"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dolgorucki no long felt the ability to stand aloof from her sorrow. He bent down to his wife, raised her in his arms, and with her he wept for his youth, his lost life, the vanishing happiness of his love, and the shame ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... him the lyre, Of all mortals the desire, For all breathing men's behoof, Straitly charged him, 'Sit aloof;' Annexed a warning, poets say, To the bright premium,— Ever, when twain together play, Shall ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Jews surprised?' he said bitterly. 'You've held yourself aloof from the others long enough, God knows. Yet you wonder they've ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Ned, bluntly, as Minnie at last obtained possession of it after it had been criticized and admired by all in turn, with the exception of Charlie, who stood somewhat aloof, humming a tune with a strained assumption of carelessness, which was only noticed by Seymour, the only member of the family who had been silent during ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... there is a literary aristocracy in America. Born in an intellectual atmosphere, with inherited talent, wrapped in their own dreams, knowing little of the struggle and toil of their less fortunate co-workers, its members stand aloof, saying: Thou shalt not enter therein. The old ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... peaks of Olympus wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver. And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in wrath, as the god moved; and he descended like to night. Then he sate him aloof from the ships, and let an arrow fly; and there was heard a dread clanging of the silver bow. First did the assail the mules and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote; and the pyres of the dead burnt continually ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... When he asked, still with his habitual sweetness, but entirely at random, "Shall we—ah—go below?" she did not answer definitely, and did not go. At the same time she ceased to be so timidly intangible and aloof in manner. She began to talk to Dunham, instead of letting him talk to her; she asked him questions, and listened with deference to what he said on such matters as the probable length of the voyage and the sort of weather they were likely to have. She did not take note of his keeping his ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... the Spirit and clad in the armor Of light and omnipotent truth, We'll testify ever and Jesus we'll honor, And stand from sin Babel aloof. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... be holding themselves aloof, from what I hear. I suppose you seldom meet in society now, the people you used to be familiar with ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... vales; Thrice happy isles! But who dwelt happy there He staid not to inquire: above them all The golden Sun, in splendour likest Heaven Allured his eye: thither his course he bends Through the calm firmament, (but up or down By centre or eccentric hard to tell Or longitude) where the great luminary, Aloof the vulgar constellations thick, That from his lordly eye keep distance due, Dispenses light from far. They, as they move Their starry dance in numbers that compute Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... sometimes reminds me of Ariel—the subtle spirit who, observing from aloof, as it were (that is, from the infinite distance of his own unmoral, demoniacal nature), the follies and sins and sorrows of humanity, understands them all and sympathizes with none of them; and describes, with equal indifference, the drunken, brutish delight ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... perilous passage through the gorge, he quite took me into his confidence, talking to me and consulting with me as if I were a man of his own age, while Esau hung aloof looking jealous and answering in a surly way whenever he ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... grew accustomed to the horrors of the room and of my employment. Druso, who found himself better engaged in courting the living than in cutting up the dead, was no longer necessary to me in the prosecution of my hateful studies, and kept aloof, but I soon discovered the value of them, in my increase of knowledge, employment, and reputation. At last an epidemic raged in Padua, proving very fatal; Ignatius, alarmed for the safety of his Phaedera, who was attacked, applied to me, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... predecessors, which was marching towards Santiago and Valparaiso. Had his magnanimous proposals been properly acted upon, the issue might have been very different. But the Carreras, even in the most urgent hour of danger, could not forget their private ambitions. Holding aloof with their part of the army, they allowed O'Higgins and his force of nine hundred to be defeated by four thousand royalists under General Osorio, in the preliminary fight which took place at the end of September. They were guilty of like treachery during the great battle ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... beginning at the front steps, was bordered on either side by rows of closely clipped box, which ended in the long avenue of cedars leading from the lawn to the distant turnpike. To the right of the house there were three pointed aspens, which shivered like skeletons in silver, holding grimly aloof from the vivid pink of the crepe myrtle at their feet. Beyond them was the well-house, with a long moss-grown trough where the horses and the cows came to drink, and across the road began the cornlands, which stretched in rhythmic undulations to the dark belt of the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... keep strictly aloof from everybody. I made an attempt to speak to each one of the party in a friendly way at the table, but they gave me such a cold reception, I had to ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... beauty That chases the night, And wakens all Nature With gladness and light, When warbles the linnet Aloof from its nest, O scatter thy fragrance Round ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and turned into the street. Most of his ruffians were at his heels but one of the younger of them delayed to pay his compliments to a pretty girl whose manner was sweet and shy and gentle. She had remained aloof from the crowd, having some errand of her own at the wharf, and evidently hoped to be unobserved. Jack Cockrell had failed to notice her, absorbed as he was in gazing his fill ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... extinct; their name existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white men, were enabled to arouse the almost extinguished energy of the people, so far as to assemble them round a council-fire, that was lighted at early dawn one frosty ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and then turned out of doors. The indignant world shall hear my story, the finger of scorn will be pointed at you. Your name will become a byword and a hissing. Respecterble women, respecterbly connected, will stand aloof and shudder." ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Featherstone's funeral, her one emotion is of pitiful sorrow over that loveless mockery of all human pity and love; and for the "Frog-faced" there is no feeling but sympathetic compassion for his apparent loneliness amongst strangers, who all stand aloof and look askance on him. Into all Lydgate's plans, into the whole question of the hospital and all he hopes to achieve through means of it, she throws herself with swift intelligence, with active, eager sympathy, as a probable instrumentality by which at least one phase of suffering ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... prefer to discuss questions only with those who already agree with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had been through war, or, better still, the posthumous writings of one who has been killed in war, would have more weight with the public than the best logic of one who had held aloof. But his radical friends felt that he was using this argument merely as an excuse for choosing the easy path of conformity, while the few ultraconservatives who mentioned the matter at all assumed that he had been drafted against his will. Afterward, ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... when questioned, declared that he had no will in his possession. At this time he kept aloof from the house and showed no disposition to meddle with the affairs of the family. Indeed, all through these trying days he behaved honestly, if not with high feeling. In recounting the doings of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, it will sometimes be necessary ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... like sailing off above the clouds on familiar wings, although it was the first time she had tried them. . . . Marise would fall wholly under Marsh's spell, would run away and be divorced. Neale would never raise a hand against her doing this. Eugenia saw from his aloof attitude that it was nothing to him one way or the other. Any man who cared for his wife would fight ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... congestion of life. The beauty of the soaring moon, the ebony canons of shadow under the mountain, the melancholy serenity of the perfect night, made Duane shudder in the realization of how far aloof he now was from enjoyment of these things. Never again so long as he lived could he be natural. His mind was clouded. His eye and ear henceforth must register impressions of nature, but the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... sadly at the idea that his holding aloof from this advertising custom might be set down to his ambition of being a "swell doctor." The method, however, seemed entirely proper to Alves, who hadn't the professional prejudices, and whose experience with the world had taught her to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... always been the result of pure chance. I cannot remember that any special inclination or attraction determined me in the choice of my young friends. While I can honestly say that I was never in a position to stand aloof out of envy from any one who was specially gifted, I can only explain my indifference in the choice of my associates by the fact that through inexperience regarding the sort of companionship that would be of advantage to me, I cared only to have some one who ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... when men entrap Thy bells, and women steal thy cap, They think they have trepann'd thee. Delusive thought! aloof and dumb, Thou wilt not at a bidding come, Though ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... of holding delicately aloof did not prevent him in the privacy of his study—out of which no secrets escaped—from unbuckling confidentially with ones who, like Richard, were close about his counsel board. It was not that he required that young journalist's ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of population; can you not organise yourself so as not to depend from us? And if by your misrules, etc., our interests were to suffer, you would find very strange any complaint made on our part. Keep aloof with your good wishes, and with your advices, and with your interference. You may burn your noses, and even lose your little scalps. You robbers, murderers, hypocrites, surrounded by your liveried lackeys, you presumptuous, arrogant curses of the human race, stand off, and let these people whose ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... too early, so watched the congregation assemble. The Scottish face everywhere, an utter absence of anything like even a modified copy of a Milesian face. Presbyterianism in Ulster must have kept itself severely aloof from the natives; there could have been no proselytizing or there would have been a mixture of faces typical of the absorption of one ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... early movement, as it might subject us, however unjustly, to the imputation of seeking to establish the claim of our neighbors to a territory, with a view to its subsequent acquisition by ourselves. Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate that we should still stand aloof, and maintain our present attitude, if not until Mexico itself, or one of the great foreign powers, shall recognize the independence of the new Government, at least until the lapse of time or the course of events shall have proved, beyond cavil or dispute, the ability ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... pride that shrank from the slightest dependence, a self-reliance that would not falter, but would steadfastly hold aloof, and she knew that in one thing, at ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... his back to the fire, and I was at his feet in a saddle-bag chair, with my yellow beaker on the table at my elbow. But Raffles remained aloof upon his legs, and he withdrew still further from the fire as he unfolded a large sheet of office paper, stamped with the notorious address in Jermyn Street, and displayed it ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... on a check. His phosphate deals have made him rich in an un-Hayesboro-like way, and all the boys are in business for him in different states, except the oldest one, who is Congressman from this district, and one other who is in a Chicago bank. Yes, I know I have the most satisfactorily aloof family in the wide world. I can just go on feeding on their love and depend upon them not to interfere with any of my plans for living life. However, if anything happens to me I can be sure that their love will ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon{13} bow his cloud-topt head. On dreary Arvon's shore{14} they lie, Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famished eagle{15} screams, and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,{16} Ye ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... from its lonely towers of unhappiness, must ever see further into the meaning of things than could those comfortably normal and healthy souls who suffered little because they ventured little. She had ventured much, and she had lost much. She had thought to hold some inmost self aloof and immune. She had dreamed that some inward irreproachability of thought, some light-hearted tact of open conduct, might leave still untainted that deeper core of thought and feeling which she had long thought of as conscience, while some deceiving and sophistical transmutation ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity, while Sir Pitt's two children came up to their cousin. Matilda held out her hand and kissed him. Pitt Blinkie Southdown, the son and heir, stood aloof, and examined him as a little ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... estate was to leave the clothes of his family drying on the fence. Taniera was still the friend of the house, still fed the poultry, still came about us on his daily visits; Francois, during the remainder of his stay, holding bashfully aloof. And there was stranger matter. Since Francois had lost the whole load of his cutter, the half ton of copra, an axe, bowls, knives, and clothes—since he had in a manner to begin the world again, and his necessary flour was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... call; in consequence of that high devotion, he was now in prison, charged with a dreadful crime; but, instead of hastening to him, instead of standing by his side and proclaiming to the whole world her belief in his innocence, she deliberately stood aloof. It was almost as if she herself believed in his guilt! The world, at least, ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... power with the avowed intention of liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was untenable. "Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away," his advisers told him. "With the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... everything went wrong with the farmer which he undertook. His land produced nothing but weeds, his cattle all died, his sheds fell in, and if he took anything up, it broke in his hand. Neither man nor maid would work in his house, and at last all the people held aloof from him, as from an evil spirit who brought misfortune ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... belonged to the Craft—according to the custom of the time, they all lived in the same quarter and were well known to each other—were persuaded or compelled to belong to the Guild. Here religion stepped in, for every Guild had its own patron saint, and if a craftsman stood aloof, he lost the protection and incurred the displeasure of that saint, so that, apart from considerations of the common weal, terror of how the offended saint might punish the blackleg forced men to join. Thus, St. George protected the armourers; St. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... incompetency of the Governor, and respected Montcalm for his honour, and reproached him for his rashness. From first to last, he was, without show of it, the best friend Montcalm had in the province; and though he held aloof from bringing punishment to Bigot, he despised him and his friends, and was not slow to make that plain. D'Argenson made inquiry of Doltaire when Montcalm's honest criticisms were sent to France in cipher, and Doltaire returned the reply ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to summon De Launay, to point out to him the glories of the landscape and to let its purity and strength sink into him for the salvation of his manhood. But he remained aloof, lost, she surmised, in the buffet, drinking illicit ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... Hebrew-reading public, in which he disclaimed all pretensions of Messiahship for himself or for his colleague Dr. Theodor Herzl.' We have thus this extraordinary situation. Many orthodox Jews stood aloof from the Zionistic movement because it was not Messianic, while many unorthodox Jews joined it just because of the movement's detachment from ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... he did hope that when the Bill came into Committee they would agree to consult together, and try and come to some understanding as to the best mode of dealing with the question, that it was absurd to be standing aloof at such a moment; to which Ellenborough replied that he perfectly agreed with him, was anxious to do so, and intended to advise his friends ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... outlines of the surrounding circle of hills, rived by intervals of black night where wadies entered. From their summits the flying arch of the heavens sprang, printed with a few faint stars, but all silvered with the flood-light of a moon cold and pure as the frost itself. It was unsympathetic, aloof and wild—a cold place into which to bring broken hearts to assume banishment from the comfort and companionship ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... aloof from the general crowd, dressed with great elegance. Bella rather looked down on the whole affair. "It's so mixed," she said; "but we have to go, because Papa don't ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... the only safeguard for him; but aside from the fact that his reputation of reckless huntsman and general scapegrace naturally kept aloof the daughters of the nobles, and even the Langarian middle classes, he dreaded more than anything else in the world the monotonous regularity of conjugal life. He did not care to be restricted always to ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... inclination, to light loves and absurd amusements. And the art which reflected this life was called upon to give gaiety rather than thought, costume rather than character. Yet if the Venetian art had lost all connection with the grave magnificence of the past, it had kept aloof from the academic coldness which was in fashion beyond the lagoons, so that though theatrical, it was with a certain natural absurdity. The age had become romantic; the Arcadian convention was in full force, Nature herself was pressed into the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... desires, with so soft a twilight of the soul, that I had no wish to shake it off. It was a malady the very consciousness of which was an allurement, rather than a pain, and in which Death appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space. I had given myself up to the charm, and had determined to keep aloof from society, which might have dissipated it, and in the midst of the world to wrap myself in silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation of mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so as to contemplate God and ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... five pounds if somebody would beat him," muttered the discontented parson within Yorke's hearing, who was standing aloof with his cigar watching ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... that with the failure of cultivation in the island will come the failure of its resources for instructing or controlling its population. So imminent does this consummation appear, that memorials have been signed by classes of colonial society hitherto standing aloof from politics, and not only the bench and the bar, but the bishop, clergy, and ministers of all denominations in the island, without exception, have recorded their conviction, that, in the absence of timely relief, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... it was dark. The warm glow from the torches outside fell on the window-ledges and illuminated them, but inside the only light was that visible through the crevices of his wife's tightly closed door: his beloved wife—so aloof—so strange. The rain had started, and its drip on the roof was like the sound of water- falls: he changed, washed, took up a newspaper. The maid entered and announced ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... hang to the truth with a tenacity which carries them through every phase of its incessant, jellylike shifting of form. Apparently unobservant and easily deceived, they see with bright and horrible eyes. In men, too, the same merciless perspicacity sometimes shows itself—men recognized to be more aloof and uninflammable than the general—men of special talent for the logical—sardonic men, cynics. Men, too, sometimes have brains. But that is a rare, rare man, I venture, who is as steadily intelligent, as constantly sound in judgment, as little ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with—the dollar is innocent—but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... came, the weary hours were sped! For there you stood beside the open door, Glad, gracious, smiling as before, And with bright eyes and tender hands outspread Restored me to the Eden I had lost. Never a word of cold reproof, No sharp reproach, no glances that accuse The culprit whom they hold aloof,— Ah, 'tis not thus that other women use The empire they have won! For there is none like you, beloved,—none Secure enough to do what you have done. Where did you learn this heavenly art,— You sweetest and most wise of all that live,— With silent welcome ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... for her alone—bellissima, divine, glorieuse! Ah, how I have watch' her! It is sad to me when I see her surround' by your yo'ng captains, your nobles, your rattles, your beaux—ha, ha!—and I mus' hol' far aloof. It is sad for me—but oh, jus' to watch her and to wonder! Strange it is, but I have almos' cry out with rapture at a look I have see' her give another man, so beautiful it was, so tender, so dazzling of the eyes and so mirthful of the lips. Ah, divine coquetry! A look for another, ah-i-me! ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... golden dome of the State House on Beacon Street, and from the windows of the Pepperill mansion his infant eyes had gazed smugly down upon the Mall and Frog Pond of the historic Common. There had been an aloof serenity about his life within the bulging front of the paternal residence with its ancient glass window panes—faintly tinged with blue, just as the blood in the Pepperill veins was also faintly tinged with the same color—his unimpeachable social ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... true," and sings it so well, we could weep were we not so near port; a group in the stern beside the wheel watches a glorious sunset, which fills the space we sit in under the awning with a dull red and across the light a missionary paces, aloof and alone; a melancholy stooping silhouette against the glorious afterglow—to and fro—to and fro—a lanky, long-haired youth, his hands behind his back, looking into his particular future, a life devoted to convert the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... before has such supreme authority and such great dignity fallen upon men previously so submissive and so insignificant.—Formerly the subordinates of an intendant or sub-delegate, appointed, maintained, and ill-used by him, kept aloof from transactions of any importance, unable to defend themselves except by humble protestations against the aggravation of taxation, concerned with precedence and the conflicts of etiquette,[3116] plain townspeople or peasants ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... would perhaps stand still also. This would be an art cultivated professedly by a few, and for a few, who would consider it necessary—a duty, if they could admit duties—to despise the common herd, to hold themselves aloof from all that the world has been struggling for from the first, to guard carefully every approach to their palace of art. It would be a pity to waste many words on the prospect of such a school of art as this, which does in a way, theoretically at least, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... the city is in itself unique. Chosen originally for the strength of its position, it yet presents none of the features which should mark the metropolis of a powerful people. It seems to stand aloof from the world, exempt from its passions and aspirations, and shunning even its thrift. Confronting us with its towering portal, overlaid with colossal hieroglyphics, the majestic ruin, of the watt stands like a petrified dream of some Michael Angelo of the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... echoed Miss Bibby. Her world seemed in need of reconstruction for a minute. Then a strange warmth and comfort gathered about her poor heart. This made the author less terribly aloof, less altogether impossible to question if she should have the happiness ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... seriously hurt," this gentleman said to the captain, in the midst of his congratulations: "he sits aloof on the box ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... you again," he observed, with a somewhat aloof air, as she came out on the porch and sank listlessly into a wicker chair. "The last time I met you you were hard at work in ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... not sleep. Why do you not answer me? I did not understand your question, therefore I did not answer. People do not understand one another, and therefore they hold themselves aloof. For every reason that ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... being essentially Conservative. After Robert Baldwin's retirement Sandfield Macdonald's natural course would have been an alliance with the progressive Conservatives under John A. Macdonald, but his antipathy to acknowledging any leader kept him aloof. His laconic telegram in reply to John A. Macdonald's offer of cabinet office is characteristic: ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... odors from the enfolding forest. He let his eyes rest thankfully upon those calm, majestic peaks that walled in the valley. It was even more beautiful now than he had imagined it could be when the snow blanketed hill and valley, and the teeth of the frost gnawed everywhere. It was less aloof; it was as if the wilderness wore a smile and ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... discoursed on the privations of travel in uncivilised lands. A lump of sour butter for lunch and a sardine and a hazelnut for dinner. We were to fancy the infinite accumulation of hunger-pangs. And as he devoured cold beef and talked, Doria watched him with the somewhat aloof interest of one who stands daintily outside the railed enclosure of a ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... lesser evil than encounter a greater one." Another exclaims: "It is better not to vote than to betray one's trust." The salvo being found, all consciences are easy. Two-thirds of the Assembly declare that they will no longer take part in the discussions, hold aloof; and remain in their seats at each calling of the vote. With the exception of about fifty members of the "Right," who rise on the side of the Girondists, the "Mountain," whose forces are increased by the insurgents and amateurs sitting fraternally in its midst, alone votes for, and finally passes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and strikes your tracks as you two came into Skunk's Misery, the rest wouldn't take him long! I believe—hang on a minute, while I speak to Baker!" He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the dark of the cave where Baker stood aloof. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... of the world has stayed aloof, the problem of a national American music has been solving itself. Aside from occasional attentions evoked by chance performances, it may be said in general that the growth of our music has been unloved and unheeded by anybody except a few plodding composers, their wives, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... officers had unbounded respect for him, that was not wholly unmixed with fear; for while he was considerate, and asked for no exposure to danger in which he did not share, his steady discipline was never relaxed, and he kept himself almost wholly aloof, except as their military relations required contact. He could not, therefore, be popular among the hard- swearing, rollicking, and convivial cavalrymen. In a long period of inaction he might have become very unpopular, but the admirable manner ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Then the brother pointed aloof with his finger and said: "Lo you! fair lord, how bale speaks to bale all along the headlands of the down-country, and below there in the thorps by ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... account be rendered. There shall enter into Heaven nothing that maketh a lie. If our lives are not quite genuine and honest here, we are locking ourselves out of Heaven. Let us, as citizens of no mean city, keep aloof from the hypocrite, the teller or maker of a lie, and speak every man truth with his neighbour. Again, I think that as citizens of Heaven, we ought to take very good heed to our words. You know how our streets and lanes in this world are defiled and made hideous by vile language. ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... that shaped out the constellations, and nearest to them, so near as to seem only a few million miles away in the great emptiness into which everything had resolved itself, shone the sun, a ball of red-tongued fires. The Angel was but a voice now; the bishop and the Angel were somewhere aloof from and yet accessible to the ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... phantasmagoria of the revolution. He had allowed himself to be taken in by the republic—yes; and cast out. He was an affront to his country. The attitude he assumed was downright felony. Absence was an insult. He held aloof from the public joy as from the plague. In his voluntary banishment he found some indescribable refuge from the national rejoicing. He treated loyalty as a contagion; over the widespread gladness at the revival of the monarchy, denounced by him as a lazaretto, he was the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... table with her were eager to take her into close fellowship and confidence, and the two young men, clerking in the new stores, no doubt, were as eager. But it became apparent within twenty-four hours that she held herself above, and desired to hold herself aloof from them, which led to a dissection of her personal charms on part of the women, and of her mental gifts on part of the men. Mr. Lambert had commended her to the care of Mrs. Burton. Her board was paid in advance and no questions asked. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Balungu, as they are called, they have a fear of us, they do not understand our objects, and they keep aloof. They promise everything and do nothing; but for my excessive weakness we should go on, but we wait for ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... the stars, wholly aloof and apart from the problem that had sent us forth. And the feel under you of league-welcoming resilience, whatever the camels might say by way of objection. And they said a very great deal gutturally, as camels always do, yielding ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... glittered as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house. To-day he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and could tell from that keen-looking, aloof young body of his what was happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in its place, that ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... endorse whatever he left uncorrected, and thus make himself responsible, not only for any interpretation that might be placed on his poems, but, what was far more serious, for every eulogium that was bestowed upon them. He could not stand aloof as entirely as he or even his friends desired, since it was usual with some members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages which, without these, it was declared, would be a stumbling-block to future readers. But he disliked being ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Apart and aloof from the beaten paths that lead from London to Paris it held, through the centuries, "the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... Britain's imperialism, of the All-British idea, for the sake of which Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had sent their sons to South Africa? England, whose grand mission it was to protect the palladium of Anglo-Saxon dominion, stood aloof in ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... disgraceful affray took place between Otis and Robinson, the Commissioner of Customs, in a coffee-house, in which Otis received a severe blow on the head. From that moment his public career was practically at an end. He became the victim of insanity. From 1771 to 1783 he lived aloof from the excitement of public affairs. His death was singularly tragic and fearfully sudden. As he stood at the door of his home in Andover, during a storm, a flash of lightning struck him lifeless to the ground; so that he may almost be said to have been carried to his rest in ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... a certain elegance, a fine spaciousness about these artillery-men and their work which made one more content with war again. No huddling in muddy trenches here, waiting to be smashed by jagged chunks of iron—everything clean, aloof, scientific, exact, a matter of fine wires crossing on a periscope lens, of elevation, wind pressure, and so on, and everything in the wide outdoors, and done, so to say, with ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... morning I was wandering about, aloof from my comrades, in the quadrangle, waiting for the bell to ring for first school, when Marple, the town bookseller, a tradesman familiar to most Low Heathens, accosted me. He was evidently not at home in the school precincts, and, with ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... squatters, and it is now apprehended that with the failure of cultivation in the island will come the failure of its resources for instructing or controlling its population. So imminent does this consummation appear, that memorials have been signed by classes of colonial society, hitherto standing aloof from politics, and not only the bench and the bar, but the bishop, clergy, and the ministers of all denominations in the island, without exception, have recorded their conviction that in the absence of timely relief, the religious ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... discovered also that Craven's devotion to his mother and sister was the boy's leading motive in life. Olva had only seen the girl, Margaret, once; she had been finishing her education in Dresden, and he remembered her as dark, reserved, aloof—opposite indeed from her brother's cheerful good-fellowship. But for Rupert Craven this girl was his world; she was obviously cleverer, more temperamental than he, and he felt this and ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... general and swore allegiance to the Government. "Let the law of the queen," said he, "be the law of the king, to be a protection to us all for ever and for ever." But his patriotic heart was broken, and during the next year he fell into a rapid decline. Still holding himself somewhat aloof from the white clergy, he was upheld by the loving ministrations of his own people. As they bore him by easy stages to his place of death, they offered this prayer at every fresh removal: "Almighty God, we beseech Thee ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle; he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... thought it strange that he should be holding aloof from the great struggle, and even I began to lose faith in him. He had told us that the crowing of the Gallican cock would be the sign for the revolution to begin, yet he was silent. It was not till later that I learned from his own lips that ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... distinctly cool toward Burke, but, under a stern look from Mary, gave the outward semblance of good grace. The fact that he had been present in her home at the time of her disastrous escapade, even though she believed him ignorant of it, made the girl sensitive and aloof. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... advertises himself as a coal-merchant, and the brothers-in-law of the Princess Louise are in the wine trade and stock-broking business,—and all the old knightly blood of England is mingling itself by choice with that of the lowest commoners—what's the use of my remaining aloof, and refusing to go with the spirit of the age? Besides, Marcia loves me, and it's pleasant to ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... with playful words, promising to be more discreet in the future, and keep aloof from the Earl, and in a short time they were back in the ballroom, and he, at least, was dancing as merrily as if there was no such word ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... had held aloof from him, refusing all the advances which the general-in-chief and his friends had made him. The fact is, Bernadotte had long since discerned the politician beneath the soldier's greatcoat, the dictator beneath the general, and Bernadotte, for all that he became king in later years, was at that ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Diana, was the goddess of their idolatry. It deified reason, and sought to control the passions. It longed for the realms of truth and love. It believed in the divine, and detested the gross. Hence the philosophers were not eager for outward rewards, and kept aloof from the demoralizing pleasures of the people. They attired themselves in a different garb, lived retired, and studied the welfare of the soul. Mind was adored, and matter depreciated. They were esoteric men who abhorred vice, and sought the higher good. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... them. Some of the poorer clergy belonged to the society;[175] and among the city merchants there were many well inclined to it, and who, perhaps, attended its meetings "by night, secretly, for fear of the Jews." But, as a rule, "property and influence" continued to hold aloof in the usual haughty style, and the pioneers of the new opinions had yet to win their way along a scorched and blackened path of suffering, before the State would consent to acknowledge them. We ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... like oxen, too idle to draw the plough, which have pulled their necks from under the yoke, and have stubbornly refused to go forward. So have these nobles of Tekoa stood aloof, too proud to work side by side with the common people of the village, or too idle to join in anything which requires continuous effort; they have left their poorer neighbours to bear the burden alone, and to do it or ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... ought, depend upon it the public will take no notice of you for a long while. If you study wrongly, and try to draw the attention of the public upon you,—supposing you to be clever students—you will get swift reward; but the reward does not come fast when it is sought wisely; it is always held aloof for a little while; the right roads of early life are very quiet ones, hedged in from nearly all help or praise. But the wrong roads are noisy,—vociferous everywhere with all kinds of demand upon you for art which ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... and were sensible, that the king could not have put the issue on a cause more unfavorable for himself than that in which he had so imprudently engaged. Twenty-nine temporal peers (for the other prelates kept aloof) attended the prisoners to Westminster Hall; and such crowds of gentry followed the procession, that scarcely was any room left for the populace to enter. The lawyers for the bishops were, Sir Robert Sawyer, Sir Francis Pemberton, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... aloof. But he recurred to the subject again later on, and he asked whether a certain living in the near neighborhood ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... they spoke only of casual things, avoiding all mention of Guy or Kieff by tacit consent. He was very considerate for her, making every possible provision for her comfort, but his manner was aloof, almost forbidding. There was no intimacy between them, ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... and soul of the conversation at home; but she was more silent than usual upon this occasion (perhaps because Tim and Miss La Creevy engrossed so much of it), and, keeping aloof from the talkers, sat at the window watching the shadows as the evening closed in, and enjoying the quiet beauty of the night, which seemed to have scarcely less attractions to Frank, who first lingered near, and then sat down beside, her. No doubt, there are a great many ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... enough. He dropped the pony's reins and strode toward her. Louise paled even as he drew near, but he saw nothing but her eyes and her lips, lips that curved wistfully, provoking tenderness and love. For an instant Louise held her heart aloof. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the matter?" said Miss Nugent, going up to him, as he stood aloof and indignant: "Don't look so like a chafed lion; others may perhaps read your countenance, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... year to year, the election of Mr. Ruggles to the State legislature was strongly opposed. Cilley's services in overcoming this opposition were too valuable to be dispensed with; and thus, at a period when most young men still stand aloof from the world, he had already taken his post as a leading politician. He afterwards found cause to regret that so much time had been abstracted from his professional studies; nor did the absorbing and ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these people are getting along, getting onward, and progress was a star becoming familiar to their gaze and their desires. Whatever the negroes have done in the path of advancement, they have done largely without white aid. But politics and white pride have kept the white people aloof from offering that earnest and moral assistance which would be so useful to a people just starting from infancy into a ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Evora, under the charge of the boy, for the purpose of transporting some articles of merchandise. He, however, recommended us to a person in the neighbourhood who kept mules for hire, and there Antonio engaged two fine beasts for two moidores and a half. I say he engaged them, for I stood aloof and spoke not, and the proprietor, who exhibited them, and who stood half- dressed, with a lamp in his hand and shivering with cold, was not aware that they were intended for a foreigner till the agreement was made, and he had received a part of the sum in earnest. I returned to the inn well ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... food, nor hunger felt, Till those days ended; hungered then at last Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild, 310 Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm; The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. But now an aged man in rural weeds, Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray eye, Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve Against a winter's day, when winds blow keen, To warm him wet returned from field at eve, He ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... then, should mud be thrown so hard At Stockholm's faith? She merely meant To show a neighbourly regard Towards a nice belligerent; For peaceful massage she was made; Aloof from martial animosities, She yearns with fingers gloved in suede To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... for the sounds that rise From the tread of his horse's hoof, And still the mists hide his form away And forever he stays aloof; His shining face and his eyes so bright In the shades of the distance hide, And out of the night with the stars bedight He ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... the intense cold the company gathered there on the evening in question would have been much larger. Benoni Hill, the former proprietor of the store and the richest man in town, did not think his wealth was any reason why he should hold aloof or consider himself above his neighbours, whose patronage had been the foundation of his fortune. He was given an old arm-chair while the others sat upon soap-boxes and nail-kegs. Cobb's Twins, William and James, were there, Emmanuel ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... of London ring; The hoarser horns of London croak; The poor brown lives of London cling About the poor brown streets like smoke; The deep air stands above my roof Like water, to the floating stars. My Friend and I—we sit aloof,— We sit and smile, and ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... our way down into the village and examined the fruit trees and enclosures and the square huts of which it was composed. The features of the inhabitants inspired, if possible, even less confidence than those of the citizens of el Arish; but the men were dignified and aloof, and we remembered that we were now in ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... his patrimony, aloof from popular tumults. The successes of the Equi, (young Democracy,) however, rendered the appointment of a Dictator necessary, and CINCINNATUS was chosen to that high office. He laid aside his rural ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... used to get to the upper floors. Before they began to clamber up these narrow and steep steps, they listened again with great attention. They felt more frightened because the black rats held themselves aloof in this way, than if they had met them in open battle. They could hardly believe their luck when they reached the first ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... opportunity. Thus the Germans, beaten back from Paris, vainly pounded the allied lines on the Yser; the Russians, after forcing their path through Galicia, defended Warsaw with desperation; while Wilson kept himself and his country strictly aloof from the conflict. ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... his room, he acted in a most peculiar manner; he put his ear to the partition that separated his room from Narcisse's, and listened intently; then walked over to his bed, sat on the edge of it, took off his boots, held them aloof, and then let them fall on the floor; laid his coat across the foot of the bed, stood still for a few minutes, and then threw himself so heavily across the bed that it groaned loudly enough to be distinctly heard by Narcisse, who nodded his head in ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... think you would be tired to death, and you don't look any too chipper." Maud turned and stared at Wollaston, who was standing aloof. "I declare, he looks as if he had been up a week of Sundays, too," said she. Then she called out to him, in her high-pitched treble, which sounded odd coming from her soft circumference of throat. Maud's voice ought, by good rights, to have ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... through the head of each quickly did this. Rapidly skinning them, we left the carcases to be devoured by the birds of prey, which almost before we got out of sight appeared in the air; for although hyaenas and jackals are said to keep aloof even from a dead lion, the vulture tribes possess no such awe for the monarch ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... something in the manner of the female on such occasions, something so decisive and emphatic, that one entirely approves of the course of the male in not meddling or offering any suggestions. It is the wife's enterprise, and she evidently knows her own mind so well that the husband keeps aloof, or plays the part ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... tormented with curiosity, cautiously held aloof, and waited until the Sabbath, when they might expect to see the newcomers, and judge of their appearance and hear their ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which though peaceful was active and benevolent but aloof, majestic ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... it feel? Have I not described it rightly? Were the symptoms yours? Did you not hold aloof and watch yourself ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... connected the deity with the moral law, and he enjoined sacrifice to ancestors and spirits. But all this apparently without any theory. His definition of wisdom is well known: "to devote oneself to human duties and keep aloof from spirits while still respecting them." This is not the utterance of a sceptical statesman, equivalent to "remember the political importance of religion but keep clear of it, so far as you can." The best commentary is the statement in ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... is meant to stand. You are quite right." He stopped and looked down at her. "What is it? What is the matter with Mary? she is horribly polite, but were I a leper she could not hold herself more aloof. Morning, noon, and night she has engagements, and frequently with that brass-coated mine-owner of the Middle West. Do you think"—his face darkened, fear had unnerved him—"do you think she has any ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... for art teaching, and it was not till the end of the Twelfth Century that the French broke away from these traditions. Their example was followed in Italy, England and Germany more or less successfully. Russia held aloof from these attempts: she was too closely identified with Byzantine art to try any other course; it may be said that she was the guardian of that art, and was to carry on its traditions by mingling with it elements due ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various |
