"Taciturn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that I have been pretending to know the Dutch language. I hasten to say that I do not know it, and to excuse my ignorance. A people like the Dutch, serious and taciturn, richer in hidden qualities than in brilliant showy ones—a people who are, if I may so express myself, self-contained rather than superficial, who do much and talk little, who do not pass for more than they are worth—may be studied ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... in the academy dreamed for a moment that the broad-shouldered, dark-browed man who handled the horses so easily had ever smelled the smoke of battle or heard the song of rifle bullets. Day after day on the parade grounds the taciturn man watched the evolutions of the cadets, listened to the commands of the officers, studied the discipline of the place, pored over volumes of military tactics that he had managed to borrow, and added to his natural genius the ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... expressed to a visitor his impression of the impulse and the spectacle: Said he: "I never saw any thing like it:" language which seems curiously undertoned, considering its application; but from the taciturn Commander it was equivalent to a superlative or hyperbole from ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to the black ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a teacher in the north of France, enjoyed an excellent reputation throughout the whole country. He was a person of intelligence, quiet, very religious, a little taciturn; he had married in the district of Boislinot, where he exercised his profession. He had had three children, who had died of consumption, one after the other. From this time he seemed to bestow upon the youngsters confided to his care ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... bad to worse. Claes became more taciturn and more invisible to his family. He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his habits. Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master's secrets. Mme. Claes had a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... religious and political fanaticism; and though he held them in abhorrence as rebels and traitors a tear did fall for them down his iron cheek. How fortunate for the liberties of Holland that William the Taciturn did not also fall into the claws of that Moloch Philip! I next visited the museum and picture gallery, where I witnessed the annual exposition of the modern school of painting. The specimens I saw pleased me much, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... sullen in court the next morning; she was resentful of the policeman's talk, she was oppressed and discouraged and therefore taciturn. She herself said afterwards that she "often got still that way." She so sharply felt the disgrace of arrest, after her long struggle for respectability, that she gave a false name and became involved in a story to which she could devote but half ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... their house, and sat down in it. They were very silent. Lord Harry, his great coup successfully carried so far, sat taciturn and glum. He stayed indoors all day, only venturing out after dark. For a man whose whole idea of life was motion, society, and action, ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Egavine is taciturn about some things. I'll bring him back here with me as soon as I have these two locked away." Dasinger finished picking up Calat, swung the crane slowly towards the door, the unconscious ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... taciturn than the other three, but then she was always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... ought to be glad that my visitor enjoyed himself; but I cannot help feeling that my coachman would have done as well as myself—indeed better, for he is a pleasantly taciturn man, and would not even have given way to ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... degree: they are not easily put into flurry, into fear. In all Welf Sovereigns, and generally in Teuton Populations, on that side of the Channel or on this, there is the requisite unconscious substratum of taciturn inexpugnability, with depths of potential rage almost unquenchable, to be found when you apply for it. Which quality will much stead them on the present occasion: and, indeed, it is perhaps strengthened by their 'stupidity' itself, what neighbors ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three days, will set him fairly on his way;—and then, by another law as sacred, kill him if he can. In words too, as in action. They are not a loquacious people, taciturn rather; but eloquent, gifted when they do speak. An earnest truthful kind of men. They are, as we know, of Jewish kindred: but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... compiling a list of the Four Hundred persons whom he condescended to regard as belonging to New York Society. Vice-President Fairbanks was an Indiana politician, tall and thin and oppressively taciturn, who seemed to be stricken dumb by the weight of an immemorial ancestry or by the sense of his own importance; and who was not less cold than dumb, so that irreverent jokers reported that persons might freeze to death in his presence ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... death of my uncle Geoffrey, but she had maintained a silent and reserved habit; and Mrs. Balk was of opinion that she had had some great misfortune. She had persistently refused all intercourse with the people at The Mere. Squire Maryon, himself a cold and taciturn man, had once or twice showed a disposition to be friendly, but she had sternly repulsed all such overtures. Mrs. Balk was of opinion that Miss Ringwood was not "quite right," as she expressed it, on some topics; especially did she seem impressed with the idea that The Mere ought to ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... aide, and was eminently fitted (on account of his earnest and serious turn of mind) to act as adviser in an expedition wherein so many delicate and difficult questions might arise for solution, although his extreme gravity of temper and taciturn manner made the younger and more mercurial officers of the staff somewhat ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Heywood, of taciturn habit, does not make immediate answer, but stands silently regarding the perforated spot. His ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... correct. The packer was a taciturn inhabitant of the wilds who seldom indulged in an unnecessary remark. There was, however, no moroseness about him; the man was good-humored in his quiet way, and his usual ruminative calm was no deterrent from apparently tireless action. For the most part, he lived ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... garrulous woman. The invincibly taciturn woman is so rare as to have escaped objurgation. Yet she too is ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... as we carry along with us our atmosphere of hearty good will and enthusiasm we know no defeat. The man who is gloomy, taciturn and lives in a world of doubt seldom achieves more than a bare living. There have been a few who have groaned their way through to a competence but in proportion to that overwhelming number of souls who carry cheer ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... reached the gate, the officer confined me immediately in the guard-house, and I sat down on my trunk. The officer was a taciturn Spaniard who did not even condescend to honour me with an answer, when I told him that I had money and would like to have someone to wait on me. I had to pass the night on a little straw, and without food, in the midst ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... habitual manner in which digestion is performed or affected, makes us either sad, gay, taciturn, gossiping morose or melancholy, without our being able to doubt the fact, or to ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... says that he never saw a man look more exhausted than General von Fuechter, who, according to report, had not had an hour's sleep during the week. But though the General's cheeks were sunken, his chin unshaven, and his eyes blood-red, his demeanour was that of an iron man—stern, brusque, taciturn, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... sociability, a friendliness and genuine interest, on a "good nature" that is what it literally purports to be,—good nature. Though many of the persuasive kind are insincere and selfish, I believe that on the whole the taciturn and gruff are less interested in their fellows than the talkative ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... encompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one great due of 'cash-payment.' The old monks but a limited class of creatures, with a somewhat dull life of it. (p. 84.)—One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among those babbling ones. A Son of poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother dedicates him to St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout grave nature. Sent to Rome on business; ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... little laugh while Lord Engleton—a shy, rather taciturn man—was shewing her his wife's last picture. Hadria had to explain the apparent discourtesy as ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... young man should actually have taken it upon himself to lecture Miss Jessop once, when they were alone, for some remarks she had made to Hodden as she sat in her deck-chair, with Hodden loquacious on her right and Buel taciturn on her left. What right had Buel to find fault with a free and independent citizen of another country? Evidently none. It might have been expected that Miss Jessop, rising to the occasion, would have taught the young ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... of race resented her father's adoption of a stranger into the penetralia of the family; and to share the name she had inherited from her mother with the daughter of that mother's rival seemed to her a wrong done to both the living and the dead. Naturally taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not loving, and the people ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steady health like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some other points about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savage life. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasion could endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morning till about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak—it taking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking terms with humanity. During the interval ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... worked far more with his brains than with his hands. He understood the principles of piano construction, and was, therefore, no rule-of-thumb man. He had studied his work and, as a result, had continually increased both its quantity and quality Robinson was not self-assertive, perhaps a little taciturn, but there was something about him which made people respect him. Over the dinner pails at noon there had been many a conjecture on the part of Robinson's fellow-workers that he was in line for promotion and that he might be made ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Everybody was taciturn. No one felt reposeful enough to settle in any one place for a length of time. What conversation there was, was conducted in a subdued, frightened sort of whisper. Three young ladies, one of whom was the Englishwoman of the reading-room, unwearyingly ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has nothing whatever to think of. He had been in the war sixteen months, in Hugh White's regiment,—reckon you've ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pontoons" to help the Imperial Majesty in that River Country, says Fassmann;—sends also a supernumerary Troop of Hussars, who are worth mentioning, "Six-score horse of Hussar type," under one Captain Ziethen, a taciturn, much-enduring, much-observing man, whom we shall see again: these are to be diligently helpful, as is natural; but they are also, for their own behoof, to be diligently observant, and learn the Austrian Hussar methods, which his Majesty last year saw to be much superior. Nobody that knows ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the people around them, who are "Celts of tall stature, with blue eyes, white skins, and blond hair: they are communicative, impetuous, versatile; they pass rapidly from courage to despair. The Bretons are entirely different: they are taciturn, hold strongly to their ideas and usages, are persevering and melancholic; in a word, both in morale and physique they present the type of ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... name of the cadaverous old fellow who wiped his cups and spoons with his napkin, and his reserved manner seemed to invite observation. Taciturn, indifferent, never joining the conversation, a man of few words who never made any complaints, he attracted attention by the very fact that he seemed intent upon ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... my company a middle-aged German named Charles Oberdieck. According to the company descriptive book, he was a native of the then kingdom of Hanover, now a province of Prussia. He was a typical German, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, quiet and taciturn, of limited and meager education, but a model soldier, who accepted without question and obeyed without a murmur the orders of his military superiors. Prior to the war he had made his living by chopping cord-wood ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... tea as he reclined on his blanket, and being somewhat fatigued in consequence of his exertions and excitement during the day, said nothing. Mr. Park, for the same reasons, besides being naturally taciturn, was equally mute, so they both enjoyed in silence the spectacle of the men eating their supper. And it was a sight ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... crystal-clear morning, with mist in the hollows and the hilltops sharp against the sky. When Stark, taciturn as ever, came to the door at nine o'clock, he found his party impatiently awaiting him on the doorstep, eager for another day of new roads and ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... nose was perhaps a snub; Sir Tichborne's was certainly a bottle. Sir Chetwode was somewhat garrulous, and was often like a man at a play, in the wrong box! Sir Tichborne was somewhat taciturn; but when he spoke, it was always to the purpose, and made an impression, even if it were not new. Both were kind hearts; but Sir Chetwode was jovial, Sir Tichborne rather stern. Sir Chetwode often ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Axel Stroem on the way back, leading his sheep on a string. Axel is taciturn, seemingly anxious about something, whatever it might be. There's nothing he need be troubled about that one can see, thinks Isak; his crops are looking well, most of his fodder is housed already, and he has begun timbering his house. All as it should be with Axel Stroem; a thought slowly, but sure ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... the rough-looking and taciturn sailor, set foot, for a short while, on his native land, after six years of an exile which had made of him at five and twenty a prematurely aged and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... a youth came to the town one day. He was apparently a Spanish mestizo, declared himself the son of the dead stranger, and established himself in that far-off corner of the world. He began to farm the land and devoted himself especially to the cultivation of indigo. Don Saturnino was a taciturn young man, violent and sometimes cruel, but very active and industrious. He built a wall around his father's grave and, from time to time, went all alone to visit it. A few years later he married a young girl from ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... perhaps, in peril like Hester, men assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud upon her, and her suffering under it, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Schadows much, and they are estimable both as artists and as men; but the Catholicism of Overbeck and one of the Schadows excludes entirely many topics of conversation." Overbeck is elsewhere described as of "very prepossessing physiognomy, taciturn and melancholy," with a "proselyting spirit." Bunsen, who no less than Niebuhr deplored these conversions, writes in 1817 that Overbeck had been for a fortnight in August a welcome guest at Frascati, that he had finished a water-colour drawing—a very lovely Madonna with the infant ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... self-possession, and the mystery of her presence. He wished to discover more about her, who she was, whence she came, and believing Prescott to be his proper source of information, he asked him many questions, not noticing the impatient or taciturn demeanour of his comrade until Robert at last exclaimed ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk cleverly and well when she chose. And today she did choose, exerting all her wit to combat the taciturn fit that emphasized so forcibly the change in him. But though he listened with apparent attention his mind was very obviously elsewhere, and he sat staring into the fire, mechanically flicking ash from his cigarette. Conversation languished and at length Miss ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... in again with Father Kaleb, whom he had ordered to write down his last will; then he confessed himself, and after receiving the sacrament, he summoned Zbyszko, and the old taciturn Tolima, who used to accompany him in all his expeditions and fights, and in times of peace administered the affairs ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... all the acknowledgment Strong received from the Martian. Famed for his daring, Sticoon was also known for his taciturn personality. ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... Minister von Haugwitz, in his honesty and sagacity; for this reason, he will not altogether give him up, and he listens still to his advice, although Haugwitz is no longer at the head of the foreign department. Because the king himself is taciturn, and thinks and feels more in his head and heart than is uttered by his lips, Beyme's eloquence and quick perception fill him with respect; and because he is so very modest, and always believes others to be more sagacious than himself, he esteems Lombard's abilities highly, and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... stub of the cigar-end sticking out from his singed mustache. I can see him now with his foolish, angry eyes and his long, thin, puzzled face. Then he began to talk. I have always said that the English are not really a phlegmatic or a taciturn nation if you stir them out of their groove. No one could have talked in a more animated way than this colonel. Lady Jane put ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one eye shut and the other fixed on the luff of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and praying ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still spreading in every direction and the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... man was near happiness that morning,—unbelievably near. By nature unsocial, by habit, city inbred, artificially taciturn, there came with the primitive happiness of the moment the concomitant primitive desire for companionship. He smiled self-tolerantly when, obeying an instinct, he wound the lines around the seat, and went ahead to the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... instant when the door had closed in his face and the Cardinal had gone again as mysteriously as he had come—now three days ago—he had heard no hint that could tell him how things developed. He had not even dared to ask the taciturn servant in uniform who brought him food as to the fate of the old man. For he knew with a certainty as clear as if he had seen the dreadful thing done, that his friend and master was dead—dead, as the Revolutionary Committee ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... very sad!" exclaimed that lady; then, turned away as if suddenly perplexed. "I—I—really don't care to go myself," she went on, when she had given his request a moment's thought. "I know these country people—so touchy and taciturn, always ready to think one ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens. Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders; Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers; And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert, Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brook-side, And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven, Like the protecting hand of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... very taciturn. She never mingled with us, nor spoke to any one except Suzanne, and to her in monosyllables only when addressed. You would see her sometimes sitting alone at the bow of the boat, sewing, knitting, or saying her beads. During this last occupation her eyes ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... party, Mr. Blaisdell unexpectedly appeared upon the scene. He arrived quite early in the morning, having been brought by special train from the Y. He found Houston alone in the office, and greeted him with a cordiality quite surprising to the latter, considering his taciturn, dissatisfied manner when at the mines a few days before. He seemed in no hurry to leave the office, but remained talking for some time concerning business affairs ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... unpicturesque outlying villages, past small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas that violated his fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious state of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn landlord as he drove up to the door; but that functionary waylaid him on the steps. "There's a lady in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye." Mr. Prince hurried upstairs, and entered the room as Mrs. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... defiance of love and marriage. What is to be gathered of Hero and her point of view from this Act? How much from others, from little from herself? And how much from her of others? Contrast with hers the witness given of herself by Beatrice. Is Claudio taciturn, ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... fortune in wild extravagances for Evelyn, and the remainder I surrendered to my partners. Their criminations were somewhat assuaged, and our partnership relations being dissolved, the business was reorganized, and I was engaged in a humble clerical capacity. Moody and taciturn, I was regarded simply as the ordinary victim of a recklessly spendthrift wife, and was ridiculed and pitied as such. What cared I for ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sad, devoting herself to her work with taciturn tenacity; when now and then she raised her head to regulate her cotton and met Gabriel's glance, a faint smile would pass ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... syrens," said Murgatroyd, speaking for the first time since the Astronef had landed; for this big, grizzled, taciturn Yorkshireman, who looked upon the whole cruise through Space as a mad and almost impious adventure, which nothing but his hereditary loyalty to his master's name and family could have persuaded him to share in, had grown more ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion—which coincided with his—upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters at any moment. I passed forward along the starboard side of the deck, noticing as I did so that there was a faint lightening in the fog away to windward, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... day's journey, the past, the present, and the future, by turns engage our attention, or furnish matter for conversation and remark, according to the respective humour of the parties. Many circumstances have conspired to make me strangely taciturn, and I am now scarcely pleased even with the chatting humour of my youngest companion, whose spirits, instead of flagging, have become more buoyant and lively than ever. I consider it, however, my invariable duty to give every information I can, whenever my companions inquire ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... a window, with one of her most intimate friends, there to sadly make her the a confidante of her trials. During this conversation, from which she rose with red and swollen eyes, her husband remained thoughtful and taciturn at the opposite end of the room. Her Majesty, the Queen of Holland, has been accused of many sins; but everything said or written against this princess is marked by shameful exaggeration. So high a fortune drew all eyes to her, and excited ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... back to his place in the troop, and with his head slightly bent forward, rode on in silence. His dark taciturn features were lit up at intervals by an ominous gleam, showing that he still brooded ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... day. Not thus at evening. "Let us run after Graffam, and have some fun," the boys would say on returning home; and then it was wonderful to see the change which had been wrought in this mournful-looking, taciturn man of the morning. Sometimes he was in a rage, repaying their assaults with fearful oaths and bitter curses; but it was a thing more general to find him in merry mood, and then he was himself a boy, pitching his companions about in the snow, or talking with ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... countryman who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the landscape which are never discerned by him who hears the regular chime of a clock, because they are never in request. In like manner do we use our eyes on our taciturn comrade. The infinitesimal movement of muscle, curve, hair, and wrinkle, which when accompanied by a voice goes unregarded, is watched and translated in the lack of it, till virtually the whole surrounding circle of familiars is charged with the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... noisy activity of his troop of sun-tanned veterans, released for the time from the irksome trammels of discipline, relaxing tired muscles, laughing, joking, and smoking as they, too, prepared to eat after a twelve-hour fast. Among them, silent and taciturn, squatted five white-robed Arabs, securely bound ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... there till prayer-time taciturn and thoughtful. Their books were open, but they did little work, and it was evident that Montagu was filled with the most touching grief. During the evening he drew out a little likeness which Eric had given him, and looked at it long and earnestly. "Is it possible?" he thought. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... was, to make the good old Osman a partaker of my happiness, to inform him of my marriage, and to invite him to our ensuing entertainment. But, shall I own it? so much did I feel that I was acting a false part, and so fearful was I of being detected, that I dared not trust even him, taciturn as he naturally was, with my secret, and therefore determined for the present to have no communication with him, or, in fact, with any of my countrymen, until I could feel myself so securely fixed in my new situation as to be ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the inauguration festival, he had become sullen and taciturn. Like all timid persons, he took refuge in a moody silence, which could not but irritate his cousin. They met every day at the same table; to all appearance their intimacy was as great as ever, but, in reality, there was no mutual exchange of feeling. Julien's ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... busy day among his piece-goods, he had walked afield with Heywood, and back by an aimless circuit through the twilight. His companion had been taciturn, of late; and they halted, without speaking, where a wide pool gleamed toward a black, fantastic belt of knotted willows and sharp-curving roofs. Through these broke the shadow of a small pagoda, jagged as a war-club of shark's teeth. Vesper cymbals clashed faintly in a temple, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... man. Sometimes, weary of seeking information unsuccessfully, Tim would deliver it himself, and would talk all evening about his past hard life. After some of its sad disclosures he noticed that his companion was less taciturn, and he seized such opportunities for wringing from him something ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... all, and this person was Worth. To set down the trouble briefly, he was desperately in love with La Signorina; and the knowledge of how hopeless this passion was, together with the frequent efforts he had put forth to repress the ardent declaration, were making him taciturn and solitary. La Signorina never went down to Florence, not even to Fiesole; so Worth never joined his companions when they took, pleasant ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... publicity—a mistake for which Birralong soundly condemned them—they had kept their own counsel for days—days when, as Marmot impressively pointed out, Slaughter had visited the store and displayed that taciturn manner which was so easily understood under the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... up in the charge of distant cousins in some remote region. Stepan Trofimovitch had declined Varvara Petrovna's proposal on that occasion and had quickly married again, before the year was over, a taciturn Berlin girl, and, what makes it more strange, there was no particular necessity for him to do so. But apart from his marriage there were, it appears, other reasons for his declining the situation. He was tempted ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... usual smiling politeness, but Morgan looked sullen, and Mr. Blaisdell was gloomy and taciturn. Haight's influence was working, and he could afford to smile. Lyle was quick to note the situation, and also to detect in Haight's face an expression of ill-concealed triumph, and as their eyes met, he read that in her face that boded no ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... astounded Colonel; "do you mean Hotchkiss the President of the Ditch Company?" He had recognized the name of a prominent citizen—a rigid, ascetic, taciturn, middle-aged man—a deacon—and more than that, the head of the company he had just defended. It ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... more absorbed and taciturn than ever, and obtained the reputation of a man who was capable of committing a crime. Malin, the Councillor of State (a function which the First Consul raised to the level of a ministry), and a maker of the Code, played a great part ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... among the fading flowers; every spring it was like Death himself urging on the resurrection; but he lived on year after year, and tended well Evelina's garden, and the gardens of other maiden-women and widows in the village. He was taciturn, grubbing among his green beds as silently as a worm, but now and then he warmed a little under a fire of questions concerning Evelina's garden. "Never see none sech flowers in nobody's garden in this town, not sence I knowed 'nough to tell a pink from a piny," he would mumble. His speech ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... wounded lion turns upon his pursuers, from time to time he stopped in his retreat, and rushed back upon the foe. He was crushed in body and mind by this defeat. Having wearied himself in denouncing, in unmeasured terms, all his generals and soldiers, he became taciturn and moody. Secluding himself from his fellow-men he courted solitude, and surrendered himself to a fantastic and superstitious devotion. Enveloped in a cloak, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he would ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... disappearance no long time after. Whither he went, none clearly knew. Folks said, to fight the French; but when he returned suddenly some twenty years later, he said little about sea-fights, or indeed on any other subject; nor did many care to question him, for he came back a stern, taciturn man, apparently with no great wealth, but also without seeming to want for much, and at any rate indisposed to take the world into his confidence. His father had died meanwhile, so he quietly assumed the mastership at Lantrig, nursed his failing mother ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sometimes with her husband, sometimes without, running often over to see her Father; who, even after his accession to the English crown, was generally for some months every year to be met with in those favorite regions of his. He himself did not much visit, being of taciturn splenetic nature: but this once he had agreed to return a visit they had lately made him,—where a certain weighty Business had been agreed upon, withal; which his Britannic Majesty was to consummate formally, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was mad no one doubted. How long she might have been walking in the misleading paths of wild fancy, whether her insane vagaries had been the cause or the result of her husband's churlishness, no one knew. The husband was a taciturn man, and appeared to sulk under the scrutiny of the neighbourhood. The more charitable ascribed his demeanour to sorrow. The punishment his wife had meted out for the blow he struck her had, without ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... possible, except with the son, Arthur, who made himself quite intimate at our house, and was disposed to set up for a beau to my sister, though I never could discover that she had any particular liking for him. Even he, however, was habitually taciturn about what was done in their garden, as if he had been well drilled in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the persistent reasoning of the man whom hitherto he had regarded as a singularly taciturn old worker, wise in milling ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... pursue their national aims may eventually enable them to vanquish their more brilliant competitors in the struggle for hegemony in the Peninsula. Unlike most southern races, the Bulgarians are reserved, taciturn, phlegmatic, unresponsive, and extremely suspicious of foreigners. The peasants are industrious, peaceable and orderly; the vendetta, as it exists in Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia, and the use of the knife in quarrels, so common in southern Europe, are alike unknown. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... one operator on a machine with whom I never could gain an acquaintance beyond the usual morning salutation which passed between most of us as we came in to our daily employment. To me she was reserved and taciturn, and it was evident that there was no disposition on her part to be sociable. But somehow she fell in with my sister's gay, open, and prepossessing manner, and there grew up a sort of passionate intimacy between ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... by swift, unfaltering tactics. Foch has a tendency to the impetuous, but he is impetuous scientifically. He has, however, taken all in all, much more of the dash and nervousness and warmth of the Southern Latin than has Joffre—cool, cautious, taciturn Joffre. Yet both men are from the south of France. They were born within a few miles of one another, within three months of one another, Foch being born on Oct. 2, 1851, and Joffre on Jan. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... teeth, besides being tied neck and heels, it is not likely that this interrogatory received a reply; nor did his "reverence" expect any, as he continued putting similar questions in quick succession, appealing occasionally to his lieutenant for an answer. The latter, who was of the taciturn school, contented himself, and his superior too, with ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the shore, occupy a house close to the water, and keep the Malays off till the boats come ashore to fetch you off. Your crew has been very carefully picked. I have consulted the warrant officers, and they have selected the most taciturn men in the ship. There is to be no smoking; of course the men can chew as much as they like; but the smell of tobacco smoke would at once deter any native from entering a hut. If a Malay should come in and try to escape, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... horny-fisted clowns, little children, in whom thought has never stirred—have died, and what they have done, we also shall be able to do. It may not be so difficult, may not be so terrible, as our fears whisper. The dead keep their secrets, and in a little while we shall be as wise as they—and as taciturn. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... shall not say much. He is as taciturn as M. L. N. Bonaparte, et possede un grand talent pour le silence. Changarnier is a man of great nerve and energy, and is perfectly up to street warfare and to the management of the unruly Parisian population. He is popular with the soldiery and with the higher officers. As to his having ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... station, she seemed quite competent to the task. Nothing more was heard of their quarrels; they were always coldly civil to each other, when in the presence of others, and were regarded by their companions with respect, though, I imagine, never with any cordial liking. So they grew up to be grave, taciturn men, still retaining the same strong resemblance of face and figure, though time had somewhat altered the features, by fixing a different expression on each, giving to John a fierce resolution, and to James a lurking distrustfulness of look. These years made less change in Mrs. Blount than ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... while Rooney Machowl named him Dwarry. This diversity of pronunciation, however, seemed a matter of no consequence to the stolid boatman, who, when directly addressed, answered to any name that people chose to give him. He was taciturn—never spoke save when spoken to; and at such times used English so broken that it was difficult to put it together so as to make sense. He was there only in capacity of owner and guardian of the boat. Those who hired ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... until to-day, for I am naturally taciturn." Here he hesitated again, but after a pause, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... the taciturn speaker could have perceived any evidence of interest in that imperturbable character. But Nicol Brinn took his cheroot between his fingers, quickly placed a cone of ash in a little silver tray (the work of Benvenuto Cellini), and replaced ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... the fire, Nora," I said. Just then Reggie came clattering downstairs, followed by Lieschen, the taciturn ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... feet ten inches, well formed, and capable of enduring fatigue in an extraordinary degree. His carriage was erect and commanding, and there was an air of hauteur in his countenance, arising from an elevated pride of soul, which did not forsake it when life was extinct. He was habitually taciturn, but, when excited, his eloquence was nervous, concise, and figurative. His dress was plain, and he was never known to indulge in the gaudy decoration of his person, which is the common practice of the Indians. On the day of his death, he wore a dressed deer skin coat and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... education had at least the good effect of developing in him a contempt for the opinion of others, and he put on, without embarrassment, the academical uniform. He entered the section of physics and mathematics. Robust, rosy-cheeked, bearded, and taciturn, he produced a strange impression on his companions; they did not suspect that this austere man, who came so punctually to the lectures in a wide village sledge with a pair of horses, was inwardly almost a child. He appeared to them to be a queer kind ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Capital. As the Prince passed from crowded moment to crowded moment in Toronto, the stock of Ottawa slumped steadily in the minds of Ottawa's sons. They became insistent that we must not expect great things from Ottawa. Ottawa was not like that. Ottawa was the taciturn "burg." ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... person, who looked after a bachelor's establishment two doors up, and generally slipped in about tea-time, soon began to speak of Fred as a very nice young man who would be likely to make a woman happy. But Esther moved about the kitchen in her taciturn way, hardly answering. Suddenly she told Mrs. Humphries that she had been to Dulwich with him, and that it was wonderful how he and Jackie had taken ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... smaller blade, there to be converted into boiler fuel and to be fed to the crackling fire of the stationary engine, far at one end of the mill. Leather belts whirred and slapped; there was noise everywhere, except from the lips of men. For they, these men of the forest, were silent, almost taciturn. ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... once loved the beautiful giantess Grid, who dwelt in a cave in the desert, and that, wooing her, he prevailed upon her to become his wife. The offspring of this union between Odin (mind) and Grid (matter) was Vidar, a son as strong as he was taciturn, whom the ancients considered a personification of the primaeval forest or of the imperishable forces ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... with his discharge-sheet, back to Polpier, where his old friends and neighbours—who had known him as a brisk upstanding lad, sociable enough, though maybe a trifle shy— edged away from the taciturn man who returned to them. Nor did it help his popularity that he attended neither Church nor Chapel: for Polpier is a deeply ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... her loneliness the mother recalled to mind all the days of their life together. There had not been much talk between them, William was taciturn; but at times, when the cruel headaches tormented him, he had leaned his head against her like a helpless child, and she had stroked his forehead gently, very gently, and he had purred like a cat ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the opportunity, for which he has been waiting, to introduce his "Tale of the Indian." The story of Immalee, who is visited on her desert island by the Wanderer in the guise of a lover as well as a tempter, forms the most memorable part of Melmoth. In the other stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relying on the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquence to win over his victims. To Immalee he pours forth floods of rhetoric on the sins and follies of mankind. Had she not been one of Rousseau's children of nature, and so innocent alike of ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... a quick compunction seized her. She had never been able to rid her mind of a disquieting conviction that all was not well with this grave, taciturn being, whose personality was not less haunting than his bearing was unobtrusive. She did not remember that she had ever before felt so much concern for an indifferent person, and, being of an active temperament, ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... found the experience novel, interesting and by no means satisfactory. As he left the awning and strolled away up the beach, he was resolving that incense and solitude should give way to snubbing. He would see more, much more of this taciturn young woman, force her to talk and, if possible, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... are exceptions; and one cavalier in particular appears to hold himself aloof, neither speaking to his neighbors nor mixing in the throng. As he does not look like a "sulky swell," rendered taciturn by an overweening sense of his own importance, he is probably either a new resident in the county or a "stranger from a distance"—which, none whom I ask seems to know. There is something about this man that especially attracts my attention; and not mine alone, for I perceive that he is being curiously ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... continued on his way without a pause. But now, as he had not yet settled down to genuine hard work, he felt justified in turning aside and looking into the matter. The fact that the chauffeur, who seemed to be a taciturn man, lacking the conversational graces, manifestly objected to an audience, deterred him not at all. One cannot have everything in this world, and the Kid and his attendant thick-necks were content to watch the process of mending the tire, without demanding the additional joy of sparkling ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... her story, as he obviously did, was not so disconcerting to her as it would have been to most young women. Taciturn as she was, it was not by reason of timidity, but rather that her own motives seemed too clear to her to be worth stating. She was, perhaps, rather given to assume her prerogative right to be different. Her ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... a taciturn trapper, who seldom ventured a remark of any kind; "them varmints 'ud steal the two eyes out o' you' head when they set ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... late distinguished friend. He was then in about his twenty-first year. I distinctly recollect the first time of our meeting, which was at the aforesaid mess-table; and that his appearance struck me as that of a bashful and awkward person dull and taciturn, with a formal precise way of speaking, and a slight abruptness of manner. If Lord Bacon's saying be correct, that a good face is a letter of recommendation—poor John William Smith may be said to have come without a character! How little did I dream of the bright jewel hid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... was more than enough for three barrelfuls of the bottled product. Cultured members, on drinking it, were wont to say things about Locusta and Borgia. The commoner sort swore like hell at Freddy Parker. It made you feel squiffy after the sixth glass—argumentative, magisterial, maudlin, taciturn, erotic, sentimental, sea-sick, ecstatic, paralysed, lachrymose, hilarious, pugilistic—according to your temperament. Whatever your temperament it gave you a thundering head next morning, and a throat like Nebuchadnezzar's ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... rifle, the other his duck-gun, the butts of both, resting on the floor. At each moment their anxiety increased, and it seemed an age before the succor they had sent for could arrive. How long, moreover, would these taciturn and forbidding-mannered savages wait before they gave some indication of overt hostility, and even if nothing were done prior to the arrival of the fishing party, would these latter be in sufficient force to awe them into a pacific departure? The Indians were twelve in ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... in the simplicity of a full and remorseful heart, but he unconsciously propitiated Mrs. Watterly in no small degree. Indeed, she felt that he had quite repaid her for his entertainment, and the usually taciturn woman seconded his ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... at last completed, and Mr. Mulrady and Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carrying their scant luggage, were on their way to the high road to meet the up stage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into his daughter's face. He had looked forward ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... was taken in charge by Morris, who, having passed on Iberville and Gering to the drawing-room, was once more at his post, taciturn as ever. The governor and his friends had gone straight to the drawing-room, so that Morris and he were alone. Wine was set before the sailor and he took off a glass with gusto, his eye cocked humorously towards his host. "No worse fate for a sinner," quoth he; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whom did he call, to be his points d'appui?—on Prussia, whom for five years we had been devouring, and whose alliance was hollow and compulsive? He was about, therefore, to trace the longest line of military operations ever drawn, through countries whose fear was taciturn, supple, and perfidious, and which, like the ashes of volcanoes, hid terrific flames, the eruption of which might be ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... was decided, and the new boarder came, and was duly installed in the family; and thence commenced a new era in Sadie's life. Merry clerks and schoolboys she counted among her acquaintances by the score. Grave, dignified, slightly taciturn men of the Dr. Van Anden stamp she numbered also among her friends; but never one quite like Dr. Douglass. This easy, graceful, courteous gentleman, who seemed always to have just the right thing to ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... became angry, but he had a very unyielding nature just the same. He was just as obstinate in his way as his brother, and never gave in. Philip was always on his side, for the two were the best of friends. Bruno was much more reserved and taciturn than Salo, who was naturally very gay and could sing and laugh so that the halls would re-echo loudly with his merriment. The Baroness herself often laughed in that way, too. That is why Bruno imagined that she loved her younger son better than him, and because he himself loved his mother ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... or two, threw himself into a low, leather-strapped chair before the fire. As he sits there, let us take the opportunity of sketching the singular being. His face was an impressive one. The chin was long and pointed, the jaw firm. The lips were set as those of a taciturn man, but not grimly, and their corners bore two lines as of old smiles that had buried their joys there forever. A long and rather heavy nose, sensitive at the nostrils. High cheek bones. A good forehead, ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Grave, taciturn, watchful, secret and suave, with an appearance of tight-lipped reticence about him which a perpetual faint questioning look in his eyes denied, Hill looked an ideal man servant, who knew his station in life, and was able to ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... licensee of a small tavern called the Admiral Parker, in a back street in Devonport. It was a fully-licensed house, and much frequented by seamen. Noah Quick was a thick-set, sturdy, middle-aged man, reserved, taciturn, very strict in his attention to business; a steady, sober man, keen on money matters. He was a bachelor, keeping an elderly woman as housekeeper, a couple of stout women servants, a barmaid, and a potman. His house was particularly well-conducted; it was mentioned at the inquest on ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... we have honest Hutchins: taciturn, a little touchy perhaps, grown grey in the service of the company, and manifesting quite a bulldog-like ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Zu Pfeiffer appeared taciturn and suspicious. Perhaps the slackening of his will, tautened to meet death as his caste demanded that he should, and the confrontation of the object of his violent hate, had completely unnerved him. When Birnier had dragged him within and cut his bonds, he had ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... studies and remained with my father, who, naturally, was greatly changed. Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his attention, yet anything—a footfall, the sudden closing of a door—aroused in him a fitful interest; one might have called ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... brother, who seemed more taciturn, turned and nodded to two youngsters who had come out of the cabin while Tom was speaking. The elder of the two, a boy about thirteen years old, went into the shack and returned in a moment bringing out two rifles. I turned the broncho's head up the trail, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... on her part, this mixture of extreme graciousness and utter indifference which she manifested towards me. She always seemed to be thinking of something else; and although she talked quite sufficiently, and with every sign of superior intelligence, she left the impression of having been as taciturn as her husband. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... this. Theo had gone back to her work with a sigh, and Miss Pamela was stitching industriously. She was never idle, and always taciturn, and on this occasion her mind was fully occupied. She was thinking of Lady Throckmorton's ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... always brought forward by a pale young man who was taciturn even to rudeness, and by that trait seemed to commend himself to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... speak variously of myself, it is because I look at myself variously: all contrarieties, in one degree or other, are found in me, according to the number of turns given. Thus I am shamefaced, insolent, chaste, sensual, talkative, taciturn, laborious, delicate, ingenious, stupid, sad, good-natured, deceitful, true, learned, ignorant, liberal, avaricious, and prodigal, just according to the way in which I look at myself; and whoever studies himself attentively, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the tavern, one night, in a rather desponding mood, he found the man Wollaston smoking his pipe in bed. Wollaston was a taciturn man generally, but this night he was conversational, and Mr. Taggett, too restless to sleep, fell to chatting with him. Did he know much about the late Mr. Shackford? Yes, he had known him well enough, in an off way,—not to speak of him; everybody knew him in Stillwater; ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich |
