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More "Taciturnity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silently; in the cafes, where they were sufficiently noisy over their new wine, they talked without laughter, and without the shrugs and gestures that enliven conversation among other Latin peoples. They had a hard-favored grimness and taciturnity that with their mountain scenery reminded me of New England now and again, and gave me the bewildered sense of having dropped down in some little anterior America. But there was one thing that marked a great difference from our civilization, and that ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... with grateful Sentiments on account of some Favours which I have lately received, that I must beg leave to give them Utterance amongst the Croud of other anonymous Correspondents; and writing, I hope, will be as great a Relief to my forced Silence, as it is to your natural Taciturnity—My generous Benefactor will not suffer me to speak to him in any Terms of Acknowledgment, but ever treats me as if he had the greatest Obligations, and uses me with a Distinction that is not to be expected from one so much ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... but at her feet, with a stupid and frightened expression. She knew very little of him, save that her husband had picked him up upon the road as a wanderer some five years since; and that he had been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, and that was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... to her anxious impatience that his taciturnity was deliberate, hostile. He was a rough, unkempt, savage-looking creature; yet the tenderness and skill with which he held little Kitty before him on his ungainly mount would have done credit ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... upon the plains of the west: whatever they may have been before their migration, they soon become meditative, abstracted, and taciturn. These, and especially the last, are the peculiar characteristics of the Indian; his taciturnity, indeed, amounts to austerity, sometimes impressing the observer with the idea of affectation. The dispersion, which must have been the effect of unlimited choice in lands—the mode of life pursued by those who depended upon the chase for subsistence—the gradual estrangement produced ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... typhoid, yet such as to keep me to my room. Minima and Mademoiselle Therese were my only companions. Mademoiselle, after talking that one night as much as she generally talked in twelve months, had relapsed into deeper taciturnity than before. But her muteness tranquillized me. Minima's simple talk brought me back to the level of common life. My own nervous weeping, which I could not control, served to soothe me. My casement, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... only time to observe this before they descended the narrow path that led through the wooded valley. They walked on in perfect silence until the professor, noticing the unusual taciturnity of his companion, said: ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... person who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... generalize about his religious life, it must be remembered that they are thinking of him as they knew him in Illinois. Herndon had no familiarity with him after he went to Washington. Lamon could not have seen very much of him—no one but his secretaries and his wife did. And his taciturnity must be borne in mind. Nicolay has recorded that he did not know what Lincoln believed. Lamon, 492. That Lincoln was vaguely a deist in the 'forties—so far as he had any theology at all—may be true. But it is a rash leap to a conclusion to assume that his state of mind even then was the same ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... of Utah was represented in the House by Mr. John N. Burnhisel, a small, dapper gentleman, who in deportment and tone of voice resembled Robert J. Walker. It was very rarely that he participated in debate, and his forte was evidently taciturnity. In private conversation he was fluent and agreeable, defending the peculiar domestic institutions of his people. The delegate from Oregon was Mr. Joseph Lane, who had served bravely in the Mexican war, gone to Oregon as its first Governor, and been returned as its first Territorial Delegate. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence of coffee and tobacco. The coffee is served in very small cups, not larger than ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... attended wholly to Lord Ernolf, whose assiduous politeness, profiting by the humour, saved her the painful effort of forcing conversation, or the guilty consciousness of giving way to silence, and enabled her to preserve her general tenor between taciturnity and loquaciousness. Mrs Delvile she did not once dare look at; but her son, she saw, seemed greatly hurt; yet it was proudly, not sorrowfully, and therefore she saw it with ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... difference. She's the most like a Medlar of any thing, for she's never ripe till she's rotten. She is never without store of Hackney Jades, which she will let any one Ride, that will pay for their hire. She is the very Magazine of Taciturnity; for whatever she sees, she says nothing; it being a standing Maxim with her, That they that cannot make Sport, shou'd spoil none. She has Learnt so much Philosophy as to know that the Moon is a dark-Body, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... old-fashioned style, and a plain black cravat. If he had worn an old-time stock we could have forgiven him the rest of the disappointment he cost us; but we had to admit to ourselves that he had the most absolutely commonplace appearance of all our acquaintance. In fact, we soon discovered that, except for a taciturnity the like of which we had never encountered, our aromatic uncle had positively not one picturesque characteristic about him. Even his aroma was a disappointment. He had it, but it was patchouly or some other cheap perfume ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... closeness of grain and ruggedness of outline—when he was uprooted from the Arabian sands and replanted in the remote western island. Yet the oak not only grew green again and put forth new leaves; it was almost as if, as in a legend, it could put forth a new kind of leaves. Kitchener, with all his taciturnity, really began to put forth a new order of ideas. If a change of opinions is unusual in an elderly man, it is almost unknown in an elderly military man. If the hardening of time was felt even by the poetic and emotional Grattan, it would not have been ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... society, was shy and reserved in his manners, and never spoke on any subject without his opinion was solicited. This extraordinary taciturnity, in one who possessed no ordinary powers of mind, gave double weight to all that he advanced, till what he said became a law in the family. Even his mother, with whom he was no favorite, listened with profound attention to his shrewd ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the establishment of peace, they could not conceal from themselves the fact that while, on the one hand, the Esquimaux appeared to be perfectly sincere and cordial in their professions, on the other hand the Indians evinced a good deal of taciturnity at first, and even after their reserve was overcome, seemed to act as men do who are constrained to the performance ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... peeping out from beneath the sculptor, the man. And that is the artist, I thought,—that the Roman, the Greek! You come here to look at the Gladiator, not so much for the sake of the form, as because he reminds you of Michna from Koslowka. I begin to understand now the taciturnity and melancholy. Lukomski evidently guessed my thoughts; for, the mystic eyes looking straight before him, he began in a broken voice to reply to my unuttered words: "Rome is well enough,—to live in, but not to die ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... they asked him to bring his flute, and nervously praised the fierce music he made on it. Miss Barks enjoyed a monopoly of his accompaniments, and there were many who regarded her assiduity as a covert attack upon the widower's name and position. If so, it was Greek meeting Greek, for with all his taciturnity the vicar of Shanmoor was well able ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soul? Well, he believed as Palmer did, that all is well with the soul of a brave man. Was he, Keeler, on a fool's errand to San Francisco? Well, he had determined on his own account to do a little investigating in Nevada City that very day. So had Mat Bailey. Hence his unusual taciturnity. So had "Bed-bug Brown," and he kept ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... great uneasiness to get to London again, in order to meet a gentleman he had seen there, under a different impression as to his merits, than what now appeared to be just. Who the gentleman was, or what these impressions were, Julia was left to conjecture, taciturnity being a favorite ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... a few minutes she coquettishly toyed with her fan—then she carelessly passed her jewelled hand over her queenly brow to remove the clustering hair; and finally, with an arch glance, she complimented Mr. Tickels on his taciturnity, and laughingly enquired if he was always thus silent in the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... doctor Mrs. Chilton seldom spoke, yet Pollyanna knew very well that almost never was he absent from her thoughts; and that more than half her taciturnity was but her usual cloak for a deeper emotion which she did not care ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... contempt of death enough for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white handkerchief and a case of instruments, where other men went hot-blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of the regiment. Not even the Major's taciturnity daunted him. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... applied to Henry Livingstone, Bassett himself applied to the two ranch hands later on, during their interview. It could hardly have been called an interview at all, indeed, and after a time Bassett realized that behind their taciturnity was suspicion. They were watching him, undoubtedly; he rather thought, when he looked away, that once or twice they exchanged glances. He was certain, too, that Wasson ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I ran upon two hermit thrushes (one had been seen on the 25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I whistled softly to the first, and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! And in such a case, as far as I ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... yet seemed to be specially astonished by the assassination of Mr. Morris. The innocence of the man; for the dealings of the sheriff's officer were hardly known beyond the town land which was concerned! And then the taciturnity of the county side when the murder had been effected! It was not such a deed as was the slaughtering of poor Florian Jones, or the killing of Terry Carroll in the court house. They had been more startling, more alarming, more awful for the tradesmen, and ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Aqui'nas was so called by his fellow-students at Cologne, from his taciturnity and dreaminess. Sometimes called "The Great Dumb Ox of Sicily." He was larged-bodied, fat, with a brown complexion, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... transgressor be sought, he is a Gospel Minister, who solemnly avows his belief of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, or the Methodist Discipline, and notwithstanding himself is a Negro Pedler, who steals, buys, sells, and keeps his brethren in slavery, or supports by his taciturnity, or his smooth prophesying, or his direct defence, the Christian professor who unites in the kidnapping trade. Truth forces the declaration, that every church officer, or member, who is a slaveholder, records ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... in the girls, whose talk and ways must have been strange and very pleasant to him after so many years' wandering as a solitary man. He was generally a man of few words, using signs where signs would suffice, and making his answers, when obliged to speak, as brief as possible. This habit of taciturnity was no doubt acquired from a long life passed either alone, or amid dangers where an unnecessary sound might have cost him his life. To the young people, however, he would relax from his habitual rule of silence. Of an evening, ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... ended, and for the rest of the day Vera was silent and thoughtful, excusing her taciturnity by the fact that she had a lot of packing to do and needed to concentrate her mind upon ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... whom, in despair of better advice, he trusted to receive some information as to the best mode of introducing himself into the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host with whom he communed, the consequential taciturnity of an Englishman well to pass in the world. Ned Kilderkin spoke as a banker writes, only touching the needful. Being asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied, No. Being interrogated whether he was expected? he said, Yes. And being ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow, with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him, she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right and left, at anything he saw that ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony to ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... putting off the Clown's garment, allow me to drop also the Clown's taciturnity, and address you in a few parting sentences. I entered early on this course of life, and leave it prematurely. Eight-and-forty years only have passed over my head—but I am going as fast down the hill of life as that older Joe—John Anderson. Like vaulting ambition, I have ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... say one way or the other, but watched with a cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, and squatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when for some reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob happened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. As usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only the men would act in their ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... philosopher,[563] that he might not against his will divulge any secrets when put to the torture, bit off his tongue, and spit it at the tyrant. Famous also was the reward which Leaena had for her taciturnity.[564] She was the mistress of Harmodius and Aristogiton, and, although a woman, participated in their hopes of success in the conspiracy against the tyrants: for she had revelled in the glorious cup of love, and had been initiated in their secrets through the god. When then ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... my dame's humours, thou curl-crop vixen?" said Gregory, unwarily drawn forth again from his taciturnity. "How should her inclinations be subject to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... little roused by the presence of his young friend, and came much more than usual out of his reserve. So that the conversations round the tea-table, when Pitt made one of their number, were often lively and varied; such as Esther had hardly known in her life before. The colonel left off his taciturnity; waked up, as it were; told old campaigning stories, and gave out stores of information which few people knew he possessed. The talks were delightful, on subjects natural and scientific, historical and local and picturesque. Esther luxuriated in the ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... and he is still at Vincennes. At last his friends find means of communicating with him, and Grimaud, the servant of the Count de la Fere, is introduced, in the capacity of an under jailer, into the fortress, where, by his taciturnity and apparent strictness, he gains the entire confidence of La Ramee, an official who, under M. de Chavigny, is appointed to the especial guardianship of the Duke of Beaufort. An attempt to escape is fixed for the day of the Pentecost. Upon the morning of that day, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... been a frequent spectator of operations, squatting by the hour watching the work. Occasionally his interest had been rewarded by a meal or a plug of tobacco. These things he had accepted without comment and without thanks. His taciturnity and gravity seemed primeval. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... who looked at his commander in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fell back on each other's company. They knew well that the others were not worthy of their opportunity; although General Hobson, seeing that most of the memories touched belonged to a period before the Revolution, obeyed the dictates of politeness, and made amends for his taciturnity indoors by a talkative ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... answered, in the spirit of St. Vincent defending his choice of Nelson, "I have tried Lord Howe on most important occasions. He never asked me how he was to execute any service entrusted to his charge, but always went straight forward and did it." Some quaint instances are recorded of the taciturnity for which he was also noted. Amid the recriminations that followed the failure at Rochefort, Howe neither wrote nor said anything. At last the Admiralty asked why he had not expressed an opinion. In the somewhat ponderous ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... "to sink from inanition into nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is "the developer of the skies in their embodied movements;" and Mrs. Thrale, when a party of clever people sat silent, is said "to have been provoked by the dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of all human faculties." In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of Madame ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Willet was less keen about it and the three proceeded promptly to the council grove where a multitude was already hastening. There was, too, a great buzz of talk, as the Iroquois here in the vale, the very heart of their country, did not show the taciturnity in which the red man so often takes refuge in the presence ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing laboriously, while he who was there first appeared, from some natural taciturnity of character, to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... recognised my moral weakness, but saw that my disapprobation had in it already something of a pose; and I knew that if I felt it, his own keen instinct had discovered it, too. He was certainly laughing at me up his sleeve. I left him the last word, and sought refuge in a shrug of the shoulders and taciturnity. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... said, "told him anything." And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and went ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the number of those strange persons who underneath an external indolent calmness, careless taciturnity, egotistical withdrawal into one's self, conceal within them unusual energy; always as though slumbering with half an eye, guarding itself from unnecessary expenditure; but ready in one moment to become animated and to rush forward ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... and manner put me in a socialist mood. He was hateful to me. I listened in morose silence. He felt piqued, and he wilted. The ginger went out of his voice. My taciturnity continued, until, gradually, he edged over to my side of the controversy, taking up the cudgels for education and spiritual excellence with the same force with which he had a short while ago tried to set forth ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... believe all his life that his own mother is the best and dearest that a child ever had. By some strange racial instinct of taciturnity and repression most of us lack utterance to say our thoughts in this close matter. A man's mother is so tissued and woven into his life and brain that he can no more describe her than describe the air ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... she needed sympathy—something for her encouragement. The old man's taciturnity hinted that he could be trusted with a secret so far as outsiders were concerned; as to Flagg, she was not sure of Dick's reliability in keeping anything away from a master to whom he was devoted. But if the old man ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... spirits of the company.—Elgidia alone spoke little, tho' what she said was greatly to the purpose, and discovered that it was not for want either of sentiment or words she retained so great a taciturnity.—Natura saying somewhat, that shewed he took notice how singular she was in this point, the abbess replied, that her sister did not like a convent, that the comedy, the opera, and ball, had more charms for her than devotion. On which Natura made some feint ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... preoccupied taciturnity I had failed to realise that, interesting as his "trenches" were to me, they must be far more interesting to him, and that they ought to have formed the ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... laughed harshly but said nothing—taciturnity was his one redeeming trait. "Did you say cigars?" he asked, pushing a box across the bar to an impatient customer. Another beckoned to him and he leaned over to hear the whispered request, a frown struggling to show itself ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... as the inevitable soup was placed on the table, the natural taciturnity, common even to Icelandic babies, prevailed over all else. Our host filled our plates with a portion of lichen soup of Iceland moss, of by no means disagreeable flavor, an enormous lump of fish floating in sour butter. After that there came some skyr, a kind of curds and whey, served ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... with its many attendant "isms" and theories, received scant favour at his hands. He represented the solid element in British Labour politics, and it was well known that he had refused a seat in the Cabinet in order to preserve an absolute independence. He had a remarkable gift of taciturnity, which in a man of his class made for strength, and it was concerning him that the Prime Minister had made his famous epigram, that Furley was the Labour man whom he feared the most ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Esseintes who none the less was frightened by the taciturnity observed; he adjured his servant not to conceal the truth from him any longer. But the servant declared that the doctor had exhibited no uneasiness, and despite his suspicions, Des Esseintes could seize upon ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... companions. We were again successful. In the evening we agreed to camp out, hoping to kill the next morning as much deer as we and the horse could carry together. Lejoillie was in high spirits, his volubility contrasting with Rochford's taciturnity. We camped in the centre of a wood, so that the flames of our fire might be concealed; and we took good care to examine the neighbourhood, to ascertain that no one was concealed there. We had, of course, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... midst of his studies to interrupt his dreams of misanthropy. Yes. it had come to this, that he abandoned his study to pay his court to a young lady, that at her side he lost his gravity of mien, his gloomy taciturnity, and became joyous, talkative, and merry, as beseemed a young ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... good sense, caustic wit, and many eccentricities. The young man became an attache of my newspaper-office and an inmate of my home. He was as fair as a girl, and refined in his taste and manners. A genial taciturnity, if the expression may be allowed, marked his bearing in the social circle. Everybody had a kind feeling and a good word for the quiet, brightfaced youth. In the discharge of his duties in the office he was punctual and trustworthy, showing not only industry ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... that way, met Tugwell. With that prince of fishermen he shook hands, according to the manner of Springhaven, for he had learned to admire the brave habit of the man, his strong mind, and frank taciturnity. And Tugwell on his part had taken a liking to the simple and cheerful young officer, who received his suggestions, was kind to all hands, and so manfully ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... new associates and we exchanging accounts of the various adventures we had met with. Armitage was not very talkative, but Dick managed to draw him out more than could any of the rest of the party. Buffet, in his broken English, talked away sufficiently to make ample amends for his employer's taciturnity. Our midday halt was over, and we did not again intend to encamp until nightfall, at a spot described by Buffet on the banks of a stream which ran round a rocky height on the borders of the prairie. It was, however, some distance off, and we ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... morning he proceeded to do this. When he encountered Avice there was a trace of apprehension on her face; but he set that down to a fear that she had offended him the night before by her taciturnity. Directly he requested her mother, in Avice's presence, to get her to fix the day quite early, Mrs. Pierston became brighter and brisker. She, too, plainly had doubts about the wisdom of delay, and turning to her daughter said, 'Now, my dear, do ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... to tears now; fearful that he might be caught in a moment of weakness, he fled to the barn and helped Pablo hitch a team of draft horses to an old spring wagon. Pablo's customary taciturnity and primitive stoicism had again descended upon him like a protecting garment; his madness had passed and he moved around the team briskly and efficiently. Parker climbed to the seat beside him as Pablo gathered up ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the table?' 'Yes,' says he, 'my dear; and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza.' The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when, to my utter confusion, the lady seeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them across one another upon the plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... must often have curbed his intolerance of me. In spite of what I knew must be his opinion of me, the tenderfoot, my liking for him grew, and I found his silent company more and more agreeable. That he had spells of talking, I had already learned at Medicine Bow. But his present taciturnity might almost have effaced this impression, had I not happened to pass by the bunk-house one evening after dark, when Honey Wiggin and the rest of the cow-boys ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... the next occasion that offers, you are sure to relapse into your habitual taciturnity, and my labours to subdue it are again to be repeated. I have sometimes been tempted to retaliate, and convince you, by the effects of my concealments upon you, of the error of ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... alluded to as Bloody Bill was seated near me, and I could not help wondering at the moody silence he maintained among his comrades. He did indeed reply to their questions in a careless, off-hand tone, but he never volunteered a remark. The only difference between him and the others was his taciturnity and his size, for he was nearly, if not quite, as large a man ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the background a more rugged line of rocky cliffs. The sea in the bay flashed and glittered in the long rays of the afternoon sunshine. The scene was extraordinarily peaceful. Stephen Dartrey for the first few minutes certainly justified his reputation for taciturnity. He leaned back in a long wicker chair, his head resting upon his hand, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon vacancy. No man in those days could have resembled less a popular leader of the people. In appearance he was ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... journey, and every one knows that when a man commences a journey it is unlucky to turn back. On I went, but still with a subdued and melancholy tone of feeling. If I met a cheerful countryman, his mirth found no kindred spirit in me: on the contrary, my taciturnity seemed to infect him; for, after several ineffectual' attempts at conversation, he gradually became silent, or hummed a tune to himself, and, on parting, bade me a short, doubtful kind of good day, looking over his shoulder, as he ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Government; but, like certain more civilized nations, they will fight for the cause that is likely to yield them most advantage. Their loyalty to Britain, therefore, is less to be depended on than their hatred to America. A general idea has gone abroad regarding their taciturnity which does not accord with my experience. Far from being averse to colloquial intercourse, they delight in it; none more welcome to an Indian wigwam than one who can talk freely. They pass the winter evenings in relating their adventures, hunting being their ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... the only human being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears, seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as gloomily reserved as though he had buried a secret of state in his ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... word. He had learned the taciturnity of the woods, and leveling his rifle, took sure aim. There was no buck fever about him now, and, when his rifle cracked, the deer bounded into the air and dropped down dead. Ross, all business, began ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... himself lost a certain sickening dread, which had not been for himself, but for Mercedes and Nell, and Thorne and the rangers. Jim, good-natured again, might have been patrolling the boundary line. Ladd lost his taciturnity and his gloom changed to a cool, careless air. A mood that was almost defiance began to be manifested in Thorne. It was in Mercedes, however, that Gale marked the most significant change. Her collapse the preceding day might never have been. She was lame and sore; she rode her saddle ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... space all three pursued their way in silence, then Bertha made an effort to converse. Maurice answered in monosyllables and those were followed by deep sighs. Gaston seemed to be hardly more master of language, though his taciturnity had a different origin; it was occasioned by the unexpected delight of finding himself walking beside Bertha, who constantly lifted her sweet face inquiringly to his, as though to ask ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... man, in spite of his chagrin, to entirely despair of the present. Chemerant, recovering from his surprise, attributed the somber taciturnity of the Gascon to the painful thoughts which the criminal conduct of the Duchess of Monmouth must cause him; while the adventurer, summing up the chances of escape which remained to him, analyzed the state of his heart, reasoning as follows: ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... would be too much exposed," he said, pointing to Jinks' bread. He spoke with the hard taciturnity of a Joffre. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... him," replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest. Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity, for he wished me "um berry fine v'y'ge, Mass' Tom," when drinking ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... shadow of a smile so much as lightened the straight line of his mouth. Can a shadow lighten? Maybe not; but, anyway, what IS the matter with the man? Has he committed some remorseful crime, or is his taciturnity due merely to his natural Scotchness? He's as companionable as a ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... nodded slightly. Mysterious Pete had the habit of taciturnity. His gaze slid in a searching, sidelong fashion from Webb to Prince, on to Wrayburn, across to Clanton, and back to the drover. No wolf in the encinal could have ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... superior as the two sat upon the veranda of their common quarters, smoking their evening cigarets in a silence which neither seemed desirous of breaking. The senseless hatred of the lieutenant grew at last into a form of mania. The captain's natural taciturnity he distorted into a studied attempt to insult him because of his past shortcomings. He imagined that his superior held him in contempt, and so he chafed and fumed inwardly until one evening his madness became suddenly homicidal. He fingered the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of business. To the difficulty which he felt in expressing himself, and to his consciousness that his pronunciation was bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offence. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or of understanding. He never once, during his whole reign, showed himself at the theatre. [55] The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in his praise complained that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was calculated to excite comment, readiness in disbursing money to remedy such shortcomings made amends for Lanyard's taciturnity. Within two hours, shaved, bathed, and inconspicuously dressed in a cheap suit of ready-made clothing, he was breakfasting famously upon the plain ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... on his way back from the Johnstons', Lane emerged from the telegraph office and joined him. On the rare occasions when they were thrown together alone like this, John Lane's taciturnity reached to positive dumbness. Vickers supposed that his brother-in-law disliked him, possibly despised him. It was, however, a case of absolute non-understanding. It must remain forever a problem to the man with a firm grasp on concrete fact how any one could do what Vickers had done, except ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... by the hand that was passed through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... correctly approximated both locality and distances. Slowly refolding it he replaced it in an inner pocket. Being in a mood that anticipated much at the end of the journey, he was not loath to break into his chauffeur's taciturnity. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... few more directions out of Kitty, over whom a shade of sombre taciturnity had now fallen. Then, saying she would write the notes down-stairs and come back, she gathered up her ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... some of the young gentlemen from the shore, followed his example. The minuet being voted slow, a country-dance quickly succeeded it. The young ladies who had the officers of the ship for their partners were struck by their extraordinary taciturnity; for, with the exception of the young lieutenant who had visited the shore, not one of them spoke a word. Captain Dupin remarked that they were rough fellows, little accustomed to the society of ladies, and were too bashful to speak—though Miss Kathleen O'Rourke, one of the belles of the party, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... he had been the author played perhaps a part in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims to be so deeply impressed by the death of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... this matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... mile from this singular spot dwelt another old pioneer, a friend of my companions, and at his cabin we stopped to pass the night. Our host was only remarkable for his great hospitality and greater taciturnity; he had always lived in the wilds, quite alone, and the only few words he would utter were incoherent. It appeared as if his mind was fixed upon scenes of the past. In his early life he had been one of the companions ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... in Chap. XXIII. in your answer to the objection, "That one cannot trust a man that gets drunk," you had been pleased to have taken notice of the taciturnity and continency of the right worshipful the free masons in this respect. For though otherwise they are free enough of speech, yet I do assure you, as to secrets, though some of them love the creature very heartily, and carouse abundantly, yet has it never been known, though never so fuddled, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... travels in the summer heat, 'twas all I could do to keep up with him, and only my pride kept me from crying halt. Often when he stopped I could have wept with fatigue, and had no breath for a word, but his taciturnity saved me from shame. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... get out your cigars, and don't wait for me. I'll join you later. I have had the writing of a letter on my conscience for a week, and I must write it now or never. I really do believe I have grasped my own meaning at last. Did you notice my unusual taciturnity between the fish ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... arts, and literature of a people naturally impart to their annals a spirit all their own. Especially is this the case in the Orient, where the most original and suggestive thought is half disguised in the garb of metaphor, and where, in spite of vivid fancies and fiery passions, the people affect taciturnity or reticence, and delight in the metaphysical and the mystic. Hence the early annals of the Siamese, or Sajamese, abound in fables of heroes, demigods, giants, and genii, and afford but few facts of practical value. Swayed by religious influences, they joined, in the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... difficulties and to support privations. There seems but little soil in his heart for the support of the kindly virtues; and yet, if we would but take the trouble to penetrate through that proud stoicism and habitual taciturnity which lock up his character from casual observation, we should find him linked to his fellow man of civilized life by more of those sympathies and affections than are usually ascribed ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... sigh, feathered his oar, and never spoke another word till we came alongside. I did not regret his taciturnity, for I was always more amused with my own thoughts, than in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... but in the back ground, and concealed in their shadow, had one of those peculiar reputations, the more potent over opinion, as it made but little display: it was spoken of as though an antique virtue, beneath the simple appearance of a rustic: he was the Sieyes of his party. Beneath his taciturnity his deep thought was assured, and in his mystery the oracle was accredited. The brilliancy and genius of his wife attracted all eyes towards him: his very mediocrity, the only power that has the virtue ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... grew more frequent as the days went by, and to which he faithfully replied; two visits from Kashkine, one from Mily Balakirev, and half a dozen from Nicholas, who was to be daunted by no amount of taciturnity, were the only incidents of the period. Balakirev, indeed, had brought with him a young protege, one Rimsky-Korsakow, (since heard from,) to worship at the shrine of Russia's Gregoriev; whereupon that ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... chest, with huge, flat feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent impression; his grey hair hung in elf-locks over his low brow; his tiny, motionless eyes smouldered like coals which had just been extinguished; he walked heavily, swaying his clumsy body from side to side at every step. Some of his movements were suggestive ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... with our fresh companions. We were again successful. In the evening we agreed to camp out, hoping to kill the next morning as much deer as we and the horse could carry together. Lejoillie was in high spirits, his volubility contrasting with Rochford's taciturnity. We camped in the centre of a wood, so that the flames of our fire might be concealed; and we took good care to examine the neighbourhood, to ascertain that no one was concealed there. We had, of course, an abundance of venison for supper. Having ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... varied talents, and accurate scholarship, Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful and impulsive, we have good authority for recording, that many unfortunate men of genius ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his now forgotten novel, 'The Nun of Arrouca,' during the six weeks which he spent in Paris. A Frenchman, visiting the poet, 'lamented that his friend Lord John showed to so little advantage in society from his extreme taciturnity, and still more from his apparent coldness and indifference to what is said by others. Several here to whom he was introduced had been much disappointed ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... was a blond German boy whose taciturnity attracted her volubility and vivacity. She mistook his stolidness for depth, and it was a long time before she realized that his silence was not due to the weight of his thoughts but to the fact that he had nothing to say. In her last year at ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... Bronte's Life who were eager to fan that feeling in the usually kindly biographer. Mr. Nicholls himself did not work in the direction of conciliation. He was, as we shall see, a Scotchman, and Scottish taciturnity brought to bear upon the genial and jovial Yorkshire folk did not make for friendliness. Further, he would not let Mrs. Gaskell 'edit' and change The Professor, and here also he did wisely and well. He hated publicity, and above all things viewed the attempt to pierce the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... surprise, broke out against his son for having refused to provide him with the money he wanted for the mine, and so ruined his last chance. Anderson hardly replied; but what he did say was as soothing as possible; and at last the old man flung himself on his bed, excitement dying away in a sulky taciturnity. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after so many years' wandering as a solitary man. He was generally a man of few words, using signs where signs would suffice, and making his answers, when obliged to speak, as brief as possible. This habit of taciturnity was no doubt acquired from a long life passed either alone, or amid dangers where an unnecessary sound might have cost him his life. To the young people, however, he would relax from his habitual rule of silence. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... was a very fine afternoon. The grass was green in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow, with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him, she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right and left, at anything he saw that was ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... raised above the cheap glasses as he stepped into the yard to shake hands with the visitors. The bearded Bishop returned his greeting in a grave silence. The chaplain, on the other hand, seemed the victim of a nervous volubility, and unduly anxious to atone for his chief's taciturnity, which he essayed to explain to Carmichael on the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... It had been to feel Monk's inclinations in this matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without the secluded ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... profile is stern and wildly gloomy; every motion of his powerful body, every fold of his clothes, is full of the dull silence of the taciturnity of long hours, or days, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... with the lower animals, such as I have mentioned. He speaks of them as, on the whole, taciturn, because their range of topics is so limited, and seems to have seen nothing of their talent for narration. Catlin, on the contrary, describes them as lively and garrulous, and says, that their apparent taciturnity among the whites is owing to their being surprised at what they see, and unwilling, from pride, to show that they are so, as well as that they have little to communicate on their side, that they ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... a spoon and fork on the little table in front of him. Bunny filled the lunch-hour, Bunny's sayings and doings—there were not many of the former, but his mother managed to extract gems of wit and wisdom from his taciturnity—Bunny's likes and dislikes, Bunny's ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... he needed, and spent his evenings in study. His powers of application and endurance were extraordinary, and his progress was in the same ratio. As he became more and more absorbed in these pursuits his reserve and taciturnity increased. His employer was particularly impressed by the fact that he never volunteered a remark on any subject, and rarely opened his lips except to ask some necessary information in connection with his business. He comprehended Russell's character, and quietly facilitated ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the course of a week or so was the silence of these ladies. I used to meet them walking in the public garden near the University. They greeted me with their usual friendliness, but I could not help noticing their taciturnity. By that time it was generally known that the assassin of M. de P—- had been caught, judged, and executed. So much had been declared officially to the news agencies. But for the world at large he remained anonymous. The official ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... is privileged to believe all his life that his own mother is the best and dearest that a child ever had. By some strange racial instinct of taciturnity and repression most of us lack utterance to say our thoughts in this close matter. A man's mother is so tissued and woven into his life and brain that he can no more describe her than describe the air and sunlight that bless his days. It is only when some Barrie comes along that he can say for ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... employers. The manager of this insurance company, however, was jovial, friendly, social, witty, and companionable. At first he was delighted with his new assistant. As time went on, however, the young man's solemnity, his taciturnity, and the quiet, dignified way in which he permitted all attempts at sociability and jocularity to pass over his head, as it were, unnoticed, began to get ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... lack of sleep and outraged at her taciturnity, I breakfasted alone on the soggiest wheatcakes and the muddiest coffee I have ever demeaned my stomach with. The absence of my customary morning paper added the final touch to my wretchedness. But one would have thought to look at my companion that she had been refreshed ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... way, either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... acquaintance, as a particular charm. Yet, like all reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... evening anything but entertaining companions. He, however, consoled himself with copious potations from the punch-bowl, and filled the room with dense clouds of smoke, that were in themselves, sufficient to produce the drowsiness that Ronayne pleaded in excuse of his taciturnity. ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... elapsed and he is still at Vincennes. At last his friends find means of communicating with him, and Grimaud, the servant of the Count de la Fere, is introduced, in the capacity of an under jailer, into the fortress, where, by his taciturnity and apparent strictness, he gains the entire confidence of La Ramee, an official who, under M. de Chavigny, is appointed to the especial guardianship of the Duke of Beaufort. An attempt to escape is fixed for the day of the Pentecost. Upon the morning of that day, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... him, save that her husband had picked him up upon the road as a wanderer some five years since; and that he had been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, and that was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to have something ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... length (for which he had a great mind to prosecute the printer). To-day, the London Evening Post says, Mr. Pane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of the treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson, who was so tormented by that Committee that it turned his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... disappeared from the scene, Nancy Rouse made a discovery which very often follows the dismissal of a suitor—that she was considerably more attached to him than she had thought. The house became dull, the subordinate washerwomen languid; their taciturnity irritated ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... given many of the old servants cause to remember him. Harvey in particular, who had come from England early in the century with my grandfather, spoke with bitterness of him. On the subject of my uncle, the old coachman's taciturnity gave way to torrents of reproach. "Beware of him as has no use for horses, Master Richard," he would say; for this trait in Grafton in Harvey's mind lay at the bottom of all others. At my uncle's approach he would retire into his shell like an oyster, nor could he be got to utter more than a monosyllable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were perhaps the only beings on board who took any interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras was always intent upon his maps, and said little; his taciturnity increased as the brig got more and more south; he often mounted the poop, and there with folded arms, and eyes lost in vacancy, he stood for hours. His orders, when he gave any, were curt and rough. Shandon ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... knew the object of this casual meeting, and when the King of Rome approached to greet her, she turned pale and trembled as she felt the gaze of his large blue eyes. Her paleness did not increase her beauty, nor did her shyness contribute to make her interesting. Joseph was annoyed at her taciturnity and disgusted with her ugliness. After a few brief words he bowed, and galloped off to join his retinue. The princess looked sadly after him, and returned home with a troubled heart. She knew that she had been disdained, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... respectable elegance, well preserved in shape if not in color. He bore himself as a lively social light, accustomed to the world. Since Holdria had already been assigned to Huerlin's room, he was put in with Heller, the sailmaker. He found all his surroundings good and praiseworthy, except that the taciturnity of his companions did not please him. One evening before supper, as all four sat outside the door, he suddenly began: "Say, Mr. Manufacturer, are you always so mournful? You're a regular ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... sought, he is a Gospel Minister, who solemnly avows his belief of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, or the Methodist Discipline, and notwithstanding himself is a Negro Pedler, who steals, buys, sells, and keeps his brethren in slavery, or supports by his taciturnity, or his smooth prophesying, or his direct defence, the Christian professor who unites in the kidnapping trade. Truth forces the declaration, that every church officer, or member, who is a slaveholder, records himself, by his own creed, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... thrushes (one had been seen on the 25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I whistled softly to the first, and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! And in such a case, as far as I can see, the bird ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... likewise an 'artist,'—the ladies who 'compose' sonnets in Regent Street, also 'artists,—' and chiefest among the motley crowd, perhaps, the so-called new 'Apostle' of aestheticism, a ponderous gentleman who says nothing and does nothing, and who, by reason of his stupendous inertia and taciturnity, is considered the greatest 'gun' of all! ... it's no use YOUR going among such people,—in fact, no one who has any reverence left in him for the TRUTH of Art CAN mix with those whose profession ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... groupes of the villagers, who flock out of their houses, to see the English pass,—the grotesque and ludicrous figures of the French beggars, who, in the most unbounded variety of costume, surround the carriage the moment we stop,—and the solemn taciturnity of Monsieur Roger, our coachman, who is an extraordinary exception to the general vivacity of his nation; these are the only circumstances which serve at present to exhilarate our spirits, and to remove the tedium ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... through the whole tribe, however. Of these some are so well known or have been so adequately done elsewhere that it hardly seems wise to elaborate on them here. Let us assume that you and I know what sort of human beings cowboys are,—with all their taciturnity, their surface gravity, their keen sense of humor, their courage, their kindness, their freedom, their lawlessness, their foulness of mouth, and their supreme skill in the handling of horses and cattle. I shall try to tell ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... formed, soldierly-looking man. In the early part of his service he was reserved in his comments upon the conduct of the war, and considered, as he was in fact, conservative,—setting the best possible example of taciturnity, subordinate to the wisdom ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... three pursued their way in silence, then Bertha made an effort to converse. Maurice answered in monosyllables and those were followed by deep sighs. Gaston seemed to be hardly more master of language, though his taciturnity had a different origin; it was occasioned by the unexpected delight of finding himself walking beside Bertha, who constantly lifted her sweet face inquiringly to his, as though to ask why he had ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... inevitable soup was placed on the table, the natural taciturnity, common even to Icelandic babies, prevailed over all else. Our host filled our plates with a portion of lichen soup of Iceland moss, of by no means disagreeable flavor, an enormous lump of fish floating in sour butter. After that there came some skyr, a kind of curds and ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... to view a manufactory of Delft and Stone ware, for which, among potters, Mortlake is famous. A silly air of mystery veiled these work-shops from public view; and, as I professed mine to be a visit of mere curiosity, the conductor's taciturnity increased with the variety of my unsatisfied questions. It was in vain I assured him that I was no potter—that experimental philosophy and chemistry had stript empiricism of its garb—and that no secret, worth preserving, could long be kept in a ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... Farm, at which high point their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridge where Orgreave lived, and the other zigzagging down through neglected pasturage into Bursley proper. Usually they parted here without a word, taking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless have done the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their last walk together as two schoolboys. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... shy and reserved in his manners, and never spoke on any subject without his opinion was solicited. This extraordinary taciturnity, in one who possessed no ordinary powers of mind, gave double weight to all that he advanced, till what he said became a law in the family. Even his mother, with whom he was no favorite, listened with profound ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... carpenter, whom he at one time had occasion to employ in doing some work on a small property he owned in Ipswich. Reining up his horse, Master Putnam stopped to have a chat with the man—whose oddity mainly consisted in his taciturnity, which was broken only by ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... but said nothing—taciturnity was his one redeeming trait. "Did you say cigars?" he asked, pushing a box across the bar to an impatient customer. Another beckoned to him and he leaned over to hear the whispered request, a frown struggling ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... book, did not notice her taciturnity, and though he responded politely to Miss Loder's chatter, it was evident he was not captivated by her undoubted social gifts to the extent of forgetting the purpose ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... bracken and grey stone walls, and in the background a more rugged line of rocky cliffs. The sea in the bay flashed and glittered in the long rays of the afternoon sunshine. The scene was extraordinarily peaceful. Stephen Dartrey for the first few minutes certainly justified his reputation for taciturnity. He leaned back in a long wicker chair, his head resting upon his hand, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon vacancy. No man in those days could have resembled less a popular leader of the people. In appearance he was a typical aristocrat, and his expression, notwithstanding his ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... silence would incense a flint. Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee, Or shake thy dogged taciturnity? ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... on the part of the host to enter into conversation, but either from an apprehension of treading on dangerous ground, or an unwillingness to intrude upon the rather studied taciturnity of his guest, he several times hesitated, before he could venture to make any further remark. At length, a movement from Mr. Harper, as he raised his eyes to the party in the room, encouraged him ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Sylvia read this announcement in the Society Column of the La Chance Morning Herald, with an enigmatic expression on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, swooping about the icy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... proposed to meet with Sir Mungo Malagrowther, from whom, in despair of better advice, he trusted to receive some information as to the best mode of introducing himself into the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host with whom he communed, the consequential taciturnity of an Englishman well to pass in the world. Ned Kilderkin spoke as a banker writes, only touching the needful. Being asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied, No. Being interrogated whether he ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the other high matter will be; what the public will think of it; and, in short, what and how the Executive-Royal shall DO therein: this, the essential function of a Parliament and Privy-Council, was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere Nature, multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke making the most of what natural intellect there might be. The substitution of Tobacco-smoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, by some, held to be a great improvement. Here is Smelfungus's opinion, quaintly ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... may readily be supposed, was kept a profound secret. They both saw that it might be the forerunner of divine means to bring their evil deeds to light; and, under this apprehension, their taciturnity and mutual discontent, if not growing hatred, continued, broken only by occasional growls and curses, and the ejaculations forced out by the inevitable circumstances of their connection. The effect of the morning visit ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence of coffee and tobacco. The coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... closer inspection, and inserted a finger through the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... are speaking here about Pythagoras, to whom taciturnity and not expressing those things which it is wrong to speak were especially pleasing, let us see whether Homer had also this opinion. For about those drunken with wine ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... day he used to walk in a long avenue of lime-trees, which he had planted with his own hand; and before his death he had the pleasure of enjoying the shade of those trees. Ivan Andreevitch was exceedingly sparing of his words; a proof of his taciturnity is to be found in the remarkable fact that in the course of twenty years he had not said a single word to his wife, Anna Pavlovna. His relations with Anna Pavlovna altogether were of a very curious sort. She directed the whole management ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... woman's. He stands fully six feet one inch in height, and weighs something over two hundred pounds, without being burdened with a pound of superfluous flesh. During the whole interview he was retired and dignified to a degree bordering on taciturnity, but was free from all exhibition of temper or mortification. His demeanor was that of a thoroughly possessed gentleman, who had a very disagreeable duty to perform, but was determined to get through it as well and as ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman
... government, he must keep abreast of the times in this regard. The chief listened very gravely and with never a word to the little disquisition, while it was hard to tell from his expression if his silence meant only savage taciturnity, or if he were ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... to everything in this world came also to the store of nice things the Rector had to say, in his enthusiasm, about his boat. By the time the pair had reached the bakery of Figuetes, Pascualo had lapsed into his normal taciturnity, and Roseta held the floor, dealing with the forewomen in the tobacco factory in ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... who had spoken, no other than our old friend, Dumbiedikes, whose mouth, like that of the prophet's ass, had been opened by the emergency of the case, now joined them, and, with his usual taciturnity, escorted them into the Court-house. No opposition was offered to their entrance either by the guards or doorkeepers; and it is even said that one of the latter refused a shilling of civility-money tendered him by the Laird of Dumbiedikes, who was of opinion that "siller wad make a' ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr. H. is, that he dresses exceedingly smart, and is no contemptible figure of a man. But, dear Madam, you know, that's so much the worse, when the man's talent is not taciturnity, except before his aunt, or before Mr. B. or you; when he is not conscious of internal defect, and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... had been out with his brigade when Ledyard came, went to visit the Englishman; but Ismyloff had little to say, little of Benyowsky, the Polish pirate, who had marooned him; less of Alaska; and the reason for taciturnity was plain. The Russian fur traders were forming a monopoly. They told no secrets to the world. They wanted no intruders on their hunting-ground. Could Ledyard have known that the surly, bearded Russian was to blast his new-born ambitions; could Ismyloff have guessed that ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... with the mariners of all ranks. His emissaries had been busy among the naval officers, and had found some who remembered him with kindness, and others who were out of humour with the men now in power. All the wild talk of a class of people not distinguished by taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with exaggeration, till he was deluded into a belief that he had more friends than enemies on board of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he should have known that a rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by the Admiralty, might, after ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... been interested by Peter's taciturnity and fascinated by his waistcoat, had been leading that ordinarily masterful man something of a conversational dance. Detached for the moment by his demand for provender, she called across the table: "Mary, I herewith invite you to attend the Culture Club meeting ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... be making up lost way for years of taciturnity in the tower. They say there is a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... was also haunted by a sensation of uneasiness in the midst of his studied taciturnity, was standing on his doorstep reflecting on the probable outcome of events. His son had no place in his thoughts, but he was speculating how he best might convert the misfortunes of others into fortune for himself, and as he revolved these ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... was the first novelist to stir the heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... characteristics. He was one of those strong personalities that give an interest to all manner of incidents, even the commonplace. Like Moltke, he could hold his tongue in seven languages; but it is a fact that all his friends must have observed that his taciturnity never made his company any the less entertaining. Moreover, when the mood was on him, he could talk by the hour, and then his reminiscences of the years spent in the household of Wagner or the story of his experiences while carrying the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur Nobody shall go free, Quid valeat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; [774]no better way to avoid folly and madness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all senators, magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos esse, (some say) we must not speak of ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... alone, and the assistant physician in charge of my case, after several ineffectual attempts to engage me in conversation, humored my persistent taciturnity. For more than a year his only remarks to me were occasional conventional salutations. Subsequent events have led me to doubt the ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... keeping with the surroundings. You would have said that he could ride on forever without tiring, and that he could go over a precipice now without even seeing any danger sign. He had never been like this in all Firio's memory. The silence became unsupportable for once to Indian taciturnity. If Jack would not talk Firio would. Yes, he would ask a question, just to hear the sound of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... to see his chief thus perish. For four years that man had led them, and only his companions knew his worth. To his acquaintance he might seem hard and unsympathetic, he might repel by his taciturnity and anger by his sternness; but his comrades knew how eminent were his qualities. It was impossible for anyone to live with him continually without being conquered by his greatness. If his power with the natives was unparalleled, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... as gay nor as unconventional as others that had preceded it. The Countess vainly tried to make it as sprightly as its predecessors, but gave over in despair in the face of my taciturnity. Her spirits drooped. She became strangely uneasy and, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... upon 'em before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation of his exemption ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... seldom spoke, yet Pollyanna knew very well that almost never was he absent from her thoughts; and that more than half her taciturnity was but her usual cloak for a deeper emotion which she did ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... permitted to absent oneself by silence. To pretend contumaciousness is a wound given to the law. It is like Diomede wounding a goddess. Taciturnity before a judge is a form of rebellion. Treason to justice is high treason. Nothing is more hateful or rash. He who resists interrogation steals truth. The law has provided for this. For such cases, the English have always enjoyed the right of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... building, so that while Thorpe was in plain view, he could not make out which of the dark figures on the piazza was the man he wanted. He approached, and attempted an identifying scrutiny. The men, with the taciturnity of their class in the presence of ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... teaching oral composition has too often died with it. Young children are, as a rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable command of language. But it not infrequently happens that at the close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a state of sullen taciturnity. In common with other vital faculties, his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the repressive atmosphere to which he has so ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... taken in training by her. That gentleman, having made the discovery, early in life, that the less a man says, the more he is supposed to know, had acquired a habit of taciturnity which had become a second nature to him. His conversation consisted mainly of grunts and nods; and it was astonishing how much he could express by them. At any rate, they had "made his fortin', and he couldn't ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... talking the waiter told us that dinner was served, and we withdrew accordingly; my guests more than making amends for my comparative taciturnity. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the governor's gentlemen councillors, friends, and officers. Victor and the Chevalier were on this list, as were the vicomte and D'Herouville. Usually these were enjoyable evenings. Victor became famous as a raconteur, and the Chevalier lost some of his taciturnity in this friendly intercourse. D'Herouville's conduct was irreproachable in ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... one of your fits of taciturnity, and have resolved not to write till you are written to; it is but a peevish humour, but you ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... brain, less from the spinal axis; take a deeper delight in the mere social reflection and echoing of life. And in this, on account of their instinctive swiftness of susceptibility, perception, and adroitness, refined women can have no rivals in the other sex. The luxury of the British is taciturnity; but to this day the favorite excitement of the French is conversation; and conversation is ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... and the boy of the establishment places a small bit of lighted charcoal on it. They may be seen by hundreds before every coffee-shop, seated on low stools, blowing clouds, sipping Mocha juice, and exhibiting the most solemn taciturnity and perfect content. In driving bargains, the Turk, having seated the purchaser at his side, presents him with coffee and a pipe, and between the puffs of smoke the negotiation is carried on. If it does not succeed, the pipe is resigned, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the general topic of conversation. Although the Professor had done everything to make the thing a splendid success, yet certain gay spirits related more than one thing that had occurred which was quite irregular and out of order. They were especially keen in pulling Olimpia to pieces for her taciturnity and rigid stiffness; in spite of her beautiful form they alleged that she was hopelessly stupid, and in this fact they discerned the reason why Spalanzani had so long kept her concealed from publicity. Nathanael heard all this with inward wrath, but nevertheless he held his tongue; ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... asked him to bring his flute, and nervously praised the fierce music he made on it. Miss Barks enjoyed a monopoly of his accompaniments, and there were many who regarded her assiduity as a covert attack upon the widower's name and position. If so, it was Greek meeting Greek, for with all his taciturnity the vicar of Shanmoor was well able to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... This taciturnity in a man whose appearance was so imposing was strangely significant. Sometimes when we met him, we exchanged glances full of meaning on both sides, but they never led to any advances. Insensibly this man became the object of our secret admiration, though we knew no reason for it. Did ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... The Doctor breathed hard, and fell into taciturnity for the afternoon. As for the boy, he was delighted with the resolution of his doubts; even wondered that he had not foreseen the obvious and conclusive answer. His faith in the Doctor was a stout piece of goods. Desprez was inclined to be a sheet in the wind's eye ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from expressing the thoughts that had ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... inanition into nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is "the developer of the skies in their embodied movements;" and Mrs. Thrale, when a party of clever people sat silent, is said "to have been provoked by the dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of all human faculties." In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of Madame ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the fame outran The merit of this doubtful man, For taciturnity in him, Though not a mere caprice or whim, Was not a virtue, such as truth, High birth, or beauty, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with the troops and was given a semi-official position as scout and attached to the same battalion to which Wilmshurst belonged. Gradually his taciturnity diminished, until he developed into a fairly communicative individual and was generally popular ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... acquired knowledge regardeth himself as learned, and with his learning destroyed the reputation of others, never attaineth to regions of indestructible felicity. That knowledge also doth not make its possessor competent to attain to Brahma. Study, taciturnity, worship before fire, and sacrifices, these four remove all fear. When, however, these are mixed with vanity, instead of removing it, they cause fear. The wise should never exult at (receiving) honours nor should they grieve at insults. For it is the wise alone that honour ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... visitors entered the city. One had little to tell, but the other made amends for his companion's taciturnity with a graphic, Othellonian description of the dangers he had passed, and his wondrous experiences for many days and nights. He had, it appeared, a regard for Mr. Rhodes, (who is less popular in the Free State than in Kimberley), ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... sombre, handsome city house I was taken once or twice to dinner. He was at one time very rich, but lost all his fortune in some untoward speculation, and he used to come and pay us long, sad, silent visits, the friendly taciturnity of which I always compassionately attributed to that circumstance, and wished that he had not lost the use of his tongue as well as ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... sonnets. Such is the drift of the verses entitled House; a peep through the window is permitted, but "please you, no foot over threshold of mine." This was not Shakespeare's wiser way; if he hid himself behind his work, it was with the openness and with the taciturnity of Nature. He did not stand in the window of his "House" declaring that he was not to be seen; he did not pull up and draw down the blind to make it appear that he was at home and not at home. In the poem Shop Browning continues his assurances that he is no Eglamor to whom ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... retired boatswain's mate, living with Commodore Trunnion to keep the servants in order. Tom Pipes is noted for his taciturnity.—Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... manager's glance in kind; Barnes' candor and simplicity were apparent antidotes to the other's taciturnity and constraint. During the country dance the soldier had remained a passive spectator, displaying little interest in the rustic merry-making or the open glances cast upon him by bonny lasses, burned ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Drake began to feel vaguely uncomfortable under his fixed gaze and taciturnity; and being uncomfortable, he blundered on to the subject ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... curiosity was fully aroused by the taciturnity of Haroun on this occasion, could not help asking, "Is your Majesty satisfied or disappointed with ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... Mrs. Ellmother had been ready enough to talk. Had she failed to hear what Francine had just said to her? or had she some reason for feeling reluctant to answer? In any case, a spirit of taciturnity took sudden possession of ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Armitage was not very talkative, but Dick managed to draw him out more than could any of the rest of the party. Buffet, in his broken English, talked away sufficiently to make ample amends for his employer's taciturnity. Our midday halt was over, and we did not again intend to encamp until nightfall, at a spot described by Buffet on the banks of a stream which ran round a rocky height on the borders of the prairie. It was, however, some distance off, and we did not expect ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... hardly tell you how glad I am to have an opportunity of explaining that taciturnity to which you allude. Your letter came at a period of danger and care, when my father was very ill, and I could not leave his bedside. I answered no letters at that time, and yours was one of three or four that, when leisure returned to me, and I came to consider their purport, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... concentrating on that faint, but infinitely important sound, and the need of maintaining a semblance of weary dullness was trying Brent's soul. He thanked Heaven for the taciturnity of his companions. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... confines this gift of bold and ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The malicious Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might possibly be the effect of their servitude under ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... to taciturnity. It is not a suggestion that you should be stolid and wooden in manner and speech. The reason of it is to prevent you from making mistakes or betraying yourself by foolish and unnecessary utterance. My ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony to ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... except by a nod, and John, turning, saw Isaac Welles standing at the gate. He had overheard the conversation and felt that there was no danger of a quarrel, and he now came eagerly forward with offers of assistance. They were gratefully accepted; for even the taciturnity of the brothers seemed to give way before the pressing fear that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... inspection was of that part of the works which was above ground. Paddy, who conducted us, introduced us first to the engineer in charge of this part of the work, a man named Shelton, who had knocked about the world a great deal, but had acquired a taciturnity that was Sphinxlike. If it had not been for Paddy, I fear we should have seen very little, for Shelton was not only secretive, but his explanations were such that even the editor of a technical journal ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... could he see that Willet was less keen about it and the three proceeded promptly to the council grove where a multitude was already hastening. There was, too, a great buzz of talk, as the Iroquois here in the vale, the very heart of their country, did not show the taciturnity in which the red man so often takes refuge in the presence ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the real culprit go unpunished. Her insanity was not self-evident, and it may even be said that there were no outward signs of it. Up to that time it had never occurred to anyone that she was insane, for there was nothing singular in her conduct except her extreme taciturnity. It was easy, therefore, to question her insanity, while the true explanation of the act was so incredible and so strange that her friends could not well bring it forward. The fact of having allowed the clerk's wife to be arrested was inexcusable. If the taking of the linen had only been a joke, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white handkerchief, and a case of instruments, where other men went hot blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of the regiment. Not even the major's taciturnity daunted him. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... it was a growing admiration wholly aside from his respect for him as a soldier. He was showing observation or intuition of a high order. The General's heart was full. He had all of the mountaineer's reserve and taciturnity, but now after years of repression and at the touch of real sympathy his ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... selected persons totally unsuited to them; and fancying that if Clara only knew her guardian's character as well as she did the gentle girl would shrink in dread from his unbending will, his habitual, moody taciturnity. He was generous and unselfish, but also as unyielding as the Rock of Gibraltar. There was nothing pleasurable in this train of thought, and, taking up a book, she soon ceased to think of the motionless figure opposite. No sooner were her eyes once fastened on her book than ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... strict secresy, as to this particular; which was promised by the widows, as well as for themselves, as for Miss Rawlins; of whose taciturnity they gave me such an account, as showed me, that she was secret-keeper-general to all the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... an.... Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden." And the German, roused from his taciturnity, turned to Vronsky. "Das laesst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht." The German was just feeling in the pocket where were his pencil and the notebook he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a dinner, and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked himself. "Zu compliziert, macht zu ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... no hesitation in her prompt agreement. Neither did she add any polite regrets. The professor felt unduly irritated. He had never become used to her ungirlish taciturnity. It always excited him. The women he had known, especially the younger women, had all been chatterers. They had talked and he had not listened. This girl said little and her silences seemed to clamour in his ears. Well, she would have ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... afterward, however, Juba's spirits forsook him; he was never heard to sing or to whistle, he scarcely ever spoke even to his master, who was much surprised by this sudden change from gaiety and loquacity to melancholy taciturnity. Nothing could draw from the poor fellow any explanation of the cause of this alteration in his humour; and though he seemed excessively grateful for the concern which his master showed about his health, no kindness or amusement could restore him to his wonted cheerfulness. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... gentlemen from the shore, followed his example. The minuet being voted slow, a country-dance quickly succeeded it. The young ladies who had the officers of the ship for their partners were struck by their extraordinary taciturnity; for, with the exception of the young lieutenant who had visited the shore, not one of them spoke a word. Captain Dupin remarked that they were rough fellows, little accustomed to the society of ladies, and were too bashful to speak—though Miss Kathleen ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... strength. Though I was hard and spare from my travels in the summer heat, 'twas all I could do to keep up with him, and only my pride kept me from crying halt. Often when he stopped I could have wept with fatigue, and had no breath for a word, but his taciturnity saved me ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... voice, which he singularly modulated. But there was not much of "the old Foxian orgasm" manifested by him; he was serene, did not shake, was not agonised. He finished as he began without any warning; the general assemblage was seated in a second; and for seven minutes there was another reign of taciturnity. When that time had elapsed the same elderly party gave an exhortation, simple in language, kindly in tone, and free from both bewilderment and fierceness. Mr. Jesper—the person to whom we have been alluding—is one of the principal ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... stock we could have forgiven him the rest of the disappointment he cost us; but we had to admit to ourselves that he had the most absolutely commonplace appearance of all our acquaintance. In fact, we soon discovered that, except for a taciturnity the like of which we had never encountered, our aromatic uncle had positively not one picturesque characteristic about him. Even his aroma was a disappointment. He had it, but it was patchouly or some other cheap perfume of the sort, wherewith ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... seemed to make an effort to throw off his taciturnity, and suddenly to be able to throw it off, at least partially. For he continued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... himself trying to smother a yawn. His companions at the table could not understand a young man of twenty-eight years who drank nothing but water, scorned all enjoyment in eating, and only laughed forcedly under compulsion. At last, disturbed by the continued taciturnity of their host, they rose from the table sooner than their wont, and prepared to take leave. Before their departure, Arbillot the notary, passed his arm familiarly through that of Julien and led him into an adjoining room, which served as ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... with them. Mrs. Kettering was easily drawn into these disagreements and took a leading part in no few of them. Simon and Mark, however, would remain impassive, the first reading his paper and uttering now and again a facetious, mild protest, the second smoking his eternal pipe in unyielding taciturnity. Mrs. Kettering likewise annoyed her daughters by constantly talking to Morgan in their presence of the difficulty of finding ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the liberty to describe elsewhere. His disposition was naturally cheerful and mild, his temper even, and not easily provoked. Although somewhat inclined to taciturnity, yet when drawn out to converse upon any subject he was acquainted with, he was naturally fluent, and in his language pure and correct. He was a universal favorite with the youth of both sexes in his native town, and, during the intervals between his voyages, was always in demand ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and trustfulness of others. Did he ever complain that he was oppressed and saddened by his self-chosen life in the Bush? We have seen the high estimate he once gave of it; and Mr. Woods, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... ideas changed, and I could make my way to fortune by a thoroughfare, less under the public eye, I associated her in my studies. She knows," proceeded Daniels, who had shaken off a spell of taciturnity which the stranger and Madame Clemenceau had inspired, and seemed unable to pause, "she knows that nothing can be destroyed, and that all undergoes transformation, and cannot cease to exists with the exception of evil which diminishes as it ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
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