"Discreetly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crumbling away, is what I would not venture for a moment to assert. But I can state as a fact, that in the neighbourhood of Cairo the peasant population both men and women, are willing, and many of them eager to listen to the Word of God when it is brought before them judiciously and discreetly, as well as with kindness ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... I do hope the happy Royal Pair (Whose counterfeit presentments front me there, Inspiring, in young manhood and frank beauty) Will think their Laureate hath fulfilled his duty, His labour of most loyal love, discreetly. Compliments delicate, piled not sickly-sweetly, Like washy WARTON's, nor so loud thrasonical— Like Glorious JOHN's—that they sound half ironical! 'Tis hard indeed for loyal love to hit The medium just 'twixt sentiment ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... he spoke, and gained the outer door where Gionetta discreetly stood. Zanoni lightly laid his hand on her arm. With the gay accent of a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... chamber like the refectory of a monastery, with windows reaching to the ground. Two girls were sitting round the brasero, sewing; they offered me a chair by their side, and as the rain fell steadily we began to talk. The old woman discreetly remained away. They asked about my journey, and as is the Spanish mode, about my country, myself, and my belongings. It was a regular volley of questions I had to answer, but they sounded pleasanter ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... coming. He hurried home and up to his place, at eleven-forty-five, and gave a hasty look about to see if things were fairly proper for august people. Not that the bishop would notice. He dusted off the library table with his handkerchief, put one book discreetly on the back side of the table instead of in front, swept an untidy box of cigarettes into a drawer, and gathered up the fresh pile of wash from a chair and put it on the bed in his sleeping-room and ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... man after my own heart, Tessa," and then Maoni, who sat smoking a cigarette in a corner of the room, discreetly turned her back as certain sibilant sounds were frequently repeated for a minute ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... echo of things Parisian—was good and bountiful. There was no fuss and feathers when we arrived or when we left, and not all the personnel of the hotel, from the boots to the manager, were hanging around for tips. The head waiter and the chambermaid were in evidence; that was all. The rest were discreetly ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... like that old designer of the fourteenth century, who has depicted this, and other images of the Apocalypse, in a coloured window at Bourges. Such symbolism cares a great deal for the hair of Temperance, discreetly bound, for some subtler likeness to the colour of the sky in the girdle of Hope, for the inwoven flames in the red garment of Charity. And what was specially peculiar to the temper of the old Florentine ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... to her room, and, on pretense of chivying her, Dick discreetly withdrew, leaving Drake to the inevitable ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... line of defence, to use discreetly and at your discretion. If the other side are bent on fighting, I should reserve the defence. If they seem open to reason, I should point out that it is on ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... visited any other of the English cathedrals. Any others, indeed! This to a youth who had been all but in her lap for a fortnight! It was a blow, but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction, replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one time or another. I refused to let him see that I had ever noticed him before; ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of a big tree beside the house he bade her good-by, the men busying themselves with turning about the buckboard noisily, and Bud discreetly taking himself to the back door to get one of the men a drink ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... did as Alimaymon required, and did him homage to this effect. And thenceforth was the King of Toledo more secure of him, and held him even in greater favour than before. All this while did King Don Alfonso govern himself by the advice of Count Peransures, who alway advised him discreetly and well. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... yours[467] had given him; whereas I hold that he is supremely to be commended therefor, and that for two reasons, the one, for that he hath done that which a friend should do, and the other, for that he hath in this wrought more discreetly than did you. That which the sacred laws of friendship will that one friend should do for the other, it is not my intention at this present to expound, being content to have recalled to you this much only thereof, to wit, that the bonds of friendship are far more stringent than ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... was understood in England, and the Company took means to remedy it. A number of desirable and blameless young women were enlisted to go out to the colony and console the bachelors there. The plan was discreetly carried out; the acquisition of the young ladies was not made too easy, so that neither was their self-respect wounded, nor were the bachelors allowed to feel that beauty and virtue in female form were commonplace commodities. The ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Excellency essayed to reply to this formidable paper, I could not help enjoying the scene; and I also noted, when the reply was over, and the few ragamuffins near His Excellency cheered bravely, and the band struck up the national anthem, how gravely and discreetly the rest of the 'Alligonians, in the circumambient fog, echoed the sentiment by a silence, that, under other circumstances, would have been disheartening. What a quiet people it is! As I said before, to make the festivities complete, in the afternoon there was a procession to lay the corner-stone ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... to act, as it is the right of those who differ with us not to act. If we believe in the existence of a great moral and political evil amongst us, and that duty, honor and interest call upon us to prepare the way for its removal, we must act. All that can be asked of us is, that we act discreetly—with a just regard to the rights and feelings of others;—that we make due allowances for those who differ with us; receive their opposition with patience, and overcome it by the fruits that a favoring Providence, to which we ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... trigger, and I sat down—discreetly, and with no unnecessary noise. He was not in a hurry, but rooted about sedately amongst the undergrowth, now and again throwing up his muzzle and sniffing the air in a way that made me not unthankful that ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... vanished, literally in smoke, that all supplies necessary to carry on the war had been completely cut off by the destruction by fire of the magazine in which these things were stored. On these matters he was discreetly reticent, and Kars was satisfied that it should be so. On his part he had no desire to enlighten him to the fact that, at that moment, Murray McTavish was lying in the extemporized hospital in the camp with a shattered arm, and ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Nebridius then was not drawn to this by any desire of advantage (for he might have made much more of his learning had he so willed), but as a most kind and gentle friend, he would not be wanting to a good office, and slight our request. But he acted herein very discreetly, shunning to become known to personages great according to this world, avoiding the distraction of mind thence ensuing, and desiring to have it free and at leisure, as many hours as might be, to seek, or read, or hear ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... errand while he lingered in the hall. The sight of no less than twelve automobiles of various sizes and sorts parked in front of the house had prepared him for a mob inside. A hum of voices reached him from a room on his left, the door of which was discreetly closed, and another hum came from one on the right, which he could see was a dining-room. Farther back in the hall, three solid-looking gentlemen had their gray heads together in a serious confab. For some reason they appeared to regard his entrance ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... general, with a pair of sleek horses. At the houses of 'the gentry' my visits were rare, but at the theatre I was quite at home, and I consumed masses of tarts at the restaurants. For all that, I permitted myself no breach of decorum, and behaved very discreetly, en jeune homme de bonne maison. I would not for anything in the world have pained my kind aunt; and besides I was naturally ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... rather glad to leave the seaside after that; and whenever in the course of my future readings I came upon any further reference to emergency number one, I discreetly passed ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Todborough and on through the environs of the city the gay cavalcade rode decorously and discreetly; but nearing Tapton Downs, the spirits of the party seemed to rise as they ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... doctor came and made his examination. He shook a grave head. "Pneumonia. And he has got it bad. Perhaps a touch of the sun as well." The housekeeper smiled discreetly. "Looks half-starved, too. I'll send up the ambulance at once and get him ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... it is she says? She says, in the plainest possible fashion: "Do not be impatient; look at the pictures or chat with me, if you enjoy that. My master will be down in a minute." And when I come in she discreetly retires to an arm-chair or on top of the piano, and listens to the conversation without breaking in upon it, like a well-bred animal ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... something." I am afraid it does not belong to me, but I will treat it as I used to treat a stray boat which came through my meadow, floating down the Housatonic,—get hold of it and draw it ashore, and hold on to it until the owner turns up. If this precept is used discreetly, it is very serviceable; but it is as well to recognize the fact that you cannot know something about everything in days like these of intellectual activity, of literary and scientific production. We all feel this. It makes us nervous to see the shelves of new books, many of which we feel ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he was ashamed of himself; or maybe that, not agreeing with his master, he had yet sufficient appreciation of his position to be discreetly silent where his opinions might be at variance. Thus Garnache was encouraged ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... First his apple slices; Then he ought to take Some cloves—the best of spices: Grate some lemon rind, Butter add discreetly; Then some sugar mix—but mind The pie's not made too sweetly. Every pie that's made With sugar, is completest; But moderation should pervade— Too sweet ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a word or a movement; only, every now and then, her long, dark lashes, tipped with gold, would flicker for a moment and then droop discreetly on her cool, fresh cheeks. But the thought of her own frailty suggested an objection; and ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... simple-minded male, fittingly to depict for you the clothes of Margaret?—the innumerable vanities, the quaint devices, the pleasing conceits with which she delighted to enhance her comeliness? The thing is beyond me. Let us keep discreetly out of her wardrobe, you ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... once during the Oxford days an intimation that should have set me thinking, and I suppose discreetly disentangling myself. It was one Sunday afternoon, and it must have been about May, for the trees and shrubs of Ridout College were gay with blossom, and fresh with the new sharp greens of spring. I had walked talking ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... sense to picket them a little distance from the house. The Englishmen were clumsy conspirators. We watched them arrive, let them pass, and followed silently on their heels. Their business was wreckage, and they fixed a charge of powder by the tobacco shed, laid and lit a fuse, and retired discreetly into the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... parts, both by the authority of my king, and to fulfil the designs of my employers, were, in merchant ships, fitted indeed for defence, to seek honest commerce, without striving to injure any; wherefore I held it fit for me to proceed soberly and discreetly, neither basely to flee from the enemy, nor to tempt danger by proudly seeking it, if it might be honourably avoided. The viceroy was quite differently situated. He had been sent by his master with the principal ships of all India, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... glad to remember that she had a warm embrace of his strong arms, as he instantly recognized her in the doorway, while the servant stared. Then he said rather nervously as the servant discreetly withdrew, "How did yon happen to come? Why didn't you send word? Has anything happened?" And then as she sat by the fire sipping a cup of tea, she told the story, in her own simple slow way, and ended up with, "And now I'm coming ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... altogether revived its faded bloom; here veritably the oaten pipe must have stirred the windless air and the satyrs have laughed among the brookside reeds. Three or four long grassy dells stretch away in a chain between low hills over which delicate trees are so discreetly scattered that each one is a resting place for a shepherd. The elements of the scene are simple enough, but the composition has extraordinary refinement. By one of those happy chances which keep observation in Italy always in her best humour a shepherd had thrown ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... them—just as they were. And lo! then was born his "Perfected Letter Writer," which enabled him to leave a bequest of many thousand dollars to Harvard College, where he was educated, and also a certain sum of money to be discreetly distributed each year among the deserving and bashful young men of Boston, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three, to be used by them in making Christmas gifts to worthy young ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley
... a favourite," remarked Mrs. Walker. "It is such a pity he does not return to the Priory, is it not?—a great house like that standing empty. Of course it is very natural after the dreadful event that happened there"—Mrs. Walker lowered her voice discreetly—"but it seems a sin to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... responded to this outburst, the Republican members of the House, as in the Senate, remaining discreetly silent. These Democratic speakers alleged an unfair composition of the committee, and joined in denouncing the Republican party. But upon the vital and practical question of disunion their utterances were widely divergent. As the name of each of them will assume a degree ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... at Trent Park late in the evening, and at once went to The Forest where Eve Berkeley anxiously awaited him. Bernard Hallam and Ella were there but discreetly kept out of the way until they met. Alan was bronzed and looked fit; Eve was proud of him. They had much to talk over, and for an hour were left to themselves. No mention was made of their marriage; it was understood it was to take ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... and the daughter of his father's brother; but she gave him the lie. So the King took her from him and bade beat him and cast him into prison. As for the horse, I know not what became of it.' When the prince heard this, he drew near unto the speaker and questioned him discreetly and courteously, till he told him the name of the city and of its king; which when he knew, he passed the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... not think this Puseyite difference in the Church so serious or dangerous as others do. If it is discreetly managed, it will calm down or blow over or sink into disputes of little significance. All Lord Melbourne fears is lest the Bishops should be induced to act hastily and should get into the wrong. The Puseyites have the most learning, or rather, have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... a long and disconsolate period of wandering from one bleak hillside to another, at the bidding of various informants, in search of apocryphal foxes, slaughterers of flocks of equally apocryphal geese and turkeys—such a day as is discreetly ignored in all hunting annals, and, like the easterly wind that is its parent, is neither good for ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Roberts' upright carriage might, with his coat well buttoned up, walk the length of Broadway without disclosing the presence of this stick," remarked Mr. Gryce as, at his look, Sweetwater doffed his own coat and put on the one thus discreetly weighted. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... one side, and the officer discreetly vanished. Hope begged again, "Save her, oh, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... till, in the last Radical Government, I was offered, and for two years filled, the post of Under-Secretary to the Home Office. Indeed, when at last we went to the country over the question of the China War, I had in my pocket a discreetly worded undertaking that, if our party succeeded at the polls, my claims to the Home Secretaryship should be "carefully considered." But it was not fated that I should ever again cross the ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... bandstand the educated mule, with Teddy Tucker on its back, bolted through the curtains like a projectile. The mule nearly ran over Phil, then brought up suddenly to launch both heels at him. But the Circus Boy had seen this same mule in action before, and this time Phil had discreetly ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... winning her back, which revived his love in exciting his vanity. Then, realizing that it was always possible for a man to meet in society a woman whose physical charm would be greater than her own, being a novelty, she resorted to other means: she flattered and spoiled him. Discreetly but continuously she heaped praises upon him; she soothed him with admiration and enveloped him in flattery, so that he might find all other friendship, all other love, even, a little cold and incomplete, and that if others also loved him he would ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... for, strange to say, none were injured, although exposed to a perfect hail-storm of bullets which crashed through the thin boards, lath and plaster, in all directions. After this gallant band had fired their last round of ammunition, they saw that further resistance was useless, and discreetly surrendered. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... at her as I passed. She flushed scarlet. Poor little snub-nosed pasty-faced woman! I wish she had not seen me. I could have bought sixpenny-worth, followed her, and tormented her with them; while she would have pretended indignation— sought, discreetly, to escape ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... point the door is discreetly opened, and the Housekeeper, mild, benign, but inflexible, ENTERS, carrying a cup ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... at all to us Sir, if we may Profit your understanding, we are bound By vertue of our calling to utter our opinions, Shortly, and discreetly. ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... had dived under the canopied bed, where she stayed, holding her breath, while the eldest brother looked for her high and low. When he went out, calling the youngest brother to take her place, she yet remained discreetly hidden. At dinner-time a plate of food and a glass of milk mysteriously made their appearance at the edge of the bed, so that she was able to stay in seclusion and wait for the storm to pass. But even "David Copperfield," which arrived with her meal, did not aid her in whiling away the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... fallen in with along the road," said the old man. "There are some good men and true among them, but not a few rogues too, depend on that. For my part, I think it's generally wiser to keep myself to myself, unless one meets a godly man who can discourse discreetly ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... discreetly, and adding the little money he had to the woman's scanty store, bought bread, a flask of wine, flour and beans, ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... line, while the short, straggling procession was winding out through gas-lit murky hallways into the pale dawn-light slanting over the walls of the gravel-paved, high-fenced compound built against the outer side of the prison close. He would wait on, always holding himself discreetly aloof from the middle breadth of the picture, until the officiating clergyman had done with his sacred offices; would wait until the white-faced wretch on whose account the government was making all this pother and taking all this trouble, had mumbled his farewell words this side ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... however, but C * * and I. To be sure, there was little occasion, for we swept off what was on the table (a most splendid board, as may be supposed, at Jersey's) very sufficiently. However, we carried our liquor discreetly, like the Baron ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... common painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat into ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... becomes her," the woman answered discreetly. "The pallor, it is the more distinguished. Milady cannot fail to have ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I considered him a particularly absolute and despotic king, that was a trying Question; so I discreetly held my peace, fearing less to be classed with those obnoxious savans who compile geographies than to provoke ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... crossing Kenmuir, often met Owd Bob, who had the free run of the farm. On these occasions he passed discreetly by; for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad, single-handed, to attack a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog trotted soberly on his way, only a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the presence of his foe. As surely, however, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... he hurried, led by a pungent smell of burned sugar, and Mr. Scott strolled after him, with a queer look on his face. He paused discreetly at a distance when Brooke disappeared, but he could both see and hear, and being a bachelor, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... moment. But the great beast looked away again at once, and seemed, in fact, to forget all about the man's existence. He lay down and commenced licking assiduously at his wounds. Filled with astonishment, and just now beginning to realize the anguish in his broken arm, the hunter stole discreetly away. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... among themselves, and which bordered on the articulate speech of man. What did she say? She said quite plainly: 'Don't be impatient: look at the pictures, or talk with me, if I amuse you. My master is coming down.' On my appearing she would retire discreetly to an arm-chair or the corner of the piano, and listen to the conversation without interrupting it, like a well-bred animal accustomed to ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... Artois. It could hardly have been otherwise with a host so complacent, so attentive, so self-possessed, so hilarious as the Marchesino. And the Padrone of the restaurant warmly seconded the efforts of the giver of the feast. He hovered perpetually, but always discreetly, near, watchfully directing the middle-aged waiters in their duties, smiling to show his teeth, stained with tobacco juice, or drawing delicately close to relate anecdotes ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... you are not under the slightest obligation to give anything," resumed her father, discreetly oblivious to the significance of her words. "If you care to give a little good-will and kindness to one whom you have granted the right to visit you, they will tend to confirm and develop the better and manly qualities he is now manifesting. You know I have peculiar faculties ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... he had more urgent work to do. When the shepherd's wife went out to the pump that morning for water to make the porridge with, she found it a heap of ruins. She came back and broke the tidings to the shepherd, and said she believed it had been struck with lightning. The shepherd discreetly said nothing, but presently stole sullenly out to inspect the damage once more. It was worse than he thought. A pump must hold in both air and water; this pump was rent and split in a dozen places. There was no water either to drink or make the porridge ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... and Gordon Hall. They had their imperfections, and against them they struggled discreetly, constantly, successfully, until they were fitted to ascend to their rest."—N. Y. Observer, Feb. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Apply your days discreetly—don't do anything which you can hire somebody else to execute for you. Concentrate on paying propositions. Aside from the arts and fine crafts, nobody ever got ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... conducted to our steamer in a launch crowded with slim-waisted, broad-chested youths in white mess jackets, clasping each other's shoulders and singing, "Way down in my heart, I have a feeling for you, a sort of feeling for you"; while the officer of the deck turned his back, and discreetly fixed his night glass ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... flaming gas, flaring through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... observed that every feminine instinct is in a state of fluttering vitality,—every woman, old or young, is alive with womanliness to the tips of her fingers; and it becomes us of the other sex, however consciously respected, to walk softly, and put forth our sentiments discreetly and with due reverence for the mysterious powers that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... time the great Le Mire kept herself secluded in her hotel. She had appeared but once in the public dining-room, and on that occasion had nearly caused a riot, whereupon she had discreetly withdrawn. She remained unseen while the town shouted ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... my dear child; you don't know the world, and how should you? If you want to marry a husband who will remain at home and live discreetly, and be true to you, you must take such a ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... several times. The toys she had remain in my memory still as great splendid things, gigantic to all my previous experience of toys, and we even went to the great doll's house on the nursery landing to play discreetly with that, the great doll's house that the Prince Regent had given Sir Harry Drew's first-born (who died at five), that was a not ineffectual model of Bladesover itself, and contained eighty-five dolls and had cost hundreds of pounds. I played under ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... enlighten him as to my real motive. All the disinterested people here are his particular admirers and have been carefully selected as such. There's supposed to be a copy of his last book in the house, and in the hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes, bending gracefully over the first volume. I discreetly avert my eyes, and when I next look round the precarious joy has been superseded by the book of life. There's a sociable circle or a confidential couple, and the relinquished volume lies open on its face and as dropped under extreme coercion. ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... proverb which says, 'Physician, cure thyself.' What did I tell you, Monsieur La Mothe? The five minutes are not up yet." But Stephen La Mothe discreetly answered nothing. One of the first lessons a man learns in the ways of the world is to keep his fingers from between ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... that it was a source of profound wonder to many, and of awful chagrin to a few. In the house of the Pollokshields' Fordyces the announcement was discreetly tabooed, though George must have felt it keenly, seeing Gladys had suffered so little over the unhappy termination of their engagement that she could substitute another bridegroom though retaining ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... come in?" drawled Mrs. Wilmington's mellow voice, and Annie turned and saw Lyra peering round the edge of the half-opened library door. "I've been discreetly hemming and scraping and hammering on the wood-work so as not to overhear, and I'd have gone away if I hadn't been afraid of ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... threats as made it prudent for the friends of the Colonel to compel him to retreat. Under these circumstances, the streets of the town were crammed full with an excited mob; the poll was opened; the six, amid tremendous plaudits, voted for Easthope, and Reform; the ten very discreetly staid at home, and thus, by six votes, a baronetcy was secured ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... behind Mr. Chiffinch I felt more alone than ever. I regarded the King's dark face, turned down upon his paper; his dusky ringed hand with the lace turned back; the blue-gemmed quill that he used, his great plumed hat. I looked now and again, discreetly, round the room, at the gorgeous carvings, the tall presses, the innumerable clocks, the brightly polished windows with the river flowing beneath. I felt very little and lonely. Then, in a flash, the memory came back that not fifty yards away was Dolly's ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... this point Mr. Sam thrust his head out through the counting-house doorway, and the parson coughed discreetly, as much as to say that the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... entitled to do so, and to hope (as we do hope) that this residuum will survive and go forward into the future. But this sort of proceeding is hardly fair and certainly not logical. It enables Christianity to pose as an angel of light while at the same time keeping discreetly out of sight all its own abominations and deeds of darkness. The Church—which began its career by destroying, distorting and denying the pagan sources from which it sprang; whose bishops and other ecclesiastics assassinated each ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... "I remember a country clock-maker, who being employed to clean a more complex machine than he had been accustomed to, very confidently took it to pieces; but finding, when he came to put it together again, some wheels of which he could not discover the use, very discreetly carried them off in his pocket. The simple artifice of this prudent mechanic, always recurs to my mind, when I observe the manner in which our modern improvers repair and embellish old places; not knowing how to employ the terraces, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... who was here, and others conclude he is. The company being gone, I took the mayde, which seems a very grave and serious woman, and in W. Joyce's company' did inquire how things are with her master. She told me many things very discreetly, and said she had all his papers and books, and key of his cutting house, and showed me a bag which I and Wm. Joyce told, coming to L5 14s. 0d., which we left with her again, after giving her good counsel, and the boys, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in that way. I must say, Dick, that if you are so extremely fond of—well—studying the female character, you should carry on the pursuit more discreetly. Just see what this miscalculation has cost ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... from cloud-land who has no history in the past or future, but is discreetly of the present, and strives for the confidences of male humanity on the grounds of "sympathy" (methinks this is not altogether a ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... talking silly, Mr. Wix. How many young folk tell you their christened names right off?" But she had got on weak ground. She got off it again discreetly. "Anyhow, Mrs. Treadwell she's inventing nothing, having no call to." She turned to Aunt Elizabeth Jane with the question:—"How come she to happen to mention the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... G.'s real upset about that," she said discreetly, "but just what the trouble was, I'm not at liberty to mention. You know what young ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... approached the door of the after-cabin suite, occupied by the ladies, I made my presence known at first discreetly, then more pointedly, and, at length, by a knocking on ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... conceived in their cups by certain apparently idle Parisians,—who nevertheless fight many a moral battle over their champagne and their pheasants,—are handed down at their birth from the brain to the commercial travellers who are employed to spread them discreetly, "urbi et orbi," through Paris and the provinces, seasoned with the fried pork of advertisement and prospectus, by means of which they catch in their rat-trap the departmental rodent commonly called subscriber, sometimes ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... laugh began again at the mere remembrance of her former mirth. I kept discreetly silent, fearing to break the flow of reminiscence by ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... disdainfully passed him by, saying, that he did nothing else but spoil his supper. Such partiality was looked upon as a great fault in Pompey, and highly condemned; however, he managed all things else discreetly, and having put the government in very good order, he chose his father-in-law to be his colleague in the consulship for the last five months. His provinces were continued to him for the term of four years longer, with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... ever have allowed him in the box. But when other chaps on the panel presented their excuses to the judge and managed to persuade him of the imperative needs of family or business, and slipped—grinning discreetly—out of the court room, he merely inaudibly called them welshers and pikers. No, he regarded jury service as a duty and a privilege, one not to be lightly avoided—the one common garden governmental function in which Uncle Sam expected every citizen ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... foot, and coughed discreetly; for I knew my brother's weakness. He is a spendthrift in the matter of giving advice. If Jasperson had appealed to me, the elder and more experienced, I should have begged politely, but emphatically, to be excused from interference. I hold that a ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... have than that, unless you would like to drive Veno in your dog-cart? However, it so happened that, soon after the Irishman's visit, Sam went away on a journey, and came back riding a new horse; which when the Major saw, he whistled, but discreetly said nothing. A very large colt it was, with a neck like a rainbow, set into a splendid shoulder, and a marvellous way of throwing his legs out;—very dark chestnut in colour, almost black, with longish ears, and an eye so full, honest, and impudent, that it made you ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... used to be a little alarmed at the approach of bedtime in the lone bedroom, but embarrassment was very deftly avoided. First, all the children nodded and slept, and were stowed away in one great pile of goose feathers; next, the mother and the father discreetly slipped away to the kitchen while I went to bed; then, blowing out the dim light, they retired in the dark. In the morning all were up and away before I thought of awaking. Across the road, where fat Reuben lived, they all went out-doors while the teacher ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... established by that definition, which, moreover, closed one of the questions about the word Fly. For the future we were satisfied with playing the secondary part of grateful and polite friends who profited discreetly by the week days, without any contention of any kind ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... towards France. And as soon as they had landed, they sent messengers to show the nobles of France the cause of the embassy. And by the joint counsel of the nobles of France and of the princes, the maiden was given to Llevelys, and the crown of the kingdom with her. And thenceforth he ruled the land discreetly and wisely and happily, as ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... made an arresting gesture and followed discreetly and noiselessly after the others, leaving ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the hare who took the tidings, And conveyed the mournful story; For the hare replied discreetly, "I will not forget ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... water-proofed to the shore, where we presently perceived her pulling off in her bathing-dress. Well out in the cove she had the habit of plunging overboard, and after a good swim, she rowed back, and then, discreetly water-proofed again, she climbed the lawn back to the house. Now and then she took me out in her boat, but so far as I remember, Alderling never went with her. Once I ventured to ask him if he never felt anxious ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... later Pitman was admitted, to find the closet-door standing open, the closet untenanted, and the piano discreetly shut. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... accustomed to being humored in his moods, and it went hard with him to be called down in the middle of a spectacular play, and by a rank stranger, at that. The chair-warmers of the Hotel Bender bar therefore discreetly ignored the unexpected rebuke of their chief and proceeded noisily with their games, but the old man who had paid for the drinks was no such time-server. After tucking what was left of his money back into his overalls he balanced against the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... cross in the air and above the heads of the worshippers, she fell forward over her praying-stool and lay like that, swooning in mute adoration, until all was silent again, the candles out and she sitting alone there in the dark with a few black shapes of cloaked women who wandered discreetly from one station of the Cross to the next. Outside she heard her brothers playing in the church-square. There she joined the little girls of her school; and, arm in arm, they walked along past the dark houses and the silent trees, each whispering her own tale: about her new dress, her ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... just come out strong. Company conference being over, there was held the boxing match which one of the sergeants has been promoting, and the whole company (officers discreetly absent) formed the ring and applauded the heroism. Much of it would not interest you, yet you could have stood a glimpse of it—the circle of men, good-naturedly applauding, the heavy shadows under the overhead light, the gray-green ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... evening they heard frequent allusions to "the Americans," but could not understand what was said. The hotel men were more than obsequious; the military men and citizens were exceedingly deferential; the women who strolled on the piazza or in the great garden back of the hotel were discreetly curious. ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... through Moldauia, Valachia, Bulgaria, and Romania, gratifying the Voiauodes with certaine courtesies, he arriued at Constantinople the 28 of October next insuing. Where he behaued himselfe so wisely and discreetly, that within few moneths after he obtained not onely the great Turkes large and ample priuiledge for himselfe, and the two worshipfull persons aforesaid, but also procured his honourable and friendly letters vnto ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Munster. Both were Puritans rather than Churchmen, in their religious opinions; Chichester, a pupil of the celebrated Cartwright, and a favourer all his life of the congregational clergy in Ulster. But they carried their repugnance to the interference of the civil magistrate in matters of conscience so discreetly as to satisfy the high church notions both of James and Elizabeth. For the violence they were thus compelled to exercise against themselves, they seem to have found relief in bitter and continuous persecution of others. Boyle, as the leading spirit in the government of Munster, as Lord Treasurer, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee |
