said a laconic voice from the speaker. At the same time, the blue-clad image of a police officer appeared on the screen. He looked polite, but he also looked as though he expected nothing more ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pointed at their very doors; and, in the strong way of the old Commonwealth men, they protested against this presence as "a breach of privilege, and inconsistent with that dignity and freedom with which they had a right to deliberate, consult, and determine." The Governor's laconic reply was,—"I have no authority over His Majesty's ships in this port or his troops within this town; nor can I give any orders for their removal." The House, resolving that they proceeded to take part in the elections of the day from necessity and to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... take it, if you had a brother, who, in a like case, were to act by you, as you do by me?—You cannot but remember what a laconic answer you gave even to my father, who recommended to you Miss Nelly D'Oily—You did not like her, were your words: ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... won in August. But the people's eyes were mostly fixed upon the land. So a much greater effect was produced by Sherman's laconic dispatch of the second of September announcing the fall of Atlanta. The Confederates, despairing of holding it to any good purpose, had blown up everything they could not move and then retreated. This thrilling news heartened the whole loyal North, and, as Lincoln at once sent word to Sherman, ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... were practised by the Sophists—for the following reasons: (1) The transparent irony of the previous interpretations given by Socrates. (2) The ludicrous opening of the speech in which the Lacedaemonians are described as the true philosophers, and Laconic brevity as the true form of philosophy, evidently with an allusion to Protagoras' long speeches. (3) The manifest futility and absurdity of the explanation of (Greek), which is hardly consistent with the rational interpretation of the rest of the poem. The opposition ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... of Jasmin that he was "invariably sober." And Jasmin said of himself, "I have learned that in moments of heat and emotion we are all eloquent and laconic, alike in speech and action—unconscious poets in fact; and I have also learned that it is possible for a muse to become all this willingly, and by dint ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... not sat down before Quebec, but an earthen work, that is defended by twenty-three hundred gallant men," was the laconic reply. ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... most decidedly did not spread to the master and mistress of the establishment. The Kerry Sentinel quickly had an allusion to 'a report that Mr. Hussey turned into bed after the outrage with one of his laconic jokes—that he should be called when ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... to tell that you fellows don't know," was Zeb's laconic answer. "We had sneaked down on the neck so close to ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the moment when evil passions reappear and threaten to prevail that good citizens should endeavour to stifle them, even at the peril of their lives." The style, and the very errors in spelling, made this note—the brevity of which suggested the laconic style of the ancients—appear all the more heroic. Not one of the gentlemen of the Provisional Commission put in an appearance. The last two who had hitherto remained faithful, and Granoux himself, even, prudently stopped at home. Thus Rougon was the only member ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... to the Beethoven Lieder-Cyclus I have just received a letter from Mr. Haslinger which I do not communicate in full because of the personal details it contains, but this is the passage, as laconic as it is satisfactory, with regard ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... strict scrutiny and revision. The modern or metaphysical system of criticism, in short, supposes the question, Why? to be repeated at the end of every decision; and the answer gives birth to interminable arguments and discussion. The former laconic mode was well adapted to guide those who merely wanted to be informed of the character and subject of a work in order to read it: the present is more useful to those whose object is less to read the work than to dispute ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Hosier's Ghost, (203) I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... aromatic fumes of a regalia, I sat waiting the advent of my friend Barescythe—Barry for short—to whom I had addressed a laconic note, begging him to visit me at my ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... high-coloured woman, with a fine profile, probably Jewish. She had chestnut-coloured eyes, quick, intelligent. Her movements were large and slow, her voice laconic. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... lead to a comprehension of life in nature. For in such a search man loses sight of the real signature of life: form as a dynamic element. Accordingly, in his Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin does not answer the question: 'What is Life?' with a scientific explanation, but with the laconic injunction: 'Always stand by Form against Force.' This he later enlarges pictorially in the words: 'Discern the moulding hand of the potter commanding the clay from the merely beating foot as it turns the wheel.' ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... formula of his adipose periods badly sewed together with the thread of conjunctions and, finally, in his wearisome habits of tautology. Nor was his enthusiasm wakened for Caesar, celebrated for his laconic style. Here, on the contrary, was disclosed a surprising aridity, a sterility of recollection, an incredibly ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... always beneath us," was the laconic answer. "But to you I may say, that I am, on principle, tender on my spars. They are examined daily, like the heels of a racer; for it often happens that our valour ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... country. He is purposely drawn in sharp contrast to the cultivated charming Russian gentlemen with whom he talks. Indeed, he rather dislikes talk, an unusual trait in a professional reformer. Elena is immediately conquered by the laconic answer he makes to her question, "You love your country very dearly?" "That remains to be shown. When one of us dies for her, then one can say he loved his country." Perhaps it is hypercritical to observe that in such a case others would have to say ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... attributes on which the treatment of his entire subject afterwards depends, and whose terms are repeated in every following page to the very dazzling of eye and deadening of ear (a division, we regret to say, as illogical as it is purposeless), otherwise than by a laconic reference to ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... imitated laconic brevity when he announced to Amintius his victory at Zela, in Asia Minor, over Pharna'c[^e]s, son of Mithridat[^e]s; ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... music met Edward at the gate. He stopped, startled at the sight of Hazel dancing in the shadowy garden with her hair loose and her abandon tempered by weariness. He stood behind the hedge until Abel brought the tune to an early end with the laconic remark, 'Supper,' and went indoors with ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... no appeal from the honest publican's fiat; so, in a quick and laconic manner, it being Attie's favourite dogma that the least said is the soonest mended, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... idol. He was courteous, honey-tongued—an adept in fascinating arts. What could not this man achieve in the busy English world? Change succeeded to change; the entire history did not reach me; for Adrian had ceased to write, and Perdita was a laconic correspondent. The rumour went that Adrian had become—how write the fatal word—mad: that Lord Raymond was the favourite of the ex-queen, her daughter's destined husband. Nay, more, that this aspiring noble revived the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and courts, camps of the rich and great, The vast Xerxean army, I retreat, And to the small Laconic forces fly Which hold the straits of poverty. Cellars and granaries in vain we fill With all the bounteous summer's store: If the mind thirst and hunger still, The poor rich man's emphatically poor. Slaves to the things we too much prize, We ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... be,' was the laconic reply. 'We've no stores where they could get brandy-smash in the bush, and it's so much the better for them, or I daursay they wad want prisons and juries next. As it is, they're ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... very uncertain of their whereabouts, though apparently not altogether out of touch with them, for one of their Officers, who was met in hospital later in the day, reported having received from someone in our Battalion the laconic message: "We are at ——. Where is the Australian Corps?" The enemy were still holding in force a position at no great distance from our left flank, and indeed, at one time were reported to be massing for a counter-attack which, however, did not mature. ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... DEAR MOTHER,—I take the opportunity of Mr Innes's parcel, which leaves this to-morrow afternoon, to give you a more succinct account of my affairs than you could derive from my laconic epistle of last week. I must, however, preface by requesting you to write me as soon as you conveniently can, either by Innes or L. Smith's conveyance, as I am anxious to hear the state of your cold, and how James is ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... as a model of elegance. "Mon cher mari, je vous ecris parceque je n'ai rien a faire: je finis parceque je n'az rien a dire." This was, indeed, the substance of yours; but, being spread over a whole page, the laconic beauty was lost, and the inanity only remained. The second, a grave, decent performance, marched with becoming gravity, and performed the Journey in two-and-twenty days; but the third, replete with sprightliness and beauty, burst from the thraldom of dulness, and made a transit unparalleled in the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... sent you many cables on the new spirit of the French, but never before dared to picture them in the role which to my mind they never before occupied—that of organizers. I started the trip to see the real French Army in the most open but unexpectant frame of mind. For weeks I had read only laconic official communiques that told me nothing. I saw well-fed officers in beautiful limousines rolling about Paris with an air that the war was a million miles away. The best way now to explain my enthusiasm is to give the words of a famous English correspondent, also just returned from a similar ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tidings of, although he was upon the eve of his departure, and he had taken leave of Cornwallis in a more particular manner than any other person. This obliged the Chevalier to write him a billet, which was rather laconic. It was this: ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... has not made a satisfactory apology to me before the hand of my watch points to the hour, I will thrash him till he does. I am an officer in the English army, and always keep my word.' A small band of Australians was in the cabin. One and all of them applauded this laconic speech. It was probably due in part to these that the offender did not wait till the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... lucid, and incisive. He does not waste words or revel in bombastic diffuseness. Every phrase of his narrative is a definite contribution towards the vivification of his realistic effects. His concise, laconic periods are pregnant with deep meaning, and instinct with that indefinable Norse essence which almost eludes the translator—that vague something which specially lends itself to the treatment of ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Miss Farrow was almost tempted to call it his real marriage, the news of which he had conveyed to his good friend in a laconic note, had ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... She, by just stages, journeys round the room: But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs To scale the Alps—that is, ascend the stairs. My fan! let others say, who laugh at toil; Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style; And that is spoke with such a dying fall, That Betty rather sees, than hears the call: The motion of her lips, and meaning eye, Piece out th' idea her faint words deny. O listen with attention most profound! Her voice is but the shadow of a sound. And help! oh ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... marriage, in spite of the violent and arrogant manner of her husband, whose fame as a violent braggadocio was a safeguard against the advances of young Piero de' Medici. Three years after the marriage a child was born, to whom the name of Cosimo was given, a laconic compliment to the old libertine! A second son appeared in 1571, Bartolommeo, but he died within a twelvemonth of his birth, and then, in 1577, came a third child to the Panciatichi mansion, another Bartolommeo, so Eleanora ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... literary women prefer the epigrammatic form in sentences, crisp and laconic; short sayings full of pith, of which I have ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... coming up to the place, and, two others slowly following, all three mounted on tall maharees. They spoke to the one who arrived first, and inquired if many were behind. To this they received a laconic answer, "Yes." One of them accordingly, feigning to retire, left his servant hid behind a rock to watch what took place, and ran after us to communicate the unwelcome intelligence, that we might expect an attack. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... of a more laconic temperament, embraced this opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, gravely, 'I know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable remark several times, as if it appeared ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Perhaps he might have thought: 'Why is nothing holy? Are there not holy men, Holy Truths, Holy Paths stated in the scriptures? Is he himself not one of the holy men?' "Then who is that confronts us?" asked the monarch again. "I know not, your majesty," was the laconic reply of Bodhidharma, who now saw that his new faith was beyond the understanding ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... ashamed of themselves when they find they have not the power of being true; the right wit of drawing is like the right wit of conversation, not hyperbole, not violence, not frivolity, only well expressed, laconic truth. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... log-rolling took the unmasking good-naturedly, but declined the amendment he suggested. He dismissed them with charming civility, jotted a laconic memorandum that the bill meditated a raid on public property for private gain, and with the calm of a gardener lopping a ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... must have been the most nonplussed 'perennial bachelor' who ever led a grand march when Karen snapped him up.... Loved him—actually! And it seems to have worked out marvelously.... A baby boy three months old," she concluded in her laconic style. Then, ashamed; "I don't know why I'm gossiping ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... which was to be that of a farmer. Throughout his whole life he suffered from this neglect of early instruction. His letters, particularly, though they always "displayed the goodness of his heart, and frequently the strength of his native genius, with a certain laconic mode of expression, and an unaffected epigrammatic turn," were "fearfully and wonderfully made," the despair of his correspondents and the ridicule of ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... commonwealth consists in the methodical collection of the people: wherefore you have the Israelitish divisions into rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; and of the whole commonwealth into tribes: the Laconic into oboe, moras, and tribes; the Roman into tribes, centuries, and classes; and something there must of necessity be in every government of the like nature, as that in the late monarchy—by counties. But this being ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... Link's laconic response. "If they only will, too, for there ain't much fun in doing chores while father and Rufe and Wad ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... and the Brecks which I had deliberately repudiated. I had less excuse than many others. The part I had played in various reprehensible transactions such as the Riverside Franchise and the dummy telephone company affair was dwelt upon, and I was dismissed with the laconic comment that I was a graduate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... least one half of what you must pay to a porter, and besides go with it yourself, and are better accommodated. The observations and the expressions of the common people here have often struck me as peculiar. They are generally laconic, but always much in earnest and significant. When I came home, my landlady kindly recommended it to the coachman not to ask more than was just, as I was a foreigner; to which he answered, "Nay, if he were not a foreigner ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... The usual laconic answer was given; and, for a few moments, the Bristol trader was seen diverging a little from the line in which the other approached; but a second glance assured Wilder that the attempt was useless. The strange ship (every ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... just finished writing two laconic notes, one of which is to a young woman whom he tells to visit one of her friends on a certain day, when, he assures her, her husband is always to be found there. At this moment the church bells ring, and Nassedkine, who is religious, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... too genteel for signs, but many were franker, some offering "board by the day, week or meal," and some, more laconic, contenting themselves with the label: "Rooms." One, having torn out part of an old stone-trimmed bay window for purposes of commercial display, showed forth two suspended petticoats and a pair of oyster-coloured ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... words raised to a higher power and animated with a purer intention than they carry in ordinary life. It is this unfailing note of sincerity, eloquent or laconic, that has made poetry the teacher of prose. Phrases which, to all seeming, might have been hit on by the first comer, are often cut away from their poetical context and robbed of their musical value that they may be transferred ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... sharply as he got into the wagon and noticed nothing in his disfavor. His laconic account of himself was borne out by ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... while yet in his travelling dress, did the amiable kind man hasten up to me. He now knew me, and he came to me with cordiality. I was just then standing and packing my clothes in a trunk for a journey to the country; I had only a few minutes time: by this means my reception of him was just as laconic as had been ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... tree into the cave; that is why the earth is shaking." Down below the ghosts are received by Tulmeng, lord of the nether world. Often he appears in a canoe to ferry them over to the further shore. "Blood or wax?" is the laconic question which he puts to the ghost on the bank. He means to say, "Were you killed or were you done to death by magic?" For it is with wax that the sorcerer stops up the fatal little tubes in which he encloses the souls of his enemies. And the reason why the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... distinguishable from the soap), and at an eating-house there was displayed the sign of a plump fish transfixed with a gaff. But the sign most frequently to be discerned was the insignia of the State, the double-headed eagle (now replaced, in this connection, with the laconic inscription "Dramshop"). As for the paving of the town, it was ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Although this laconic epistle, from a nobleman to whom she was bound by such inestimable obligations, silenced all Jeanie's objections to the proposed route, it rather added to than diminished the eagerness of her curiosity. The proceeding to Glasgow seemed now no longer to be an object with her fellow-travellers. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the bald, laconic message was delivered one winter evening at the door, the mother bent her head low; and later, when she found speech and had dropped the corner of her apron, was heard to whisper to herself, "'Twas the Almighty's will." Then the tears welled up afresh, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... hear from that legal sphinx—Erle Palma? Mamma only now and then receives epistles fashioned after those once in vogue in Laconia. (I wonder if even the old toothless gossips in Sparta were ever laconic?) I am truly sorry for Erle Palma. That beautifully crystallized quartz heart of his is no doubt being ground between the upper and nether millstones of his love and his pride; and Hymen ought to charge him heavy mill-toll. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... in the sanction of the treaties being signified October 23, 1865, by the following laconic decree(308) addressed to the shogun: "The imperial consent is given to the treaties, and you will therefore undertake ...
— Japan • David Murray
... lady disappears, and returns in a minute or two with the information that dinner is ready, an announcement which Billy greets with the laconic ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... difference between the classical apologue and the fable in The Nights is that while AEsop and Gabrias write laconic tales with a single event and a simple moral, the Arabian fables are often "long-continued novelle involving a variety of events, each characterised by some social or political aspect, forming a narrative highly interesting in itself, often exhibiting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the gentlemen followed them below, some of the younger and hardier remaining on deck. Amongst them was Cardo, who watched the fury of the elements as the wind tore down upon them. Once, as the captain passed him, he asked, "Is there any danger?" "I see none," was the laconic reply. It satisfied Cardo, and he gave himself up to watch the grandeur of the storm. It was natural that the thought of Valmai should enter his mind, and that he should long for her presence; but it was not natural that he, a young and healthy man, in the first flush of his manhood, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Juvenal and Persius, Mr. Creech did the 13th Satire of Juvenal, and subjoined Notes. He also translated into English, the verses before Mr. Quintenay's Compleat Gardiner. The Life of Solon, from the Greek of Plutarch. Laconic Apophthegms, or Remarkable Sayings of the Spartans, printed in the first Volume of Plutarch's Morals. A Discourse concerning Socrates's Daemon. The two First ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... pile of books on the table beside her tea suggested a student character. When she had finished her tea she put these books back into a leather bag, which they filled to a rigid repletion, and, after a few laconic phrases with the tea-girl, she went out like going off the stage. Her powerful demeanor somehow implied severe studies; but the tea-girl—a massive, confident, confiding Roman—said, No, she was studying Italian, and all those books related ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... to yourself, man," was the laconic advice the Highlander tossed over his shoulder as he transferred his attention ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... his imagination. Miss Cooper says that her father followed Indian delegations from town to town, observing them carefully, conversing with them freely, and was impressed "with the vein of poetry and of laconic eloquence marking their ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... needed it was in his monstrous day. To anyone, at any moment, there might be brought the laconic message: Die. In republican Rome, philosophy separated man from sin. At that period it was perhaps a luxury. In the imperial epoch it was a necessity. It separated man from life. The philosophy of the republic Cicero expounded. That ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... The later laconic reports are nearer to the facts. They set the figure of arrested rioters at no less than fourteen hundred, and make mention of a number of persons who had been wounded during the suppression of the excesses, including one gymnazium and one university student. Yet even these ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... say with Caesar, 'Veni, vidi, vici:' however, the most important part of his laconic account of success applies to my present situation; for, though Mrs. Byron took the trouble of 'coming,' and 'seeing,' yet your humble servant proved the victor. After an obstinate engagement of some hours, in which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... I approached him, that my chances were but indifferent. I found him as "close as a clam." Our conversation was very brief; his answers laconic. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... foot," was the laconic reply. "As I had only a paper of salt and some matches, I couldn't afford to travel in high style, so I footed it. I had a ring and a blanket, and I traded them up at Karlo for an old tub of a dugout, and ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... gladly know—albeit Pigafetta's journal and the still more laconic pilot's logbook leave us in the dark on this point—how the ignorant and suffering crews interpreted this everlasting stretch of sea, vaster, said Maximilian Transylvanus, "than the human mind could conceive." ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... hard mental power he was much her superior, and her mind became gradually subservient to his in many subtle ways. It was in his day that she developed that noticeable and almost reckless egoism which is summed up by the laconic saying, "after me the deluge." For Lord Sellingworth's atheism was not of the type which leads to active humanitarianism, but of the opposite type which leads to an exquisite selfishness. And he led his wife with him. He taught her the whole art of self-culture, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... of Hampton wished to build a meeting-house, the committee wrote him a letter stating the reasons why a certain valuable and centrally situated piece of land owned by him would be the most advantageous site for the proposed building. His reply was in the laconic style characteristic of ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... to Nijnieff, on the outskirts of the thing. I knew that to-night, in another ten minutes, I would be in the middle—the "very middle." As I waited there I recalled the pages of the diary of some officer, a diary that had been shown me quite casually by its owner. It had been a miracle of laconic brevity: "6.30 A. M., down to the battery. All quiet. 8.0, three of their shells. One of ours killed, two wounded. Five yards' distance. 8.30, breakfasted; K. arrived from the 'Doll's House'—all quiet there," and so on. This, I knew, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... allowed him to complete the survey in six days. Foreign telegrams, however, and political intelligence, as well as the turmoil of the great cities, were strange to him, and here he greatly valued Posty's laconic hints, who, visiting the frontier, was supposed to be in communication with those centres. "Posty says that the Afghans are no makin' muckle o' the war," and Hillocks would sally forth to enjoy Sir Frederick Roberts' great march, line by line, afterwards enlarging thereon ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... sent a vessel, "silently through Hell Gate," to the Directors in Holland, with the following laconic dispatch. "Long Island is gone and lost. The capitol cannot hold out long." When a man's heart is broken his words ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... received from the Emperor of Russia this laconic answer: "No peace, no truce, with that man: any ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
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