"Reluctance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long look at him, turned silently and walked slowly in the direction of the hill. He moved so deliberately and with such evident reluctance that Livingstone's blood boiled. ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... reimbursed; while in coal mining, the cheapness of fuel, the large proportion which manual labor bore to the total cost of producing coal, and the necessity for producing large outputs with the simplest appliances, explained the reluctance with which high pressure steam compound engines, and other modes embracing the most modern and approved types of economizing power had been adopted. Metalliferous mining, with the exception of the working of iron ore, was not in a prosperous condition; but ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... little restraint upon their communication with the world without. Although military sentinels were posted on the leads of the prison, such was the lawlessness prevailing, that Mr. Newman, the governor, entered this portion of it with reluctance." ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... carping than it has in fact occasioned. And I am very content to observe a marked increase of generosity in the reception of Mr. Wells's work. To me the welcome accorded to his best books has always seemed to lack spontaneity, to be characterized by a mean reluctance. And yet if there is a novelist writing to-day who by generosity has deserved generosity, that novelist is H.G. Wells. Astounding width of observation; a marvellously true perspective; an extraordinary grasp of the real significance of innumerable phenomena utterly ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... to a distant part of the village, where he called on an acquaintance of neutral politics. And here becoming much engaged in conversation, and feigning to have forgotten the hour of the night, he was at last prevailed on to accept, as he did with great seeming reluctance, the invitation of his ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... cannot Fool ALL the people ALL the time. [Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the back. Cries of 'Death to Lorenzo!' The meeting is now well in hand.] To-day I must adopt a somewhat novel course In dealing with the awful wickedness At present noticeable in this city. I do so with reluctance. Hitherto I have avoided personalities. But now my sense of duty forces me To a departure from my custom of Naming no names. One name I must and shall Name. [All eyes are turned on LOR., who smiles uncomfortably.] No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He Is 'neath contempt. ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... but as we met many peasants, all coming the other way afoot and all with excited stories of a supposed battle ahead, and as we ourselves now began to catch the faint reverberations of cannon fire, our drivers manifested a strange reluctance about proceeding farther. And when, just at dusk, we clattered into the curious little convent-church town of Nivelles, and found the tiny square before the Black Eagle Inn full of refugees who had trudged in from ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... with evident reluctance. "It's of no manner o' use," he whispered to Joe Blunt as he passed, "I can't depend on my ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... strain at the traces his impatience died out. A sixty-foot truck starts with more or less reluctance. Besides, Silver knew that before anything like speed could be made it was necessary either to mount the grade to Broadway or to ease the machine down to Greenwich Street. It was traces or backing-straps for all that was in you, and at the end a sharp turn which never could have ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... brief, but he was cogent and he was emphatic. He explained what he had done and why he had done it. He was frank and free with that selected few. He delicately made known the General's reluctance, but stated in his behalf his willingness to step into the breach at this eleventh hour for the sake of his party. Then Thornton went first to Colonel Wadsworth, drew him along to Linton, and told them what their party ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... lent him thirty pounds; but not willingly. His reluctance, however, was sufficiently explained by the fact that he had recently advanced more than that sum to Fulleymore. He was careful to point out to Randall that he was helping him to meet only those catastrophes which might be regarded as the act of God—Violet's bills and the deterioration ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... Nicolai has unquestionably been that of many whose love of science has not been able to overcome their natural reluctance to communicate to the public the particulars attending the visitation of a disease so peculiar. That such illnesses have been experienced, and have ended fatally, there can be no doubt; though it is by no means to be inferred, that the symptom of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... when going fast, will pull up more promptly and with greater ease to his mouth and hocks, by a pleasantly uttered "whoa," than by the action of hands and reins. Young horses, like foxhound puppies which are taken out for the first time, show great reluctance to pass moving objects; but if the rider speaks encouragingly to her mount in a tone of voice that means he must go on, he will try his best to obey her, although his attention may be divided betwixt fear and duty. As a reward, his rider should give him a few ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... since my arrival been so much increased, that I was after much reluctance prevailed upon to make one change,—to increase my party; and the following persons were added to the expedition:—Mr. Pemberton Hodgson, a resident of the district; Mr. Gilbert; Caleb, an American negro; and "Charley," an aboriginal native of ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... length to an old horse-hair sofa, an iron bedstead, a bath, and two or three hearth-rugs; and behind these articles there was a narrow door, which Elsie entered with some reluctance. ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... by the strongest ties of friendship, kindred, and of interest with our sister States, and we can not without the greatest reluctance look to any other quarter for those advantages of commercial intercourse which we conceive to be more natural and reciprocal between them ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... him. "But," continued she, "my son, instead of taking my advice and reflecting on his presumption, was so obstinate as to persevere, and to threaten me with some desperate act, if I refused to come and ask the princess in marriage of your majesty; and it was not without the greatest reluctance that I was led to accede to his request, for which I beg your majesty once more to pardon not only me, but also Aladdin my son, for entertaining so rash ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... visions. One was of Joy Gastell; the other was of himself, in the midst of a bleak snow-stretch, under a cold arctic moon, being pot-shotted with accurateness and dispatch by the aforesaid Wild Water. Smoke's reluctance at raising excitement with the aid of Lucille Arral was too patent for her ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... he took of this disgusting mess, he felt a nausea in his stomach, which made him recoil. Animated at the same instant by the love of poverty, he became ashamed of his weakness, and reproached himself for the feeling; after which, he ate the remainder without reluctance, and with so much relish, that he thought he had never eaten a better meal. He also felt an interior joy and strength in his body, which enabled him to bear with pleasure, for God's sake, whatever ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... but for one favour, and that with the greatest reluctance; which was, to accept of the five hundred pounds, as a present from me; and she promised, at my earnest desire, to draw upon me for a greater sum, as a person that had her effects in my hands, when she arrived, if she should find it convenient for her. In short, this was all the favour I could procure; ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Stockholm in 1895; and within the last few years this majestic spectacle has been drawn in full before the eyes of enraptured audiences in Copenhagen, Berlin, Moscow and elsewhere. In spite of the timid reluctance of managers, wherever this play is adequately presented, it captures an emotional public at a run. It is an appeal against moral apathy which arouses the languid. It is a clear and full embodiment ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... the other an evil. When the man comes home and finds the lamps lit, the table spread, and the bed in order, the good angel says, "May the coming Sabbath be even as the present;" to which the evil angel (though with reluctance) is obliged to say, "Amen." But if all be in disorder, then the bad angel says, "May the coming Sabbath be even as the present," and the good angel is (with equal reluctance), obliged to say "Amen" ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... hostile chieftains, who took her to the castle at Lochleven. There she became the mother of twins—a fact that is seldom mentioned by historians. These children were the fruit of her union with Bothwell. From this time forth she cared but little for herself, and she signed, without great reluctance, a document by which she abdicated in ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Nicholas Lestrange, who perhaps intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth where an altar had stood. But there was probably a natural reluctance in those days (when Catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs Lave retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into direct hostility with the awful claims of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... landlord's countenance. He looked startled; almost frightened. The man drew a small package from his pocket, and after selecting a paper therefrom, presented it to Slade, who received it with a nervous reluctance, opened, and let his eye fall upon the writing within. I was observing him closely at the time, and saw his countenance flush deeply. In a moment or two it became pale ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... with critical eye the cavalry regiments that have lately trooped through our cities from various States of the Union, on their way to the banks of the Potomac, must in candor, if with reluctance, acknowledge that we are not just yet a nation of horsemen. That our troopers have got a knack of 'sticking on' we will admit; but there are ways of fulfilling that necessary condition with more ease to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to Mr. Dale regarding his business he replied, as I have already stated, that it was "wool." But I noticed he was brief, and his manner did not encourage me to ask further questions, I ascribed his reserve to modesty, or the proper reluctance some people have to talk of private affairs that in no way concern the interrogator. This impression was heightened by the investigations which I quietly made in regard to the point, feeling that though I could not admit the possibility ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... farsighted love that showed the man the way out that day. To tell the story one must use a pen made of the iron that has entered his own soul, and though the pen be eased with ball point, it scratches and sticks in the paper for sheer reluctance. And only the tears of the heart will ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... not do this without some reluctance, in spite of the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that I should probably not do so. I should perhaps be wrong not to steal the turnip: I cant defend my reluctance to do so; but I think I should not do so. I know ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... day, and M. de Beaujeu, a captain of the regulars, asked the commandant for permission to prepare an ambuscade and contest the second passage of the Monongahela. Contrecoeur granted the request with great reluctance, and only on condition that Beaujeu obtain the assistance of the Indians, of whom there were near a thousand camped about the fort. Accordingly. Beaujeu at once called the warriors to a council, and urged that they accompany him against the English on the morrow. They received his ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... to the kind woman, beseeching that she might not be sent away from the only motherly tenderness she had ever known, and declaring that she would work all day and all night rather than leave her; but the more reluctance she showed, the more determined was Perronel, and she could not but submit to her fate, only adding one more entreaty that she might take her jackdaw, which was now a spruce grey-headed bird. Perronel said it would be presumption in a waiting-woman, but Ambrose declared ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... certainly is perhaps more attached to me than even I am in return. During the whole of my residence at Cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing one tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance. I hope you will one day see us together. He is the only being I esteem, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... new type of leader appeared representing a new era of conviction, Platt was deeply concerned. His famous letter to Roosevelt, when the Rough Rider was being mentioned for Governor of New York (1899), shows the reluctance of the old man to see the signs of the times: "The thing that really did bother me was this: I had heard from a great many sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and combinations, and ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. The King of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... borrowing; and to this the doctor resorted with considerable reluctance. From a gentleman who had always shown an interest in him, he obtained five dollars. Within an hour after the receipt of the letter, he was on his way to the city. The more he pondered the matter, the more likely did it seem to him that his first conclusion was the true one. There was an uncle ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... Annie Moriarty was preparing dinner. Annie was now cook as well as chamber-maid, for, of all the Warren servants, she was the only one remaining. Edwards, the "Commodore," had been dismissed, had departed, not without reluctance but philosophically, to seek other employment. "Yes, miss," observed Edwards, when notified that his services were no longer required; "I understand. I've been expecting it. I was in a family before that met with financial difficulties, and I know the signs. All I can say is that I hope you and ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... particularly the earlier ones, including "Opera and Drama," excite and agitate one; their rhythm is so uneven that, as prose they are bewildering. Their dialectics is constantly interrupted, and their course is more retarded than accelerated by outbursts of feeling; a certain reluctance on the part of the writer seems to hang over them like a pall, just as though the artist were somewhat ashamed of speculative discussions. What the reader who is only imperfectly initiated will probably find ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of this book with reluctance. It is verbose and dull, but it has led us along the path of American renown; it recites a story which, however awkwardly told, can never fall coldly on an American ear. It has, besides, given us an opportunity, of which we have gladly availed ourselves, to make some poor amends for the wrongs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... an effect on the farmer and his wife. The old man urged his suit all the more earnestly, and, after further show of extreme reluctance on the part of his entertainers, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... appeared to subside, but the chief remained moody and silent. The following day the same scene was repeated; and on the third, when the fit seemed to have increased in bodily agony, with great apparent reluctance, wrung seemingly from him by the importunity of his host, he consented to reveal the cause, which was, that the Bad Spirit had told him that these bodily tortures could not cease till the only son of his friend, the Ojebwa chief, had been sacrificed to appease his anger, neither could peace long ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... likewise, General Concha took measures for the total suppression of the slave trade. A law was passed making the trade a criminal offence in the Spanish West Indies. The government of Spain after much reluctance recognized the independence of Venezuela. Affairs in Spain had taken a new turn. On January 21, General Zurbano was betrayed into the hands of his enemies and was shot. The Cortes adopted ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... what she should read there; but I relieved her at once. The name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but, however fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time, the present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their utility as my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task to weigh even against the lightest chance, that a consciousness of his imminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractable disposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Secession, therefore, made the inevitable task of establishing the supremacy of the white man in South Africa infinitely more costly both in blood and treasure. The British nation accepted the task, which fell to it as paramount power, with the greatest reluctance. The endless and apparently aimless Kafir wars exhausted the patience of the country, and the destruction of an entire British regiment by Ketshwayo's[4] impis created a feeling of deep resentment against the great High Commissioner, whose policy was held—unreasonably enough—responsible ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... apply it slowly and with some reluctance to white men and more slowly and with greater reserve to white women, but black folk and brown and for the most part yellow folk we have widely determined shall not be among those whose needs must justly be heard and whose wants must be ministered to in the great ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... many inquiries about his grandmother, and seemed really full of kindness and sympathy; but it was with a feeling of profound awe, nay, of involuntary reluctance and shrinking, that he presently entered her ladyship's sitting-room, ushered in by Mary, who had been to her grandmother beforehand to announce the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... believed, give rise to an interesting discussion, and after calling on Professor Possil, he resumed his chair. That illustrious man, whose insignificant appearance belied his fame, responded to the invitation with a show of reluctance, from a conspicuous place in the front row of the audience, and immediately assailed the new hypothesis ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... honour with black eyes or bloody heads is astonishing: but more astonishing is the number of those who, though they are scarcely able by daily labour to procure daily food, will nevertheless, without the least reluctance, waste six or seven hours of the day lounging in the yard or court of a justice of the peace, waiting to make some complaint about—nothing. It is impossible to convince them that time is money. They do not set any value upon their own time, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Ah, Judaism is not a religion, but a misfortune. And to be born a Jew and a genius! What a double curse! Believe me, Lucy, a certificate of baptism was a necessary card of admission to European culture. Neither my mother nor my money-bag of an uncle sympathized with my shuddering reluctance to wade through holy water to my doctor's degree. And yet no sooner had I taken the dip than a great horror came over me. Many a time I got up at night and looked in the glass, and cursed myself for my want of backbone! Alas! my curses were more potent than those of the Rabbis ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the extreme tips of her fingers upon his coat sleeve. He glanced down at them for a moment. Her reluctance was evident. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... insufficient to convince the workhouse girl of one of the plainest meanings a man can well have. From the banter of the man of learning the queen of the dingle sought refuge in a precipitate flight. Almost simultaneously the word-master, albeit with reluctance, decided that it was high time to give over his "mocking and scoffing." When he returned with this resolve to the dingle, Isopel Berners had quitted ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... India estates more populous and important than those of many whom we have always recognized as Ruling Chiefs. The objections to so novel a departure are, I know, serious, and may be overwhelming—foremost among them being the reluctance hitherto shown by the people themselves whenever, for purposes of administrative convenience, any slight readjustment of boundaries has been proposed that involved the transfer to a native State of even a few villages ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... with great evident reluctance, confessed that she had to return, as one of her pupils would be at her house by half-past twelve. But would not Mr. Brand take her dear adopted child to see some of the pictures? It was a pity that she should be ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to give a clear and distinct Answer to every one of them: And these very Gentlemen would, on other Occasions, had they no favourite Point to carry, reject such Reasoning with all the Contempt, and Indignation, it deserves. It is with some Reluctance, I find myself obliged to disapprove the Sentiments of such wise and worthy Grey Hairs, to whom the World hath been long and deeply indebted for his many excellent Services, both from the Pen and the Pulpit. ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... for the mass of people, lies in the Four Great Truths and their practical application to others, which implies kindness and love of humanity. For Buddha, whatever may have been the reluctance with which he began to preach, shows in all his teachings and dealings with men an enduring patience under their rebuffs, a brotherly sympathy with their weakness, and a divine pity for their sorrows. Something, too, of divine anger with the pettiness ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... in rear of the town. This section of country, being higher and more rolling than that in the neighborhood of Booneville, had many advantages in the way of better camping-grounds, better grazing and the like, but I moved with reluctance, because I feared that my proximity to Asboth would diminish to a certain extent my independence ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... humour. Those last two apparently paradoxical substantives are chosen advisedly, and employed as the most convenient way of introducing that disagreeable question which no commentator on Sterne can possibly shirk, but which every admirer of Sterne must approach with reluctance. There is, of course, a sense in which Sterne's humour—if, indeed, we may bestow that name on the form of jocularity to which I refer—is the very reverse of pure and delicate: a sense in which it is impure and indelicate in the highest degree. On this it is necessary, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... were taken to raise land forces; but here again the rift in the Federal party appeared. Washington was made titular commander-in-chief. It was expected that operations would be directed by the second in command, and Hamilton's friends insisted that he should receive that appointment. With great reluctance Adams granted the commission, the result of which was the resignation of Knox, who had ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... offered us the use of their several rooms, in case the threats of a certain gentleman in the House should so terrify you, sir, that you should feel compelled to withdraw your most friendly offer. We have accepted the use of the Committee-room on Agriculture, leaving you, sir, with reluctance, simply because it is larger and more accessible than your room, and one so beautifully adorned by art, that our womanly tastes are daily gratified ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to them very unfair that Luther's personal enemy should have been intrusted with the publication of the bull. Even the princes and universities that were most friendly to the pope published the bull with great reluctance. The students of Erfurt and Leipsic pursued Eck with pointed allusions to Pharisees and devil's emissaries. In many cases the bull was ignored altogether. Luther's own sovereign, the elector of Saxony, while no convert to the new views, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in which Macleod showed his gratitude to his friend was in concealing his great reluctance on going down with him into Sussex. It was like rending his heart-strings for him to leave London for a single hour at this time. What beautiful confidences, and tender, timid looks, and sweet, small words he was leaving behind him in order to go and shoot a lot of miserable pheasants! He was ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... seen. Having a boundless choice of fine things which grow and flower without reluctance, the practical gardener gets irritated in these days when he finds a plant beyond his skill. It is a pity, for the Schomburgkias are glorious things—in especial Sch. tibicinis. No description has done it justice, and few are privileged to speak as eye-witnesses. The clustering flowers hang ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... were thus assured of Henry's immediate inability to injure them, they disbanded the troops which had served them so gallantly. Much as the soldiers longed to return to their homes, they did not part without some reluctance. They had long toiled side by side in the same glorious cause; they had shared the same dangers and the same pleasures. They had slept and kept watch together. Reminiscences of hair-breadth escapes and of mutual services had created friendships of no ordinary strength. ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... discussed between these two with much interest; but Rose had given up all thought of it with great apparent reluctance, and nothing had been said about it for some days. Judging from what her own feelings would have been in similar circumstances, Fanny doubted ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... a confirmation of this view in dream phenomena. But however good the evidence, we shall fail to make out a case unless dream experiences are conceded to be as real as any other. The reluctance we may have to make this concession comes first from the purely subjective character of dreams, and secondly from their triviality and irrationality—it is as though the muddy sediment of daytime thought and feeling and that alone were ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... him away, choking almost from a reluctance that he dared not show. The thing was unfortunate; but after all not beyond remedy. The escape was set for midnight, and he should easily be back by then. He mounted the horse that Kent procured him, intending ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... him as a Jacobite, and they proceeded so far in their detestation, as to throw stones and dirt at him as he passed thro' the streets. The chapter of St. Patrick's, like the rest of the kingdom, received him with great reluctance. They opposed him in every point he proposed. They avoided him as a pestilence, and resisted him as an invader and an enemy to his country. Such was his first reception, as dean of St. Patrick's. Fewer talents, and less firmness must ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... the real and unexaggerated brightness which appertains to its basis, one cannot say. Certain it was that Knight's disappointment at finding himself second or third in the field, at Elfride's momentary equivoque, and at her reluctance to be candid, brought him to the verge ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... interfere to mar the pleasure with which we sat in front of the southern door, beneath the two lofty arches, which, springing from the entrance tower, span the street high above our heads. For some time we sat, unwilling to change and it might be impair our sensations by passing inwards. Our reluctance was but too well founded: the whole interior has been modernized in detestable Renaissance style, and in place of highest honor, above the central doorway, sits in tight-buttoned uniform a fitting idol for so ugly a shrine, the double-chinned effigy of the reigning monarch. We turned for comfort ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... convinced by my own eyes that the particular spot indicated did not conceal the little homestead I was seeking. Several times I rose triumphant, feeling sure that "now indeed I do know where it is," and proceeded at once to the bush she had pointed out with so much simulated reluctance, parted the branches, and looked in, only to find myself deceived again. Her acting was marvelous. With just the properly anxious, uneasy manner, she would steal behind a clump of leaves into some retired spot admirably adapted for a chat's nest, and after a moment sneak out at the ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... blood and come there and subject themselves to being shot, and thereby afford us a chance to increase our stock of winter supplies in the form of wolf steak, or jerk. Accordingly the victim was lead to the spot indicated, and there slain in the same manner, and with quite as much reluctance on the part of the slayer, as on the occasion of the sacrifice of the little horse, more than three weeks before. The body was skinned, cut up, and all taken within the building, nothing being left except the blood which had been spilled on the ground, and which ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... 16.—I omitted to mention that we, on the mountains, fell in with Mr. Cooper of Philadelphia, who has been our companion for several days. We had to part with him today, which we did with much reluctance, as he proved a very agreeable companion. Rainy day, fatigued by the broken country, determined to spend this day in Steubenville, a busy little village on the bank of the Ohio. Purchased a plain Jersey wagon and ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... word, but with a good deal of apparent reluctance, he took the long, bony hand in his, and probably, would have instantly dropped it again, had not Mrs Keswick given him a most hearty clutch, and a vigorous and ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Ford sedan making its way over the water-lined ice, through the snow-storm, like a tug-boat in a fog. The driver stopped at a corner. The car skidded, it turned about with comic reluctance, crashed into a tree, and stood tilted on a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Then, with apparent reluctance, Ziska came down from his seat and went into the inner room. There he remained some time, while Trendellsohn was standing, hat in hand, in the outer office. If the changes which he hoped to effect among his brethren could be made, a Jew in Prague should, before long, be asked to sit down ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Nankin, which the imperialists were investing for a sixth time, under Tseng Kwofan, who had been elevated to the viceroyalty of the Two Kiang. Tien Wang, in despair, sent off an urgent summons to Chung Wang to come to his assistance, and although he went with reluctance he felt that he had ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... but it bothered Seneca amazingly. As for myself, I was delighted with it, and could have kissed the pretty, arch creature who had just uttered the remark; though I will own that as much might have been done without any great reluctance, had she even held her tongue. As for Seneca, he did what most men are apt to do when they have the consciousness of not appearing particularly well in a given point of view he endeavoured to present himself to the eyes ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... poultry, eggs, and fresh meat. They passed the fortified hill of Jacques-Cartier, whence they were saluted with shot and shell, stopped at various parishes, disarmed the inhabitants, administered oaths of neutrality, which were taken without much apparent reluctance, and on the fourth of August came within sight of Three Rivers, then occupied by a body of troops expecting an attack. "But," says Knox, "a delay here would be absurd, as that wretched place must share the fate of Montreal. Our fleet sailed this ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... I even entrust it to you with reluctance; even you should not know it, if I could keep ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... Russians at a Russian opera in the Imperial Theatre, or the masses on informal occasions like the present. This soldier, who danced with joy in every fibre, was quite willing to oblige them indefinitely, and seemed to be made of steel springs. He stopped with great reluctance, and that only when his company was ordered peremptorily to march off to barracks ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of my own it was my good fortune to be in a measure admitted to their friendship—frankly by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with reluctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise with a red-coat. 'Like to like,' said he. 'I'm a bloomin' sodger—he's a bloomin' civilian. 'Taint ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... that it is impracticable to carry the same into effect. This is attributable to the distance of most of the settlers and the reluctance of ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... Father. After the copy for this volume had been sent to the press, it was found necessary to omit some portions of the work in the republication, as too much matter had been furnished for a volume of reasonable size. The Editor made these omissions with much reluctance, but the desire to bring a record of Madame Ossoli's journeyings within the compass of one volume outweighed that reluctance. He believes the omissions have been made in such a way as not materially to diminish its value, especially as most which has been omitted will find place in another volume ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and Penseroso, as a writer of various accomplishments and great general ability, but at bottom simply a man of letters and by no means a poet. It is to Gray, however, that we must turn for the distinctive character of the best poetry of the eighteenth century. With reluctance we will surrender the Pindaric Odes, though not without risking the observation that some of Wordsworth's own criticism on Gray is as narrow and as much beside the mark as Jeffrey's on the Excursion. But the Ode on Eton College is not to have grudged to it the noble ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... come along," was the quick order, and it was no time now for reluctance, resentment, much less refusal. The two men summoned shrank back and would not come, but Cawker found two who dared to follow. It was a case of ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... reluctance to comply with their request, that the grand vizier was forced to take upon himself to say; "Sir, it were needless to represent to your majesty, that it belongs only to women to persist in perpetual mourning. We doubt not ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... the looks of his men that it would be useless to strain his authority, and so he gave way, though with sore reluctance, only exacting a solemn oath from the whole company that they would keep their hands off the cattle of Helios. When each in turn had taken the oath they landed on the shore of a sheltered bay, and encamped by a ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... had hitherto felt a reluctance to speaking, not from the abstruseness, but from the simplicity, of the subject; but he could not longer be silent, when he observed those arguments of policy creeping again out of their lurking-places, which had fled before eloquence and truth. The House had clearly given up the policy of the question. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... established with the Papuans of that place, who brought on board a number of birds of paradise, but not much in the shape of provisions. These natives, are of so gentle and timid a disposition, that only with great reluctance will they risk going into the woods through fear of the Arfakis, who dwell on the mountains, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... than a week after the return from his fruitful journey, that the day of his marriage with Penny having been fixed, it was agreed that Mrs. Palfrey should overcome her reluctance to move from home, and that she and her husband should bring their two daughters to inspect little Penny's future abode and decide on the new arrangements to be made for the reception of the bride. Mr. Freely meant her to have a house so pretty and comfortable ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... much pleased at Ned's reply, which I interpreted; but he seemed less inclined to treat Pedro and me with favour. My turn came next. I own that I felt great reluctance to refuse fighting, and having no sufficient excuse to offer, was about to answer that I was ready to serve in any capacity the Inca might desire, when a loud shout was raised, and a fresh body of Indians was seen hurrying ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... cadence. Whether because of the unwonted interest which the stranger had excited, or the reluctance to relinquish his curiosity, still ungratified, or the pain of parting to an impressionable nature, whose every emotion is acute, Hite hesitated when he had gone some twenty yards straight up the slope above, pushing his horse along a narrow ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... had its effect. With obvious reluctance the fellow served me some biscuits and some not bad champagne ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Honor'd Father was born ye 31 Dec. at 6 o'c. in the morning on the Lords Day, 1693, and was baptized by Mr. Willard the next day & dyed att sea Octo. 13, 1731 aged 38 years." A curious attitude was assumed by certain Puritan ministers, of reluctance and even decided objection and refusal to baptize children who were unlucky enough to be born on the Lord's Day; but Samuel Willard, the pastor of the "South Church" evidently did not concur in that extraordinary notion, for on the day following "Jno's" birth—on New Year's ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... hardly say no, and yet we neither of us relished the offer. However, he did not appear to notice our reluctance, and walked along with us, conversing in ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... had been president during the whole period of active life of the association, declined re-election. She did so with the greatest reluctance, but felt that the increasing pressure of work made it important that some one with more leisure at her disposal should fill the office. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Captain during my life. Pharaoh Daggs, step forward and unloose the rope!" The man with the broken nose fixed his light eyes on the Captain's for a full five seconds. Bonnet's pistol muzzle was as steady as a rock. Then the sailor's eyes shifted and he obeyed with a sullen reluctance. Jeremy, liberated, climbed to his knees and stood up swaying. Just then there was a rush of feet behind. He turned in time to see Job Howland vanish head foremost over the rail in a long clean dive. The astonished crew ran cursing to the side and stared after ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... a visible air of self-abasement about Lieutenant Weil as he crossed the wide chamber. It was a thing hard to define in words; yet undeniably there was a diffidence and a reluctance manifest in him, as though a sense of guilt wrestled with the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... my hours, and see them fleet away; The time is long that I have languished here; Yet all my thoughts Thy purposes obey, With no reluctance, cheerful and sincere. ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... minute scrutiny of the accommodations within, enough had been seen to cause the horseman to endeavor, once more, to penetrate the gloom, with longing eyes, in search of a more promising roof, before, with an ill-concealed reluctance, he stated his necessities and wishes. His request was listened to with evident unwillingness, and, while yet unfinished, it was ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... greatly outnumbered from the first, were now, after their losses and the rough handling they had received, no longer in condition for the offensive, and from the defensive they had, as things stood, little to hope. Sheridan, on his part, with some reluctance, made up his mind that it would be better to give up his original plan of putting in Crook to the left to cut off Early's retreat by moving against the valley turnpike near Newtown, and instead of this to use Crook and the cavalry ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... sympathy between them in recent years, yet he recalled his early boyhood on the farm, and it went against him to aim his piece at her. But after all it was his duty, and with an inaudible sigh he pulled the trigger. It was done. No one could have noticed his reluctance. It was quite likely that some of the soldiers that afternoon felt as much compunction as that. But as Sam went over all this long list of tests and passed them successfully, he felt, almost unconsciously, that he was coming to a precipice. His sense of happiness had left him, and he began to dread ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... now obliged to comply, though he did so with, reluctance. Presently he found himself upon the roof of a building, which he knew to be connected with the mill by a covered passage running along the south bank of the Calder. Scarcely had he set foot there, than Hal o' Nabs jumped after him, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hand at a bargain, he began by setting his terms high. Oswald doubtless looked at the matter very much from Franklin's point of view, for on the suggestion of the cession of Canada he expressed neither surprise nor reluctance. Franklin had written on a sheet of paper the main points of his conversation, and, at Oswald's request, he allowed him to take the paper to London to show to Lord Shelburne, first writing upon it a note expressly declaring its informal character. Franklin also sent a letter to Shelburne, describing ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... purpose of going to the city, and determined to speak of it frankly, and abandon it, if she showed, even by the expression of her face, that she would prefer he would remain, but he found himself both surprised and relieved that, so far from manifesting the least reluctance to have him ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... it pains me to say, are not the thunder and lightning which I seem to remember about the time of Waterloo. Roses, I fear, are degenerating, and, without a Red revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island—though this I say with reluctance—are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... every quarter, "so many of them, that it was often impossible to stop more than one out of half-a-dozen. The ground immediately in front of the shooters became strewn with dead and dying.... It was curious to behold the evident reluctance with which the hares left their retreat, and then their perplexity at finding themselves so beset without. Many actually made for the canal, and swam like dogs across a piece of water nearly a hundred yards wide, shaking themselves upon landing, and making off without any apparent distress. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... sir, please," he said; and Roy placed this in the man's hands with the same shrinking feeling of reluctance. ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry at Tess's reluctance, and teased and ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in the streets of Cambaluc (Peking) at unseasonable ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... had made Richard hungry, and he was not backward about sitting down and eating a hearty supper. But he insisted upon paying for all he had, and, seeing that the boy really meant it, Doc Linyard took the money, though not without reluctance. ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus: first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue, with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained permission, after modest reluctance pretty well enacted, to transform the deformity of manuscript into the well-proportioned elegance of print. But, this much gained, our author would not yield to any argument we could urge upon the next point, viz: leave to produce the volume, duly fathered with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... with self-contradiction and misrepresentation. It would indeed have been in perfect unison with the habit of the best authors of Europe and America, to change our opinions as we extended our investigations, and freely to profess such change. Nor should we feel any reluctance in following such distinguished authorities, if we felt that our case required it. But in reperusing our former statements, we cannot see that they differ, in any material point, from the results of our ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... of reluctance she put down her papers, picked up the lantern, and, crawling over to where Barton lay, sat down cross-legged again on the ground beside him, and began with mechanically alternate fist and palm to rubadubdub and ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... accepted it. He was in the thick of literary projects. One of these was the History of the Conquest of Mexico, which he afterwards surrendered to Mr. Prescott and another was the "Life of Washington," which was to wait many years for fulfillment. His natural diffidence and his reluctance to a routine life made him shrink from the diplomatic appointment; but once engaged in it, and launched again in London society, he was reconciled to the situation. Of honors there was no lack, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... to Gladys she was very sceptical. The reluctance to accept Hamar as her future husband she still believed to be all pretence, and she felt convinced that Gladys, in her heart of hearts, was only too glad to get the chance of marrying any one so rich. This being so, she could ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... retire from business; and that he had some thoughts of settling in one of the northern cities, as his health, and that of his family, had suffered from the climate. He said that a dear and only sister, as she was, ought to have no reluctance in sharing the superfluity of his wealth: she would thereby give far more than she received. And his brother's orphan should be most heartily welcomed to his heart and home: she should be taught with his children, and should share in every respect ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... rendered absolutely necessary by his ferocity and wildness, we were desirous of bringing him alive to England; but being so mutilated, our guide recommended us to have the buck slaughtered, and take a doe and her fawn on board. With great reluctance the death of the buck was agreed to by R——, and this splendid animal was dragged to a field close at hand. The strength and turbulence of the buck are beyond description; but I do not think I ever enjoyed any fiendish sight more than this short struggle between ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... and that natural modesty enhanced by the diffidence which belongs to a deep and ardent passion, James Meadows himself saw no real cause for fear in the pretty petulance of his fair mistress, in a love of power so full of playful grace that it seemed rather a charm than a fault, and in a blushing reluctance to change her maiden state, and lose her maiden freedom, which had in his eyes all the attractions of youthful shamefaced-ness. That she would eventually be his own dear wife, James entertained no manner of doubt; and, pleased with all that pleased ...
— The Beauty Of The Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... to her, Wauna expressed herself as really pleased with the idea; but when we went to the Preceptress, she acknowledged a strong reluctance to ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... for several years mother and daughter seemed to have reversed their relative positions and the child had become the protector, guardian, and provider. Then the brutal wrong of Allison's accusation, told her with such well-simulated sympathy and reluctance, but with such exquisitely feminine stab in every sentence; the collapse, the struggle, the suffering, the half-reluctant convalescence—and the sudden sunshine of that afternoon when he turned from the carriage of the girl to whom he was declared engaged, let her drive away without another glance, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... difficult situation. I am finding Jeanne very difficult to manage, and I am quite sure that she will be happier and better off married. I am proposing, if you are willing, to exercise my authority absolutely. If she shows the slightest reluctance to accept you, I propose that we all go over to Paris. I shall know how to arrange ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Giovanni's consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath which thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like a shadow over Giovanni and flitted away; he seemed to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more reluctance that Miss Templeman said, "Jersey. There they speak French on one side of the street and English on the other, and a mixed tongue in the middle of the road. But it is a long time since I was there. Bath is where my people really belong to, though my ancestors in Jersey were as good as ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the least interest in her identity. These "Jap women," as he called them, were never very real to him. She dreaded the possibility of revealing to him her secret, and then of receiving no response to her emotion. Also she had an instinctive reluctance to emphasise in Geoffrey's mind her kinship with these ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the force of Almagro's reasoning, and, though with undisguised reluctance, acquiesced in a measure which was less to his taste than an expedition to the wilderness. But Luque came into the arrangement with more difficulty. "God grant, my children," exclaimed the ecclesiastic, "that one of you may not defraud the other of his blessing!" 28 Pizarro engaged to consult ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the opposition of those in power had a wish to appear as if compulsion were being used. In general he was as little as possible in the habit of revealing his real desires, but still more on this occasion did he feign reluctance, because of the ensuing jealousy, should he of his own accord lay claim to the leadership, and because of the glory if he should be appointed unwillingly as the one most worthy ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... previously entreated his music-master to condescend to sing and play that night before the inner door for the amusement of the women. The maestro suffered himself to be pressed very hard to do the thing he most desired, but after much seeming reluctance he at last yielded to the solicitations of his esteemed pupil, and said he would be happy to oblige him. The negro embraced him cordially, in testimony of his grateful sense of the promised favour, and treated him that ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of their reluctance to go to that fishing?- They made a bad fishing last year, and they are ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... softness of a shape did bid him to my arms, That, as it were a trailing vine with twinings did him ply And on the hardness of his heart its very softness shed, He yielded, though at first he feigned reluctance to comply, And came, provided with a stock of caution safe and sure, Fearing lest, when he did appear, the railers should him spy. His waist of buttocks maketh moan, that lay upon his feet A very camel's load, what time he would a-walking hie. Girt with his glances' trenchant swords ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... I had no advantages," said he, and would have explained further but was kept back by invincible reluctance; feeling that the bare fact of his origin in an almshouse would be accepted, while all the inward assurances and imaginations that had reconciled himself to the ugly fact would go for nothing. "But there were advantages, very ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for ever? And yet, as our affairs stand, I see no possibility of our being happy together. It will be some pleasure, too, that I may have it in my power to serve you. Believe me, it is with the utmost reluctance I think of parting with you. For if it was in ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... cried Mrs Delvile, "to be difficult in your choice, and to take time for looking around you before you make any. I have forborn all questions upon this subject, lest you should find any reluctance in answering them; but I am now too deeply interested in your welfare to be contented in total ignorance of your designs: will you, then, suffer me to make ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a thump of joy that he was afraid the Chilean would hear or see it; but the latter observed nothing. With assumed reluctance, he bade the officer good night, mounted his mule and rode slowly away. As soon as he was out of sight and hearing, he dug his heels into the mule's sides and was galloping swiftly across the pampas toward the coast. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... guilt, is now the only one where no attempt has been made to evince repentance by amendment of conduct. But the Government which has the power of compelling justice will share the crime which they refuse to prevent, and the Legislature must compel the Government, if their guilty reluctance shall continue, or it will take that guilt ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... physiognomy, and scalpless cranium, from which he invited the lovers of the narcotic weed to extract a supply of that universal solace. These were supported, on the background, by a mirror of ordinary size; which presented unmistakable signs of the household's reluctance to disturb the sacred dust of ages. Its sides and corners had a very dingy appearance, like an opaque coating, which left a circle in the centre of dim translucency; and from this circumstance, a ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... personal feelings never changed; and I believe also that he kept a promise made in 1851, to remember me before God at the most solemn moments; a promise which I greatly valued. The whole subject is to me at once of extreme interest and of considerable restraint.' 'His reluctance to die,' concluded Mr. Gladstone, 'may be explained by an intense anxiety to ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... British connection with Burma presents all the features uniformly to be found in the growth of British Imperialism. These are, first, reluctance to move, coupled with fear of the results of expansion, ending finally with a cession to the irresistible tendency to expand; secondly, vagueness of purpose as to what should be done with a new and somewhat ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an unpleasant public duty. "I suppose I must go and ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... sheep-shearing, or the driving of stock to and from the various markets Reuben frequented. All these things he had done with a curious placidity, a detachment and yet readiness of mind, as one who lends himself, without reluctance, to a life not his own. It was this temper mainly, helped, no doubt, by his unusual tastes and his share of foreign blood and looks, which had set him apart from the other lads of his own class in the neighbourhood. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asked to preside at the banquet, refused, and proposed in his stead, first, Ledru-Rollin, and then, in view of the reluctance of the organizers of the banquet, the illustrious president of the party of the Mountain, Lamennais. It was evidently his intention to induce the representatives of the Extreme Left to proclaim at last with him the Democratic and Social Republic. Lamennais being accepted by the organizers, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... reluctance one is bound to assert that the advocates of Universal Salvation to a great degree ignore or explain away unsatisfactorily much of the sterner side of the Bible. For amid all its hopefulness there is a steadily persistent note in Scripture, stern, awful, sorrowful, which seems impossible ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... affections from him without a possibility of regaining them, and to induce them to go over to the party of his enemies, he resolved to defer his abjuration no longer. He was now convinced that there was no probability of his subduing the reluctance of several of the Protestants, or of ever obtaining their free consent to this proceeding;[2] but that it was necessary to act independently of them, and hazard some murmurs, which would end in nothing. As for the Catholics of his party, the King endeavored only to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Huancavelica), Mariategui (from Moquegua, Tacna, Puno), Nor Oriental del Maranon (from Lambayeque, Cajamarca, Amazonas), San Martin (from San Martin), Ucayali (from Ucayali); formation of another region has been delayed by the reluctance of the constitutional province of Callao to merge with the department of Lima; because of inadequate funding from the central government, the regions have yet to assume their reponsibilities and at the moment co-exist ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... were not so prevalent, the results of removal of cancer would be immeasurably better. The common, bad results of operation—that is, return of the disease—are chiefly due to the late stage in which surgeons are compelled to operate through the reluctance of the patient and, strangely enough, often of his family medical man. Cancer should be removed in so early a stage that its true nature can often not be recognized, except by microscopical examination after its removal. If Maurice Richardson's rule were followed, many ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... commander of the faithful, entreats you to come to her palace, where she waits for you." Ebn Thaher, to testify his obedience, rose up immediately, without answering the slave, and followed her, not without some reluctance. The prince also followed he, without reflecting on the danger there might be in such a visit. The presence of Ebn Thaher, who had liberty to go to the favourite when he pleased, made the prince very ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... it is so large a land and so thickly settled that one of its hundred divisions, according to report, is as big as half the world itself. It is learned from the Chinese that they admit strangers only with reluctance to their land. For this reason, more and better soldiers would be needful than those who could go from this land, for those born here are but little used to hardship—although it is also understood that the people of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... these divisions, which, in order of seniority, were Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, Germany, and Castile. When Henry VIII. suppressed the English langue in 1540, the Knights, with a reluctance to face the facts which was characteristic of a proud Order of Chivalry, kept up the fiction of its existence. In 1782, when the Elector of Bavaria secured the establishment of a Bavarian langue, it was united to the dormant langue of England and ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... would not disgrace his tribe by flogging one of their oldest men, but that I should take him before the Sheik of Gallabat, and fine him the amount that he had stolen. This I immediately did, and Mini handed over to Jemma, with reluctance, three dollars for the poor-box of Gallabat, or the private pocket of the sheik, as ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... make up his mind to the possible rough treatment of the critics, who swarm like bacteria whenever there is any literary material on which they can feed. I have had as little to complain of as most writers, yet I think it is always with reluctance that one encounters the promiscuous handling which the products of the mind have to put up with, as much as the fruit and provisions in the market-stalls. I had rather be criticised, however, than ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fire on a wooden spit untill it is pretty well warmed through and then eat it either alone or with the roots of the rush, squawmash, fern wappetoe &c. The natives although they possessed large quantities of this blubber and oil were so penurious that they disposed of it with great reluctance and in small quantities only; insomuch that the utmost exertions of Capt. C. and the whole party aided by the little stock of merchandize he had taken with him and some small articles which the men had, were not able to procure more blubber than about 300 lb. and a few gallons ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Did not my manhood cry shame upon me, I should turn back within doors, resume my elbow-chair, my slippers, and my book, pass such an evening of sluggish enjoyment as the day has been, and go to bed inglorious. The same shivering reluctance, no doubt, has quelled, for a moment, the adventurous spirit of many a traveller, when his feet, which were destined to measure the earth around, were leaving their ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the captain superintendent of police, Mr. Dean, and the acting Registrar General, Mr. Tonnochy, that they were not prepared to recommend anyone for an appointment to a vacancy which had just occurred, owing to the reluctance of the police inspectors to accept "the office of Inspector of Brothels." Mr. Creagh says, that the post is not one "which any of our inspectors would take. They look down on the post." "They are a class very inferior to those who would ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... care to wish you nothing worse* Weeping, Cressida reproaches her uncle for giving her such counsel; whereupon Pandarus, starting up, threatens to kill himself, and would fain depart, but that his niece detains him, and, with much reluctance, promises to "make Troilus good cheer in honour." Invited by Cressida to tell how first he know her lover's woe, Pandarus then relates two soliloquies which he had accidentally overheard, and in which Troilus had poured out all the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money; all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the family bark. It never entered ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... confusion. Her little Brownie playmate shamed her into action. She would not wait for a pause in the clatter of small events about Paul and herself; she would raise her voice and shout to him, if necessary, overcoming the shy reluctance of the spirit to speak ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... work and office routine he had an unconquerable aversion; and his physical powers, had they remained at their best, must have proved quite unequal to the workshop training necessary to the practical engineer. Accordingly in 1871 it was agreed, not without natural reluctance on his father's part, that he should give up the hereditary vocation and read for the bar: literature, on which his heart was set, and in which his early attempts had been encouraged, being held to be by itself no profession, or at least one altogether too ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand, which Miss Granger took with an almost obvious reluctance, and the two young ladies said "Good-bye" to each other, without a word from Sophia about the engagement ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... fire alone saved these people from the enemy. If Sam stooped for a moment to adjust his snow-shoe strap, he straightened his back with a certain reluctance,—already the benumbing preliminary to freezing had begun. If Dick, flipping his mitten from his hand to light his pipe, did not catch the fire at the second tug, he had to resume the mitten and beat the circulation into his hand before ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... not received with enthusiasm. Priscilla declared that she wasn't a bit sleepy, and the others all echoed the statement. Then Aunt Abigail was appealed to, for just one more, and complied without any pretence of reluctance. Aunt Abigail was enjoying herself hugely, and it was characteristic of her amiable irresponsibility that it never occurred to her that there might be undesirable consequences, from thus stimulating the vivid imaginations of a party ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... wicked person is he who proclaims the faults of others at their back, who is inspired with envy at the accomplishments of others, and who remains silent when the merits of other people are proclaimed in his presence, feeling a reluctance to join in the chorus. Mere silence on such occasions is no indication of wickedness. A wicked person, however, at such times breathes heavily, bites his lips, and shakes his head. Such a person always mixes in society and speaks irrelevantly.[316] ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the tendency of Van Berg's mind toward her? That was the question which troubled him more and more every day. From the time of their parting on the previous Sabbath evening there had been a growing reluctance on the part of each to speak of one who so largely occupied the thoughts of both. The old jest and banter about the "school ma'am" ceased utterly, and they mentioned her only occasionally as "Miss Burton." The old frank confidence ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... he said, slowly, "we won't wait any longer. Go ahead," he added, turning to the foreman with a sigh of reluctance. The foreman whirled himself about, and began to give his orders; but the two editors still looked at each ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... not merely from his reluctance to complete any arrangements which might facilitate Ellinor's marriage. There was a further annoyance connected with the affair. His money matters had been for some time in an involved state; he had been living beyond his income, even reckoning that, as he always ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... should think so. What the devil am I about?" and the jailer opened the gate with an eagerness equalling his former reluctance. The young man entered, and Sir John followed him. The jailer locked the gate carefully, then he turned, followed by Roland and the Englishman in turn. The latter was beginning to get accustomed to his young ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... very far with his novel. About nine o'clock on the same evening, Mr. Waddington, who was spending a quiet hour or two with his books, was disturbed by a hasty knock at the door of his rooms. He rose with some reluctance from his chair to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the fifty with marked reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while the steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour after her departure, the "large amount" is seen to be a "counterfeit presentment," and the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe |
