"Undemonstrative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like saying 'you marvelous child,' but never said it; to my sorrow I remember it now. But I come of an undemonstrative race." ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... urbane. Rowland remembered that the Cavaliere Giacosa had told him that Mrs. Light's candidate was thoroughly a prince, and our friend wondered how he relished a peremptory accent. Casamassima was an Italian of the undemonstrative type, but Rowland nevertheless divined that, like other princes before him, he had made the acquaintance of the thing called compromise. "Shall I come back?" he asked ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... bidden each other good-by in the undemonstrative manner of elderly men who have long been friends, Master Jacobus strolled down the main street of Albany and took a long look at a substantial house standing in fine grounds. Then he shook his head several times, ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... both busy and uncomfortable and making every one around her share the latter feeling, had little or nothing to do with Isabel or her friends. She was the typical Puritan, the salt of a somewhat dour earth, and how Isabel ever came into her household would be difficult to say. The mother had much undemonstrative affection for her daughter, but no understanding and less sympathy. She could never accustom herself to the girl's habit of facing every problem when it had to be faced but not before; she herself was used to spying trouble afar off, rushing forth with a sort of fanatical ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... path. Mrs. Ford stood in the parlor as she entered, upright, pale, and rigid. Each read the other's countenance. Lizzie went towards her slowly and giddily. She must of course kiss her patroness. She took her listless hand and bent towards her stern lips. Habitually Mrs. Ford was the most undemonstrative of women. But as Lizzie looked closer into her face, she read the signs of a grief infinitely more potent than her own. The formal kiss gave way: the young girl leaned her head on the old woman's shoulder and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... was labouring up-hill, and entreat him to go faster,—which habit he had found by experience was customary to woman in a one-horse fly,- -nothing of the kind happened on this occasion. The person in the blue serge was evidently both patient and undemonstrative. Whether the horse crawled or slouched, or trotted,—whether the fly dragged, or bumped, or jolted, she made no sign. When St. Rest was reached at last, and the driver whipped his steed into a semblance of spirit, and drove through the little village with a clatter, two or three people ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... who made so many trips, and exhibited a reckless familiarity with the officers; the officers themselves, now so modest and undemonstrative, a few hours later so all-powerful and important,—these are among the reminiscences of most Californians, and these are to be remembered among the experiences of our friend. Yet he feels, as we all do, that his past experience will be of profit to him, and has already ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... the machine should have been taken at this great disadvantage, for it was stripping it of its terror to those Indians, who were such inveterate enemies to the whites. They had probably viewed it with wonder and fear at first; but finding it undemonstrative, had gradually gathered courage, until they had congregated around it, and made as critical a scrutiny as they ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... his deportment was very simple, and without any of the flourish and embroidery which a negro might be likely to assume on finding himself elevated from slavery to power. He is rather shy, reserved, at least, and undemonstrative, yet not harshly so,—in fine, with manners that offer no prominent points for notice or criticism; although I felt, or thought I felt, that his color was continually before his mind, and that he walks cautiously among men, as conscious that every new introduction ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he started upon his errand with a very heavy heart. He loved his friend dearly. Between these two there had grown up now during a period of many years, that undemonstrative, unexpressed, almost unconscious affection which, with men, will often make the greatest charm of their lives, but which is held by women to be quite unsatisfactory and almost nugatory. It may be doubted whether ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... he had been carried away like Ned by the mutineers, instead of being accorded the privilege of the skipper's society. And now, behold! all the anxiety and commiseration which had been felt for them turned out to have been wasted, thrown away. The two quiet undemonstrative men, whom the honest skipper, when ruefully meditating upon their forlorn condition, had often likened to babes in arms, had proved themselves to be fully equal to the situation in which they had so unexpectedly found themselves, and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the breasts of these northern men and women, albeit they are as undemonstrative as the English—or we Americans, for that matter. It is exhilarating to see such people—whose digestion is sound, whose nerves are tough as whipcord, whose blood runs in a strong full stream, whose impulses are perfectly natural, who are good without ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... this house of God, simple and plain the large majority of the men and women who gathered there to worship in their quiet, undemonstrative way the Power who had led them to this land of freedom. But the Word preached to these silent listeners in that rude building inspired within them those principles upon which the foundation of the best citizenship ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... But he is an undemonstrative being, this man of the West, and you take a long time to find out whether he likes you or not. If you are a "tenderfoot" you can't do better than hold your tongue about the wonders of Europe and its cities, about your own various exploits ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... a brick and no mistake!" was all the undemonstrative Briton's tongue could say. But Mr. Mayne, as he looked in his boy's face and felt that pressure on his shoulder, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... note to Mather now, telling him what to do about the mortgage," he continued in his methodical, undemonstrative manner. As he sat down at the desk and drew pen and paper towards him, he paused a moment. "You will see to the nurses,—they should have two. The doctors may decide on an operation. Have the best ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... that pervades all France. It is simple, undemonstrative heroism, the ardent desire of a race to last in spite of all. What more imperturbable confidence in its immortality could be manifested than by this mother and daughter calmly discussing the durability of their family linen, within actual range of Teuton gunfire that might annihilate ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... imagine what this home-coming would be like. The Burnses were typical Scots in their undemonstrative ways; but this was a great occasion, and tradition has it that his mother allowed her feeling so far to overcome her natural reticence that she met him at the threshold with the exclamation, 'O Robert!' He had left home ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Seaforth was usually undemonstrative in bearing and speech, but he stood up stiffly, and his voice was a trifle strained. "That is what I have been trying to make clear, and I can only give you my word that I did not," he said. "If I had had more courage I would have told you that ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... motionless, unmoved, stagnant, placid, serene, undisturbed, unruffled, halcyon, unmolested; hushed, silent, still, noiseless, inaudible; demure, meek, inoffensive, gentle, retiring, modest, unobtrusive, unassuming, undemonstrative, staid, reserved, sedate; sequestered, unfrequented, retired, secluded. Antonyms: noisy, tumultuous, boisterous, hoidenish, rude, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... wish to keep out of the range of women's emotional sympathy. Men's sympathy is of a different calibre. Even when it is a practical, living thing that can be felt and built on, it is often almost cold-bloodedly inarticulate and undemonstrative, which is the only kind of sympathy acceptable to a man in trouble, especially a man of Druro's type, who did not want to discuss the thing at all, but just to take what was coming to him with a ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... sword, seized the shield which was lying on the ground and continued his dancing more vigorously, but with equal grace. Pisha, the chief, came to the dance, and the meeting with the new arrivals, though silent and undemonstrative, was decidedly affectionate, especially with one of them who was a near relative. Half embracing each other, they stood ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Mr. Sefton, "I love a woman, and with all the greater fire because I am naturally undemonstrative and self-centred. The stream comes with an increased rush when it has to break through the ice. I love a woman, I say, and I am determined to have her. You know ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... habitual conscientiousness of his own intention than to any fear that she would not fully respond to it. Indeed, with his conservative ideas of proper feminine self-restraint, Louise's calm passivity and undemonstrative attitude were a proof of her superiority; had she blushed overmuch, cried, or thrown herself into his arms, he would have doubted the wisdom of so easy a selection. It was true he had known her scarcely three weeks; ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow that was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of which the surface appeared ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... having mislaid her glasses, worked her shuttle at hazard in and out of that picture of intricate pattern called Life, and having tangled and knotted together the crimson thread of passion, the golden thread of youth and the honest brown of a deep, undemonstrative love, she left the disentanglement of the muddle in the hands ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... source of the outward impassiveness of the Puritan, as well as of the intensity of his inner experience: the continued impact of noble or priestly contempt had crusted his nature with a manner that was rigid and resistant and undemonstrative, beneath which smouldered the explosive forces of thwarted ambition and the sense of unrecognized intellectual and moral excellence. Conscious of a worth which society ignored, he transformed his qualities into virtues, and erected his virtues into social standards of value. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do? If that looked-for help would only come now—while she still slept. For it was part of his boyish fancy that if he could deliver her asleep and undemonstrative of fear and suffering, he would be less blameful, and she less mindful of her trouble. If it did not come—but he would not think of that yet! If she was thirsty meantime—well, it might rain, and ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... him—they were not given to demonstrations, this pair—then decided it were kinder to him, less suggestive of what they anticipated, not to deviate from their undemonstrative marital routine. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... as I had always been, it was the first time in my life I ever knew the meaning of that rare thing, tenderness. A quality different from kindliness, affectionateness, or benevolence; a quality which can exist only in strong, deep, and undemonstrative natures, and therefore in its perfection is oftenest found in men. John Halifax had it more than any one, woman or man, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... there were times when, not only his whole demeanour, but his very nature seemed to change; when he craved for dimness and quiet; and when he would work upon the Tenor with little caressing ways that won his heart and drew from him, although he was habitually undemonstrative, expressions of tenderness which ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. They noticed him slowly making his way toward them, and prepared for the coming storm. As he approached, both arose, and with extended hands, exclaimed most cordially, "Good evening, Mr. Greeley." But his hands hung limp and undemonstrative by his side, as he said in low and measured words, "You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. You set out to annoy me in the Constitutional Convention, and you did it effectually. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sides, I fear," said Mr. Blinkhorn, growing a little scandalised by the boy's odd warmth of expression. "I have heard something of what you had to bear with. On the one hand, a father, undemonstrative, stern, easily provoked; on the other, a son, thoughtless, forgetful, and at times it may be even wilful. But you are too sensitive; you think too much of what seems to me a not unnatural (although of course improper) protest ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Heidelberg on September 12, 1836. He passed through Strassburg, and thought of Goethe as he climbed the tower of the cathedral; he visited the Suabian poets at Stuttgart and Tuebingen, and was deeply disappointed with the kindly but undemonstrative Uhland; and he reached Munich on September the twenty-ninth. Here he remained ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... young woman's reserve meanwhile ungracious, or was it only natural that in her particular situation she shouldn't have a flow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepoint looked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative Miss Mavis was interesting. The candlelight enabled me to see that though not in the very first flower of her youth she was still fresh and handsome. Her eyes and hair were dark, her face was pale, and she held up her head as if, with ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... at a still more phenomenal speed which was not stopped; that his name and Duncan's were mingled generously in the cheering, the painter remembered little of the game. The exhibition of human passions which the sight of it drew from an undemonstrative race: the shouting, the comments wrung from hardy spirits off their guard, the joy and the sorrow,—such things interested him more. High above the turmoil Coniston, as through the ages, looked down upon the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Jay were aristocrats, holding themselves fastidiously aloof from the rank and file that marched and yelled under the name of Sons of Liberty. To Hamilton the conflict had been spectacular rather than real, until he met and moved with these sombre, undemonstrative, superficially unpleasing men of Boston; then, almost in a flash, he realized that the colonies were struggling, not to be relieved of this tax or that, but for a principle; realized that three millions of people, a respectable majority honourable, industrious, and educated, were being treated ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... prends mon bien la ou je le trouve." He was even diffident about accepting a suggestion for a joke. His own observation gave him the vast majority of his "pictures of life and character," but he would occasionally accept with a quiet undemonstrative smile some of the many proposals that were submitted to him. You might find it in Punch next week, or next year; but if the giver were an artist too, he would hesitate to make use of it, lest he might wrong a brother-pencil. He often figures in his own cuts, as in "The Dismay of Mr. Jessamy ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... our pride, our treasure, Care-free child of a kingly race. Undemonstrative? Yes, in a measure, But every movement replete with grace. Whiles we mocked at the monkeys' tricks Or pored apart on the apteryx; These could yield but a passing pleasure; Yours was the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... sordid lives which had surrounded her there was much to repel and little to attract. The parental love of Pierre was strong and fierce, but it was animal, it was satiating, selfish, and undemonstrative. Hence Elise was almost wholly unconscious of its existence. As for Madame, hers was a love unselfish; but dominated and overshadowed, in terror of her husband, she stood in but little less awe of Elise. These two, the one selfish, with strength of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... structures, blistering in the sun and glaring with windows, were evidently never reared by the spell of pastoral harmonies, as the walls of Thebes rose at the sound of the lyre of Amphion? That the habits of our people are too cool, cautious, undemonstrative, to furnish the warp and woof of song and pastoral, and that their dialect and figures of speech, however richly significant and expressive in the autobiography of Sam Slick, or the satire of Hosea Biglow and Ethan Spike, form a very awkward medium of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... with silver, and on her brow there were traces of a sorrow patiently borne, but none the less deeply felt. She had never recovered from the loss of her son. Her daughter Mary had inherited something of her father's self-contained, undemonstrative manner; but Ben had been impulsive and affectionate, and had always been very near his mother's heart. To feel that he had passed from her sight was a great sorrow; but it was a greater still not to know ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... disappointed; and now this homeward voyage had almost come to an end, and I had never heard her voice in song since she was a child. Open and unreserved as she was by nature, in this particular she had schooled herself to be as reticent and undemonstrative as she accused me ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... national habits will soon have made as remote from us as if they were foreign or ancient. Already, alas! even in farmhouses, backlog and forestick are obsolescent words, and close-mouthed stoves chill the spirit while they bake the flesh with their grim and undemonstrative hospitality. Already are the railroads displacing the companionable cheer of crackling walnut with the dogged self-complacency and sullen virtue of anthracite. Even where wood survives, he is too ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... lifted Ephraim's papers and shed them upon the floor. He looked down at them without moving. Life in a world of thoughts in which his fellows took no interest, had produced in him a singularly undemonstrative manner. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... of development, and took time. Next in his regard, after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two reasons, possibly, for this. First, he was evidently a valuable possession of the master's, and next, he was undemonstrative. White Fang liked to lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read the newspaper, from time to time favouring White Fang with a look or a word—untroublesome tokens that he recognised White Fang's ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... tinge, often nearly the tint of mahogany; thick, straight, black hair; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, somewhat compensated by its breadth; beardless; of the middle height, but thick-set; broad, muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious; unambitious; impassive; undemonstrative; with a dull imagination and little superstition; with no definite idea of a Supreme Being, few tribes having a name for God, though one for the "Demon;" with no belief in a future state; and, excepting civility, with virtues all negative. The semi-civilized along the Lower Amazon, called Tupuyos, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... girl, and that I shall be a great comfort to him, but he cannot care much about having any very long conversations with me—he that has seen so many lands, and known so many great and clever people, and read so many books. He has always been most undemonstrative to me. At his age, no doubt, he does not care much for the foolish endearments of lovers; so, with an easy conscience, I devote myself, for my short space, to the boys, to Barbara, to Vick, and the jackdaw. Once, indeed—just ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Chinaman's gratitude was deeper than this, although, it was true, he never had thanked him or indicated in any way that he realized or appreciated what Bruce had done. Nevertheless Bruce had believed that in his way Toy was fond of him, that deep under his yellow skin there was loyalty and a passive, undemonstrative affection. Obviously there was none. He was no different from other Chinamen, it seemed—the white man and his country were ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Somehow this undemonstrative expression of approval began to glow in Georgie's heart as he walked home. Apparently she took it for granted that he was going to behave with all the perfect tact and good-temper that he had shown. It did not surprise her in the least, she ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You shall," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... intelligent. She's as different from those other women you've seen as you are. You would like her!" He had suddenly grown earnest, and crushing the crust of a biscuit in the strong left hand which he rested on the table, he gazed keenly at her undemonstrative face. "She's no baby, either. She's got a will and a temper of her own. She's the only one of them I ever saw ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the chateau, I had a feeling that the man at the other table was gazing at me. I glanced at him, but seemed to have been mistaken. He was looking absently at the sky over my head. I now took thought of what a very silent, motionless, undemonstrative man this was. He was thin and oldish, and of moderate stature, with a narrow face, pale eyes, and a very long nose. He was dressed in dull brown cloth, and was in all respects—save his length of nose—one of those persons of whom nobody ever takes much note. And ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... at these times that the old feeling of loneliness came back so overwhelmingly. Grandpa and Grandma, as they called them, were kind in their way, but even to their own children they had been undemonstrative and cold. Often in the evenings they seemed to draw so entirely within themselves, she with her knitting and he with his paper or accounts, that Steven felt shut out, and apart. "Just the strangers ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... the household work, had been fed and clothed—coarsely indeed, for her aunt was comparatively poor, but sufficiently—and she had been allowed a reasonable number of holidays, and had not been scolded, except when she deserved it. Though her aunt was an undemonstrative woman, who never gave her an endearing word or a caress, yet life with her was Elysium compared with present circumstances. But beyond even this, far back in early childhood, Agnes could dimly recollect another life again—a life which was love and sunshine—when a mother's hand came between ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... and never failed to evoke a storm of rapturous plaudits,—and many were the half-indignant glances of the audience towards the Royal shrine of draped satin, gilding, and electric light, wherein the King, like an idol, sat,—undemonstrative, and apparently more bored than satisfied. There was a general feeling that he ought to have shown,—by his personal applause in public,—a proper appreciation of the many gifted artists playing that evening, especially in the case of Louis Valdor, the composer of the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... laughter, in a very masculine key, broke upon Andy's ear. It proceeded from the usually undemonstrative maiden Liberia, who was bringing a pail of water from the creek when her path was crossed by the flying pair. From that hour the tides of her feminine heart set in favour ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... unripe fruit which she had gathered from a dozen different branches of the tree of knowledge, and in the collecting of which she had, in a measure, impaired the elasticity of her mind and her bodily strength, and found no time for making herself mistress of a thousand little undemonstrative acquirements which tend to keep a steady light of joy and peace burning daily and hourly ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... a damp hand over his brow. The dog, strangely undemonstrative, advanced and placed a sleek head against Gregg's knee, its pointed muzzle down, its tail hanging dispiritedly. Vaguely wondering what the trader's favorite lead-dog was doing among the boulders on the Point, Harlan patted the animal's broad ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... was not hopeful himself. He had found it impossible to speak to this girl of love. She had been gracious with him, and almost intimate, and yet it had been impossible. He thought of himself that he was dull, stupid, lethargic, and miserably undemonstrative. But the truth was that there was nothing for him to demonstrate. He had come there to do a stroke of business, and he could not throw into this business a spark of that fire which would have been kindled by such sympathy had it existed. There are men who can ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... but cold-mannered and undemonstrative Scotch father, evangelical, a total abstainer, with a horror of tobacco—surely the austerest dealer in French wines that ever was—a puritanical hater of bar sinisters, and profligacy, and Rome, and rank, and the army, and especially the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... and promised her support, adding that Mr. Parsons was a person of sudden and strong fancies, and that if he were to take a fancy to Wilbur, the desired result would be apt to follow. Selma quickly decided that Mr. Parsons must be made to like her, for she feared lest Wilbur's quiet, undemonstrative manner would fail to attract him. Evidently he admired the self-confidence and manly assertion of Gregory Williams, and would be liable to regard Wilbur as lacking in force and enterprise. The reflection that she would thus be working—as necessarily she would—for the eternal progress ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... of Chinese character, and one fostered, if not generated, by Buddhistic teaching, is an undemonstrative fondness for animals, or, I might rather say, a passive admission of their right to considerate treatment, and strangely enough animals, both wild and domesticated, appear to comprehend this sentiment, for while greatly scared at the approach of a European they usually take ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... specially, he loved without that outbreak of show which is often found in persons who love but a few, and whose love is defiled with partisanship. He loved quietly and constantly, in a fashion as active as undemonstrative. He was always glad to be near those he specially loved; beyond that, the signs of his love were practical—it came out in ministration, in doing things for them. There are those who, without loving, desire ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... outstanding feature of this correspondence is an engaging frankness. For instance, Private Cosh, who under an undemonstrative, not to say wooden, exterior evidently conceals a heart as inflammable as flannelette, is conducting single-handed no less than four parallel love affairs. One lady resides in his native Coatbridge, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... this business," he said without looking up, "when he asked that you should join us so that we can all work together." And, while signifying my assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so charged with the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... with his peculiar, undemonstrative temperament, he stood for a few moments in silence, with his hands folded behind his back, then, with a final wave of the hand, turned on his heel and returned ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... Priscilla Gower, were a heavy trial to Theo. Not that any unusual coldness in the handsome face was added to her troubles as an extra burden. Both Priscilla and Pamela were very mindful of her comfort—so very mindful that their undemonstrative care for her cut her to the heart, sometimes. Yet, somehow, she felt herself as a stranger, without the right to watch with them. It was so terrible a thing to stand near the woman she had innocently injured, and listen with her to the impassioned adjurations of the lover who had ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... us very quietly, in a gentle, undemonstrative way, but he was much interested when I told him I had recently come from Rome, where these proceedings, I was sure, were exciting a good deal of serious attention. "Yes," he said, "and Father Dunphy who is here in the other room, has just got back from Rome, where ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... of motherhood. Michael's simplicity and his sincerity were already known to her, but she had never yet known the strength of him. You could lean on Michael. In his quiet, undemonstrative way he supported you completely, as a son should; there was no possibility of insecurity. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... "I would rather lose a good many of my possessions than that." They smiled at each other; and, being an undemonstrative pair, ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... surged into her face as she silently put the letters into Mr. Manning's hand, and watched his grave, fixed, undemonstrative features, while he read, refolded, and returned ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... wishes of these two friends, so undemonstrative and so true, would follow him all the time and he choked a little. But when the lump in his throat was gone he spoke casually, as if he were not venturing into a region that was sown thick and deep ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... good lookin', good appearin', but ruther bashful and retirin', which made him some times in company a little awkwud in his manners, and most offish where he wanted to please most. But he had a good mind, and his heart wuz pure gold, and he loved Rosy with the deep earnest love, such undemonstrative men often cherish for the one woman in the world for them. His calm gray eyes would light up with the pure light of deathless love when they rested on the sweet face of little Rosy. And he wuz always ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... don't think he has a great deal to lose, and might have made a little capital out of me if he could have got a laugh out of the Member or either of the dummies,—I beg their pardon again, I mean the two undemonstrative boarders. But I will tell you, Beloved, just what I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Usually so undemonstrative, Phil was taken aback at Jim's behaviour; and Jim, immediately ashamed for his outward show of emotion, sat down beside Phil and looked at the floor between ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... entirely that he might have been described as a pipe with a man somewhere behind it. Christie once laughingly spoke of this habit and declared she would try it herself if she thought it would make her as quiet and undemonstrative as Mr. Wilkins, who, to tell the truth, made no more impression on her than ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... him, nodded, and burst out laughing. Marmaduke, who had set him down as a cool, undemonstrative man, was surprised at his hilarity for a moment, but presently joined in it. Whilst they were both laughing a hansom appeared, and Conolly, recovering himself, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of the words, that he does not want to be taken at a false valuation. The Island brogue is a notice that the user of it meets you man to man. So it reflected Mac, and it reflected his people, unspoiled, unvarnished, true as steel, full of rigid honesty; but undemonstrative, with the wells of affection hidden, yet full to the top, of pure, bright, ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... interest in the preparation of her own and Evelyn's mourning garments. She was careful that they should be of the deepest black, the finest quality, the most fashionable cut; to all of which the bereaved child—a silent undemonstrative mourner—was supremely indifferent. Her mother noted it with surprise, for Evelyn was a child of decided opinions and wont to be fastidious ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... although their people are generally so undemonstrative, endeavoured by every means in their power to show their gratitude to us for the service we had rendered them. When we offered to pay for the canoe, which we were anxious to retain, Maono entreated us to accept it, intimating that he would settle with the owner. We were very glad to ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be denied, indeed, that Isabella's chastity is rather too demonstrative and self-pronounced; but this is because of the unblushing and emphatic licentiousness of her social environment. Goodness cannot remain undemonstrative amidst such a rank demonstrativeness of its opposite: the necessity it is under of fighting against so much and such aggressive evil forces it into stress, and so into taking a full measure of itself. Isabella, accordingly, is deeply conscious and mindful of her virtue, which somewhat mars ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... duties, and for the rest he was left very much to himself and to that interior Master of whose stress and constraint upon him he grew more intimately conscious as he grew in years. The force of this inward pressure showed itself in many ways. Outwardly it made his manner undemonstrative, and fixed an intangible yet very real barrier between him and his kindred, even when the affection that existed was extremely close and tender. From infancy he exhibited that repugnance to touching or being touched by any ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of solitude, and used to absolute authority. He loved Bram after his own fashion, but his vocabulary of affectionate words was not a large one. Bram, however, understood him; he had been quite satisfied with his short and undemonstrative greeting,— ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... said Miss Halcombe, looking brighter, sharper, and readier than ever, by contrast with the undemonstrative old lady at her side, "what will ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... conversation turned upon the representation of Adrienne, and on the applause of the fashionable audience, usually rather undemonstrative. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... nervous, with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never a moody or ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... among which sounded occasionally the lighter accents of women's voices; but they were not a voluble race, and the forms of their speech still followed in great measure the semi-scriptural idioms which had been so prevalent among Cromwell's soldiers years before. They were undemonstrative; but this very immobility conveyed an impression of power in reserve which was more ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Gerald," said Phebe, with a grateful glance, which Gerald returned with one of real though undemonstrative tenderness. ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... A striking contrast they made. The one, heated, and excited, and nervous, both in appearance and manner, looking more like a culprit brought up for judgment than a pillar of the Established Church; the other, outwardly as undemonstrative as the rock against which he leaned—just a shade of paleness telling of the sharp mental struggle from which he had come out victorious—his whole bearing and demeanor precisely what might have been expected if he had been ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... that Miss Morrison was "half out of her mind over the distressing affair" had prepared him to encounter a weeping, red-eyed, heart-broken creature of the most excitable type. He found instead a pale, serious-faced, undemonstrative girl of somewhat uncertain age, sweet of voice, soft of step, quiet of demeanour, who was either one of those persons who repress all external evidence of internal fires, and bear their crosses in silence, or was as cold ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... l'Archeveque, a servant of Duhaut; and others, to the number in all of about twenty,—made up the party, to which is to be added Nika, La Salle's Shawanoe hunter, who, as well as another Indian, had twice crossed the ocean with him, and still followed his fortunes with an admiring though undemonstrative fidelity. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... the directing hand that was always ready. The intelligence here was unquestionably of a low order, and the heads were of a poor type. Generally the case was the reverse. There were many worn faces bearing traces of patient poverty and hard work, and there was great steadiness of purpose and much undemonstrative self-respect among this class. A few young men were going singly. Several girls were going, two or three together. These latter I found it very difficult to refer back, in my mind, to their relinquished homes and pursuits. Perhaps they were more like country milliners, and pupil ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Monarchy but few tears to shed. Love, in bygone days, and the Terror at a later time, had familiarized them with extremes of joy and anguish in such a sort that, amid the perils of life, they preserved their dignity and coolness, a capacity for sincere but undemonstrative affection which never disturbed their well-bred self-possession, and a dignity of demeanor which a younger generation has done very ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... affectionate and devoted household, clannish to a degree, and undemonstrative, as mountaineers often are. The deep well of their love did not foam and ripple like a brook, but the water was always there, to draw upon at will. "The shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb." It was so in the house ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... involuntarily. He found conversation with detectives as lively as playing at skittles with bombshells. They got on his nerves terribly, these undemonstrative gentlemen with ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... The childlike innocence of Hilda's maiden love gave an extraordinary character to her passion. The absence of anything like the common expressions of love made the transcendent power of what moved her stand out in magnificent grandeur. Never in his life had he dreamt that her quiet and undemonstrative affection was capable of anything but a calm and beautiful development. He had not guessed the existence of such resistless force as blazed from her eyes, he had believed her only capable of receiving, he had ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... unsuspicious of others, for him to attribute his father's discomposure to any source but surprise at his unexpected appearance. If Maurice noted an absence of pleasure in the count's constrained greeting, he was too much accustomed to the formal and undemonstrative manners of the aristocracy to dwell upon the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... betrayed a sudden dismay, which made him recollect that she was a strangely undemonstrative girl; but before she had recovered the shock so as to utter more than a long 'Oh!' they were interrupted by the cup of tea that had been ordered for Dolores, and in a minute more, steps were heard, and the two aunts were in the room. 'Seven ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... London woman is more sensible than her American cousin. The Americans who now visit London are apt to be so plain and undemonstrative in dress that they are called shabby. Perhaps alarmed at the comments once made on their loudness of dress, the American woman has toned down, and finds herself less gay than she sees is fashionable at the theatre and opera. But she may be sure of one thing—she should ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Capricious are the ways of womankind! Little Ugly is more thoroughly self-occupied and undemonstrative than ever. I am chagrined,—I think I am an ill-used man. I am downright angry and have half a mind to flirt with Little Handsome, out of spite. Only Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to Flora, and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... heroic element was reasserting itself in that silent woman, so frail, so gentle, yet of a spirit so indomitable that she could suffer martyrdom for the faith, or the love, that was in her. She knew not fear; her quiet, undemonstrative courage was lofty and invincible. When her distress was deepest she had summoned up her resolution, devoting her reflections to how she might recover her husband's body, so as to give it decent burial. Her first project was neither more nor less than to make her ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... pretty badly cut up over the way she acted. But you understand, don't you, Captain? I believe that if it had been my case I'd have, well, I'd have known that it was because the girl cared. Elizabeth is undemonstrative—too much so, in fact; but I fancy—well, never mind: it's so long ago that I took notice of these things that I find I'm trying to ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... cellars; and neither swear every half-hour to die for their country, nor yell the "Marseillaise." If Paris be saved, it will be thanks to them and to the working men of the capital. But it will be the old sic vos non vobis story; their brave deeds and undemonstrative heroism will be forgotten, and Jules and Alphonse, the dandies and braggarts of the Boulevard, will swear to their own heroism. I trust that the Prussians will fail to take Paris, because I think that the French are right to fight on rather than submit to the dismemberment of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... eight months after my friend's death I happened to meet in a strange town a youth of about my own age who exerted upon me a strong and instant attraction. He possessed a refined, handsome face, was gracefully built, and, though he was rather undemonstrative, we soon ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... measure would have seemed mere impatience and cruelty. She found that if Miss Winter had been too dry, Miss Bracy went to the other extreme, and demanded a manifestation of sympathy, and return to her passionate attachment that perplexed Ethel's undemonstrative nature. Poor good Miss Bracy, she little imagined how often she added to the worries of her dear Miss Ethel, all for ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... retreat, her father had seen her. He called her over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible to make of a wholly undemonstrative man. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... succeeded. But, from what Pierre told me, I should not think that even this much thought passed through Morin's mind. He seems to have been a man of rare and concentrated attachments; violent, though restrained and undemonstrative passions; and, above all, a capability of jealousy, of which his dark oriental complexion must have been a type. I could fancy that if he had married Virginie, he would have coined his life-blood for luxuries to make her happy; would have watched over and petted her, at every sacrifice to himself, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... N. Barnum, who knew Dr. Williams intimately, while admitting that he was unduly disposed to distrust his own powers and judgment, says that, aside from this, he was a rare man. "He had great self-control, and was so undemonstrative, that those who did not know him intimately can scarcely be said to have known him at all. He possessed genuine refinement; and with his marvelous fund of information in almost all departments of knowledge, his fine command of language, and his good nature and enthusiasm, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... note of her reflections was her blindness to the real state of her own feelings. Now everything was clear to her of the manner in which George Iredale had steadily grown into her daily life, and how her own friendly liking for him had already ripened into something warmer. He was so quiet, so undemonstrative, so good and kind. She saw now how she had grown accustomed to look for and abide by his decisions in matters which required more consideration than she could give—matters which were beyond her. She understood the strong, reliant nature which underlaid the quiet exterior. And now, when ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... up considerably the week before Christmas, and watched Elizabeth and Lady Evelyn deck his room with box and fir and holly. The mother was quiet and very undemonstrative, but she attached herself to the dying man, and he regarded her with a pitying tenderness, for which there appeared to be no cause whatever. As she carried away her boy in her arms on Christmas-eve, he looked sadly after her, and, touching Elizabeth's ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... could hardly be considered genial. "He's like some people whose natures are immobile—inexpressive. It's going to take a little while to find out if it's because there is nothing to express, or because he is undemonstrative, and has to show by his conduct rather than by his manners what there ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... an undemonstrative parting, such as English-men are addicted to. Jack sauntered out to the boulevard, and turned his steps homeward. His thoughts were all of Diane, and he was not to be cajoled by a couple of grisettes who made advances. He nodded to a friendly gendarme, and crossed the street ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... to deliver up his prisoner to the authorities at the first port at which he could touch, charged with rebellion and heresy. Captain Dupre merely replied that he would do his duty, as far as he had the power. He was a silent undemonstrative man, not given unnecessarily to express his opinions. He had never shown a disposition to disregard the orders of the governor, who was, therefore, persuaded that he would carry them out on the present occasion. With ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... procedure and of prison conditions was accurate and ample. Facts which I afterward learned for myself were never out of accord with information he had given me; and the sanity and clarity of his judgments were refreshing and remarkable. His courage was undemonstrative but indomitable; he never complained of his own condition and experiences, but was instant in his sympathy with the misfortunes of others. No more welcome and valuable counselor than he could have come to us in those first hours ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... head gave me a glimpse of his eyes behind the glasses. He looked as if he wished I'd change the subject. In his dry, undemonstrative way, I think he liked me. Or at least he liked me when I wasn't trying to make him think about things outside his safe and secure little framework. But I didn't give in. If men of science are not going to take up the evidence ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... him. I do wish you could see them together. The poilu would hug Tommy and plant a kiss on each of his cheeks—if he dared. But, needless to say, that is the last sort of thing Tommy wants. So, faute de mieux the poilu walks as close to Tommy as he can—when he gets a chance— and the undemonstrative, sure-of-himself Tommy permits it without a smile—which is doing well. Still, in his own way Tommy admires ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... occupants had ever been accustomed to such things. The years which passed so uneventfully only cemented the union and increased the sense of mutual dependence. They would have been regarded as exceedingly matter-of-fact and undemonstrative, but they were kind to each other and understood each other. Feeling that they were slowly yet surely getting ahead, they looked forward to an old age of rest and a sufficiency for their simple needs. Then, before he could realize the truth, he was left alone at her wintry grave; neighbors ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... within himself what was the cause of this evil thing which had been done to him. A very evil thing had been done. He did feel that the absolute happiness which had been his for the last few days had perished and gone from him. He was a man undemonstrative, and silent in expressing his own feelings, but one who revelled inwardly in his own feelings of contentment when he was content. His wife had been to him all that he had dreamt that a woman should be. She had filled up his cup with infinite bliss, ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... copper-mine. It consisted of an opening in the forest which clothed the hillside with the black mouth of an adit in the midst of it, and a few big mounds of debris, beside which stood a rude log shanty. The men who had just come out of the latter gazed at the strangers with undemonstrative curiosity, and when, saying nothing, they, trooped away to work, the new arrivals sat down to wait until the mining captain should make his appearance. In the meanwhile one of them amused himself by throwing stones at a smaller log building with a galvanized roof which ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... elect seemed very happy, but in a very different way; for, while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative, Lucy seemed wild with joy, and danced gayly about the house—now in the kitchen, where the cake was making; now in the chamber where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on divers errands, the little lady thinking that, now the time was ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... under discussion this morning was that of getting a nurse for Timothy Tressady, aged two years. Elma, the silent, undemonstrative Swedish woman who had been with the family since Timothy's birth, had started back to Stockholm two months ago, and since then at least a dozen unsatisfactory applicants for her position had taken their turn at the ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... him. Sir Victor, in the calm, courteous character of a perfectly undemonstrative suitor she tolerated. Sir Victor in the role of Romeo was excessively distasteful to her. She drew herself out of his ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... calves. "They've took down the shed back of the meetin'-house. Said 'twas fallin' to pieces. Might 'a' come down on the heads of the hosses. Goin' to put up a new one." Then, as his steed recommenced its modest substitute for a trot, unseen of the Grangers he permitted himself an undemonstrative chuckle. "They can sorter divide that piece of news between 'em," he said to his companion, who had been the silent auditor of the conversation. A moment of indecision on the part of the Grangers had given him time to make this observation, but it was not concluded ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... watchful, a few paces from their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keeping his back to the prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violently throwing out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like all sudden demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird, and theatrical. But it was more potent than speech—the speech that, even if effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen. The braves hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsive gesture ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... hue, and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good for him,—not, however, with a purpose of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the ordinary level of the world's cheerfulness. Drawing nearer, there was a shy look about ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not spoken, Marget and I, to each other of love; we had not called it by a name to each other; we had only felt and dreamt it. Possibly, that is the natural course of a simple, true love, for it is undemonstrative. It likes the half-lights of the dusk, to live in the shadow of its silvery clouds, and to arrive round corners, if only that it may have a safe way of escape, should it be frightened. Ever it likes running away, and, better ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... particular, a memorable setting of that inexorable irony of Fate against which not only is there no armour, but not even the chance and consolement of fighting armourless. When Marie de Kerouare accepts, at her father's wish, a suitor suitable in every way, but somewhat undemonstrative; when she falls in love (or thinks she does) with a handsome young cousin; when the other aspirant loses or risks all his fortune as a Royalist, and she will not accept what she might have, his retirement, thereby eliciting from her father ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... sister, Mrs. Dean, he remembered as a large woman, low-voiced, somewhat resembling her brother in manner, and like him, of few words, yet something in her greeting had assured him of a welcome as deep as it was undemonstrative. Of Kate Underwood, in whom he had felt more than a passing interest, remembering Whitcomb's love for his cousin, he recalled a tall, slender, girlish form; a wealth of golden-brown hair, and a pair of large, luminous brown eyes, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... Confederate Flag. Walter Page's mother, the granddaughter of this determined and rebellious lady, had also her positive quality, but in a somewhat more subdued form. She did not die until 1897, and so the recollection of her is fresh and vivid. As a mature woman she was undemonstrative and soft spoken; a Methodist of old-fashioned Wesleyan type, she dressed with a Quaker-like simplicity, her brown hair brushed flatly down upon a finely shaped head and her garments destitute of ruffles or ornamentation. The home which she directed was a home without playing cards or dancing ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... dropping on his knee to fire. So rapid and effective was his delivery with his Winchester repeating carbine, that this unequalled achievement was accomplished in less than ten minutes; and, well knowing that it was to his splendid weapon that the credit largely belonged, this undemonstrative savage held up his rifle and kissed it while he was talking to me about the affair. On the 30th Toolooah killed twelve reindeer, Joe eight, and Equeesik and I each three, making a grand total of twenty-six by our party ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... all, in the other direction. His birds, on the other hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch nature. Few of them are shown in violent action like Audubon's cuckoo; their poses for the most part are easy and characteristic. His drawings do not show the mastery of the subject and the versatility ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... you'll be so good as not to mind, now you are here. I shall have it all right and tidy in a very little time. I ought not to have been so backward." Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of his undemonstrative temperament; for he feared that if the Melburys once were back in their own house they would not be disposed to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... means. I had everything I wanted, even down to a tiny little bedroom all to myself; and though I was not perhaps indulged as much as some children I see nowadays, I don't think I was on that account to be pitied. My parents were quiet, and perhaps rather unusually undemonstrative; and indeed it was not then the fashion to be very familiar with one's father and mother. We always said "sir" and "ma'am" to them, and I never thought of entering or leaving the drawing-room without stopping to curtsey at the door. How would you like that, children? My father ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... this, as in everything else, she was simply yielding to a fashionable craze, an inclination to love the people who were loved by her own circle. These sudden veerings of affection, however, deeply wounded Helene, for her generous and undemonstrative heart had its ideal in eternity. She often left the Deberles plunged in sadness, full of despair when she thought how fragile and unstable was the basis of human love. And on this occasion, in this crisis in her life, the thought brought her still ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... contrast with the utterly colourless whiteness of her skin. Her manner was very subdued, very quiet; nor did she exhibit any signs of fear; or much of emotion, save to those who were near enough to her to perceive a quiet, silent, and undemonstrative tear steal occasionally down her ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... when he had attained his thirtieth year, Otis married Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of an influential Boston merchant. The lady, from all accounts, was undemonstrative and devoid of her husband's patriotic ardor, traits that did not tend to domestic felicity or lead, on the wife's part, to a commanding influence over her vehement and somewhat eccentric husband. The fruit of the union was one son and two daughters. ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... act or look which could be interpreted into an expression of regard for his brother fired his soul with feelings of aversion and anger till he was well-nigh distracted. Nor was Ralph any less disturbed. In his undemonstrative way he watched Nick, and suffered the acutest pangs of jealousy at what he believed was Aim-sa's marked preference. But the woman continued to stir the fire she had kindled with a childlike naivete which was less of the wild than ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... "feeling by her own experience how much it costs to be separated from one's family." And what she had found in her own home did not as yet make up to her for all she had left behind. Even her husband, though uniformly kind in language and behavior, was of a singularly cold and undemonstrative disposition; and it almost seemed as if the gayety which he exhibited at her balls were an effort so foreign to his nature that he indemnified himself by unpardonable boorishness on other occasions. The Count de Provence had ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... brilliant in the whole picture. It is to be supposed that Moore thought so, as his eye dwelt long on it, but he seldom permitted his feelings or his opinions to exhibit themselves in his face. His temperament boasted a certain amount of phlegm, and he preferred an undemonstrative, not ungentle, but serious ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Scotch fashion. The aqueous intellectuality and quiet stream of unpretending deposition peculiar to M. Jean Kostka, will be well adapted to modify undue exaltations and restore order to a universe which has been intoxicated by sorcerers. He will show us how Lucifer is unmasked in an undemonstrative and gentlemanly fashion by a late Gnostic and initiate of the 33rd degree. He writes, as he frankly tells us, in a spirit of reparation and gratitude, having commerced freely with devils during a long series of unholy years. "Blessed be the omnipotent Lord, and blessed ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... undemonstrative, easy, and gentle. When you are under his command you don't notice him, you don't think about him—unless you are a soldier, and then you ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He chose my own particular easy chair for himself, and stuck to it. An ordinary cat I should have shot out, but Thomas Henry was not the cat one chivvies. Had I made it clear to him that I objected to his presence in my chair, I feel ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... B. Ford, a well known architect of the firm of Geo. B. Post & Company, New York, was a rather quiet undemonstrative member, but a worker and investigator in his particular line. His observations and recommendations should have great weight in the work reconstructing and rebuilding the destroyed ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... coincidence when, one morning, I heard the familiar cry of the red-headed woodpecker, for the first time in Florida, and looked up to see him flying the national colors from the ridgepole of the State House. I did not break out with "Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!" I am naturally undemonstrative; but I said to myself that Melanerpes erythrocephalus was a very ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... to think of him sleeping there, in such rude surroundings, ingenious, innocent, mischievous, with no thought of the buffeting he is to get from a world that has a good many worse places for a boy than the hearth of an old farmhouse, and the sweet, though undemonstrative, affection of its ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... she seemed to forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate gesture, or ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... kindly, easy-going man; but, after the way of a large percentage of the Western stock, he was undemonstrative. He nodded, turned toward the door to obey, and paused irresolutely. The look he gave back to Saxon was almost dog-like in gratitude and all-brotherly in love. She felt it, and in spirit ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... them unperturbed, having travelled from London by the midnight express after a sudden but undemonstrative parting with his wife. She was the daughter of a superior couple who ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... he was off. He wondered what his silent, undemonstrative father would do. He had always felt that he was a man of deep emotion for ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... had come back from that first desperate onslaught in Belgium, and had so grandly supported and succoured our hard-pressed Allies in their splendid defence, was a very quiet, undemonstrative, spare little figure of at least 60 years of age. He appeared hard and fit, and showed no sign of the tremendous strain he had already undergone. On the contrary, he was smart and dapper, and looked like the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... disposition, and who is one of the respectably-dressed few, they accuse him of being a Eussiau; and then all eyes are turned towards me, as though they quite expect to see me rise up wrathfully and make some warlike demonstration against him. My undemonstrative disposition forbids so theatrical a proceeding, however, and I confine myself to making a pretence of falling into the trap, casting furtive glances of suspicion towards the supposed hated subject of the Czar, and making whispered inquiries of my immediate ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... consumed two days in the delivery of his argument. He made a deep impression, not only on the members of the Senate but on all who had the privilege of listening to him. His manner was quiet and undemonstrative, with no gestures, and with no attempt at loud talk. His language expressed his meaning with precision. There was no deficiency and no redundancy. He seldom used a word more or a word less than was needed to give elegance to his diction, explicitness ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... heart; but he had been himself devoted from early life to one condition of things, which were in some strange way in accordance with his natural constitution, or with which he had become identified till they grew into a necessary part of his existence. He was a self-contained man—an undemonstrative man, whose mind was attuned to respectable solitude, and who, without being a misanthrope, regarded his fellow creatures through a ground-glass medium, which made them seem shadowy and unapproachable. A few business acquaintances he had, with whom he would sometimes take his ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... was that it set her at liberty to attend to her mother at times when she would have been otherwise occupied with her baby; but Bell required very little from any one: she was easily pleased, unexacting, and methodical even in her dotage; preserving the quiet, undemonstrative habits of her earlier life now that the faculty of reason, which had been at the basis of the formation of such habits, was gone. She took great delight in watching the baby, and was pleased to have it in her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell |
