"Uncommunicative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had sold out to his brother; it was believed by others that he had simply gone to Sacramento to borrow money on his share, in order to continue the improvements on his own responsibility. The partners themselves were uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who since his remarkable social elevation had become less oracular, much to his own astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion that as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition, even ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... know more about it," she sighed, a quaint little air of childish petulance graving two lines between her eyebrows. "Do you know, Harry, you are a singularly uncommunicative sort of being. I have to guess that your life is interesting and picturesque,—that is," she amended, "I should have to do so if Wallace Carpenter had not told me a little something about it. Sometimes I think you are not nearly poet enough for the life you are living. Why, you are wonderful, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... patronising tone towards his tutor; he entered in a jaunty manner, and glancing carelessly over the table, declined to take any of the fruit to which the master invited him to help himself. He determined to be as uncommunicative as possible; avoided all conversation, and answered Mr Percival's questions on all subjects by monosyllables, uttered in a disrespectful and nonchalant tone. Yet all the while he despised himself and was ill at ease. He knew the deep kindness ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Exchange, and at such times he showed a marked disinclination for the discussion of household matters. It was not until the autumn, in fact, that the subject of finance was mentioned between them, and after a period during which Howard had been unusually uncommunicative and morose. Just as electrical disturbances are said to be in some way connected with sun spots, so Honora learned that a certain glumness and tendency to discuss expenses on the part of her husband were synchronous with a depression in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with me, he pitched next upon another emigrant, who had come through from Canada, and was not one jot less weary than myself. Nay, even in a natural state, as I found next morning when we scraped acquaintance, he was a heavy, uncommunicative man. After trying him on different topics, it appears that the little German gentleman flounced into a temper, swore an oath or two, and departed from that car in quest of livelier society. Poor little gentleman! I suppose he thought an emigrant should be a rollicking, free-hearted blade, with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even her other special allies seemed to labour under unusual restraint with her. Barrington Erle seldom told her any news. Mr. Rattler never had a word for her. Warburton, who had ever been discreet, became almost petrified by discretion. And even Phineas Finn had grown to be solemn, silent, and uncommunicative. "Have you heard who is the new Prime Minister?" she said to Mrs. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... your off heel, and I sympathize with you because of your prickly-heat. But it's all in the day's work and you'll survive. In the meantime, however, I suggest that you compose your restless New England soul in patience, old man, and enjoy with our uncommunicative Cahuilla friend and myself the glories of a sunrise ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... took of a lot of interest in ghosts and their stories. So I was generally at Haralal's desk cross-examining him about this affair; at first the gentleman was very uncommunicative but when he saw I would give him no rest he made a statement which I have every reason to believe is true. This is more ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... the place are generally negroes of the better class. They are well trained, many of them having been brought up as the valets, or butlers of the Southern gentry, and answer better for such places than whites, inasmuch as they are quiet, uncommunicative, attentive and respectful. One of these men is always in charge of the front door, and visitors are admitted with caution, it being highly desirable to admit only the nominally respectable. The best known houses are those of Morrissey, in Twenty-fourth street, and Ransom's ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Strange. I did not altogether lose sight of him after our sea-journey to Marseilles was over. I found him a pleasant companion up to a certain point; but I always felt that there was a reserve about him. He was uncommunicative about his past life, and especially would never allude to anything connected with his travels or his residence in Italy, which, however, I could make out had been a long one. He spoke Italian well, and seemed familiar with the country, but disliked ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... bench to bench, shouting and hardly knowing what to do. Word was sent to the office, while the workers went to their buckets and washed themselves, silent and melancholy as a funeral procession. Their faces were uncommunicative. Did they perhaps foresee that those three blows were the signal for a terrible conflict? Or were they merely following their first angry impulse? They knew enough, at all events; it was stamped upon their faces that this was fate—the inevitable. They had summoned the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to talk of his master. He was perhaps not on particularly good terms with him. He led her away and volunteered no further information. He was, upon the whole, uncommunicative. He did not once refer to the circumstance of their having met before. It was plain that he had no intention of presuming upon the fact that he, as a second-class passenger on a ship, had once been forced by accident across ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... famous for his successful cures and extraordinary treatments, while the other, taller and more robust, although much younger, was Isagani, one of the poets, or at least rimesters, who that year came from the Ateneo, [6] a curious character, ordinarily quite taciturn and uncommunicative. The man talking with them was the rich Capitan Basilio, who was returning from a ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... extremely practical attitude adopted by Fletcher Hill. But when she saw him again on the day after their safe return to Trelevan there was nothing in his demeanour to remind her of the stress through which they had passed. He was, as ever, perfectly calm and self-contained, and wholly uncommunicative. Adela sought in vain to satisfy her curiosity as to the happenings in Barren Valley which her courage had not permitted her to witness for herself. Fletcher Hill was as a closed book, and on some points Dot was equally reticent. By no persuasion could Adela induce her to speak of Bill ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... ways? Then perhaps some day he would come across me, and take me farther than I had yet been; but I would not be the first to whisper that I was there. It seems strange enough to me now that I should have been so uncommunicative; but I remind myself that I have been thoroughly made over, at least once, since those ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... spoken on the subject between her and the archdeacon, and yet it seemed agreed among them that something should be done. He went up to London, and saw his daughter,—not daring, however, to mention such a subject. Lord Dumbello was cross with him, and very uncommunicative. Indeed both the archdeacon and Mrs Grantly had found that their daughter's house was not comfortable to them, and as they were sufficiently proud among their own class they had not cared to press themselves on the hospitality of their son-in-law. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and the organization of her nursery an almost detached affair for her. Sir Isaac went about in a preoccupied way, whistling between his teeth and planning with expert advice the equipment of an ideal nursery, and her mother and his mother became as it were voluminous clouds of uncommunicative wisdom and precaution. In addition the conversation of Miss Crump, the extremely skilled and costly nurse, who arrived a full Advent before the child, fresh from the birth of a viscount, did much to ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... she went in earnest, and the Settlement workers were left alone in their transformed parlor to consider the madness or merit of her little plan. Michael saw her at breakfast next morning but she was gayly uncommunicative as to her plans, and that night Mrs. Hills reported that her star boarder (who had the two best and biggest rooms, now, and a dressing-room and bath and her own telephone) had gone west for a month or so for ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... should have been and was not. When it dropped with a harsh little click, the hostess, unable to restrain herself, rushed into desperate conversation with Mr. Mayhew, giving vent to incoherencies in the course of the first act of the meal which did but confirm her neighbour—a grim, uncommunicative person—in his own devotion to a policy of silence. Meanwhile the vicar was grappling on very unequal terms with Mrs. Seaton. Mrs. Leyburn had fallen to young Elsmere. Catherine Leyburn was paired ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... novel. It was not yet past five, and Lady Julia did not go upstairs to dress till six, and therefore there was an hour during which they were together. John had at first been rather grand to his old friend, and very uncommunicative. But before the dressing-bell had rung he had been coaxed into a confidential strain and had told everything. "I suppose it is wrong and selfish," he said. "I suppose I am a dog in a manger. But I do own that there is a consolation to me in the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and uncommunicative and wouldn't explain why he was so late. And then, presently, he said in a very casual manner that his hand was hurt. And when he showed it to us, I almost screamed, for it was very badly hurt—all torn and lacerated. He had it wrapped in his handkerchief, but we made him undo it, and I bathed ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... late hour I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead. I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of another race. I felt ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... hold of any chain of reasoning by which she might know beforehand what would meet her mother's favour and what would not. The unconscious conclusion was, that reason had little to do with it; and the consequence, that without being untrue, Daisy had learned to be very uncommunicative; about her thoughts, plans, or wishes. To her mother, that is; she was more free with her father, though the habit, once a habit, asserted itself everywhere. Perhaps, too, among causes, the example of her mother's ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... away from the black, uncommunicative mass of the abandoned building. The woods were lonelier than before. They ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... left his office, came home and packed his grip and then hurried down town and caught the five o'clock train for New York. He was glum and uncommunicative, as usual, merely telling Aunt Hannah that business called him away and he did not know ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... quite possible for young women to have friends among the young men without this friendship developing into a strong affection. You do not know, girls, how valiantly you are defended by the boys. Boys are usually such uncommunicative creatures! But touch their friendship, and they will throw a volley of rhetoric right in among a crowd of gossipers. Slow to receive favors from you, as they sometimes seem, they never forget a kindness done ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... Geraldine, and that Felix had become so absorbed in the business that had brought him home, that he only sent in word that he was obliged to go into the town, and tea must not wait for him. Lance remained, but the burthen of two secrets rendered him uncommunicative, when Wilmet tried to understand the cause of Cherry's delay at St. Faith's; and Alda was curious about Vale Leston and Mrs. Fulbert, whom she had seen at Kensington Palace Gardens. It did not take much acumen to exclaim, 'Still no children! Then there must be a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were much puzzled as to the origin and constitution of this extraordinary race, points upon which they were singularly uncommunicative. As the time went on—for the next four days passed without any striking event—we learnt something from Leo's lady friend Ustane, who, by the way, stuck to that young gentleman like his own shadow. As to origin, they had none, at least, so far as she was aware. There were, however, she ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... the prominent attorneys of East Point, and before the election of Kilgore as prosecutor had been his partner. Unlike Kilgore, we found him especially uncommunicative and inclined to resent our presence in the case ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... who, having received the mercy of God, lives harsh, hard, self-absorbed, implacable, and uncommunicative, will keep that mercy in any vivid consciousness or to any blessed issue. The servant took his fellow-servant by the throat, and said, 'Pay me that thou owest,' and his master said, 'Deliver him to the tormentors until he pay the uttermost farthing.' You receive your salvation as a free gift; you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her first impressions, Lucretia had made no difference in her demeanour to Coningsby to that which she offered to the other guests. Polite, but uncommunicative; ready to answer, but never originating conversation; she charmed him as little by her manner as by her person; and after some attempts, not very painstaking, to interest her, Coningsby had ceased to address her. The ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... said, "Who's that now?" went to the window, lazily leaned her elbows on the sill, and peered into the darkness. Nothing was to be seen; the open space of dimly outlined landscape had that blank, uncommunicative impenetrability with which Nature always confronts and surprises us at such moments. It seemed to Phemie that she was the only human being present. Yet after the feeling had passed she fancied she heard the wash of the current against some object in the stream, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... cargo and eighty-seven passengers, principally returning emigrants. No passenger escaped, and only two of the crew: one was an Italian speaking no French, from whom they could get nothing; the other was an Englishman from Cardiff, speaking French, but almost obstinately uncommunicative. He said that he was below when the ship struck, that the captain had locked the passengers in the cabin, and that he knew nothing of the causes which had led the ship to go out of her course to run ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and thick. His step was firm and steady, with nothing of the "wobbly" gait we often see in people who are not well-proportioned. His character was undoubtedly that of a young man who had the desire to get ahead faster than his opportunities would permit. Solitude had made him uncommunicative and secretive; anxiety and privation had made him self-helpful and self-reliant; lack of sympathy had made him calculating; but doing for others had made him kind-hearted and generous. His reading and study had made him ambitious; ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... looked straight at the flushed young pilot. His eyes were uncommunicative. "Lieutenant Siddons just left here with Colonel Watts, going back to Wing headquarters," he said. "I may tell you, Lieutenant, that the Colonel came down a short time after Siddons hopped off, and gave me a most uncomfortable half hour for sending ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... scarcely swallowed his tea when Durant saw him trotting off in the direction of the cottage; there was that about him which, considering his recent bereavement, suggested an almost indecent haste. He returned and sat down to dinner, flushed but uncommunicative. He seemed aware that it was Durant's last night, and it was after some weak attempts to give the meal a commemorative and farewell character, half-festal, half-funereal, that he sank into silence, and remained brooding over the ice pudding in his attitude of owl-like ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... appreciates more keenly than one which takes the practical form of leaving details to his own discretion; and, coming from Buchanan, it was doubly acceptable. For, in Desmond's opinion, there were few men in the world like the Colonel, hard and uncommunicative as he was; and it never occurred to him that his strong, unspoken admiration was returned with interest ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the voyage down the river. The presence of Mr. Button as well as the fact that Fred apparently was somewhat reserved and uncommunicative concerning his recent experiences in Cape Vincent, caused the Go Ahead boys to neglect the topic of conversation which just then was uppermost in their thoughts. Time did not drag, however, and it was a merry party on the motor-boat which attracted the attention of ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... conference, as the lady called it, immediately after his arrival at nine o'clock, and Miss Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked her work ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... sun, though seemingly unclouded, may almost be looked in the face, and the islands and mountains, with their wealth of woods and snow and varied beauty of architecture, seem comparatively sleepy and uncommunicative. ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... such a house, but it was more. It was mysterious, uncommunicative. In the midst of the commonplace residence block, with its white cottages, its monotonous lawns and uninteresting gardens, the contrast was startling, secretive, contemptuous. The tall grass waved ironically at the neat grassplots ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... our arrival at Mars itself, and especially after the battles began, the prisoner had resumed his savage and uncommunicative disposition, and had seemed continually to be expecting that we would fall victims to the prowess of his fellow beings, and that he would be released. How an outlaw, such as he evidently was, who had been caught in the act of robbing the Martian ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... change in all. The father and mother sat—not side by side, in that propinquity which is so sweet, when every breath, every touch of the beloved's garment gives pleasure; they sat one at each corner of the table, engrossed in their several occupations; reading with an uncommunicative eagerness, and sewing in unbroken silence. Each was entrenched within a chilling circle of thoughts and interests in which the other never entered. And now the only point of meeting between ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... had passed. It still bore scratches. The girl was so lame that every step she took gave her pain and her back was so stiff that she stooped considerably when walking. Mrs. Livingston had tried to get the story of Harriet's saving of their lives from the three girls. Patricia and Cora were uncommunicative. Tommy had no very clear idea of what had occurred, except that she "wath thmothered almotht to death." But Mrs. Livingston was not to be put off so easily. She found an opportunity to speak with Harriet early in the afternoon. The first question she asked was why the cots had been placed in ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... raised throughout England, of the hunt for the murderer of Mrs. Vernon. He suffered principally from lack of companionship. The only human being with whom he ever came in contact was Said, the Egyptian; and Said, at best, was uncommunicative. A man of very limited intellect, Luke Soames had been at a loss for many days to reconcile Block A and its temporary occupants with any comprehensible scheme of things. Whereas some of the rooms would be laden with nauseating ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... the cold insolence of a nabob's confidential servant; he was taciturn, abrupt, scornful, and uncommunicative, and indulged in fierce ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... mountain trails, or lying on his back under the trees, or gathering fragrant herbs and the bright-colored berries of the Marzanita. These and his company he generally brought to the editor's office, late in the afternoon, often to that enterprising journalist's infinite weariness. Quiet and uncommunicative, he would sit there patiently watching him at his work until the hour for closing the office arrived, when he would as quietly depart. There was something so humble and unobtrusive in these visits, that the editor could not find it in his heart ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... she went from teepee to teepee. The Kakisas showed themselves awed by her condescension, but still they were uncommunicative. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... committed. He spoke of his cousin with much feeling, and tried to excuse his conduct, as being the result of his father's ill-treatment and neglect; and he commented upon Anthony's solitary habits, and sullen uncommunicative disposition, as having been fostered by these ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... I cannot remember being in a more uninteresting place than this little town with its extremely uncommunicative population which, it seemed to me, lived under a shadow of fear that prevented all gaiety. Even the children, of whom there were not many, crept about in a depressed fashion and talked in a low voice. I never saw any of them playing games or heard them shouting and laughing, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... been in his best mood, telling me all the gossip of Florence, but out in the garden, with his face in the shadow, he seemed to become morose and uncommunicative. I asked how he had got on during my absence, for I knew he ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... definite encouragement, it was true, and yet he found reasons to hope that the time was at hand when she must make some definite decision. In Europe her brief disappearance from the scene of her usual activities had mystified him and her return to her hotel, shabby and uncommunicative, had aroused a chagrin and an anxiety quite unusual to him; but he had sat and waited her pleasure, survived her turbulent moods and had found his patience at last rewarded by her silent acquiescence in his presence, and by ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave—it may be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine—his ideas themselves eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive, which blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe that a philosopher—supposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse—ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?—indeed, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... stranger, whose moustache was carefully trimmed and who wore a ruby ring upon his white hand, made an anxious inquiry whether Fetherston, whom he minutely described, had been there that day. At first the head waiter hesitated and was uncommunicative, but, the stranger having uttered a few low words, Henry's manner instantly changed. He started, looked in wonder into the stranger's face, and, taking him into the smoking-room—at that moment unoccupied—he ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... undoubtedly was. The prospect of freedom, of release from a horrible and humiliating servitude—this prospect ought to have dazzled and uplifted him, in the safe, inviolable privacy of his own heart. But it did not... What a chump the doctor was, to be so uncommunicative! And he himself! ... By the way, he had not told Maggie. It was like her to manifest no immediate curiosity, to be content to wait... He supposed he must call at his aunt's, and even at Clara's. But what should he say when they asked ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... our post, at whatsoever risk. This difference of opinion, on a question of such vital importance, was attended with unhappy results, inasmuch as it deprived the General, in his hour of need, of the strength which unanimity imparts, and produced an uncommunicative and disheartening reserve in an emergency which demanded the freest interchange of counsel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... the cue of the conversation from her sister; and though she could have talked about Alaric by the hour, if Gertrude would have consented to talk about Harry, she did not know how to start the subject of her own lover, while Gertrude was so cold and uncommunicative as to hers. She struggled very hard to obtain the privilege for which she so anxiously longed; but in doing so she only met with a ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... closely housed, and saw no one whom she was not forced to see; only the meat-man and the fish-man could speak authoritatively concerning her appearance and behavior before folks. They reported the latter as dry, cold, and uncommunicative. Doubtless the bitter experiences of her life had wrought their due effect in that passionate heart; but probably it was as much a morbid sensitiveness as a hardened indifference that turned her from her kind. The village inquisitiveness that invades, also suffers ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... dirty fingers in his mouth, and looked stupid and uncommunicative. He glanced at the young officers around him, and then over the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... simple breakfast he was uncommunicative. "Don't worry, dear," he said, once, when she had plied him with questions, attempted to change his decision by arguments. "I cannot afford to run away. Monsieur Lefevre has given me a duty to perform, and I must at least tell my story. After that, ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... well aware of that. He had talked to two or three police officials and detectives that morning, and had found them singularly elusive and uncommunicative. One of them was the police-inspector who had been called to the Herapath Estate Office on the discovery of the murder; another was the detective who had accompanied him. Since the murder Triffitt had kept in touch with these two, and had found them affable and ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... joined the group, however, interest fell promptly away from Pete and centred around this more legitimate pole. But Bas turned on them all a sullenly uncommunicative face, and the idlers were quick to recognize and respect his unapproachable mood and to stand wide ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... mighty amusing to me; it is a man's mode of viewing correspondence. Men's letters are proverbially uninteresting and uncommunicative. I never quite knew before why they made them so. They may be right in a sense: strange chances do fall out certainly. As to my own notes, I never thought of attaching importance to them or considering their fate, till Arthur seemed to reflect ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... he was very uncommunicative. All I heard was that the reason he didn't get my letters at Packworth was that he had told me, or thought he had told me, to address my letters to "T," and I had always addressed them to "J." But even had I addressed ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the explorer's instinct. If he possessed this, he would somehow find his way himself,—a thing which occasionally happens when the reader has more than usual ability. Between the covers of those books, turning to him their uncommunicative backs, behind those labels—to him so unexpressive—there may be passages, whole chapters or more, that would give him entertainment, if he ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... collar which all but covered her head, the black eyes followed him as alertly as a bird's; intercepting the soft melancholy of his gaze, she smiled at him, mischievous, confident, and uncommunicative, and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... received word in reply: "This place will be your headquarters. You can judge for yourself." I left Memphis for my new field without delay, and reached Corinth on the 15th of the month. General Halleck remained until the 17th of July; but he was very uncommunicative, and gave me no information as to what I had been ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... themselves had eaten, they released the captives one at a time and fed them, afterwards replacing their bonds. The Mexican and the German were surly and uncommunicative. The latter tried to ply them with questions, but when they refused to answer he adopted a bullying tone and threatened them with all sorts of dire punishment. His threats, however, were no more effective at breaking down their silence ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... mothers their sons are ever young, and to old Lady Ball John Ball was still young, and still, possibly, capable of some such folly as that of which she was thinking. If it were not so, if there were not something of that kind in the wind why should he—why should she—be so hard and uncommunicative in all their answers? There lay her niece, however, sick with the headache, and therefore weak, and very much in Lady Ball's power. The evil to be done was great, and the necessity for preventing ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... is old and thin, with a faded, dusty face. She is uncommunicative. The few words she utters seem to cost her pain. Probably her lungs are half choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as free from this commodity as possible, and has the assistance of a strong girl who brings up the breakfast and lights ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... was gloomy and uncommunicative. At the breakfast table, when Brown glanced up from his plate, he several times caught the lightkeeper looking intently at him with the distrustful, half-suspicious gaze of the night before. Though quite aware of this scrutiny, he ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... guardian of mystery and of precious secrets. In the little cabin up on the Barren Conniston had said rather indifferently, "You may find something among my things down there that will help you out." The words flashed back to Keith. Had the Englishman, in that casual and uncommunicative way of his, referred to the contents of this chest? Was it not possible that it held for him a solution to the mystery that was facing him in the presence of Mary Josephine? A sense of conviction began to possess him. He examined the lock more closely and ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... creature, with a temper of an angel and the frankness of a child, Molly had become oddly nervous and irritable, flushing and paling suddenly for no apparent cause, and guardedly uncommunicative as to her comings and goings. She was oddly resentful of any manifestation of interest in her affairs, and snubbed Sara roundly when the latter ventured an injudicious inquiry as to whether Lester Kent were ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... newspaper man came to Bidwell and went to Pickleville to see Hugh. He wrote a story telling of Hugh's early poverty and his efforts to become an inventor. When the reporter talked to Hugh he found the inventor so embarrassed and uncommunicative that he gave up trying to get a story. Then he went to Steve Hunter who talked to him for an hour. The story made Hugh a strikingly romantic figure. His people, the story said, came out of the mountains of Tennessee, but they ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... Socialists. They at least had an air of coherent intentions. At that time Socialism had come into politics again after a period of depression and obscurity, with a tremendous ECLAT. There was visibly a following of Socialist members to Chris Robinson; mysteriously uncommunicative gentlemen in soft felt hats and short coats and square-toed boots who replied to casual advances a little surprisingly in rich North Country dialects. Members became aware of a "seagreen incorruptible," as Colonel Marlow put it to me, speaking on ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... distance of a mile, rose gaunt and black against a roseate sky, grew longer and longer; and then, as twilight fell, the two coming home met a few paces from the cottage. He asked some questions about the work she had been doing, and she answered briefly. Then, silent and uncommunicative, they went in together. The girl set the bread and cider on the table, and going to the great black pot which had been simmering all day upon the fire, poured some broth into two pitchers. It did not escape Michel's frugal eye that she was careful to leave a little broth in the bottom ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... to repeat the exact language of the lover at the happy moment, are wont to transfix the sensitive aspirant for knowledge with lofty scorn. Mothers are accustomed to dissemble and say they "have forgotten." Men in general are uncommunicative, though occasionally some rare soul will expand under the influence of food and freely give more valuable information than can be extracted from ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... almost came close to Lonnie. It did gather in the hidden, dead, still twitching, completely uncommunicative carcasses of the five men who actually relieved the vault of the Citizen's Bank of Berlin of its clutch of millions. It even identified the body of the rocopilot found floating in the Potomac a few days later as being one ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... dealt with him at some length. He was a peculiar man—of sixty-five about—iron gray, hard-faced, obstinate, and uncommunicative. He used to keep the ship loafing at sea for inscrutable reasons. Would come on deck at night sometimes, take some sail off her, God only knows why or wherefore, then go below, shut himself up in his cabin, and play on the violin for hours—till daybreak ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... possess my soul in patience.' So while he smoked in the cab, we talked it over." An instant he regarded John Steele as if inviting him to look behind these mere words; but John Steele's half-averted face appeared set, uncommunicative. Perhaps again he saw the girl as he had last seen her at Strathorn House; her features, alive, alight, with ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions; there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not." It ill becomes those who can teach, to be supercilious and uncommunicative. As the rich are required to supply the necessities of the poor with a judicious liberality, being expressly appointed as the trustees of Providence, and dispensers of its bounty; and as those who ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... do their gold; Their knowledge to themselves confined Is the same avarice of mind; Nor makes their conversation better, Than if they never knew a letter. Such is the fate of Gosford's knight, Who keeps his wisdom out of sight; Whose uncommunicative heart Will scarce one precious word impart: Still rapt in speculations deep, His outward senses fast asleep; Who, while I talk, a song will hum, Or with his fingers beat the drum; Beyond the skies ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... he lit a second cigarette and commented on the warmth of the night to an elderly gentleman who entered the carriage from the corridor. The elderly gentleman was uncommunicative and merely growled in reply. Mannix offered him a match. The gentleman growled again and lit his cigar from his own matchbox. Mannix arrived at the conclusion that he must be, for some reason, in a bad temper. He watched him ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... to-day my uncle was very uncommunicative, and I think ashamed of the fright he had given us; but afterwards he inquired of me whether Mr. Spearman was still in town, adding that he thought that was a young man who had some sense left in his head. I think you know, my dear Emily, that ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... orders for long walks in the fresh air, two-hour rest periods morning and afternoon, and a diet of eggs, chicken, cream and fresh green vegetables. Ridiculous orders for a working girl in New York! They disturbed Esther. She was very quiet, more uncommunicative than ever. I used to catch her looking at me in a sort of anxious way. It seemed as if I couldn't wait to help her with her too-heavy burden. Although I had brought back from the hospital fifteen pounds less flesh on my bones, there was something in my heart instead that was sure to make me ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros., and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had been taciturn and uncommunicative was in ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... is it possible you don't know the unfortunate circumstance, at least one of the unfortunate circumstances which brought me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had several conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are obliged to be uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the pleasure of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to know what is going on, and the "living room" of the squire, in which the exciting conversation was taking place, was in the rear of the house. The windows on the front were dark and uncommunicative. The boys were restless and impatient; if there was to be any fun, they wanted to see it. Thomas was as impatient as his fellows, and being more enterprising than the others, he determined, while obeying the instructions of Captain Barney in the spirit, ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... from it to an hotel where, in her ignorance of provincial England, she supposed that she would fare luxuriously. She was much less pleased to exchange the society of the lively Eglantine, so full of interesting confidences, for that of the ponderous and doubtless uncommunicative Mr. Wilkinson. ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... since he alone could not find him, he was willing enough to let Hewitt do the tracking down, if only he himself might clutch Mayes's throat in the end. This explained the "business" that had called him away after the Barbican stronghold had been captured; finding both Hewitt and Plummer somewhat uncommunicative, and himself somewhat "out of it," he had drawn off, and had followed Hewitt's every movement, confident that he would be led to his old enemy at last. What I had told him of the cypher message had led ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew his face,—I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to school together?" "No." ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... through the words. "You mean 'bribes,' don't you? For I assure you, dear cousin, it is the metallic clink of American gold, and nothing else, that lures your great men over the sea. As for my silence, ma belle, I have been uncommunicative because there really seemed nothing at all worth saying. I can't accustom myself to small-talk—I can't even listen to it patiently. I always feel a wild impulse to fly far, far away, where I can close my ears to it all and listen to my own thoughts. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... sat down, each waiting for the other to speak. Finally she put some random question about his travelling-companion, a slow shy meditative youth whom he had once or twice brought down to Givre. She reflected that it was natural he should have given this uncommunicative comrade the preference over his livelier acquaintances, and aloud she said: "I'm so glad Fred Rempson can go ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... was a case in point. She was uncommunicative. She liked to gather in information, but she found it difficult to give it up once ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... house at the fated hour appointed for study, we were thunderstruck to see the station-cart disappearing down the drive, freighted with our new acquaintance. Aunt Eliza was brutally uncommunicative; but she was overheard to remark casually that she thought the man must be a lunatic. In this theory we were only too ready to concur, dismissing thereafter the whole matter ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... so uncommunicative, Elfric remained silent, trusting that a few minutes would unravel ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative. She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she did not seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper, Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... gave way in 1868, Dr. Brown-Sequard telegraphed to him from Europe to consult Edward Clark, and Doctor Clark so improved his health that Agassiz afterward enjoyed a number of years of useful work. Perhaps he might have accomplished as much for Hawthorne; but how was Hawthorne in his retired and uncommunicative life to know of him? There are decided advantages in living in the great world, and in knowing what goes on there,—if one ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... butler, leaning over the area gate. Immediately I was seized with an impulse to interrogate him in regard to a matter which had more or less interested me ever since the inquest; and that was, who was the Mr. Robbins who had called upon Eleanore the night of the murder? But Thomas was decidedly uncommunicative. He remembered such a person called, but could not describe his looks any further than to say that he was not a ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... said Leon, "which may explain this on other grounds than madness, and which is quite in accordance with Wiggins's character. He has been the agent of the estates for these ten years, and though he was very close and uncommunicative about the extent of his powers and the nature of his connection with Dalton, yet it is evident that he has had Dalton's confidence to the highest degree; and I think that before Dalton's unfortunate business, he must have had some influence over him. Perhaps he has persuaded Dalton ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... determination. His air of passionate energy excited Philip's romantic imagination, and when, the sitting ended, he saw him in his clothes, it seemed to him that he wore them as though he were a king in rags. He was uncommunicative, but in a day or two Mrs. Otter told Philip that the model was a Spaniard and that he had ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... uncomfortable, muggy, unventilated; narrow, cramped; close-mouthed, secretive, reticent, reserved, uncommunicative, taciturn; dense, solid, compact, imporous; near, adjacent, adjoining; intimate, confidential; parsimonious, stingy, penurious niggardly, miserly, illiberal, close-fisted; exact, literal, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... easy to ascertain the number of her state-room—a double-berth which she shared with nobody. But it was less easy to find out whether she ever left it, and if so, at what time of day. He could not mount guard in the long corridor; and the stewardesses on the Lithuania were mature, experienced and uncommunicative women, their sole weakness being an occasional tendency to imagine that they, and not the captain, were in supreme charge of the steamer. However, Edward Henry did at last achieve his desire. And on the third morning, at a little before six o'clock, he met a muffled Isabel Joy ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the importance by which he set so much store. We laughed over this, and I did so the more heartily because I was sometimes quite grateful to be saved the trouble of talking to people so curiously uncommunicative as I found Franz to be. After he left us, he never sent us a word of himself ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... a very different type, Royce, in his "World and the Individual," concurs in this idea of a wider, universal consciousness. "We have no right whatever to speak of really unconscious Nature, but only of uncommunicative Nature, or of Nature whose mental processes go on at such different time-rates from ours that we cannot adjust ourselves to a live appreciation of their inward fluency, although our consciousness does make us aware of their presence. . . . Nature is thus a vast conscious process, whose relation ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... dawdled at school, where his record was not good. Perhaps it was partly because he had no spending money, no clothing to maintain his boyish self-respect, no prospects of any sort, that he had become sullen, uncommunicative, and almost loutish. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... events narrated here transpired, Brandur had grown prosperous and very old—old in years and old in ways. The neighbours thought he must have money hidden away somewhere. But no one knew anything definitely, for Brandur had always been reserved and uncommunicative, and permitted no prying in his house or on his possessions. There was, however, one thing every settler in those parts knew: Brandur had accumulated large stores of various kinds. Anyone passing along the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... some further talk, but for so jovial a specimen he was surprisingly uncommunicative. Indeed, I think he soon decided that I somehow did not belong to the fraternity, that I was a "farmer"—in the most opprobrious sense—and he soon began to drowse, rousing himself once or twice to roll another cigarette, but finally dropping ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... Penhaligon came shepherding her offspring home down the dusky street, 'Biades had yielded to the sleep of exhaustion, and lay like a log in his mother's arms. 'Bert, for no other reason than that he had tired himself out, was sulky and uncommunicative. But 'Beida—whose whole manner ever changed when once she had been persuaded into fine clothes—wore an ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... about him, for he struck her at the time as quite out of the common, quite remarkably attractive. But on the only occasion since when she had mentioned the subject, Damaris drew in her horns and became curiously uncommunicative. It was all connected, of course, with the dear girl's illness and the disagreeable episode of Theresa's dismissal.—How all the more satisfactory, then, that the Theresa business, in any case, was at this very hour in process of being set right! ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... But if He hath ascended up on high, and sits there, wielding the forces of the universe, as we believe He does, then to Him belongs the divine prerogative of imparting His nature and His character to them that love Him. Then His righteousness is not a solitary, uncommunicative perfectness for Himself, but like a sun in the heavens, which streams out vivifying and enlightening rays to all that seek His face. If it be true that Christ has risen, then it is also true that you and I, convicted of sin, and learning our weakness and our faults, may come ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Ogden Van Lennop came gradually to be looked at askance—a fact of which he seemed totally oblivious. And when the clairvoyant milliner went into a trance and declared that a desperado was in their midst planning a raid on Crowheart the finger of suspicion pointed straight at the uncommunicative stranger, and the Iowa Notion Store installed ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... at once," he said. He crushed Jimmy's note into his pocket and went back for his hat. He called a taxi, and took the man from the hotel back with him; he asked him a few questions, but the man was uncommunicative, and apparently not very interested. Yes, the lady was dead right enough, so he had been told, he admitted. The gentleman—Mr. Challoner—seemed in a ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... are more complex, they would require so much. For instance, if I were to have a friend, he must be an uncommunicative man: that limits me to about thirteen or fourteen people in the world. It is only with a man of perfect reticence that you can speak completely without reserve. We talk together far more openly than most people; but there is a skilful fencing even in our talk. We are not inclined to say the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Carleton Conne, of the American Secret Service, quiet, observant, uncommunicative, never too sanguine and never too skeptical, had strolled on to the Channel Queen, lighted his cigar, and was now tilted back in his chair outside the Quartermaster's office in Dieppe, not at all excited and waiting for the ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... friend, a shrewd and uncompromising foe. Physically, he was a big man with a bull neck and black, piercing eyes. His policy in coffee was one of blood and iron. He brooked no interference with his plans, and he was ruthless in his methods of dealing with men and governments. Usually silent and uncommunicative, occasionally he exploded under stress; and when he did so, there was no mincing of words. He knew no fear. Newspaper criticism annoyed him but little; and he had a kind of contempt for the fourth estate as a whole, although he knew how to use it when it suited his purpose. He avoided the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... its own powers, if he is uncertain of himself or doubtful of his object. The moral level of his men is mainly according to the manner in which he expresses his personal force working with, and for, them. If he is timid or aloof, uncommunicative and unenthusiastic, prone to stand on his dignity and devoid of interest in the human stuff of those who are within his charge, they will not respond to him, and he will have raised a main barrier to his own success. If, given a course or taking one of his own choice, he worries so greatly about ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... to the side of the ship. "A steamer in sight!" was the cry, and all books and magazines at once lost interest. Even the placid, dignified Englishman who was so uncommunicative, rose from his chair and sent his servant for his binocular. Children were held up and told to be careful, while they tried to see the dim line ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... certain stage in every sorrow when it rejects sympathy. Purdee, always taciturn, grave, uncommunicative, was, invested with an austere aloofness, and was hardly to be approached as he sat, silent and absent, brooding over the fire at his own home. When roused by some circumstance of the domestic routine, and it became apparent that his mood was not sullenness ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... white listener asked about this superstition of the bridge and the legend connected with it, the Indian would at once become uncommunicative, and say, "You can't understand," or more frequently, "I don't know." For the main difficulty in collecting these ancient tales—"old-man talk," as the Siwashes call them—was, that there was much superstition interwoven with them; and the Indians were so reticent about their religious beliefs, ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... Mr. Kennedy returned, sullen and uncommunicative, Phil sought him out. He found the trainer in ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... uncommunicative. He seemed too tired to talk. He too had not done so badly with the meal once he had begun. After a while his head fell a little to one ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... mysterious epistle, and he resolved to watch, if possible, what effect the perusal of it might have on his uncle, otherwise he was never likely to hear a syllable that was contained in it, that worthy relative being, from official necessity, a most uncommunicative person in ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... door against which John was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative and had a surly look. "But they won't let you in, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... a fortnight of early spring, and Emily and I could not help observing that our mother was unusually uncommunicative about my father's letters; and, moreover, there was a tremendous revolution of the furniture, a far more ominous token in ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appearances by coming ostensibly for both the ladies—Mrs. Penniman's convictions had passed into a riper and richer phase. There was to be no crudity in Mrs. Penniman's treatment of the situation; she had become as uncommunicative as Catherine herself. She was tasting of the sweets of concealment; she had taken up the line of mystery. "She would be enchanted to be able to prove to herself that she is persecuted," said the Doctor; and when at last he questioned her, he was sure she would contrive to extract from his words a ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... Mr Le ffacase was to fly over the grass and to Catalina, embark on a chartered boat there and survey the parts of the coast now overrun. A fresh point of observation. Accompanying me was the moviecameraman, Rafe Slafe, as uncommunicative and earnest in his medications ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a miserable failure in that family, which usually had much to compare, much to impart, much badinage and laughter to distribute. But the men were weary and uncommunicative; Estcourt Craig went to his club after dinner; Stephen, now possessing a latch-key, ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... looked upon these young people as the quarry of the "heroic fugitive." I had the notion that they would not be allowed to escape capture. But of that I said nothing to Miss Haldin, only as she still remained uncommunicative, I pressed ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Marian? You're as uncommunicative as a newly-elected office-holder. If you can't get a little more life into these expeditions of ours we'll pack up ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... to be strangely uncommunicative, though I tried to draw him out. He spoke only when he saw the sing-song girl he ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... found time to see Jeff alone, but had found him inclined to be sullen and uncommunicative. Jeff had changed sides, and was now an ardent adherent of Gregory's, who had given him five dollars without imposing any conditions; and then, what was of far greater import, had saved the house and Annie's life, and, according to Jeff's ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... we recurred to the subject of our neighbours—that is, I did—but John was rather saturnine and uncommunicative. Nay, when, as Mrs. Tod was removing the breakfast, I ventured to ask her a harmless question or two—who Mr. March was, and where he came from?—I was abruptly reproved, the very minute our good landlady had shut the door, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... clasping beads or books of office, walked in uncommunicative pairs and mumbled their daily prayers beneath these time-worn arches, and to-night it affords a promenade for officers waiting for their meals to be served at madame's well ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy, irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power, but he was prone to indulge in unseemly ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... found Maximilian in conference with a stranger; a heavily-built, large-jawed, uncommunicative man. As I was about to withdraw my friend insisted ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... uncommunicative. Earnestly desiring his departure he had strolled with his visitor to the gate. To have him on Sunday as well as all the week was a little too much, he was saying to himself, aloud saying nothing. And at that moment ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... sister and had a heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul talk with her—one that I shall never forget. She was so silent, so uncommunicative, yet I talked on until I felt the Spirit say, "Enough." I have seen her since. She was still leading the kind of life which had been instrumental in sending her sister's soul and others' souls by the ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... learn, for Tish is very uncommunicative about the entire matter, the morning passed quietly enough. She had taken the precaution of having her folding card table and two pillows sent to the engine house, and when Aggie and I arrived at midday she was seated comfortably, with her hat hung on a lamp of the ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... just asked questions like ony ither stranger," answered. the postilion, possessed, as it seemed, with the refractory and uncommunicative spirit which had ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. Nancarrow had been cold and uncommunicative, and he knew that a cloud of reserve hung between them. He felt that his mother despised him. He felt sure, too, that she knew all that had taken place at Penwennack—that he was henceforth to be treated, in what he had regarded as his second home, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... in the refreshment-bar at Swindon. There they gather, numerous and fair as the sea-nymphs—Doto, Proto, Doris, and Panope, and beautiful Galatea. Of them Maitland sought to be instructed. But the young ladies were arch and uncommunicative, pretending that their attention was engaged in their hospitable duties. Soup it was their business to minister to travellers, not private information. They had seen the gentleman and lady. Very attentive to her he seemed. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... an occasional shrill note as it might be on a penny whistle. The Yard was dark, lit only by a single lamp, and the cobbles uneven. Lights here and there set in the crooked old windows were secret and uncommunicative: the Cathedral towers seemed immensely tall against the dusk. It would not be dark for another hour and a half, but in those old rooms with their small casements light ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... winter was approaching and these, my first quarters, were without heat. As my olfactory nerves soon became uncommunicative, the breathing of foul air was not a hardship. On the other hand, to be famished the greater part of the time was a very conscious hardship. But to be half-frozen, day in and day out for a long period, was exquisite torture. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... stand in the streets and look at them. According to him, too, there was an order, a pattern which made life reasonable, or if that word was foolish, made it of deep interest anyhow, for sometimes it seemed possible to understand why things happened as they did. Nor were people so solitary and uncommunicative as she believed. She should look for vanity—for vanity was a common quality—first in herself, and then in Helen, in Ridley, in St. John, they all had their share of it—and she would find it in ten people ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf |
