"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to continue lodging in the hotel. Attacked by a sudden modesty, the curiosity and smiles of the tourists and servants were annoying her. Besides, she wished to enjoy complete liberty in her love affairs. Her friend, who was like a mother to her, would facilitate her desire. The two would ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Christian dogma. Nor is it just to say that my criticism of it cannot be read to a mixed audience. That is the fault of the doctrine. So far as my words go, there is not a syllable to shock any but a prurient modesty. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... been carried to one of the ante-chambers, reclines on a couch of softest tapestry, a physician at one side, and Alice, bathing her temples with aromatic liquid, on the other. She presents a ravishing picture of delicacy, modesty, and simplicity,—of all that is calmly beautiful in woman. "I can scarcely account for it; but, she's coming to," says the man of medicine, looking on mechanically. Her white bosom swells gently, like ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... a handsome velvet or other dressy material for a dinner dress, and wears with it her rarest jewels. Good taste and modesty forbid too lavish a display of shoulders. As a rule, in our average social life, the unlined lace yoke and collar and lace sleeves are preferred for dinner wear, the decollete gown being reserved for ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the champagne standard. It would not be possible to slip unnoticed into your favourite little restaurant in Soho to take your simple chop, or to go in quest of that wonderful restaurant of Arne's of which "Aldebaran" keeps the secret. The modesty of Arne's would make you ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... aromatic gales dispense To Templars modesty, to parsons sense: So raptured priests, at famed Dodona's shrine, Drank inspiration from the steam divine. Poison that cures, a vapour that affords Content, more solid than the smile of lords: Rest to the weary, to the hungry food, The last kind refuge of the wise and good. Inspired ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the eyes of soul and body, let them look upon a people of modesty, a people of purity, an assembly of virginity. Not fillets are the ornament of their heads, but a veil common in use but ennobled by chastity; the enticement of beauty not sought out, but laid aside; none of those purple insignia, no delicious luxuries, but the practice of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... to preserve a note of a dear old friend of my own, whose talents, perhaps I might say whose genius, was only shrouded by his modesty. I know that the Dean felt how gratifying it was to find among his congregation men of such accomplishment, such scholarship, as George Moir and George Dundas, and it is something to show that they responded very ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... my name mentioned as being the beau-ideal of a soldier, and that not only by friends and admirers like our fellow-townsfolk, but also by old officers of the great wars who have shared the fortunes of those famous campaigns with me. Truth and modesty compel me to say, however, that this is not so. There are some gifts which I lack—very few, no doubt—but, still, amid the vast armies of the Emperor there may have been some who were free from those blemishes which stood between me and perfection. Of bravery I say nothing. Those ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... starting up, caught the maiden in his arms, and attempted to return in ecstasy the salute which had broken his repose. But Catharine struggled in his embrace; and as her efforts implied alarmed modesty rather than maidenly coyness, her bashful lover suffered her to escape a grasp from which twenty times her strength could not have ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... hair comes low on her white forehead. With a gaily-coloured shawl covering her head, and drawn across her chin, as they wear it in the Island, she looks, or looked when I last saw her, a hidden, gliding image of modesty. And despite that sin of the past she is modest. It was the ignorant sin of a child, and out of the days of horror and wrath that followed—her purging—she brought only the maternity that burns like a white flame ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... street is no longer a congery of houses huddling shamefully together and terrified lest any one should look at them and laugh. Each house then recaptures its individuality. The very roadways are aware of themselves and bear their horses, and cars, and trams in a competent spirit, adorned with modesty as with a garland. It has a beauty beyond sunshine, for sunshine is only youth and carelessness. The impress of a thousand memories, the historic visage becomes apparent: the quiet face which experience has ripened ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... accosted by a young man not more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, who said he had enlisted for my troop and, if found worthy, he would be much pleased if he could receive the appointment of "eighth corporal." I was amused at the modesty of the request, which was that he be placed on the lowest rung of the ladder of rank. The request did not appear unreasonable, and when the enrolment of troop "E" Sixth Michigan cavalry was completed, he appeared on the list as second corporal. From this rank ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... application, better suited to excite the minds of men and to work on the feelings of the common people. But the guardian of all the virtues, which avoids all conspicuousness, and yet attains the greatest eminence of praise, is modesty. And these are for the most part certain habits of mind, so affected and disposed as to be each of them distinguished from one another by some peculiar kind of virtue; and according as everything is done by one of them, in the same proportion must it be honourable and in the highest ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... you mustn't deny any accusations of future magnificence, for two reasons: they may come true, and they help things on. You are supposed to have left your modesty in cold storage somewhere. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... found in her Cabinet Council with Mazarin and others, received me neither well nor ill, was too proud and too much out of temper to confess any shame for what she had told me the night before, and the Cardinal had not modesty enough to blush. Nevertheless he seemed very much confused, and gave some obscure hints by which I could perceive he would have me to believe that there were very sudden and extraordinary reasons which had obliged ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not come within the province of this paper, or it would be pleasant to dwell upon Mr. Thomson's modesty, his untiring industry, and his devotion to his art. But in regard to that art, it may be observed that to characterise it solely as "packing the memory with pleasant fancies" may suffice for an exordium, but is inadequate as a final appreciation. Let me therefore note down, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... "'With all modesty, I want to stand up here as a representative business man and gently whisper, "Here's our kind of folks! Here's the specifications of the Standardized American Citizen! Here's the new generation of Americans: fellows with hair on their chests and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... was precisely what they did think, in their modesty, and, as it seemed a hopeless task to demonstrate to them the sphericity of the globe, I left them in ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... easy for them to see that parents do not wish to explain the mystery. Curiosity is aroused, for the desire to know is natural and quite legitimate, and the sad thing is that the explanation is generally left to companions and servants who are devoid of delicacy or modesty. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... was a great man. The almost extreme modesty which characterized his public life had its counterpart in thoroughly developed domestic virtues, which not only made him beloved to devotion by all the members of his family, but endeared him to all with whom he was brought into ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... lower School at Wellingborough, Damocles de Warrenne, like certain States, was happy in that he had no history. In games rather above the average, and in lessons rather below it, he was very popular among his fellow "squeakers" for his good temper, modesty, generous disposition, and prowess ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... peacefully. She had landed at Naples, the old lady told me; and from her subsequent remarks I gathered that she had found the Italians as a people deficient in the admirable qualities of cleanliness and modesty. She lamented, also, an over-preponderance of art galleries, and the surprising slowness of the natives to grasp intelligent remarks made in the English tongue. Aside from these failings, however, she had ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... domestic affairs Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are Tell stories very seldom The best have something bad, and something little The worst have something good, and sometimes something great Thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity Thoroughly, not superficially To know people's real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes Unopened, because one title in twenty has been omitted Value of moments, when cast up, is immense Vanity, that source of many ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... the blue melted into purest gold, the sky's living flesh gleamed fairer still, and then was slowly steeped in all the hues of gloom. Not a cloud—nought but gradual disappearance, a disrobing which left behind it but a gleam of modesty on the horizon. And at ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... an anthem before. After the service Canon Wilton, who, though no longer in residence as "three months' Canon," was still staying on at his house in the Precincts for a few days, came up to welcome him home. Then Mr. Dickinson appeared, full of that modesty which is greedy for compliments. Mrs. Dickinson, too, drifted up the nave in a casual way which scarcely concealed her curiosity about Mrs. Dion's husband; when, later, Rosamund told Dion of her Precincts' name, "the cold douche," he could ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... not fear to repeat, in the face of heaven and man, that they are without manners; they took advantage of the darkness of the staircase to make rude remarks on my wife's very person. On hearing the cries of her offended modesty, in spite of myself, I yielded to the impulse of my temper. I do not disguise it, my first movement was ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... do violence to the modesty of the living by referring to the many important contributions to medical science by Dr. Jacob Bigelow, and especially to his discourse on "Self-limited Diseases," an address which can be read in a single hour, but the influence of which will be ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... may be sure, was something uncouth to our Spaniards, who were (to give them a just character) men of the best behaviour, of the most calm, sedate tempers, and perfect good humour that ever I met with; and, in particular, of the most modesty, as will presently appear: I say the sight was very uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women, all together bound, and in the most miserable circumstances that human nature could be supposed to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... churchman are strongly marked in the characters and fortunes of Whiston and Bishop Newton; and even the dullness of Michael de Marolles and Anthony Wood acquires some value from the faithful representation of men and manners. That I am equal or superior to some of these, the effects of modesty or affectation ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... spirit Blurs not with modesty his merit. On all exerting wit and tongue, His rattling jokes, at random flung, Bespatter widely friend and foe. Too late the forward boy will know That jokes are often paid in kind, Or rankle longer in ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... that a young man not without modesty could find. Mr. Adister complimented him on the robustness of his habits, and Patrick 'would like to hear of the temptation that could keep him from his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... involved in all live religion normally coexists with a certain modesty or humility. I have tried to work out this point elsewhere in a short study entitled The ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... for his modesty," said Mrs. Chikno; "I never hears any ill words come from his mouth, but, on the contrary, much sweet language. His talk is golden, and he has taught my eldest to say his prayers in Rommany, which my rover had never the grace to do." "He is the pal of my rom," said Mrs. Petulengro, who was a very ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... trust the last expression of his opinion. But it is to be regretted, that either the clearness of his perceptions, or the confidence of his assertions, is so often disproportioned to the evidence before him. Thus, he says with the most admirable modesty, "It seems to me that the soul is the most important part of a human being;"[150] and yet he peremptorily and positively declares that the very strongest language of authority ever found in Scripture "is clearly used as prophetic ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... said. "I have always worn my hair like this, and at my age, have no intention of altering it," and leaving Mrs. Tully protesting vehemently at such false modesty, she went past her, into her own room, and shut ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... me of modesty!—answered the Little Gentleman,—I 'm past that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to the Bharati. Now it is beyond my power to call them back. These were nothing but the outcome of youthful bravado. At that age the mind refuses to admit that its greatest pride is in its power to understand, to accept, to respect; and that modesty is the best means of enlarging its domain. Admiration and praise are looked upon as a sign of weakness or surrender, and the desire to cry down and hurt and demolish with argument gives rise to this kind of intellectual fireworks. These attempts of mine ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... universally entertained of his services was conveyed, manifested the warmth of feeling which animated the American bosom. This unexampled tribute of voluntary applause, paid by a whole people to an individual no longer in power, made no impression on the unassuming modesty of his character and deportment. The same firmness of mind, the same steady and well-tempered judgment, which had guided him through the most perilous seasons of the war, still regulated his conduct, and the enthusiastic applauses of an ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... conversation, much more so than on the previous evening, when there had been some little difficulty in extracting any account of his exploits from him. Now he was willing to talk of them, and he talked well, not exactly with modesty, but with no trace of boastful quality, such as would certainly have aroused the prejudices ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... this volume, is the history of his nation as written out by one of them who had already reached adult years, at the epoch of the first arrival of the Spaniards, in 1524. Unfortunately, his simple-hearted modesty led him to make few personal allusions, and we can glean little information about his own history. The writer first names himself, in the year 1582, where he speaks of "me, Francisco Ernantez Arana."[57-1] The greater part of the manuscript, ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... no set rule as to what kind of suit one should wear for one person can wear a thing that makes another ridiculous if not actually vulgar. A well-bred woman is her own best guide and she will no more offend against modesty at the beach than she will in ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... eyes had met when they were in one another's company; she must certainly have read the tenderness which had inspired his glances, and by answering them she had given perhaps the greatest encouragement that true modesty would permit. How delicate and infinitely gracious her acknowledgment had been, how often had she looked at him as it were furtively, and then, finding his passionate gaze upon her, had at once cast ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... was which gave such striking freshness, such compelling strength, to the simple, forthright directness, the unaffected earnestness and modesty of the Message brought us by the Canadian preachers. The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who ever heard the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found resentment impossible after George Stairs's little account of his leaving Dorset as ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the communication with the bold frankness of the inartificial son of nature, scorning to conceal his just self-estimate beneath a veil of affected modesty. He knew his own worth, and while he over-valued not one iota of that worth, so did he not affect to disclaim a consciousness of the fact—that within his swarthy chest and active brain there beat a heart and ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... continue doing so till the children died, if the police did not leave the camp. Sometimes also the women of a gang have been known to throw off all their clothing and appear in a perfect state of nudity, declaring they would charge the police with violating their modesty. Men of this tribe are expert cattle-lifters, but confine themselves chiefly to buffaloes, which they steal while out grazing and very dexterously disguise by trimming the horns and firing, so as to avoid recognition ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the South came at last; and nearly at the same moment came the murder of a man whose modesty, integrity, firmness, single-minded persistency, unresentfulness, and substantial truth of judgment have been invested by his fate with an almost sacred depth of interest and significance,—President Lincoln. Amid the many momentous bearings of these events, it is for me to note only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... entered with my card in his hand. The first thing he did was to return it with the frugal reminder that I should probably find it useful on some other occasion. The second was to ask whether I was an Irishman. I suppose the air of modesty about my appeal must have struck him. I satisfied the Director-General that I was English to the backbone, and he made some enquiries as to my student career, finally desiring me to hold myself ready for examination. Having passed this, I was ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... to a young lady of great beauty who was called as a witness in the trial of Glengarry for murder. "Young woman, you will now consider yourself as in the presence of Almighty God, and of this Court; lift up your veil, throw off all modesty, and look ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... naturally and poetically does he describe the Modesty of the Man, who wou'd be content, if Merlin wou'd grant him his Request, with a Son no bigger than ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... Christian conception is in sharp contrast to, and the Christian realisation of the conception, should be the absolute opposite of that type to which I have already referred. 'He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger'; that suggests modesty and meekness of demeanour in bearing the loftiest office. 'And he that is chief as he that doth serve'; that expresses an activity, not self-regarding and self-centred, but ever used for others. The simple words of Jesus Christ are the noblest expression of, and, as I believe, have been the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wildest enthusiasm. The horse soon learned what the cheers implied, and directly they began he would break into a gallop, as if to carry his rider as quickly as possible through the embarrassing ordeal. But the soldiers were not to be deterred by their commander's modesty, and whenever he was compelled to pass through the bivouacs the same tribute was so invariably offered that the sound of a distant cheer, rolling down the lines of the Second Army Corps, always evoked the exclamation: "Boys, look out! here comes old Stonewall ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... occasions him to say at the beginning of his book, that he entreats his readers not to exercise their critical severity upon it, since, having been born in the Indies, he does not aspire to purity of language. Notwithstanding this colonial modesty, the author shows throughout his book the impatience with which he endures the supremacy of the mother-country. In this work of Beverley are also found numerous traces of that spirit of civil liberty which animated the English ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... sigh. It was hateful. He blamed the asthma as far as modesty would permit. He was modest enough in his breakfast-table talk, yet nervously egotistical, and apt to involve himself in lengthy explanations. He had two types of listener—the dry and the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... account of her fine family. They had corresponded after their engagement which had lasted for nearly a year, and in that time David had seen her but twice, for a day or two at a time, and each time he had thought her grown more lovely. Her letters had been marvels of modesty, and shy admiration. It was easy for Kate to maintain her character upon paper, though she had had little trouble in making people love her under any circumstances. Now as he looked back he could recall many instances when she had shown ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... another: "Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind" (xv. 15). Anyone, we should have thought, might have done as much as this, and yet St. Paul increases the modesty of it as he goes on; for he claims the right of doing as much as this, only "because of the grace given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles." Then compare 2 Cor. v. 11, where he appeals to the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and modesty with virtue crowned; A sober mind when fortune smiled or frowned. So keen a feeling for a friend distressed, She could not bear to see ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... to be placed under the anthropological microscope. He combines, so to speak, the merits of Tintoretto and Meissonier.... That portion of the book which is concerned with totemism (if we may express our own belief at the risk of offending Prof. Frazer's characteristic modesty) is actually 'The Complete History of Totemism, its Practice and its Theory, its Origin and its End.'... Nearly two thousand pages are occupied with an ethnographical survey of totemism, an invaluable compilation. The maps, including that of the distribution ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... in the nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the same, or the correspondent, excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... trying to rob the pulpit of any atom of its full share and credit in the work of disseminating the meat and marrow of the gospel of Christ; but I am trying to get a moment's hearing for worthy agencies in the same work, that with overwrought modesty seldom or never claim a recognition of their great services. I am aware that the pulpit does its excellent one-tenth (and credits itself with it now and then, though most of the time a press of business causes it to forget it); I am aware that in its honest and well-meaning way it bores the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a strutting attitude that somehow retained a sort of modesty, "I 'ad the gweatess success. Hah! a nuss is a nuss those time'. Only some time' 'e's not. 'Tis accawding to the povvub,—what is that povvub, now, ag'in?" The proverb did not answer his call, and he waved it away. "Yesseh, eve'ybody wanting ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... half a sheet of note-paper, a few cold words which do not directly address the imagination, and the adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers! Am I, then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno? Am I to adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke? or to take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the tradesman ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... debauch which follows. The festival now "becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes." Usually the Hos are quiet and reserved in manner, decorous and gentle to women. But during this festival "their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... child dressing for her first party. Twice did her hair fall about her shoulders and twice must she gather it up, fingering carefully the long curl, patting it into place; hooking the bodice so that all its modesty would be preserved and yet the line of the throat show clear, shaking out the full, pannier-like skirt until it stood out quite to her liking. Then with a mock curtsey to herself in the glass, she dashed out of the room, up the narrow stairs ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the modesty of this really notable man that when, in 1801, he again sailed to Australia, he mentioned quite casually in a letter that he had passed through Bass Strait without any reference to his own connection with the passage. It was not, to him, "the strait which I discovered," or "my strait," ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... past winter was spent by him chiefly in Florence, where he was on terms of familiar intimacy with the Marquis and Marchioness d'Ossoli, and was induced to take passage in the same vessel with them for his return to his native land. He was a young man of singular modesty of deportment, of an original turn of mind, and greatly endeared to his friends by the sweetness of his disposition and the purity of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... belonging to the emperor, was a christian of singular modesty and humility. He was laid on a gridiron, and broiled over a slow fire till ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the very end, got Don Vigilio to recommend him to the Pope's confessor, the Franciscan friar with whom the secretary was slightly acquainted. However, this friar proved to be an extremely timid if worthy man, selected precisely on account of his great modesty, simplicity, and absolute lack of influence in order that he might not abuse his position with respect to the Holy Father. And doubtless there was an affectation of humility on the latter's part in taking for confessor a member of the humblest of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... goodness of disposition, the doctor and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest: after enduring their commendations and compliments for some minutes with much grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed at last to take pain at the excess of their gratitude; and accordingly, pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had drawn the character of the Duchess de Longueville, he would have shown us the same individual woman in both situations:—for the same being, with the same faculties and passions and powers, it surely was: whereas in history, we see in one case a fury of discord, a woman without modesty or pity; and in the other an angel of benevolence, and a worshipper of goodness; and nothing to connect the two extremes ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... herself at full length on the couch, carefully drew her feet and arms under her robe, with a whimsical affectation of modesty, and, giving Gwynplaine the vellum, watched him ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... his unaffected modesty, Pliny (Ep. ix. 19) tells us: vetuit exstrui monimentum: sed quibus verbis? 'impensa monimenta supervacua est: memoria nostri ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... joyfully than on the previous occasion the musicians marched in front. Upon a milkwhite palfrey, as formerly, sat a noble maiden in bridal state, clothed in undulating robes bordered with fur. Her head was bent in maiden modesty as she listened to the endearments which the youthful knight whispered in her ear. Behind rode the father of the bride sunk in thought, and along with him was his pious sister Notburge, the canoness ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... the King sternly, "let us have no false modesty. Ye are before Norway's King, therefore speak, and to ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... plantandis avibus: a branch of the knowledge-tree which our modern education grossly neglects, thereby entailing untold miseries upon individuals, families and generations. The mock virtue, the most immodest modesty of England and of the United States in the xixth century, pronounces the subject foul and fulsome:"Society" sickens at all details; and hence it is said abroad that the English have the finest women in Europe and least know ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... of a hero of everyday life, whose love of truth, clothing of modesty, and innate pluck, carry him, naturally, from poverty to affluence. George Andrews is an example of character with nothing to cavil at, and stands as a good instance of chivalry in domestic ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... rely on her bell-rope; she felt it was fast to nothing that could help her. She looked round for no weapon; she trusted to herself. She drew herself hastily up, and folded her arms; her bosom panted, but her cheek never paled. Her modesty was alarmed; her blood was up, and life or death ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... invited, and treated, and liked, and flattered, by the great, that I can see nothing of him. I am in great hope that he will be well provided for, and then we will live upon him at the Marischal College, without pity or modesty[775]. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Gray, we infer that Whitehead was not destitute of fine social qualities. His verse, which is of the only type current a century ago, is elegantly smooth, and wearisomely tame,—nowhere rising into striking or original beauties. Among his merits as a poet modesty was not. His "Charge to the Poets," published in 1762, drew upon him the wrath and ridicule of his fellow-verse-wrights, and perhaps deservedly. Assuming, with amusing vanity, what, if ever true, was only so a century before or a half-century after, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... relieved The prospect of escape perceived, Rebelled a little at the diet. CARDENIO said discreetly, "Try it, Try it, my Own. You have no choice, What if you lose your charming voice!" She tried, it seems. And whether then Some god stepped in, benign to men; Or Modesty, too long outlawed, Contrived to aid the pious fraud, I know not:—but from that same day She talked in quite a ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... and hold him for her—which gave Ashton the opportunity to help her mount. Both services were needless, but she rewarded each eager servitor with a dimpled smile. When Blake handed the baby up to Knowles, his wife, untroubled by mock modesty, gave him a loving kiss. He lifted her bodily into the saddle, and she rode off ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... once.' Says she, 'I could help you to a schoolmistress that shall make you as dexterous as herself.' I trembled at that proposal, for hitherto I had had no confederates, nor any acquaintance among that tribe. But she conquered all my modesty, and all my fears; and in a little time, by the help of this confederate, I grew as impudent a thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll Cutpurse was, though, if fame does not belie her, not half ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... exclude women from the bar because there are certain departments of the profession which are peculiarly ill-adapted to their sex and nature, would be to assume arbitrarily that, with entire lack of judgment or discretion, modesty or policy, they would seek or accept such business; and to close to them those avenues of the profession for which they are generally admitted to be eminently well adapted, for such a reason, and upon such an assumption, would be so grossly unjust that no argument can be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the delegates was in the highest degree favorable to the promotion of their object, and their work will show how well they have used the extraordinary facilities afforded them. The committee have, in some instances, restored testimonials which their modesty led them to suppress, showing in what estimation they themselves, as well as the object of their mission, were held by some of the most distinguished persons in the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of the lyric was growing in force and rising in height. Especially as regards religious poetry we are as yet only approaching the lyrical jubilee. Fact and faith, self-consciousness and metaphysics, all are needful to the lyric of love. Modesty and art find their grandest, simplest labour in rightly subordinating each of those to the others. How could we have a George Herbert without metaphysics? In those poems I have just given, the way of metaphysics was prepared for him. That which overcolours one age to the injury ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... favour frantic or immoral social experiments, should have, one may hope, just the opposite effect. Far from being a spectacled, angular, hysterical, uncomfortable race, perpetually demanding extravagant changes in shrill tones, they are, at least, as distinguished for womanly modesty, grace, and affection, as Englishwomen in any other part of ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... scriptural and literary, his speculations in the realms of deep thought—she was to all intents and purposes practically outside his mental door. She was never greatly inclined to join in the society of his learned friends; but this was more from a sense of modesty, because she was afraid of not being in sympathy with them; because she thought that she ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... dear reader, find many very plain things between the two covers of this little book; things which will, perhaps, shock your modesty ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... requested to address the meeting, but he also was not forthcoming! Nil desperandum. It was moved and seconded and "ayed" that—Callaghan, Esq., be requested to address the meeting. After some hesitation, and a reference to his own "proverbial modesty," he proceeded to foam, and stamp, and thump, and bluster for "the vigorous prosecution of the war," till the American eagle should "stretch his wings over the halls of the Montezumas." At this stage of the proceedings, the spitting and smoke had become so offensive that ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... brought with him to the camp his only son, who had never drawn a sword except in tourney. When the young man saw that the veterans held their peace, the blood mantled in his cheek, and, overcoming his modesty, he broke forth with a generous warmth: 'I know not, cavaliers,' said he, 'what is passing in your minds, but I believe this pilgrim to be an envoy from the devil; for none else could have given such dastard and perfidious counsel. For my own part, I stand ready to defend my king, my country, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... all 'bombastic' advertising is punished with a fine. The advertiser is expected to describe his wares in restrained, modest language. In case this idea should be introduced into England, I have drawn up a few specimen advertisements which, in my opinion, combine attractiveness with a shrinking modesty at which no ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... complete his preliminary operations. But for that year at least Maurice was resolved not to renounce his own schemes in deference to those so much more ignorant than himself of the art of war, even if Barneveld and his subordinates on their part had not learned a requisite lesson of modesty. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... modesty, had not been able to hide from his most intimate friends that he was all but certain to win, in the year of grace 1673, the prize of a hundred thousand guilders offered by the ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the fact that our present fashionable evening costume is immodest, of necessity impugn the modesty of the women who wear it. That they are wanting in fineness of perception must be admitted. But women of fashion accept without question the dictum of their modistes. La Belle Hamilton, the famous beauty of the reign of Charles the Second, so delicately modest ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Royal purpose was; and could not want for commonplace objections many and strong, had this been the scene for dwelling on them, or dressing them out at eloquent length. But they knew well this was not the scene for doing more than, with eloquent modesty, hint them; that the Resolution, being already taken, would not alter for commonplace; and that the question now lying for honorable members was, How to execute it? It is on this, as I collect, that Schwerin and Podewils in the King's company did, with extreme intensity, consult ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... gave way before looks that held him in a torturing grasp and delighted his senses as with a voluptuous kiss. It seemed to Franz that he closed his eyes, and in a last look about him saw the vision of modesty completely veiled; and then followed a dream of passion like that promised by the Prophet to the elect. Lips of stone turned to flame, breasts of ice became like heated lava, so that to Franz, yielding for the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the American troops in France, their progressive development in military experience and ability, the fine staff work, and the modesty and gallantry of the individual soldier is a matter of pride to all Americans. General Pershing and his command have earned the thanks ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... and the needle (thorn, fish-bone, or whatever it may have been) came into use so soon as ever savages had the wit to sew skins and things together to keep themselves warm—modesty, we may take it, was an afterthought—and if the stitches made any sort of pattern, as coarse stitching ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... 1863.] which I shall now have the pleasure of delivering to you, it occurred to me that I could not do better than endeavour to put before you in a true light, or in what I might perhaps with more modesty call, that which I conceive myself to be the true light, the position of a book which has been more praised and more abused, perhaps, than any book which has appeared for some years;—I mean Mr. Darwin's work ...
— The Present Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... of their somewhat ostentatious amiability, frequently appeared to have been at loggerheads just as he entered. He had often heard the word Phoenix pass mysteriously between them, and much as his modesty rebelled, he was forced to the conclusion that he was, himself, the brilliant bird Phoenix, for the possession of which these fair enchantresses were privately contending. He had never before had the audacity to regard himself as a brilliant parti, and he had even had a grudge ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... accepted ideas from others without the most generous acknowledgment, and did not, as so many men do, proceed, after assimilating another man's thought, to imagine that it was his own invention. This intellectual candour, involving a rare modesty and absence of affectation, was one of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... multifarious rush of political and general business, I might say in the well-known words of the Roman poet, which have survived my classic rust "quorum pars magna fui," provided I were allowed to greatly abate, or rather perhaps, in becoming modesty, altogether to delete, the third ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... shrewdly at him in the dim light on the ferry-boat. No; he did not have the perfidious smirk or the brazen swagger of the lady-killer. Sincerity and modesty shone through his boreal tan. It seemed to her that it might be good to hear a little of what he had ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... personally and had visited his home and experimental grounds at Bell, Maryland, some of us more than once. Few of us knew his varied and high attainments in many other fields than plant breeding, though a moment's thought would have made a discerning person see that his modesty, self-effacement, kindliness and sympathy were things that most often come to those whose experiences of life have been the widest. His accomplishments in plant breeding and other fields, a bibliography of his writings, and the events of his life, were fully and sympathetically related in a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... and considered himself called of God, as was Bezaleel, to that particular course of invention to which he devoted the chief part of his life. This he often expressed, though with his characteristic modesty, to his friends, especially his religious friends. His inventive work was his religion, and was pervaded and animated by religious faith and devotion. He felt like an apostle commissioned for that work; ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... in the Congress. He had come up with a coach and six horses from Virginia. The Colonel used to say that even with six horses, one had a slow and rough journey in the mud and sand. His dignity and noble stature, the fame he had won in the Indian wars and his wisdom and modesty in council, had silenced opposition and opened his way. He was a man highly favored of Heaven. The people of Philadelphia felt the power of his personality. They seemed to regard him with affectionate awe. All eyes were on him when he walked around. Not even the magnificent Hancock or ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... a great many things I don't understand, and I am not good at argument." There were shouts of "Go on! fire ahead, play the game!" but he said, "I think we will close the service with a hymn." His frankness and modesty, and his respectful, courteous manner gained the sympathy of the men, so that all joined heartily in singing, "Sun of My Soul." In the prayer that followed his voice grew steady and his nerve came back ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... the conditions to which He subjects us in training us for a future state, and developing in us the twofold perfection involved in the words 'a reasonable faith.' If the considerations just urged were duly borne in mind, we cannot help thinking that they would afford (where any modesty remained) all answer to most of those forms of unbelief which, from time to time, rise up in the world, and not least in our own day. These are usually founded on one or more supposed insoluble objections, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... slash on each sleeve and one in the back. Men also must be prohibited from shoulderbands of undue width, double ruffs and cuffs, and "immoderate great breeches." Part of the solicitude was for modesty, part for gravity, part for economy: none must dress above their condition. In 1652, three men and a woman were fined ten shillings each and costs for wearing silver-lace, another for broad bone-lace, another for tiffany, and another ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of mistake that Shelley made as to the extent of his own genius and powers, which led him deviously at first, but lastly into the direct track that enabled him fully to develop them, is a curious instance of his modesty of feeling, and of the methods which the human mind uses at once to deceive itself, and yet, in its very delusion, to make its way out of error into the path which Nature has marked out as its right one. He often incited ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... feel it. Now that you are no longer The Boy made courageous by his unsuspicious confidence—I mean the Tenor's—it is quite proper for you to be shy and ashamed of yourself. As a woman, of course, you are not wanting in modesty. But there is no help for it; he would never come to you, so you must go to him. I quite think that you owe him any reparation you can make. And, knowing the sort of man he is—you have made his character well known in the place, have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... may be presumed to have qualities of some sort or other which they are without. If he has not brilliant wit, he may have solid sense; if he has not subtlety of understanding, he may have energy and firmness of purpose; if he has only a few advantages, he may have modesty and prudence to make the most of what he possesses. Propriety is one great matter in the conduct of life; which, though, like a graceful carriage of the body, it is neither definable nor striking at first sight, is the result of finely balanced feelings, and lends a secret strength and charm ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to you an everyday proceeding—just a milliner's usual way of getting rid of her summer stock. My good young sir, did you ever hear tell of a 'troacher'? Nay, spare that ingenuous blush: Moll is a loose fish, but I mean less than your modesty suspects. A 'troacher' is a kind of female smuggler that disposes of the goods the packet-men bring home in their bunks; and Moll Whiteaway is the head of the profession in Falmouth. Now, our worthy Mayor took oath the other day to put down this smuggling on board the packets; and he ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... where such a wretched thing as this has thrown the State into convulsions, and how must we bless our own situation in a country, the most illiterate peasant of which is a Solon, compared with the authors of this law. There is modesty often, which does itself injury; our countrymen possess this. They do not know their own superiority. You see it; you are young, you have time and talents to correct them. Study the subject while in Europe, in all the instances which will present themselves to you, and profit your ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... sweetness and put her tongue out at me. Did she tell you about a boy, the son of pious and rich parents, whom she tried to lead astray into the wildness of thoughts like her own, till the poor dear child drove her off because she outraged his modesty? I saw him often with his parents at Sunday mass. The grace of God preserved him and made him quite a gentleman in Paris. Perhaps it will touch Rita's heart, too, some day. But she was awful then. When I wouldn't listen to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad |
