"Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that walked with Messer Guido were familiar. Every woman that saw him admired him highly. So Vittoria smiled a little on me and a great deal on Messer Guido; and as for Dante, she glanced at him slightly and gave him little heed, for his habit was modest and his looks were not of a kind at once to tickle the fancy of such as she. Yet Dante looked at her curiously, though without ostentation, as one whose way it is instinctively to observe all men and all women with an exceeding ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... matter of close observation and experience, although some persons have a natural feeling or instinct regarding color which is seldom in error. Strong colors should never be used, especially greens. Though they may be modest in the piece, when worked in with other colors, they have an unfortunate way of becoming intensified tenfold. The safest tones for an amateur to deal with are dull gray green, yellow green, and a soft, full, but dark olive. In striking a certain key in color it should ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... ten thousand virgins, all modest, lovely, and in light drapery, singing hymns in praise of Ganesa on the Rat, the god of ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had a very interesting chap for dinner—a New Zealander he was, who has served in Egypt, Gallipoli, the trenches in France, and is now in the Royal Naval Reserve. The tales he told were of wonderful interest. He was modest and seemed to have been a decent sort, but you could sense the brutalizing effect of war on him. Some of the things he told were such jokes on the Germans that we ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... architecture. We concluded that we could get along with five rooms (although six would be better), and we transferred our affections from that corner lot in the avenue which had engaged our attention during the decadent-renaissance phase of our enthusiasm to a modest point in Slocum's Addition, a locality originally known as Slocum's Slough, but now advertised and heralded by the press and rehabilitated in public opinion as Paradise Park. This pleasing mania ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... exercise a profound influence upon the sentiments and moral ideas of a great proportion of mankind. Modest in its beginnings, it was at first a simple struggle against the abuses of the clergy, and, from a practical point of view, a return to the prescriptions of the Gospel. It never constituted, as has been claimed, an aspiration towards freedom of thought. Calvin was as intolerant as Robespierre, ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... the last touch of the vampyr theory again! You were then very modest about your hobby, and pretended not to know him, and passed him off as my beast, and now you daringly mount him yourself, and expect to be allowed to pace him before us, in that easy and confident style, as if he were some well-known roadster of Stewart's, or Ferriar's, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... arrogant to pass unnoticed, and I was about replying, that whatever doubts there might be on that subject, there could be none whatever that they were the most modest, when he continued "we 'go ahead'; the Nova Scotians 'go astarn.' Our ships go ahead of the ships of other folks, our steamboats beat the British in speed, and so do our stage coaches; and I reckon a real right down New York trotter might ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... illustration out of authors most in use, especially in Spanish, and among the Spanish he whom they called Marcus Aurelius—[ Guevara's Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.]—was ordinarily in his mouth. His behaviour was gently grave, humble, and very modest; he was very solicitous of neatness and propriety both in his person and clothes, whether on horseback or afoot, he was monstrously punctual in his word; and of a conscience and religion generally tending rather towards ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... rose, and in a calm and modest, but triumphant tone, said: "The significant, emphatic word is the only one which has escaped you. It is the conjunction and, whose elliptic sense leaves us in apprehension of that which is about to happen." All owned themselves vanquished, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... himself largely to scientific studies in plant and animal morphology and the theory of color. His discovery of the intermaxillary bone in the human skull, and his theory that the lateral organs of a plant are but successive phases of the leaf, have given him an assured if modest place in the history of the development hypothesis. On the other hand, his long and laborious effort to refute Newton's theory of the composition of white light is now generally regarded as a misdirection of energy. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the female Blackmailers are very young, mere girls. A couple of years ago, Police Captain Thorne discovered a regularly organized band of them. They are mostly flower girls, from twelve to sixteen years of age. They are generally modest in demeanor, and some of them are attractive in appearance. They gain admittance to the offices and counting rooms of professional men and merchants, under the pretext of selling their flowers, and then, if the gentleman ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a solemn feast to Hercules, together with his only son Pallas, and his senate, welcomed the warriors to his modest home, promised his alliance, and sent forth with Aeneas his son Pallas and four hundred knights. He also advised him to go to Argylla, whose people were stirred up against Turnus because he protected their ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own brawling springs, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... white house had a name; that all the houses and streets had names, only they were traditional and not recorded anywhere; that very few people knew them, and nobody made any use of them. The name of the little white house was said to be Trafalgar Villa, which seemed so inappropriate to the modest peaceful little home, that the man who lived in it tried to find out why it had been so called. He thought that his predecessor must have been in the navy, until he found that he had been the owner of what is called a "dry-goods store," which seems to mean a shop where things ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, And slew him with ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... was man's moral protector, and man woman's physical protector, and I said that is only half true. Man is also woman's moral protector, and woman is also man's physical protector. She is acknowledged to be his physical tempter. If she knows her power she can, by her wise, modest, womanly demeanor, make it impossible for him to feel an impure impulse ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... of Christian dress we will quote from 1 Tim. 2:9, 10: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works." This is a much abused and wrested scripture. The proud-hearted, who have endeavored to persuade themselves ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Fillimore with coldness because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his Gadfly, exalted her, indeed, into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. "They say," Fillimore had written, "that the Gadfly has been seen jumping by moonlight"—the sort of the thing to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man with a peculiarly sweet smile and an air of cynicism ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... same time more capable of degradation, which the luxury of the capital enthrals. The last device had not yet been attempted. It remained for Gracchus to try it. We have no analysis of his motives; but many provocatives to his modest attempt at state socialism may be suggested. There was first the Hellenic ideal of the leisured and independent citizen, as exemplified by the state payments and the "distributions" which the great leaders ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... broke; singer and orchestra stopped dead. The house roared. "Go on!" cried encouraging voices from gallery and pit. "Go on! Go on!" And the singer thus emboldened, and accompanied by one small piping flute, a ridiculous starveling of sound after all the blare that had preceded it, sang with a modest and deprecating air a line which fell very flat indeed—a mere nothing tagged from a nursery rhyme—obviously an importation. Stalls, pit, and gallery rocked and shouted with laughter. "Try again!" roared the crowd; and with small, frightened mimminy-pimminy ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... why John Bonner could never understand his brother-in-law, the colonel, a most distinguished soldier, a modest and most enviable man. ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... company, my dear? Do you mean Lucy Bargrove's? I wish all our fashionable acquaintance were only half so modest and so well-informed. She is a sweet girl, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... had learned from the police all that was to be known about her husband: 'A clerk in the Home Department, of regular habits and good repute, and, moreover, a thinking man, but married to a very pretty woman, whose expenses seemed somewhat extravagant for her modest position.' ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... to have been an unusually beautiful girl, quiet, gentle, modest, womanly, and extremely sensitive. The fine feelings of a delicately organized nature may easily become either a blessing or a curse, and on account of her sensitiveness there was a rupture for which neither ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... fear that they are infested with the venereal disease, when they have only deserved it, is a very common insanity amongst modest young men; and is not to be cured without applying artfully to the mind; a little mercury must be given, and hopes of a cure added weekly and gradually by interview or correspondence for six or eight ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Mondrage: 'the Duchess of Rivesalte arrives alone to-night, without her inevitable Dormilly!'—And the Viscount, as he spoke, pointed towards a tall and slender young woman, who, gliding rather than walking, met the ladies by whom she passed, with a graceful and modest salute, and replied to the looks of the men BY BRILLIANT VEILED GLANCES FULL ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fortune which I had set out to seek seemed further off than ever. We had found neither gold nor silver nor precious stones, and all the coin I had in my waist-belt would not cover the cost of a three days' sojourn at the most modest ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... to afford a child. Intact remained the virtue of Blanche, and by the quintessence of instruction drawn by her from the natural reservoir of women, she recognised how necessary it was to be silent concerning the venial sin with which her child was covered. So she became modest and good, and was cited as a virtuous person. And then to make use of him she experimented on the goodness of her good man, and without giving him leave to go further than her chin, since she looked upon herself as belonging ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... transported previously. When it is remembered that these people were laying the foundations of new colonies, and peopling them with their descendants, it must be conceded that in her efforts to humanize and christianize them, Mrs. Fry's far-reaching philanthropy became a great national benefit. With modest thankfulness, she herself records, after an interview with Queen Adelaide and some of the royal family, "Surely, the result of our labors has hitherto been beyond our most sanguine expectations, as to the improved state of our ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... of atrocious misgovernment, began to produce their effect; and some, especially in the towns, were heard to murmur that further resistance was useless. The Canadians, though brave and patient, needed, like Frenchmen, the stimulus of success. "The people are alarmed," said the modest Governor, "and would lose courage if my firmness did not rekindle their zeal ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... two ex-Confederate officers. Flipper, the colored cadet, was examined to-day, and produced a highly favorable impression upon the board not less by his ready and intelligent recitation than by his modest, unassuming, and gentlemanly manner. There is no doubt that he will pass, and he is said to have already ordered a cavalry uniform, showing that he has a predilection for that branch of ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... the evening sun drops lower, what fair city is this that rises in the east, throned like a queen above the silver Charles, many-towered and pinnacled, with clustering roof and taper spire? How proud she looks, yet modest, as one too sure of her innate nobility to need adventitious aid to impress others. Look at the aesthetic simplicity of her pose on the single hill, which is all the mistaken kindness of her children has left of the three ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... a conservatory to be one of the last trappings of wealth,—something not to be thought of for those in modest circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor. Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... gone, the queen, though highly possessed in her favour, both by her beauty and modest behaviour, yet pondered some time on the thought, whether or no she was a fit companion for her daughter. She remembered what Sybella had told her, concerning Brunetta's adorning young shepherdesses with beauty, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... met the philosopher Nicias, who desired to possess her, although he professed to have no desires. In spite of his riches, he was intelligent and modest. But his delicate wit and beautiful sentiments failed to charm her. She did not love him and sometimes his refined irony even irritated her. His perpetual doubts hurt her, for he believed in nothing, and she believed in everything. She believed in divine providence, in the ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... native city, I am satisfied that their merits have been undervalued as much as their numbers have been underestimated. Both in the sewing-school and in the factory, there were girls who were patterns of all that is modest, beautiful, and womanly, many of them graduates of the public schools, and worthy to be wedded to the best among the other sex. No Lowell factory could turn out a larger or more interesting army of young and virtuous girls than some of the establishments here in which the sewing-machine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... a modest, domestic girl, with tastes similar to his own, and with no overweening ambitions. Elise would simply drive him mad in a year's time, with her restless discontent, her extravagance, and her desire for the expensive pleasures of earth. It is useless to reason with her, or to expect her to model ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... pushed forward. The more modest abode of a lord of moderate income, and the massive gateway with its supporting walls and fence of closely woven, sharp pointed, bamboo retiring into the distance now were ready to shut in Shu[u]zen ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition; he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... out of his modest pile was tempted to stake an ounce of gold-dust. Though his head was hardly in a condition to follow the game intelligently, he won, or at least Bill and Jack told him he had, and for the first time Lawrence felt the rapture of the successful gambler, ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... care on the training of his priests. They were to be simple and frank in their relations with the poor, modest in manner, ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... purposes. When in 1902 the dowager empress returned to Peking and put the emperor back into his palace-prison, she was forced by what had happened to realize that at all events a certain measure of reform was necessary. The reforms, however, which she decreed, mainly in 1904, were very modest and were never fully carried out. They were only intended to make an impression on the outer world and to appease the continually growing body of supporters of the reform party, especially numerous in South China. The south remained, nevertheless, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling mass within; in the voice of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... touch of time as it may encounter in our pages. But none of the Hadleyites, or, indeed, any other ites—not even, probably, the Bank-of-Englandites, or the City-of-London-Widows'-Fundites—knew very well what his means were; and when, therefore, people at Hadley spoke of his modest household, they were apt to speak of it as being very insufficient ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... more valuable element of industry and perseverance and healthy ambition. He knew how to take the chances which came his way, which is probably the secret of success with many who "get on." When opportunity offered to enter a new path he readily seized it, and from the hewer of wood he became the modest contractor, and ultimately the greater builder of bridges, ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honour; but you are all the more free for that, inasmuch as you have not scrupled to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy cannot ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... the less are the plans we do make just as subject to overthrow as the plans of the most prolific and minute of projectors. It was long since Cosmo had made any, and the resolve with which he now fell asleep was as modest as wise man could well cherish; the morning nevertheless went differently ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Bench opposite was Sir ROBERT PEEL with JAMES GRAHAM at his right elbow. In modest retirement at the end of the Bench sat a young man, of full height, and good figure, with a mass of black hair crowning a large, well-shaped head. Remember noticing how carefully the hair was parted down the middle, ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... them; and with my dropping of the banknote behind her chair! I had too much awe of her at the time, to make it with the grace that would better have become my intention. But the action, if awkward, was modest. Indeed, the fitter subject for ridicule with thee; who canst no more taste the beauty and delicacy of modest obligingness than of modest love. For the same may be said of inviolable respect, that the poet ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... sacred book The maiden laid with modest bearing: "Upon Sir Axel's form to look These eyes had never yet ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... to Pallas, and afterwards to his Rectory of Kilkenny West, in the county of Westmeath; and in the latter of these parishes, at Lissoy, or Auburn, he built the house described as the Village-Preacher's modest mansion in the Deserted Village. His mother was daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the diocesan school at Elphin. Their family consisted of five sons ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... a sparing lunch of thin sandwiches and a frugal flask of modest, blushing brandy, which we diluted at a stingy little fountain spring which dropped economically through a rift in the rock, as if its nymph were conscious that such a delicious drink should not be wasted. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... given to me by the prison-guards would have been disconcerting to a less modest man than I am. A soldier sat with me all the way on the train. I could not lose him! He stuck to me like a shadow. When I stood up, he stood up. When I changed my seat, he changed his. And he could understand English, too, ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... respectable rate, turned into the main street of the town; a main street, thriftily prosperous but now somewhat a-doze in the sun. Half-way down, the intelligent animal stopped with another jerk for which the doctor was equally ill-prepared. Before them stood a modest red brick building, three stories in height, with a narrow veranda running across the lowest story just one step up from the pavement. On the veranda were green chairs and in the chairs reclined such portion of the male Coombers as could do so without fear and without reproach. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I should be next to feel the refreshing torrent. We let slip the garment of timorous covering very easily when nudity is commonplace. Vait-hua was to teach me to be modest without pother, to chat with those about me during my ablutions without concern for the false vanities of screens or even the shelter of rocks as in the river in Atuona. In such scenes one perceives that immodesty is in the false ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... a man inured to camps and battles shines in the modest unconsciousness of a Christian gentleman or meditative sage, we feel unusual reverence for him. We feel that his soul is unpolluted, and that he ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... curator of some collection in the zoo, a flustered old woman, was introducing him. There were a few laudatory references to his great talents as an actor, and he managed to look properly modest as he listened. The remarks about his knowledge of wild and ferocious beasts were a little harder to take, but he took them. Then the old woman stepped back, and he ...
— The Hunters • William Morrison
... no respect of persons, who does not feel that this is a better title than he could have won by the most splendid administration of our government? Impressive is the lesson of his departure, and sincere was the mourning that followed him to his grave; but the remembrance of his inflexible though modest worth will abide in the firmament of public life, a bright star sending down its calm influence through the interval of years and ages. Let the people demand of their rulers that they copy this example. Let them say to the candidate for public office,—We require moral ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... Vasari beyond measure. He had written his first Life of Michelangelo in 1550. Condivi published his own modest biography in 1553, with the expressed intention of correcting errors and supplying deficiencies made by "others," under which vague word he pointed probably at Vasari. Michelangelo, who furnished Condivi with materials, died in 1564; and Vasari, in 1568, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... five-and-thirty thousand pounds in 1835, and under the advice of an energetic and sanguine agent proceeded to its rapid development. On the double marriage in 1839, Sir Stephen associated his two brothers-in-law with himself to the modest extent of one-tenth share each in an enterprise that seemed of high prospective value. Their interests were acquired through their wives, and it is to be presumed that they had no opportunity of making a personal examination of the concern. The adventurous agent, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... contemporaries send me into exile! Little care I! I have lived long enough! But let not the Republic perish through my weaknesses, and, above all, let no one say that Spain has perished in our hands!" Castelar went back to his chair of philosophy, which he had never resigned, poor as he left it, to the modest home and the devoted sister whom he loved so well—and no one laughed! Is there really any other country than Spain where such things can happen? His enthusiasm, his high-mindedness, his failures, his brave acknowledgment ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... his surprise and honors with a courteous pomposity. Miss Knowles bore the situation with restraint and decorum. But that "dear little girl of old Marvin's" could not bring herself to bear it at all and wept away her modest claims to prettiness and spirit in one ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... years passed away—Nelly had become a pretty young woman, modest and good as she was attractive in her personal appearance. She had admirers in plenty besides Eban Cowan, who continued, as in his younger days, to pay her all the attention in his power, and openly declared to his companions his purpose of ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... and explaining his work to his comrades. It was only a drawing of a modest little museum gallery, which he had sent in with ambitious haste, contrary to custom and against the wishes of his master, who, nevertheless, had used his influence to have it accepted, thinking himself ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... dies, so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world—a spot in which blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... work. As usual with him it is stress of money matters that prompts him to write, and he prefaces his request for assistance with the following portentous catalogue of realised or contemplated schemes. "Contemplated," indeed, is too modest a word, according to his own account, to be applied to any one item in the formidable list. Of all of them, he has, he tells Allsop, "already the written materials and contents, requiring only to be put together from the loose papers ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... tapestry to finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on her glove (she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person of the daintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook which she rested on her knee. When we were indoors—mainly then at her mother's modest rooms—she had always the resource of her piano, of which she was of course a ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... Staff into giving me what was my due. But that I declined to do—and when I was retired, there was nothing for me but the ration of bread and salt which they serve out to the old soldier who has been too modest. I served my Queen, sir, for forty years—and I should be ashamed to tell you the allowance she makes me in my old age. But I do not complain. My mouth is closed. I am an English gentleman and one of Her Majesty's soldiers. That's enough said, eh? Do ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... him what the Tempter said, And what her frightened self had seen, (That form in loveliness arrayed, With modest face, and ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... him. He sat at the table looking so kindly at her, and she stood by him, her elbow on it, and with her pretty modest eyes fixed on him. "But it doesn't seem quite as if he did that, does it?" she asked; "he took the book away to make it well. If he had left it with me, everybody would have believed I did it, and he ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... after the snow, There do the dear little violets grow, Hiding their modest and beautiful heads Under the ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... "Philip is too modest, mother," Francois laughed. "Maitre Charles stopped us in time to save me from defeat. Why, he has a wrist like ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Greek," said Mrs. March, in assent to my opinion of his nose. "Too Greek for a clergyman, almost. But he isn't vain of it. Those beautiful people are often quite modest, and Mr. Glendenning is ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Brandenburg gate, without music, or so much style as our own militia often puts on, regarded her with inoffensive eyes so far as they looked at her. She declared that personally there was nothing against the Prussians; even when in uniform they were kindly and modest-looking men; it was when they got up on pedestals, in bronze or marble, that they, began to bully ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... paragraph, which said that 'a forger, Thomas Lambert, who escaped years ago and was supposed to be dead, had recently reappeared in England, where he was recognized, but not arrested, for the illness proved fatal.' He was attended, the paper said, by his daughter, 'a beautiful young girl whose modest mien and gentle manner had done much toward keeping the officers of justice from her dying father, no one being able to withstand her pleadings that her ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... of the prophetic spirit, and the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance of what the future will bring forth in the great field of political and social affairs. Gasparin, in his late admirable book, 'America before Europe' (according to his American translator), has this very modest passage on this subject: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nothing but Mr. Prattle—He is always somewhere or other—And then he plays God save the king, and Darby and Joan, like any thing." "Oh," said the lovely, trembling nymph, "they were the sweetest notes!" "Ah," said her companion, "he is a fine man. And then he is so modest—He will play at one and thirty, and ride upon a stick with little Tommy all day long. But sure it could not be Mr. Prattle—He always wears his hair in a queue you know—but the ghost had a bag and solitaire." "Well," cried Delia, "let us think no ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... noxious charms is capitally punished. The science of those, proclaims the imperial convert, who, immersed in the arts of magic, are detected either in attempts against the life and health of their fellow-men, or in charming the minds of modest persons to the practice of debauchery, is to be avenged and punished deservedly by severest penalties. But in no sorts of criminal charges are those remedies to be involved which are employed for the good of individuals, or are harmlessly employed in remote places to prevent premature rains, in ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... partook of sweet cakes and dates; they very 142 seldom chew meat, but when they do, they think it gross to swallow it, they only press the juices from the meat, and throw away the substance. The manners of these damsels were elegant, accompanied with much suavity and affability, but very modest and unassuming withal: indeed, they were all individuals, as I afterwards learned, belonging to respectable and ancient Arab families, who could not resist the exhortations of their sheik to amuse and entertain his guests. The ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... extraordinary readiness to undergo sacrifices. Books of coupons were circulated everywhere in the workshops, and thousands of workers gave each week a fourth part of their modest wages. The locked-out workers left their work with magnificent courage; the sense of community made them heroic. Destitute though they were as a result of the hard winter, they agreed, during the first two weeks, to do without assistance. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... From that day they were like other women, and kept one of the best of those inns—clean, tidy, comfortable and at modest prices—for which Wales is, or ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... stately rows of shade trees, its modest, tasteful homes, the bustle and stir on its business streets, with the constant passing of trains, shrieking of whistles, and ringing of bells, presented a striking contrast to the scene I saw that June day in 1852 when I passed over the ground near where the city stands. ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... of one of the best old families across the border, and had a modest competence of his own handed down to him from a long line of honorable ancestors. He had also inherited a certain code which he could not easily forget. He called it a code of honor, and Mrs. Ogilvie, alas! did not understand it. She ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... none, but lived constantly at home. There was something much more serious in her life, had she known, which was that she had nothing, and no power of doing anything for herself; that she had all her life been accustomed to a modest luxury which would make poverty very hard to her; and that Lady Mary was over eighty, and had made no will. If she did not make any will, her property would all go to her grandson, who was so rich already that her fortune ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... entertained. Father John too was always quizzing him, and Denis did not like to be quizzed. After much consideration, McGovery resolved to go to Father Cullen, and disclose his secret to him; Father Cullen was a modest, steady man, who would neither make light of, or ridicule what he heard; and if after that Keegan was drowned in a bog-hole, it would ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... enough that the children were such waifs and strays that nothing surprised them, and they readily accepted the modest hospitalities of the position. Like all masculine housekeepers, Frederick had provided three times as much food as he needed for his own physical wants, so that it was not difficult to make these children happy with the pieces of mince ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... although a good diver, was not a practical engineer. He knew himself to be not a very good judge of such matters, and was too modest to suggest anything to competent submarine engineers. He could not, however, help casting the thing about in his mind for some time. At last, one evening while reading a newspaper that had been got from a passing boat, he observed the return of the ship in which his young friend ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... number of comedies, as well as other poems. But for a great part of his life, the part that must have been the easiest and brightest, he wrote Masques for the King and court and not for the ordinary stage. He knew his own power in this kind of writing well, and he was not modest. "Next himself," he said, "only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask."* He found, too, good friends among the nobles. With one he lived for five years, another gave him money to buy books, and his library became his great ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... enjoying the rest of a quiet and frugal life in retirement at Escanto, California, within easy distance of a brother and wife, whose kindness is constant, and having as a companion, a friend, who is as a sister in their modest home. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... there with two men under his orders, but ready himself to undertake part of the hard manual toil in order to help on the realization of his long thought of, ripening scheme. With great prudence and wisdom he had assured himself a modest livelihood for a year of effort, by an intelligent scheme of association and advances repayable out of profits, which would enable him to wait for his first harvest. And it was his life that he risked on that future ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... members appeared the majestic forehead and pensive face of Isaac Newton. The renowned University on which his genius had already begun to impress a peculiar character, still plainly discernible after the lapse of a hundred and sixty years, had sent him to the Convention; and he sate there, in his modest greatness, the unobtrusive but unflinching friend ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... also, with the pretty, modest looks of the little underling, and remarked on them as they proceeded to the inspection of the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... next eleven years occupied by the administrations of Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Donald Macleod were a quiet time in which results already achieved were consolidated. The Penal Code was extended to the Panjab in 1862, and a Chief Court with a modest establishment of two judges in 1865 took the place of the Judicial Commissioner. In the same year a Settlement Commissioner was appointed to help the Financial Commissioner in the control of land revenue settlements. Two severe famines marked the beginning ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... the floors in one of the buildings in one of the streets that slope precipitously from the Strand to the Thames Embankment, there is a door that would be all the better for a lick of paint, which bears what is perhaps the most modest and unostentatious announcement of its kind in London. The ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... broad surface of this country—boys and girls of the same race, coming from the same counties, chiefly from sweet Wexford, the beautiful, calm, pious south of Ireland. Who but a monster could think of harming those pure and affectionate creatures, so modest, simple, and ready to trust and confide in every one they meet? And what could be said of those maidens, now so well known in this New World, of whom to speak is to praise, whom to see is to admire? Such were the victims selected ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... religiously symbolical objects. The athletic life certainly breathes of abstinence, of rule and the keeping under of one's self. And here in the Diadumenus we have one of its priests, a priest of the religion whose central motive was what has been called "the worship of the body,"—its modest priest. ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... eloquent than the following, he sings "This honor is greater than I deserve but duty calls me—(what, not stated)... If elected, I shall be your servant" ... (for, it is told, that he believes in modesty,—that he has even boasted that he is the most modest man in the country)... Thus he has the right to shout, "First, last and forever I am for the people. I am against all bosses. I have no sympathy for politicians. I am for strict economy, liberal improvements and justice! I am also for the—ten commandments" (his ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... beautiful Nastilik character, by the famous scribe Mohammed Hussein, who, in consequence of his inimitable penmanship, obtained the title of Zerin Kalm, or 'Pen of Gold.' The leaves are of the softest Cashmirian paper, and of such modest shades of green, blue, brown, dove, and fawn colors, as never to offend the eye by their glare, although richly powdered with gold. The margins, which are broad, display a great variety of chaste and beautiful delineations in liquid gold, no two pages being alike. Some are divided into compartments, ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... principles are merely principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of an ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions a priori of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of analytic of ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... our cook, was pure Swahili. He was a thin, elderly individual, with a wrinkled brow of care. This represented a conscientious soul. He tried hard to please, but he never could quite forget that he had cooked for the Governor's safari. His air was always one of silent disapproval of our modest outfit. So well did he do, however, often under trying circumstances, that at the close of the expedition Billy presented him with a very fancy knife. To her vast astonishment he burst into ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the head man to show himself. When one stepped forward, he received him sitting in magisterial state on a box at the door. Personally the most modest of men, he felt for the moment that Authority had to be upheld in him. So the Indian ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... partisans, backed by those of the people, at length silenced the scruples of the magistrates, who bestowed on the ambitious chief the military command to which he aspired. Pizarro accepted it with the modest assurance, that he did so "purely from regard to the interests of the king, of the Indies, and, above all, of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... sentence according to orders received from court; the annulling of the charters of all the corporations, and the subjecting of elections to arbitrary will and pleasure; the treating of petitions, even the most modest, and from persons of the highest rank, as criminal and seditious; the committing of the whole authority of Ireland, civil and military, into the hands of Papists; the assuming of an absolute power over the religion and laws of Scotland, and openly exacting in that kingdom an obedience ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and greatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity of virtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and ever obsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears are deaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... of the French language, yet with no infringement of its rules." Fortunately, with all his admiration of others—and his great chapter "Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit" is one of the most generous and catholic examples of current criticism which we possess in all literature—with his modest and glowing appreciation of his famous predecessors, he did not attempt to imitate them in the grand manner. We are able to perceive that Bossuet, who was nearly twenty years his senior, to whom he owed his advancement in life, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Jervas, smiling sleepily into my aunt's fierce black eyes. "I simply mean that your meticulous care of our nephew has turned what should have been an ordinary and humanly promising, raucous and impish hobbledehoy into a very precise, something superior, charmingly prim and modest, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... political ideas of Locke the common property of Europe.[1] Rousseau did a like service for Locke's pedagogical views, given in the modest but important Thoughts concerning Education, 1693. The aim of education should not be to instill anything into the pupil, but to develop everything from him; it should guide and not master him, should develop his capacities in ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... I put myself into a railway car, and in due time reached Batavia. On my arrival, being rather hungry, I made a modest request for a little brandy and some biscuits; fancy my astonishment when the "help" said, "I guess we only give meals at the fixed hours." As I disapproved very much of such an unreasonable and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Form is seen In the hush'd, shelly, shadowy, lone concave.— As sleeps her pure, tho' darkling fountain there, I love to recollect her, stretch'd supine Upon its mossy brink, with pendent hair, As dripping o'er the flood.—Ah! well combine Such gentle graces, modest, pensive, fair, To aid the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... who did most to create the switchboard, who has been its devotee for more than thirty years, is a certain modest and little known inventor, still alive and busy, named Charles E. Scribner. Of the nine thousand switchboard patents, Scribner holds six hundred or more. Ever since 1878, when he devised the first "jackknife switch," Scribner has been the wizard ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... Her white hands moved with little jerks as she took her stitches, and her rings flashed and twinkled in the light of the hearth. Her head fell a little to one side, exhibiting the plumpness of her chin and neck, and her dropped eyes (it gave her a little modest air) rested quietly on her work. A silence of a few moments had fallen upon their talk, and Adeline—who decidedly had improved—appeared also to feel the charm of it, not to wish to break it. Basil Ransom was conscious of all this, and at the same time he was vaguely ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... earliest portrait of Abraham Lincoln, from a daguerreotype taken when Lincoln was about forty; owned by his son, the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, through whose courtesy it is here reproduced for the first time." This is a very modest statement, considering the priceless discovery it announces. The portrait does not show a man "about forty" years old in appearance. "About" thirty would be the general verdict, if it were not that the daguerreotype was unknown when Lincoln was of that age. It does not seem, however, that ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... successively the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians to cover Western Asia with architectural monuments, proofs at once of the wealth, and the grand ideas, of those who raised them. Parthia, compared to these pretentious empires, was retiring and modest. The monarchs, however rich they may have been, affected something of primitive rudeness and simplicity in their habits and style of life, their dwellings and temples, their palaces and tombs. It is difficult indeed to draw the line in every case ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... This modest Carmagnole* was received with great coolness; the late implicit acquiescence was changed to demur, and an ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... which I am trying to let, is a modest little affair in the country. It has a small meadow to the south and the road to the north. There are some evergreens about the lawn. The kitchen garden is large but most indifferently tended; indeed it is partly through dissatisfaction with a slovenly gardener that I decided to leave. ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... for the name of the world's great benefactors is legion. And besides those whose services were of incalculable value a multitude have earned lesser sums ranging down to a modest fortune. Every one can earn enough to supply all needs. Every time I speak to the students of a college, high school, or primary grade I cannot help thinking that within the room there may be a boy or girl who will ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... had been treated like the child she was in nature though not in years. She was left with no control over anything that had been her husband's beyond her modest personal income. In his anxiety lest her inexperience should be overreached he had safeguarded with trustees all he possibly could. The completion of the boy's course at the public school, to be followed in due time by Oxford and ordination, had been all previsioned ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... business, be short. It is good manners to let others speak first. When a man does all he can, do not blame him, though he succeeds not well. Take admonitions thankfully. Be not too hasty to receive lying reports to the injury of another. Let your dress be modest, and consult your condition. Play not the peacock by looking vainly at yourself. It is better to be alone than in bad company. Let your conversation be without malice or envy. Urge not your friend to discover a secret. Break not a jest where none take ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... Justice Cave, an excellent lawyer of the old school, snarled out, 'Do you think you could explain to me what is taste?' Mr. Locker surveyed the Judge through the eye-glass which seemed almost part of his being, with a glance modest, deferential, deprecatory, as if suggesting 'Who am I to explain anything to you?' but at the same time critical, ironical, and humorous. It was but for one brief moment; the eyeglass dropped, and there came the mournful answer, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... they have been sometimes and most appropriately named, seeing that they were guiltless alike of blood and high speed—were drawn by horses, and confined at first to the conveyance of coals. Modest though their pretensions were, however, they were found to be an immense improvement on the ordinary roads, insomuch that ten horses were found to be capable of working the traffic on railroads, which it ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Porthos, no politics at all, that is quite clear. You have labored hard in fortifying Belle-Isle; the king wished to know the name of the clever engineer under whose directions the works were carried out; you are modest, as all men of true genius are; perhaps Aramis wishes to put you under a bushel. But I happen to seize hold of you; I make it known who you are; I produce you; the king rewards you; and that is the only policy I have ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... extremely bountiful as to indulge to any one person. We will endeavour, however, to describe them all with as much exactness as possible. He was then six feet high, had large calves, broad shoulders, a ruddy complexion, with brown curled hair, a modest assurance, and clean linen. He had indeed, it must be confessed, some small deficiencies to counterbalance these heroic qualities; for he was the silliest fellow in the world, could neither write nor read, nor had he a single grain or ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Florentine sword at Noseda's in the Strand and hung it on the wall in my modest apartments; under it I placed Boccaccio's portrait and Fiammetta's, and I was wont to drink toasts to these beloved counterfeit presentments in flagons (mind you, genuine antique flagons) of Italian wine. Twice I took Fiammetta ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... a second redemption of the state from crime and lawlessless. Lovable and esteemed men were present, who had followed the fortunes of war until the Southern flag, to which they had rallied, went down in defeat. The younger generation of men were stalwart in physique, while the girls were modest in their rustic beauty. Sitting on the cement floor on three sides of us were the natives of the ranch, civilized but with little improvement over their ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... woman was living in a modest house near a secluded New England village, with no company but a little boy about five years old. She did her own work, she discouraged acquaintanceships, and had none. The butcher, the baker, and the others that served her could tell the villagers nothing about her further than that her name ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... had discovered in the stables at the back of the hotel. One afternoon a nephew of the stable-owner, who was something of a blood, proposed that we should ride together out towards Bethlehem. His horse was a superb and showy stallion, quite beyond his power to manage properly. My modest steed was fired to emulation, and, once beyond the outskirts of Jerusalem, we tore away. At a corner where the road was narrow between rocks, I do not know exactly how, the big horse cannoned into mine and overturned him. I ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... say—Your excellent father has vanished. He is really too modest—honest, though—about his incapacity for state secrets. After all, you know, it was your Minervaship which I came to consult. How has this turbulent Alexandrian rascaldom been behaving itself ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... about art, to your ignoramus who comes in with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge, talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued with a fervent and profound sense of religion, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... too modest over it," said the latter, laughing. "I begin to think my patient has been drawn into the ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... of the vain, wearing an amount of ornament unusual even for a Nestorian; but she no sooner put on the righteousness of Christ than she sold her ornaments, and, giving the proceeds to the poor, clothed herself with that modest apparel which becometh women professing godliness. The husband himself, though an illiterate laborer, preached the gospel while at work in the field, and often took two or three of his associates aside to pray with them, and to tell them of Christ ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... executive commissioners; that a corporation for the mere tendering of advice should seize the inheritance of both the authorities sanctioned by the constitution and should become, although under very modest forms, the central government of the state—these were steps of revolution and usurpation. Nevertheless, if any revolution or any usurpation appears justified before the bar of history by exclusive ability to govern, even its rigorous judgment ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... painted such a portrait as must have made that staunch advocate for the marriage of the clergy glow with admiration. "Da mihi uxorem," he commences. "Get me a wife, Frederick, after my own heart, such as you know I should like—neat, young, fairly educated, modest, patient; one with whom I may joke and play, and yet be serious; to whom I may babble and talk, mixing hearty fun and kisses together; one whose presence will lighten my anxiety and soften the tumult of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... well as I could, why letters of one form were used to stamp on gold and other substances, and of a different form for writing. Then, with a modest blush, I read the words of the sentence: "In different parts of the world men have different customs, and write different letters; but alike to all men in all places, a lie ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... took its rise from the modest provision made for it in chapter 61 of Magna Carta (1215).[243] To this meagre beginning Parliament itself and its procedures in the enactment of legislation, the equity jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, and proceedings ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... modest pride] Well, sir, I'm in your 'ands. I must be guided by you, with your experience. I'm glad ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... larger question was: What was to be the outcome of the great tempest through which the Persian Empire was passing, and did it mean for the Jews deliverance from the powerful conquerors who for centuries had oppressed and crushed them? The third was: Would the necessarily modest service of the restored temple, already sadly polluted by heathen hands, be acceptable to Jehovah? Another problem was: What were the relations and the respective duties of Zerubbabel and Joshua, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... favoured them with his company while they remained in his district—a compliment which he expected to be acknowledged, as he distinctly intimated on taking leave, by the gift of a valuable fowling-piece; but this modest request was parried by the rejoinder, that none of their guns were good enough for his highness! During one of the halts, an incident occurred which strongly illustrates the inhuman apathy of the Hindoos towards any one not connected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... vulnerabilities. The most significant are debt-related: the government's largely domestic debt increased steadily from 1994 to 2003, straining government finances, while Brazil's foreign debt (a mix of private and public debt) is large in relation to Brazil's modest (but growing) export base. Another challenge is maintaining economic growth over a period of time to generate employment and make the government debt burden ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of the most miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with our army entered the sacred city of Rome, so lately profaned by the impious, who now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross and of my arms. Leave then, your Holiness, your too modest abode, and on the wings of cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend upon the Vatican, to purify it by your sacred presence." A letter to the King of Piedmont, who had already been exhorted by Ferdinand to encourage his peasants to assassinate French soldiers, informed ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... drove lack into town to see Julia for the last time before we met in church the next morning. There was an air of glad excitement pervading the house. Friends were running in, with gifts and pleasant words of congratulation. Julia herself had a peculiar modest stateliness and frank dignity, which suited her well. She was happy and content, and her face glowed. Captain Carey's manner was one of tender chivalry, somewhat old-fashioned. I found it a hard thing to "look at ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... in silk and armed. Riding together, we talked a while. I am among his most intimate acquaintances. He is man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son of a great prince; above everything, he is joyous and light-hearted. He is very modest, much superior to, and of a much finer appearance than, his brother the Duke of Gandia, who also is not short of natural gifts. The archbishop never had any inclination for the priesthood. But his benefice yields ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... to the east and south. The air is dry and bracing, and said to be especially beneficial to persons threatened with pulmonary disease. As it is one of the smallest, so it is one of the neatest and, in a modest way, best appointed capitals in the world. It has a little fort, originally built by the British government, with two Maxim guns in the Arsenal, a Protestant Episcopal and a Roman Catholic cathedral as well as Dutch Reformed ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... to the majesty, cannot without indulgence be applied to the manners of these oriental queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of the civilian, was a woman of servile or plebeian extraction, the sole and faithful companion of a Roman citizen, who continued in a state of celibacy. Her modest station, below the honors of a wife, above the infamy of a prostitute, was acknowledged and approved by the laws: from the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of this secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and East; and the humble virtues of a concubine ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... too loud—can pitchers crow? They have ears, of course, but only the little pitchers. The ones that go to the well should go in modest silence." ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... eaters, and they gathered round the board, whereon were displayed an enormous ox roasted whole, a vast dish of salmon and various other dainties. But because the bride was a woman, and modest withal, they brought her tiny morsels on a ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... pious associates, that, for the Church's good, they resigned their stewardship in the Church, and were so offended at the course of the Presiding Elder, Rev. M. Goheen, than whom there is not a more modest, unassuming, conservative Christian gentleman in the Valley of Virginia, that, at a recent Quarterly Meeting there, they refused to attend church, or to hear him preach. This is just the spirit that actuates ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... bank of the Nye, which flowed from east to west, were forcing the retail shops and the residences further and further away. To illustrate again from the Flagg family, just before the war Joel Flagg built a modest house less than a quarter of a mile from the southerly bank of the river, expecting to end his days there, and was accused by contemporary censors of an intention to seclude himself in magnificent isolation. About this time he had yielded to the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... kept in the same key as your room. One may do this and yet have infinite variety. Tall stately lilies, American Beauty roses, great bowls of gardenias and orchids are for stately rooms. Your small house, flat or bungalow require modest garden flowers such as daffodils, jonquils, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, snapdragons, one long-stemmed rose in a vase, or a cluster of ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... had soon settled down on board the swift little craft with its very modest crew, and felt no small pride in the importance of his position, feeling quite a first lieutenant in his way, and for the greater part of the time almost entirely commanding ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... loaded car earns for the company, and what cars ought to go to the shops for repairs, and how many new cars will have to be bought to handle the crops on his division. The 'old man,' as the president is always called, gets to leaning on this always good-natured, promoted, station agent, who is so modest he wouldn't offer a suggestion unless asked his opinion, and when asked gives it so intelligently that you could set your watch by it, as the boys say. He is always sober, never sleepy, and whether figuring ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... inert and self-indulgent; and you conscientiously commend my idle hands to the benevolent work of knitting socks for indigent ditchers, and making jackets for pauper children. Now, although it is considered neither orthodox nor modest to furnish left-hand with a trumpet for sounding the praises of almsgiving right-hand, still I must be allowed to assert that I appropriate an ample share of my fortune for charitable purposes. Perhaps you will tell me that I do not give in a proper spirit of loving sympathy,—that I hurl ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to get, through one of the teachers, a job as an ordinary clerk in a downtown wholesale house. I did my work faithfully, and received a raise of salary before I expected it. I even managed to save a little money out of my modest earnings. In fact, I began then to contract the money fever, which later took strong possession of me. I kept my eyes open, watching for a chance to better my condition. It finally came in the form of a position with a house which was at ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... brought into Portugal that Henry's lifetime is a landmark in the domestic architecture of Spain, and from the trade of the "Wood Island" is derived the lofty style of building that now began to replace the more modest fashion of ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... was preparing the grand campaign which should raise his glory to its pinnacle, and establish his power upon victory. In his idea everything was to be sacrificed to the personal glory of his successes. He conceived a project of attack by crossing the Rhine. Moreau, modest and disinterested, accepted the general plan of the war, and subordinated his operations to those of the First Consul; in his military capacity independent and resolute, he persisted in passing the Rhine at his pleasure. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... least to such consideration as is possible to their capacities, the suggestions in the text. But to the true lovers of the drama I would submit, as another subject of inquiry, whether they ought not to separate themselves from the mob, and provide, for their own modest, quiet, and guiltless entertainment, the truth of heartfelt impersonation, and the melody of the unforced and delicate voice, without extravagance of adjunct, unhealthy lateness of hours, or appeal to degraded passions. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the Pantheon—a fourth story, very humbly furnished. M. Lenoble had provided for himself an opportunity of testing the truth of that adage which declares that a purse ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the world to shift for himself. After an excellent education he studied law, and was for some years a police magistrate, in which position he increased his large knowledge of the seamy side of life. He had a pen for vigorous writing, and after squandering two modest fortunes (his own and his wife's) he proceeded to earn his living by writing buffooneries for the stage. Then appeared Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, and in ridiculing its sentimental heroine Fielding found his vocation ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... is good and pure in the human heart. It is then we seem to see the heart liberate itself from guile, and truth and right rejoice in their triumph over wrong. There was just such a picture presented by Mattie Chapman, the true-hearted American girl, and the active, earnest, persevering, and modest, American boy, ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... are very pretty, and one of the most picturesque features is the old Deanery, where Charles II once lodged. Just outside the cathedral close is the modest little house which was ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... however, a happy man, and during the greater part of the rest of his life he earned a modest subsistence by the beautiful industry which has since given celebrity and wealth to all that fertile region. He remained, however, to the end of his days, one of those brave and unselfish public servants who take the laboring oar in reforms which are very difficult ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... article of property in which I am richer than my neighbours. Of these I have about five thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, put as many as you can into this room. Make it populous with books, and, furthermore, paint me a good fire, and furniture plain and modest, befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And near the fire paint me a tea-table, and (as it is clear that no creature can come to see one such a stormy night) place only two cups and saucers on the tea-tray; ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... care, of softer ray appears Cimon, sweet-souled; whose genius, rising strong, Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend Of every worth and every splendid art; Modest and simple in the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... 'Oh no,' said he, 'he glories in much company.' He was a native of that neighbourhood, had made a moderate fortune abroad, purchased an estate, built the house, and raised the plantations; and further, had made a convenient walk through his woods to the Cartland Crags. The house was modest and neat, and though not adorned in the best taste, and though the plantations were of fir, we looked at it with great pleasure, there was such true liberality and kind-heartedness in leaving his orchard path open, and his walks unobstructed by gates. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... was not right in Babette, but she was only nineteen years of age, and she did not reflect on what she did, neither did she think that her conduct would appear to the young Englishman as light, and not even becoming the modest and much-loved ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen |
