"Acquiescent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instance of this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... exiles, and those who had secretly sympathized with them, began to use the Edwardian Prayer-book. [13] There were no statutory penalties to restrain them, and the bishops looked on helpless, or acquiescent. Even in the Queen's chapel, it is said, the English service was used on Easter Day. [14] Long before the Prayer-book was restored to its legal position. Parkhurst was able to write to Bullinger, perhaps with some exaggeration, that it was again in general use: Nunc ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... is, at any rate, not bombastic. It is essentially honest. When the imperial eagle comes home with half its feathers out like a crow that has met a bear; when the surviving aristocratic officers reappear with a vastly diminished swagger in the biergartens, I believe that the hitherto acquiescent middle classes and skilled artisan class of German will entirely disappoint those people who expect them to behave either with servility or sentimental loyalty. The great revolutionary impulse of the French was passionate and generous. The ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the prices of his vegetables, and finally ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... surprise, but it is acquiescent. And that night, or the next day, we wire that we will not take the house in Maine, and I discover that the family has never expected to go to Maine, but has been buying ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fates of England and Europe; the fortunes of Marlborough and of Swift on their way from dictatorship, in each case, to dotage and death; the big wars and the notable literary triumphs as well as the hopeless passions or acquiescent losses. It is thus an instance—and the greatest—of that revival of the historical novel which was taking place, and in which the novel of Scott(1)—simpler, though not so very simple as is sometimes thought—is being dashed with a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him. He had been member of Parliament for the county of Hants, and had been placed at the head of the list of his father's attempt at a House of Lords, and he allowed greatness to be thrust on him in a quiet acquiescent way. He dismissed the fictitious parliament that his father had summoned, and then offended the strict and godly of the army by promoting soldiers of whom they disapproved. "Here is Dick Ingoldsby," he said; "he can neither pray nor ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Humbly acquiescent, he pulled Bob back, and the gate swung shut between them. But there was more to say, and she did ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the malady called traumatic neurasthenia. As for himself he fancied that he had not for years felt better than he felt at that moment. He was aware of the most delicious sensation of sharing a perfect nocturnal solitude with his wife. He drew her towards him until her acquiescent head lay against his waistcoat. He held her body in his arms, and came deliberately to the conclusion that to be alive ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... desiring neither activity nor rest; the soul sits brooding, like the black crows that I see in the leafless wood beneath me, perched silent and draggled on the tree-tops, just waiting for the sun and the dry keen airs to return; but to-day it is not so; I am full of a quiet hope, an acquiescent tranquillity. My heart talks gently to itself, as to an unseen friend, telling its designs, its wishes, its activities. I think of those I hold dear, all the world over; I am glad that they are alive, and believe that they think of me. All the air seems full of messages, thoughts ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... talent, activity, and influence. Both soon united in placing Mr. Adams in the Senate of the state, without any solicitation or intimation of political coincidence from him. In this election the opponents of his father's policy were acquiescent rather than content. They knew the independence and self-relying spirit of Mr. Adams, his restiveness in the trammels of party, his disposition to lead rather than follow; and yielded silently to a result which they could not prevent. The spirit ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... should save the one real passion of his life for the Indian summer of it. And that it should be a reciprocated passion. The wiseacres were smiling at him, he supposed; smiling as the world always smiled at the spectacle of infatuate age mating with tolerant, indifferently acquiescent youth. Smiled and wondered how long it would be before youth awoke and turned to its own. Well, he could afford to smile at the wiseacres. And at the green inexperienced young, as well, who thought that love was ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... kindly to him 'Come! Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb, He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... produced in Serviss an uneasiness. To him she was a lamb venturing among wolves. "She should not expose herself to the coarse comment, the seeking eyes of these fellows," he indignantly commented, blaming the acquiescent mother and the absent-minded step-father. "This childlike trust is charming, but it is ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... friends had joined the Woman Suffrage movement and were determined that the new Liberal Government should not shirk the issue; an issue on which many members of Parliament had been returned as acquiescent in the principle. On that account they had received the whole-hearted support of many, women owing ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... left the room with some indistinct mutterings; but whether negative or acquiescent, Edward could not well distinguish. The hostess, a civil, quiet, laborious drudge, came to take his orders for dinner, but declined to make answer on the subject of the horse and guide; for the Salique law, it seems, extended to the stables of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... into their leaden pinions, they stooped to him and buffeted and smothered him, until he was such a mass of bruised suffering within that he could almost believe his body also was quivering into the numbness of acquiescent misery. And here were the wings again. They were even lower, in spite of this clear air. They did not merely shut it out from his nostrils, but the filthy pinions swept his face and roused in him the uttermost revulsion of mortal man ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... only have been a few minutes—the square began to fill again with the first groups of women, children, and old men who had escorted the departing conscripts a little way on their march to Lorient. Back they came, the maids of Paradise silent, tearful, pitifully acquiescent; the women of Bannalec, Faouet, Rosporden, Quimperle chattering excitedly about the scene they had witnessed. The square began to fill; lanterns were lighted around the fountain; the two big lamps with their brass reflectors in front of the mayor's house ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... without overt breach, we fall apart, Tacitly sunder—neither you nor I Conscious of one intelligible Why, And both, from severance, winning equal smart. So, with resigned and acquiescent heart, Whene'er your name on some chance lip may lie, I seem to see an alien shade pass by, A spirit wherein I have no lot or part. Thus may a captive, in some fortress grim, From casual speech betwixt his warders, learn That June on her triumphant progress ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... say, and no room for 'em. Some things are too little to be told, i.e. to have a preference; some are too big and circumstantial. Thanks for yours, which was most delicious. Would I had been with you, benighted &c. I fear my head is turned with wandering. I shall never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell; write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates have carried you. Farewell, my ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... almost immediately upon the suffering caused by my separation from Nancy, was cumulative in character and effect, seeming actively to reenforce the unwelcome conviction I had been striving to suppress, that the world, which had long seemed so acquiescent in conforming itself to my desires, was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... feet attracted her attention then, and she looked away from her companion. Driven by the railroad officials, and led by an interpreter, a band of Teutons some five or six hundred strong filed into the station. Stalwart and stolid, tow-haired, with the stamp of acquiescent patience in their homely faces, they came on with the swing, but none of the usual spirit, of drilled men. They asked no questions, but went where they were led, and the foulness of the close-packed ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Franklin had sat. And, in a swift flash of association, she remembered that Franklin had wanted to kiss her, and had kissed her. They had left Franklin under the limes with Helen; he had been reading something to Helen out of a pamphlet, and Helen had looked, though rather sleepy, kindly acquiescent; but the memory of the past could do no more than stir a faint pity for the present Franklin; she was wishing—and it seemed the most irresistible longing of all her life—that Gerald Digby wanted to kiss her too. The memory and the ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... his arms and covered her face with passionate kisses. Struggling for a moment in his embrace, she lay there presently acquiescent as he had known even before his hands touched her. An hour had passed before Anna quitted the flat—and then she knew beyond any possibility of question that she was about to become ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... recognized as authoritative. He remembered her as she used to march up to the platform for Children's Day exercises with the other little girls of the infant class; in her stiff white dress, never a curl awry or a wrinkle in her stocking, keeping her little comrades in order by the acquiescent gravity of her face, which seemed to say, "How pleasant it is to do thus and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... nor could she ever understand him: but she felt that the arm she held was one of steel. To what end she and her sisters and her mother had been sacrificed she could not yet divine: but the encounter by the bridge had reawakened the Wesley pride in her, and she walked acquiescent in a fate beyond her ken. She knew, too, that he had dismissed the squabble from his mind and was thinking of her confession and her soul's danger. But here ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... imposed from without upon the crofter of Skye or the rack-rented tenant of a Connemara hillside, has never crushed out the native feeling of a right to the soil, the native resistance to an alien system. The south-east, I assert, has been brutalised into acquiescent serfdom by a long course of feudalism; the west and north still retain ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... and expectations vague and sweet, which make so large a part in girlish happiness, give place to graver and more earnest thoughts of life and duty, to a juster estimate of what life has to give, and an acquiescent acceptance of the lot which she has not chosen, but which has come to her in it. It is not very often that so desirable a state of mind and heart comes to girls of four-and-twenty. It certainly had not come to Elizabeth. ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... present condition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power to destroy, and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage. ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... she were really engaged, the sense of recent betrothal could be nowhere else half so sweet as in that wild and lovely place. She began to imagine a bliss so divine, that it would have been strange if she had not begun to desire it, and it was with a half reluctant, half-acquiescent thrill that she suffered him to touch upon what was first ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the better of my discretion even to sneer—at least I persuade myself now that I did. Outside of this little act of gallantry I am heartily ashamed of my conduct at the German Staff Headquarters. It was too acquiescent and obsequious for some of those bureaucrats rough riding it over those helpless, long-suffering, ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... Weyler upon the defenseless Cuban revolutionists, which, as much as the destruction of the Maine, impelled this country to declare war. Yet, knowing as we do that it is perpetrated upon the human beings in our prisons, we sit supine and acquiescent, and thereby make ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... defender of freedom? The classrooms are mine no more; the campus is a departed glory; I shall no longer sing the 'Alma Mater' with you when the chimes ring at ten. The whole challenge of the city is missing. Nothing opposes me, there is no task for me to do. I must be supine, acquiescent, smiling, non-essential. I am like a runner who has trained for a race, and, ready for the speeding, finds that no race is on. But I've no business to be surprised. I knew it would be like this, didn't ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... engineer had a red spark in it that might have jumped out of his own engine-furnace as he turned upon the acquiescent Billy. "Didn't you catch wot I said to you just now, my lad?" he inquired with ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... you what is left of yours to keep on this war against each other? What have we to gain from hurting one another still further? Why should we be puppets any longer in the hands of crowned fools and witless diplomatists? Even if we were dumb and acquiescent before, does not the blood of our sons now cry out to us that this foolery should cease? We have let these people ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... daylight. What's your objection?" And as we had not comprehended anything of what he had proposed, we found it rather difficult to shape our objections; in fact, we never were sure if we had any. So presently Miss Matty got into a nervously acquiescent state, and said "Yes," and "Certainly," at every pause, whether required or not; but when I once joined in as chorus to a "Decidedly," pronounced by Miss Matty in a tremblingly dubious tone, my father fired ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... upon them some social distinction. There were pretty women in paint and spangles, with conscious, half-grown boys just up from Oxford; company- promoters dining and wining possible subscribers or "guinea-pigs" into an acquiescent state; Guardsmen giving a dinner of farewell to brother-officers departing for the Soudan or the Cape; wide-eyed Americans just off the steamer in high dresses, great ladies in low dresses and lofty tiaras, and ladies of the stage, utterly unconscious of the boon they ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... really object to sport; and I hope you don't mean to cast disrespect upon the memory of your own poor father!'. All of which profound moral and religious observations Ernest, as in duty bound, received with the most respectful and acquiescent silence. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... gained Worship Street, I could not help looking back where slept that older Kings Port about which I had heard and had said so much. Over the graves I saw the roses, nodding and moving, as if in acquiescent revery. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... remain acquiescent. I will promenade upon my profluence to Sixth Avenue, and purchase the ceruleous ribbon immediately," said G.F.F.F.S., putting on her waterproof ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... resistance was offered on behalf of wealth and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The men of L100,000 a year—not numerous, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but influential—have been as meekly acquiescent as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government which is conducting a great war? Or did ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... servant who had been on terms of close familiarity with the other woman; while, outwardly acquiescent, she allowed herself to be buttoned into a dressing-gown by the hard, bony fingers, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... her head, meekly acquiescent. 'I never thought of that, Elizabeth. You always seem to ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... allusion, apparently acquiescent, to the superstitious popular opinion that the peace of Florence was bound up with the statue of Mars on the old bridge, at the base of which ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... and she was my—wife—and when I was given a parish and had introduced her to my people, they loved her for the white gentleness which seemed purity, and for acquiescent amiability ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... inseparable; and I made such good use of my time, that in two more, he spoke to me of his friendship for Dawton, and his wish for a dukedom. These motives it was easy enough to unite, and at last he promised me that his answer to my principal should be as acquiescent as I could desire; the morning after this promise commenced the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... realized that she was not alone, that he was there. She stood rooted to the spot, waiting to see what he would do. Had he followed his first impulse, which would have been to sweep her to his breast, he would have found her unresisting, submissive, acquiescent. The kiss which had been given her last night still trembled upon her lips. It was for the taking, she was ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... p. 93) says: "They resolved to bear up again for the Cape." No one will question that Jones's assertion of inability to proceed, and his announced determination to return to Cape Cod harbor, fell upon many acquiescent ears, for, as Winslow says: "Winter was come; the seas were dangerous; the season was cold; the winds were high, and the region being well furnished for a plantation, we entered upon discovery." Tossed for sixty-seven days on the north Atlantic at that season of the year, their food and firing well ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... was a king's sloop down in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger—ye'll mind Dirk Hatteraick, Deacon? I dare say ye may have dealt wi' him—(the Deacon gave a sort of acquiescent nod and humph). He was a daring chield, and he fought his ship till she blew up like peelings of ingans; and Frank Kennedy he had been the first man to board, and he was flung like a quarter of a mile off, and fell into the water below the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... hand according to the use the slave-holding class hoped to make of it, and on the other hand according to the intensity of the attacks directed against it by the Abolitionists and the free colored people because of the acquiescent attitude of colonizationists toward the persecution of the free blacks both in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... "great" things in English life and literature, and his admirers dwell on his great achievements. These achievements often leave me a little cold, intellectually acquiescent, nothing more. But when I hear of these olives which the blind old scholar-poet was wont to eat for supper I am at once brought nearer to him. I intuitively divine ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... unwomanly, they would be a great deal more womanly than they are. To be brave, and single-minded, and discriminating, and judicious, and clear-sighted, and self-reliant, and decisive, that is pure womanly. To be womanish is not to be womanly. To be flabby, and plastic, and weak, and acquiescent, and insipid, is not womanly. And I could wish sometimes that women would not be quite so patient. They often exhibit a degree of long-suffering entirely unwarrantable. There is no use in suffering, unless you cannot help it; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... inconsistency of young women, were not only acquiescent in her undignified fate—they were ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... to elicit some observations that might lead to disserting discourse; all his attempts received only quiet, acquiescent replies, 'signifying nothing.' Every one was awaiting some spontaneous ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... with the coming ball. Monty did not say that it was to be given for Miss Drew and her name was conspicuously absent from his descriptions. As he unfolded his plans even the "Little Sons," who were imaginative by instinct and reckless on principle, could not be quite acquiescent. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... danger of speculation and of the desire to know everything was impressively emphasised by Irenaeus, II. 25-28. As a pronounced ecclesiastical positivist and traditionalist, he seems in these chapters disposed to admit nothing but obedient and acquiescent faith in the words of Holy Scripture, and even to reject speculations like those of Tatian, Orat. 5. Cf. the disquisitions II. 25. 3: "Si autem et aliquis non invenerit causam omnium quae requiruntur, cogitet, quia homo est in infinitum minor ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... guest's hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an instant, all was eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one brief, repentant relenting at the final moment, from some iniquitous plot, followed by remorseless return to it? His last glance seemed to express a calamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano forever. Why decline the invitation to visit the sealer that evening? Or was the Spaniard less hardened than the Jew, who refrained not from supping at the board of him whom the same ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... live in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, three years among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is a fine creature. . . I fear my head is turned with wandering. I shall never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell. Write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates have carried ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... acquiescent murmur from the other table and the sheep-herder gave in. He exchanged a look with his friends, and Carthy, seeing them disposed to return quietly to the game, left them and took up his usual position behind the bar. The barmaid moved a little closer to ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... be a clearer indication than this description —so graphic in the original poem—of the true character of the Homeric agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a character ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the lover has had two ways of thinking about it. Though the waves, in all their strength and fullness, could not win past, a thread of water might escape and run through the "evening-country," safe, untormented, silent, until it reached the sea. This would be his tender, acquiescent brooding on all she is to him, and the hope that still they may be united at the last, though time shall then ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... parents, to whom he had been a good son on account of the mildness of his character and the great strength of his limbs. The practical advantage of this last was made still more valuable to his father by his obedient disposition. Gaspar Ruiz had an acquiescent soul. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Steinmetz, respectfully acquiescent. He was looking straight in front of him, with an expression of countenance which was almost dense. "Then we must bow to your decision," he went on, turning toward the tall man striding along at ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... times he was never very positive, always negative rather, compliant and acquiescent; yet, when necessity arose he was capable of reasonably vigorous action and could take a strongish decision. The discovery he now made that brought him up with such a sharp turn was that this power had positively ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons; and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined; while the enemy's troops consisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training, familiarized with victory, and commanded by officers of proved skill and valour. ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... his parents seemed to understand what Foy meant; at least it was followed by an uncomfortable and acquiescent silence. Just then Adrian came in, and as we have not seen him since, some four and twenty years ago, he made his entry into the world on the secret island in the Haarlemer Meer, here it may be as well to describe ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... violent man who has conceived himself to be always in the right, that it shocked him to think of going down into his grave without having made the whole world hear those voices. He hurls at you this book of his own deeds that it may smite you into acquiescent admiration. Casanova, at the end of a long life in which he had tasted all the forbidden fruits of the earth, with a simplicity of pleasure in which the sense of their being forbidden was only the least of their abounding flavours, looked back upon his past self with a slightly pathetic admiration, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... shielding and enveloping her. But now this idea utterly possessed him. The music grew louder, and as it were under cover of the music he put his hand round her hand. It was a venturesome act with such a girl; he was afraid.... The hand lay acquiescent within his! He tightened the pressure. The hand lay acquiescent; it accepted. The flashing realization of her compliance overwhelmed him. He was holding the very symbol of wild purity, and there was no effort ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... like this was most galling to the Count, but his youth and perfect health allowed him not the shadow of a pretext. He was obliged to pack his valise and start. He pretended to look pleased and acquiescent, but in his eyes I could ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... with their guests, old Tappan grimmer, rustier, gaunter than usual; his son and heir, Peter—he of the rambling and casual legs—more genial, more futile, more acquiescent than ever. The Crays, Beckmans, Ellises, and Grandcourts arrived; Catharine Grandcourt shared Mrs. Severn's room; Scott Seagrave went to quarters at the West Gate, and Duane was driven forth and a cot-bed set up for him in his ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Mollie opened the door for him; and Mollie, in a soft blue dress, and with her hair dressed to a marvel, was a vision to have touched any man's fancy. She was in one of her sweet acquiescent moods, too, having recovered herself since the afternoon; and when she led him into the parlor, she blushed without any reason whatever, as usual, and as a consequence ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... filled. I thought I had never seen a creature more gentle, delicate, yielding, acquiescent, and fair. She was not beautiful, but she had grace and distinction of movement. She was a Parisienne. She had won my sympathy. We met in a moment when my heart needed the companionship of a woman's heart, and I was drawn to her by one of those sudden impulses ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... conclusion of reason. Do what we will, reason is and must be our ultimate authority; and were the collective sense of mankind to declare Mr. Mansell right, we should submit to that opinion as readily as to another. But the collective sense of mankind is less acquiescent. He has been compared to a man sitting on the end of a plank and deliberately sawing off his seat. It seems never to have occurred to him that, if he is right, he has no business to be a Protestant. What Mr. Mansell says to Professor ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... had pleased her once: it gave her a curious little thrill of acquiescent loyalty; but now it simply hurt, and the instinct of resentment rose in her. What right had he to own her, she asked herself, when it only made other women scornful of her? She lifted her head and faced him. What he saw in ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... a divided sigh, with a tense pause between, and moved onward, her heart feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her eyes wet. Had Giles, instead of remaining still, immediately come down from the tree to her, would she have continued in that filial acquiescent frame of mind which she had announced to him as final? If it be true, as women themselves have declared, that one of their sex is never so much inclined to throw in her lot with a man for good and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... professed Tory would have been an impossibility, so the person fixed upon to oppose him was one whom the author of "Middlemarch" might have had in her eye when she described Sir James Chettam as "a man of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions and uncertain vote."[258] His name was Edward William Thomson, and he professed to be a moderate Reformer. His moderation was acceptable to a considerable proportion of the electors, many of whom were ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... What was the good? She found means to placate him. The only means. As long as there was some money to be got she had hold of him. "Now go away. We shall do no good by any more of this sort of talk. I want to be alone for a bit." He went away, sulkily acquiescent. There was a room always kept ready for him on the same floor, at the further end of a short thickly ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... I not irrepressible? I send you a rhymed fancy. If it has any significance you will, I know, give it place; if not, not. I will be sincerely acquiescent. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... any benefit to a man to find in the wife of his bosom the flatterer of his egotism, the acquiescent victim of his little selfish exactions, to be nursed and petted and cajoled in all his faults and fault-findings, and to see everybody falling prostrate before his will in the domestic circle? Is this the true way to make him a manly and Christ-like man? It is my belief that many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... accompanied, indeed, with the sense of a falling short of perfection, and yet, at the same time, so promising of our social and individual progression, that we would not, if we could, exchange it for that repose of the mind which dwells on the forms of symmetry in the acquiescent admiration of grace. This general characteristic of the ancient and modern drama might be illustrated by a parallel of the ancient and modern music;—the one consisting of melody arising from a succession only of pleasing sounds,—the modern embracing harmony ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... high and susceptible spirit. From manners of dignified serenity, she so lost all self-possession as to answer nearly with fury whatever was not acquiescent concurrence in her opinion: from sentiments of the most elevated nobleness she was urged, by every report that opposed her expectations, to the utterance of wishes and of assertions that owed their impulse to passion, and their foundation to prejudice ; and from having sought, with the most ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... his own. He has shown us people born in one world and growing old in another. He has presented to us the fantastic but true panorama of certain persons who were young and idealistic, who became middle-aged and practical, who are now old and acquiescent; of persons who were born mid-Victorians, who became later-Victorians, who to this day survive grotesquely among the moderns—and again young men and women of to-day who themselves will survive to a derelict old age among people as unlike us as we are ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... of her father and her family pride and affection were all involved, yet suddenly the sacrifice of these became more tolerable than to consent to that image of herself which she saw swiftly defining itself in his mind, that slight, weak creature, whose acquiescent ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... use suggesting any meetings until my niece returns from Paris," the financier said. "She will be in a different mood by then. She had not, when she came to England, quite put off her mourning; she will then have beautiful clothes, and be more acquiescent in every way. Now she would be antagonistic. See her this afternoon and be sensible; make up your mind to postpone things, until her return. And even then be careful until she is ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... also was the same. How the Indo-Iranian religion was developed in India, we have seen. At first a worship of active and militant deities, it became by degrees a religion of a passive type, in which a suffering, acquiescent, and brooding humanity presented to heaven its needs and problems, and received a corresponding answer. The Aryans who remained in Iran retained their active and practical disposition. While by no means wanting ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... acquiescent, for it is so blessed to drift passively in the wake of these determined ones, till such time as, with returning physical strength, the will asserts ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Bishop, at once gently acquiescent; for Symon of Worcester invariably yielded a point which had been misunderstood. For over-rating a mind with which he conversed, this was ever his self-imposed penance. "Your great strength would be fully equal to lifting ladies over pitfalls. Which recalls ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Constitution, further justification were needed for the belief of Virginia in the right of secession, it was assuredly to be found in the apparent want of unanimity on so grave a question even in the Republican party, and in the acquiescent attitude ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... perhaps, about theology than might have been expected. He intended to inflict much more theology upon me than I really had to undergo, thanks to his indolence, and the craft and subtlety with which I managed to substitute other work for it. Still, it was a trial to me to have to look acquiescent, or at least submissive and respectful, whilst he said the most unjust and intolerant things about those who differed from him, and with whom I often secretly agreed. And of course I had to listen to his sermons every Sunday, and to go ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... vivid realization of the emptiness and aimlessness of his life. He looked handsomer than ever; he looked stately and formal and impressive; but he looked old—though he was only forty-five—he looked old and ineffectual and acquiescent. The fighting strength, such as it was, had gone out of him, and the stamp of failure was on him, from his high, pale, intellectual forehead, where the fine brown hair had retreated to the crown of his head, to his narrow features, and his relaxed slender limbs, with ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... however, noticed the suggestive delicacy of his face, which had, as it happened, more than once somewhat displeased her, and a certain languidness of expression, with which she had also grown almost impatient. This man, she had decided, was too readily acquiescent. ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... thoroughly informed as to the great obstacles lying in the path which the duke hoped to travel. Naturally, the king was quite willing to rest assured that ruin was inevitable. If his rival were disposed to wreck himself rashly on German shoals, the king was equally disposed to be an acquiescent onlooker and to spare his ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... no great self-reproach—some, of course, but there were other things dominant in him now, far more urgent. He was not so much in love with Gloria as mad for her. Unless he could have her near him again, kiss her, hold her close and acquiescent, he wanted nothing more from life. By her three minutes of utter unwavering indifference the girl had lifted herself from a high but somehow casual position in his mind, to be instead his complete preoccupation. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... perplexity, "it's a moonlight night, and I'll propose after dinner a stroll in the gardens, and you can manage to walk a little with me." She stopped again, returned, said, "It was very kind of you to think of me at Sacramento," held out her hand, allowed it to remain for an instant, cool but acquiescent, in his warmer grasp, and with the same odd youthfulness of movement and gesture ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... discovery. Quite oblivious of the curious crowd on the station platform, she had intercepted his attempt to lead to the motor car and had ranged the brothers side by side. Tom had been laughingly acquiescent, but his younger brother was ill at ease, too conscious of the many eyes of his townspeople. He knew only the old Puritan way. Family displays were for the privacy of the family, not for the public. He was glad she had not attempted to kiss him. It was remarkable she had ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... weighed, that the people should be consulted. It was on this account distinctly, that the President knew the issue of the permanency of the possession of the Philippines was one of peculiar novelty and magnitude, that he permitted it to exist. Spain must have been as acquiescent in this as in yielding the independence of Cuba, and the concession to us without any intermediate formality of Porto Rico. It is not inconsistent with the policy of magnanimity that is generally anticipated after the victory of a great power over a lesser one, that we should ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... would have roused all his loyalty to the dead, all the old stubborn bitterness, and he would have frozen up against her. But this acquiescent murmur made him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... institutions, preserved the special marks of this training. They attended religious services, received the sacrament on Easter, frequented the Catholic circles and concealed as criminal their amorous escapades. For the most part, they were unintelligent, acquiescent fops, stupid bores who had tried the patience of their professors. Yet these professors were pleased to have bestowed such docile, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... acquiescent and the boatswain and his charge were soon discussing a hearty meal with molasses, vinegar and water for ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... go with you," was Blount's acquiescent rejoinder. So much the registry-clerk heard; and he saw, between jabs with his pen, the straight path to the revolving doors of the portal ploughed by the big man with young Blount at ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... throbbed with their constant beat; Your heart was nearer, and all I heard; Your lips were salt, but I found them sweet, While, acquiescent, ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... bullet had entered and passed out. After which he relaxed the faintly superior tone he had adopted and condescended to consult with his patient as to which of the scanty drugs in the tiny medicine chest would be the best to administer. He was disappointed but acquiescent in Craven's decision to trust to his own hardy constitution as long as the wounds appeared healthy and leave nature to do her own work. And again recommending sleep he ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... The acquiescent tendency arose in some degree from two equally prominent characteristics of Mr. Browning's nature: his optimism, and his belief in direct Providence; and these again represented a condition of mind which ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... made no objection to this invasion; Mrs. Betty, after much private rumination and great persuasion, consented to the arrangement. Young madam was obliged to be ruefully acquiescent, though secretly irate at so preposterous a scheme; the Vicar, good man, to do him justice, was always ponderously anxious to abet his mother, and had, besides, a sneaking kindness for Mistress Betty; the girls were privately charmed, and saw no end to the new element ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... With an acquiescent gesture, John Ryder tapped the table with his gavel and rose to address his fellow directors. Instantly the room was silent again as the tomb. One might have heard a pin drop, so intense was the attention. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... entered? In all the world, under the sea, in the abysmal caves, in the vast spaces of the air, there was no such terrible silence as this. A scream, a long cry, a moan—these were natural to a woman, and why did not one of these sealed wives, why did not Fay Larkin, damn this everlasting acquiescent silence? Perhaps she would fly out of her cabin, come running along the path. Shefford peered into the bright patches of starlight and into the shadows of the cedars. But he saw no moving form in the open, no dim white shape against the gloom. And he heard no sound—not even a whisper of wind in ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... logical, and although it was obvious that Thorn alone could save him from disaster, knowing what Grace must pay hurt him more than he had thought. Yet she must pay; he could find no other plan. Now he was acquiescent but not resigned, and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... he was prepared for, but this personal evidence of his subject state came on him unawares, at a moment when he had, so to speak, laid his armour aside. Cicely spoke lightly of the hateful formality that had been forced on them; would he, too, come to regard things in the same acquiescent spirit? ...
— When William Came • Saki
... Neville," he said. "I couldn't have endured your advent. Somebody has to be first; I was—as long as I lived.... It is curious how acquiescent a man's mind becomes—when he's like this. I never believed it possible that a man really could die without regret, without some shadow of a desire to live. Yet it is that way, Neville.... But a man must lie dying ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... for George Brand, that while he was hard and unsympathetic in the presence of those whom he disliked or distrusted, in the society of those whom he did like and did trust he was docile and acquiescent as a child, easily led and easily persuaded. When he went from Lind's chamber, which had been to him full of an atmosphere of impatience and antagonism, to Lord Evelyn's study, and found his friend sitting reading there, his whole attitude changed; and his first duty ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... say that your theory of the stiffening tastes is applicable to the earlier rather than the later middle life. We should say that the tastes if they stiffen at the one period limber at the other; their forbidding rigidity is succeeded by an acquiescent suppleness. One is aware of an involuntary hospitality toward a good many authors whom one would once have turned destitute from the door, or with a dole of Organized Charity meal-tickets at the best. But in that maturer ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... spiked, while our foe was armed to the teeth with ballots, backed by money and controlled by vice, bigotry and tyranny. But the leading men of the State had long been known to favor the amendment; the respectable press had become mildly, and in a few cases earnestly acquiescent; no opposition could be raised at any of our public meetings, and we felt measurably sure of a victory until near election time, when we discovered to our dismay that most of the leading politicians upon whom we had relied for aid had suddenly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... communities no longer cherish the same set of doctrines with only immaterial varieties; they no longer accept their articles in the sense of the original framers. The body at large has contracted the immoral taint; the whole head is sick; any remaining soundness is not with the acquiescent mass, but with the out-spoken individuals. In such a state of things, ordinary rules are inapplicable. There is a sort of paralysis of authority, an uncertainty whether to punish or to wink at flagrant heresy. To say in such a case that the relaxation of the creed ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... of the slightly supercilious, veiledly contemptuous Britisher, scorning all things about him, was sufficient guarantee of his neutrality. This breed was then very common. He left his conference with Jimmy Ware thoroughly instructed, quite acquiescent, but revolving matters in his own mind to see if somehow he could not turn them to his advantage. For Morrell was, as always, in need of money. In addition, he had a personal score to settle with Keith for, although he had apparently ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... his patient again, and there seemed to be a gleam of satisfaction in his glance, as though this were the kind of polite, acquiescent gentleman ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... had fortified herself for the little visit, and passed the inspection without mishap. Mrs. Heth was acquiescent enough in her daughter's desire to dine upstairs, which saved the bother of hunting up another man in Hugo's stead, though involving regrettable waste of two covers already prepared. Mamma lingered for fifteen minutes making arch, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension. My Father's inconsistencies of perception seem to me to have been the result of a curious irregularity of equipment. Taking for granted, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... with me, in the soothing company of the pedagogue; when we were hailed by Ned with an invitation to a mug of ale in the tavern. Struck with the man's apparent wistfulness for company, and moved by a fellow feeling of forlornness, Philip accepted; and Cornelius, always acquiescent, had not the ill grace to refuse. So the four of us sat down together ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the rusty handcuffs and handed them to me as if she were conscious and acquiescent in what I did. Not a feature moved, only her eyes shone with inner excitement, in a way I had seen before, while I clasped one link ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... one wanted to go, so far as he could make out, not even Ellen herself, when he tried to make her say she wished it. Lottie was in open revolt, and animated her young men to a share in the insurrection. Her older brother was kindly and helpfully acquiescent, but he was so far from advising the move that Kenton had regularly to convince himself that Richard approved it, by making him say that it was only for the winter and that it was the best way of helping Ellen get rid of that fellow. All this did not enable Kenton ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fierce energy that the surgeon who at first sternly forbade, looked doubtful and then acquiescent. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hours Nancy returned, the two clerks and the manager accompanying her. The store people were slightly flushed, Nancy herself sullenly acquiescent. For the first time in her life she had had the opportunity to buy enough clothes of her own, and yet she hadn't been allowed to choose what she really wanted. Gently but inexorably they had rejected the garments Nancy selected, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Lisle made an acquiescent grimace. His face was strongly darkened by exposure to the frost and the glare of the snow; his hands were scarred, with several ugly recently-healed ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... said nothing, but as he lay back in his chair, his hands behind his head, his expression was rather hostile than acquiescent. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the British flag was hoisted. With charming effrontery it was represented that the twenty-one were only the forerunners of an overwhelming force, and that resistance was useless. The Dutch were cowed or acquiescent, and a splendid reception was given to the army of occupation; cheering, flag-waving, and refreshments galore. Their commanding officer mounts the Town Hall steps, and addresses the townspeople, congratulating ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... life and my own, that I am desirous, anxiously desirous, that these should be settled on the most liberal principles?" The old man kept fast hold of the Master's passive hand as he spoke, and made it impossible for him, be his predetermination what it would, to return any other than an acquiescent reply; and wishing his guest good-night, he postponed farther conference until ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... author is not due to his having taken care that the Whig dogs or the Tory dogs shall not have the best of it, to his having written as a gentleman for gentlemen, or as an uneasy anti-aristocrat for uneasy anti-aristocrats, as a believer (fervent or acquiescent) in the supernatural, or as a person who lays it down that miracles do not happen, as an Englishman or a Frenchman, a classic or a romantic. Very difficult indeed is the chase and discovery of these enemies: ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Duke of Orleans his ambassadors come asking your hand in marriage, you do show them a pleasant and acquiescent countenance.' ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... "An acquiescent fool for a son-in-law, a kind of gentlemanly valet!" And, "That, I trust, will be the end. Maud as a mother ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... sixpence and slowly pursued my way. An idea was forming in my mind to trap the enemy by seeming acquiescent. I wondered if my movements were being watched at that moment. Since it was more than probable, I returned to the bank, entered, and made some trivial inquiry of a cashier, and then came out again and walked on as far as the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... from respectful fashion, dropping him, an astonished, but entirely acquiescent heap, between ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... pleasure, indeed, did they derive from it that they said something to little Percy's tormentor which was evidently an incitement of him to continue his ill-treatment of the child, for the fellow, with an acquiescent grin, had no sooner finished his task of lashing the little fellow to the tree—a task which he performed with the utmost deliberation and gusto—than he retired a pace or two, contemplating the helplessness of his little victim ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... universe. We grasp only one link of a chain whose beginning and end is eternity. So we readily adjust ourselves to mystery, and are content. We apply to everything inexplicable the test of partial view, and maintain our tranquillity. We fall into the ranks, and march on, acquiescent, if not jubilant. We hear the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Stalwart forms fall by our side, and brawny arms are stricken. Our own hopes bite the dust, our own hearts bury their dead; but we know that law is inexorable. Effect must follow cause, and there is no happening without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he had put his arm about her, his one hand under her heart, while with the other he took her right from the keyboard, holding her as he always held Sieglinde when he drew her toward the window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of herself at the time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered that she had rather exulted, then, in her self-control—which he had seemed to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a question from the hand under her heart. "Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces." Caroline lifted her hands quickly ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... his great desires. Celia proved strangely acquiescent to suggestions for these excursions. Gerald's dreaded attractions relaxed their power over Bobby's spirit; and in corresponding degree Bobby regained the lost captaincy of his soul. The self-confidence which he lacked seeped gradually into him; and he began, though very tentatively, to recognize ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... development of Lord Ingleby's return, he anticipated finding her gently acquiescent; eagerly ready to resume again the duties of wifehood; with no thought of herself, but filled with anxious desire in all things to please the man who, with his whims and fancies, his foibles and ideas, had for nine months passed completely out of her life. Deryck Brand had expected to find ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... head. It was the acquiescent bow of the utter outsider who gives no opinion at all on the subject under discussion, because he does not possess any. As he probably came, in spite of his disclaimer, from America or the colonies, which are belated places, ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... from diminished steamers, and the white glory of full-rigged ships. It was the autumn of the southern country, and the dreamy spell of the declining days fell softly upon the material tissues of nature, as well as on the acquiescent spirit of man. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... with politic coolness. The effect of all factitious systems is to render the feelings subservient to expediency. Convention and fiction take place of passion and truth, and like the Mussulman with his doctrine of predestination, there is no one more acquiescent in defeat, than he who has obtained an advantage in the face of nature and justice; his resignation being, in common, as perfect as his previous arrogance was insupportable. The two old senators perceived at once that Don Camillo and his fair companion ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... read it. Everything in the world seemed wrong and at cross-purposes. Those who had one thing invariably longed for something else, and there was no content or happiness or satisfaction anywhere. The better off were the acquiescent, who took the good and the bad with the same composure and found their only pleasure in their work. Best off of all were the dead whose sufferings were over. But after all it was sweet to be loved, even if ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... with herself. It showed plainly on the thin, anxious face. The lips compressed with determination, the eyes set, then wavered, and again the indeterminate lines of acquiescent subjection gained their accustomed ascendency. Back and forth assertion and complaisance fled and followed; only assertion was holding ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... children," said Magdalen Graeme; but, in saying so, was interrupted by her companion, whose conventual prejudices had been gradually giving her more and more uneasiness, and who could remain acquiescent no longer. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... not fully understand. At first, Sir Nathaniel seemed disposed to ask questions, but shortly gave this up when he recognised that the narration was concise and self-explanatory. Thenceforth, he contented himself with quick looks and glances, easily interpreted, or by some acquiescent motions of his hands, when such could be convenient, to emphasise his idea of the correctness of any inference. Until Adam ceased speaking, having evidently come to an end of what he had to say with regard ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... raised. Bright came back from the couch, blinking underneath his heavy spectacles but meekly acquiescent. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to all appearance tranquil and acquiescent under its bitter chastisement. The outward aspect is calm and peaceful. The gates are thrown open, and the merchants and traders are returning to the pursuits of traffic; the gentry and nobles are engaged in refitting and re-embellishing their rifled ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... more divination in d'Argenson, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1745, and knew politics from the inside. Less acquiescent than his brilliant contemporary, he was perpetually contriving schemes of fundamental change, and is the earliest writer from whom we can extract the system of 1789. Others before him had perceived the impending revolution; but d'Argenson foretold that it would open with the slaughter ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... fluttering wildness, her blind hatred of restraint and compulsion, her abhorrence of mastery by another, and mistaking the warmth and enthusiasm in her eyes (aroused by his latest tale) for something tender and acquiescent, he drew her to him, laid a forcible detaining arm about her waist, and misapprehended her frantic revolt for an exhibition of maidenly reluctance. It occurred on the veranda, after breakfast, and Sheldon, ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... with Scotland a truce for a year had been concluded on the 1st of October.[186] The king, therefore, had felt himself reasonably secure. Parliament had seemed unanimous; the clergy were submissive; the nation acquiescent or openly approving;[187] and as late as the beginning of November, 1533, no suspicion seems to have been entertained of the spread of serious disaffection. A great internal revolution had been accomplished; a conflict of centuries between the civil and spiritual powers had been terminated ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... to deprecate and soothe, Mrs. Stapleton began to clear decks for action, so to speak, to be incisive, to be fervent, even to be rather eloquent. She kept "dear Tom," the Colonel, not crushed or beaten, for that was beyond the power of man to do, but at least silently acquiescent in her program: he allowed her even to entertain her prophetical friends at his expense, now and then; and, even when among men, refrained from too bitter speech. It was said by the Colonel's friends that Mrs. Colonel had a tongue of her own. Certainly, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... bullet which had put an end to his life and ambitions. Sitting bolt upright in indignant amazement, she rejected the idea in the sharpest scorn. It was nothing to her that the police sergeant from the churchtown shared her brother's view, and that Dr. Ravenshaw was passively acquiescent. She brushed aside the plausible web of circumstances with the impatient hand of an angry woman. They might talk till Doomsday, but they wouldn't convince her that Robert, of all men, had done anything so disgraceful ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Dr. Abbott throughout the whole of Bacon's political writings; Hobbes followed up his theory to the conclusions which he abstained from; Spinoza gave him the benefit of a liberal interpretation; Leibniz, the inventor of the acquiescent doctrine which Bolingbroke transmitted to the Essay on Man, said that he drew a good likeness of a bad prince; Herder reports him to mean that a rogue need not be a fool; Fichte frankly set himself to rehabilitate ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... fortunate little rich boys were defying governesses on the beach at Newport, or being spanked or tutored or read to from "Do and Dare," or "Frank on the Mississippi," Amory was biting acquiescent bell-boys in the Waldorf, outgrowing a natural repugnance to chamber music and symphonies, and deriving a highly specialized education ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... This seems so strange when I can go on talking to any extent—but then it is talking without emotion and in a desultory way. Ah well! God knows best in what manner to let me live, and I desire to ask for nothing but a docile, acquiescent temper, whose only petition shall be, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" not how can I get most enjoyment along the way. I can not believe if I am His child, that He will let anything hinder my progress in the divine life. It seems dreadful that I have gone on so slowly, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... pleased to find him so far acquiescent; and in this way, talking the details over more than once, we settled our course, arranging to fly by way of Poitiers and Tours. Of course I did not tell him why I selected Blois as our refuge, nor what was my purpose there; though he pressed me more than ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... marry me!" repeated Jemima, in a low tone of brooding indignation; were those the terms upon which her rich woman's heart was to be given, with a calm consent of acquiescent acceptance, but a little above resignation on ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... as children's are when they perceive that grown-ups are concealing some important fact from them, and harbour at once a quick, indignant resolution to find out what it is as soon as possible, and a slow, acquiescent sense that the truth must be a very sacred thing if it has to be veiled. At her knee he halted, and shot sharp glances up at her. But the peace in her face made him feel foolish, and he said in an off-hand ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... was going along. Hank would have to drive out, to bring back the team, and she said she needed a rest, after all the work and worry of that dance. Manley, upon whose account it was that Val was so anxious, seemed to have nothing whatever to say about it. He was sullenly acquiescent—as was perhaps to be expected of a man who had slipped into his old habits and despised himself for doing so, and almost hated his wife because she had discovered it and said nothing. Val was thankful, during that long, bleak ride over the prairie, ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... spirit, verbally acquiescent, yet unconvinced, a somewhat pitiable sense of inadequacy upon him, Lord Fallowfeild traveled back to Westchurch that night. Two days later the morning papers announced to all whom it might concern,—and that far larger all, whom it did not really concern in the least,—in the conventional phrases ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the 27th of August, and at this time his majesty made no objection to his proposals, and he appointed a second interview on the following Monday. On Sunday, Pitt was closeted with the Duke of Newcastle, in arranging the new administration, in full confidence that the king was acquiescent. Pitt, however, did not find his majesty so pliant on the Monday, as he expected, and he was doomed to experience a complete disappointment of his views and hopes. The king wished to provide for Grenville, by allotting him the profitable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... there were few changes to be noted in the condition of affairs at the Oakley place. Maurice Oakley was perhaps a shade more distrustful of his servants, and consequently more testy with them. Mrs. Oakley was the same acquiescent woman, with unbounded faith in her husband's wisdom and judgment. With complacent minds both went their ways, drank their wine, and said their prayers, and wished that brother Frank's five years were past. They had letters from him ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... relic, set aside from modern use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul does not altogether weld its own bonds, but ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... is naturally and judicially incurred by sin. It is the withdrawal of that divine unction which enriches the acquiescent soul with moral power and pleasure. The subtraction leaves the mind enervated, obscured, confused, degraded, and distracted."—HOMO: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... would not cease to revolve about the undertaking, for he could not at once relinquish his long-cherished dream. The thought of tame surrender was as wormwood in his mouth. To stand by acquiescent while the project collapsed! That prospect he could not endure. Never again, if he capitulated now, would he be able to strike out with the same courage as in this project; never with the same courage, or spirit, or faith. The project was his creation! The thing of his brain and will! Part of ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... man and the world had used him poorly. He was, in fact, one of those upon whom the equilibrium of the social system rests. He was unfortunate, oppressed and acquiescent. Arriving early in the forenoon he set up his shop, lighted his fire and took his place on the soapbox. When the lights began to wink out along this highway of evil ghosts Mottka was still to be seen hunched over his chestnut ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... happen when the two existences became one? Again, and again, and again I turned this matter over in my mind, till I could have shrieked out in nervous anxiety. It was no consolation to me to remember that Margaret was herself satisfied, and her father acquiescent. Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands. I seemed to hear the hands go round the dial of the clock; I saw darkness turn to gloom, and ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker |
