"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her by the hand. Lady Caroline's eyebrows contracted a little, but she did not interfere. She seemed to hold herself resolutely aloof—for a time—and listened, Janetta thought, as if she were present at a very ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... into an exposition of sentimental brotherhood among all mankind, is on the contrary one of the most cynical utterances of an undisputable moral truth, disparaging to the nature of all mankind, that ever came from Shakespeare's pen. Achilles keeps himself aloof from his fellow Greeks, and takes no part in the war, sure that his fame for valor will be untarnished. Ulysses contrives to provoke him into a discussion, and tells him that his great deeds will be forgotten and his fame fade into mere shadow, and that some new man will ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... wanting in finality. They vanished. In their place were Rozsi's little deep-set eyes, with their wide and far-off look; and as he gazed they seemed to grow bright as steel, and to speak to him. Slowly the whole face grew to be there, floating on the dark background of the picture; it was pink, aloof, unfathomable, enticing, with its fluffy hair and quick lips, just as he had last seen it. "Are you looking for something?" she seemed to say: "I could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which required reasoning, but she had little patience for remembering dates and facts, and was not capable of Patty's steady plodding. Though both Maud Greening and Kitty Harrison had become more friendly, Vera Clifford and Muriel still held aloof from Patty, and it was owing to them that an unpleasant incident occurred one day which caused the latter much distress. Patty's talent for drawing was well known in the school; she was clever at portraits, and with a few rapid lines could make excellent likenesses. The girls ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... appearance,—which, it seemed, he was careful not to do,—it is difficult to say what might have been his reception. But contrary to the expectations of all, Woodburn, who had been thoughtfully pacing up and down the road, a little aloof from the rest, during the discussion, now came forward, and, in a firm and manly manner, opposed all the propositions which had ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Robert Peel began the disintegration of the party distinguished by his name—Peelites. Some of its members united with the Conservatives, and others, such as Sir James Graham, Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone held themselves aloof from both Whigs and Tories. Conservative traditions still exercised considerable influence over them, but they could not join them, because they were already surrendering to strong liberal tendencies. It is said that Mr. Gladstone at this ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... honours in the shape of decorations, for having as they said by my conduct prevented a European war. My own country alone stood aloof from me. The Admiralty went so far as to tell me that if I did not immediately return to England, my name would be erased from the list of naval officers. An officer of high rank, a member of the Board of Admiralty, wrote to ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... sustained so severe a reverse that the capital was no longer a safe place for them. They had no money to pay the few mercenaries whom they had hired; the town was tired of them; and the earl Marischal, who had charge of the castle, held resolutely aloof. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... off the table, and came into the yard. Josephs was beginning to sham and a bucket had just been thrown over him amid the coarse laughter of Messrs. Fry, Hodges and Hawes. Evans, who happened to be in attendance, stood aloof with his ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... had an ass to turn his mill; and he was married to a wicked wife, whom he loved; but she hated him and loved a neighbour of hers, who liked her not and held aloof from her. One night, the miller saw, in his sleep, one who said to him, 'Dig in such a spot of the ass's circuit in the mill, and thou shalt find a treasure.' When he awoke, he told his wife the dream and charged her keep it secret; but she told ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... pictures to Athens, where it was still to be seen three centuries afterwards, hanging upon the wall of the citadel. Forced to remain stationary, the Gallic hordes became a people,—the Galatians,—and the country they occupied was called Galatia. They lived there some fifty years, aloof from the indigenous population of Greeks and Phrygians, whom they kept in an almost servile condition, preserving their warlike and barbarous habits, resuming sometimes their mercenary service, and becoming once more the bulwark or the terror of neighboring states. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was Grisell's victory, though Bernard still held aloof from her all the ensuing day, when he was really the better and fresher for his long sleep, but at bed-time, when as usual the pain came on, he wailed for her to rub him, and as it was still daylight, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in uniform, I kept aloof from these mad pranks, sticking close to Mick Donovan, who I saw was ashamed of his ragged clothes, being afraid of the boys jeering ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... cuddled by this friendly baby, and Jan laid her cheek against the fluffy golden head; but all the time she was watching Tony. He reminded her of someone, and she couldn't think who. He maintained his aloof and unfriendly attitude till Ayah came to take the children to their second breakfast. Little Fay, however, refused to budge, and when the meekly salaaming ayah attempted to take her, made her strong little body stiff, and screamed vigorously, clinging so firmly ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... speaking of them to common dogs, nor even to his master, excepting when the subject was forced upon him; though that was certainly frequent enough for wholesome airing. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon his bear-skin, a maneless lion, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. Aloof from the vulgar pack, he lived and moved and had his being but in the atmosphere of the Fighting Nigger, in whose society only could he hope to find a little congenial companionship, and to whom only he unbosomed the workings ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... officers are from the men, Captain West is still more aloof from his officers. I have not seen him address a further word to Mr. Mellaire than "Good morning" on the poop. As for Mr. Pike, who eats three times a day with him, scarcely any more conversation obtains between them. And I am surprised by what seems the ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... that of the princes, of the blood, and just above that of the peers even of the oldest creation. This gave us all exceeding annoyance: it was the greatest injury the peerage could have received, and became its leprosy and sore. All the peers who could, kept themselves aloof from the parliament, when M. du Maine, M. de Vendome, and the Comte de Toulouse, for whom this arrangement was specially ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... that of Germany, holds aloof, individuals, especially Dr. Dohrn, of the Naples Zoological Station, will send contributions of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. I can not too strongly urge a dispassionate treatment of this subject, which should be carefully kept aloof from all party strife. We must equally avoid hasty assumptions of any natural impossibility for the two races to live side by side in a state of mutual benefit and good will. The experiment involves us in no inconsistency; let us, then, go on and make ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... Christ, that they walk no more with him? What can a professor mean who refuses to enlist under the temperance banner? Does he really want the monster to live? Does he pray that he may? Will he stand aloof from this conflict? Is he determined to deny himself in nothing? To care not if others perish? To risk shipwreck of character and conscience, and to keep in countenance every drunkard and dram-shop around him? Is it nothing to him that intemperance shall spread ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... business partnership. So he went from the bank president to the baker, from the member of congress for whom he had voted to the barber, from the hotel proprietor to the bartender. The negroes of the town, feeling that their race was humiliated in Pop, began to hold aloof from him. No serious-minded person who learned of his delusion gave ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Folk, who coming adown by the river-side had made that clearing. The tale tells not whence they came, but belike from the dales of the distant mountains, and from dales and mountains and plains further aloof and yet further. ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... little peace since coming here," she said, at length. "He is old and none too well; and as for king and Congress, asks nothing but his right to hold aloof. And this they will not ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the most degraded. But, strong in her faith in the power of kindness, she went in among them, and commenced day and night schools, a Sunday-school, a mothers' meeting, and a temperance society. Through these appliances she influenced the women and children, but the men stood aloof. The more desperate even threatened to drive her and her assistants away; but she was not to be intimidated. She erected a handsome building for a Costermongers' Club; and constructed a dwelling-house large enough to accommodate fifty or sixty families. The ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... succeed to ours. Few things would surprise me less, in social life, than the upspringing of some anti-luxury movement, the formation of some league or guild among the middling classes (where alone intellect is to be found in quantity), the members of which would bind themselves to stand aloof from all the great, silly, banal, ugly, and tedious luxe-activities of the time and not to spend more than a certain sum per annum on eating, drinking, covering their bodies, and being moved about ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... Atlantic which had not assumed a definite attitude towards the question whether the realisation of the plans of the Free Society belonged to the domain of the possible or to that of the Utopian. The Society itself, however, kept aloof from the battle of the journals. It was evidently not the intention of the Society to win over its opponents by theoretical evidence; it would attract to itself voluntary sympathisers ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... courage, whose good fortune is continually marred by such persuasions, that he keep himself close surrounded by his friends, that he must not hearken to any reconciliation with his ancient enemies, that he must stand aloof, and not trust his person in hands stronger than his own, what promises or offers soever they may make him, or what advantages soever he may see before him. And I know another, who has unexpectedly advanced his fortunes by following a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... feudal and clerical aristocracy changes, disappears, and decays; many of the great houses become extinct in the wars with France, or in the fierce battles of the Two Roses; the people gain by what the aristocracy lose. The clergy who keep aloof from military conflicts are also torn by internecine quarrels; they live in luxury; abuses publicly pointed out are not reformed; they are an object of envy to the prince and of scorn to the lower classes; they find themselves ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a silence so intense, so—weighted that it seemed to have substance; an alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from us—the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long tramping of millions into the grave; it was—paradoxical as it may be—filled with the withdrawal ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... in ascending as near to its pure source as we can. That source is in consciousness and consciousness is in ourselves. This is the point of view from which each problem dealt with has been attacked; but lest the author be at once set down as an impracticable dreamer, dwelling aloof in an ivory tower, the reader should know that his book has been written in the scant intervals afforded by the practice of the profession of architecture, so broadened as to include the study of abstract form, the creation of ornament, experiments with color and light, and such occasional ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... high-minded and patriotic man, he did not believe in meeting the situation in that way. He was, moreover, entirely devoid of personal ambition, and had no vulgar longing for personal power. After resigning his commission he returned quietly to Mount Vernon, but he did not hold himself aloof from public affairs. On the contrary, he watched their course with the utmost anxiety. He saw the feeble Confederation breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that that form of government was an utter failure. In a time when no American statesman except Hamilton had yet freed himself from the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... advised him to terrify the Emperor, by threatening an alliance with Sweden, and thus to extort from his fears, what he had sought in vain from his gratitude. The favourite, however, was far from wishing him actually to enter into the Swedish alliance, but, by holding aloof from both parties, to maintain his own importance and independence. Accordingly, he laid before him a plan, which only wanted a more able hand to carry it into execution, and recommended him, by heading the Protestant party, to erect a third power in Germany, and thereby ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... meeting prying eyes. Moreover, Adam Lambert, the blacksmith, and the old woman who kept house for him, both belonged to the new religious sect which Judge Bennett had so pertinently dubbed the Quakers, and they kept themselves very much aloof from gossip and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... who disliked seeing fine young men made into 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 and authoritative. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Drummond knew the reason for their holding aloof; for she had, shortly before the coming over of Prince Charlie, received a short note from the ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... prominent in debate, and frequently clashed with Southern supporters of the Administration. His pronounced Unionism estranged him from the extremists on the Southern side, while his acceptance of slavery as an institution guaranteed by the Constitution caused him to hold aloof from the Republicans on the other. At the Democratic convention at Charleston, S.C., in 1860 was a candidate for the Presidential nomination, but received only the vote of Tennessee, and when the convention reassembled in Baltimore withdrew his name. In the canvass ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... the girl did not seem a light thing to the cure, and he thought of it anxiously, hoping and sometimes believing that the young man would be strong enough to hold himself aloof, unless Miss Grant should show herself worthy of a noble, not a degrading, love. The priest had kept his promise in going to see her; but until this rumour of Vanno's gambling reached him he had not been able to regret his failure. The responsibility of judging and ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... tried to advise and help you? I think you must have seen some such effort on my part when you were an inmate of my home. I am here this evening as God's messenger to you. All the hope I have of you is inspired by his disposition and power to help you. You may continue to stand aloof from him, declining his aid, just as you avoided your mother, and myself all these weeks when we were longing to help you; but if you sink, yours will be the fate of one who refuses to grasp the strong hand that is and ever has ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band Who in another's fate now wept his own; As in the accents of an unknown land He sang new sorrow; sad Urania scanned ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... dear Herbert, the treasure is mine. Feeble as the confession is, I do not think I ever realised before the humanity of Shakespeare. He seemed to me before to sit remote, enshrined aloof, the man who could tell all the secrets of humanity that could be told, and whose veriest hints still seem to open doors into mysteries both high and sweet and terrible. But now I feel as if I had been near him, had been able to love what ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... weights and her muscles limply effortless. But after him she plunged, panting and scrambling up the rocks, and then, very suddenly, they found themselves to be on only a plateau and the real mountain head reared high and aloof above. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... seriously convulsed. Destructive wars ensued, which have of late only been terminated. In the course of these conflicts the United States received great injury from several of the parties. It was their interest to stand aloof from the contest, to demand justice from the party committing the injury, and to cultivate by a fair and honorable conduct the friendship of all. War became at length inevitable, and the result has shown that our Government is equal to that, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... silently, for he remembered with disturbing emotion that he had felt what Jake suggested when he first met Clare Kenwardine. She was frank, but somehow remote and aloof; marked by a strange refinement he could find no name for. He was glad that Jake did not seem to expect him to speak, but after a few moments the latter wrapped up the portrait and took it away. When he came back ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... was always conquered when she called him "Captain Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called "Captain Anerley" by ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... pile-dwellings in the Canton River. The Chinese, from whom they are quite distinct, regard them as a remnant of the original population, which was dislodged by their invasion and forced to take refuge on the water. They gradually established intercourse with the conquerors of the land, but held themselves aloof. They marry only among themselves, have their own customs, and enjoy a practical monopoly of carrying passengers and messages between the steamers and the shore at Macao, Hongkong and Canton.[711] In the same way, the middle Niger above Gao possesses a ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that's my ondoin', that an' bein' plumb moral. Which I onerringly traces them divorce troubles, an' her sellin' up my stock at public vandoo for cost an' al'mony like she does, to me weakly holdin' aloof from whisky when ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... whose wives and children fill the churchyards, the echoes of whose weary, never-ceasing cry must reach you even here? They are the people, the sufferers, fellow-links with you in the chain of humanity. You may stand aloof as you will, but you can never cut yourself wholly away from the great family of your fellows. You may hide from your responsibilities, but the burden of them will lie heavy upon your conscience, the poison will penetrate sometimes into your most jealously guarded paradise. We are ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life. And the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star. To all the victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says, "Ye must become as little children." For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... mailed warriors lay upon the city walls; None of the houses or cities of Christians {142e} was any longer actively engaged in war; {142f} But one feeble man, with his shouts, kept aloof The roving birds; {143a} Truly Syll of Virein {143b} reports that there were more That had chanced to come from Llwy, {143c} From around the inlet of the flood; He reports that there were more, At the hour of mattins, {143d} Than the morning ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... those who hunted well. Memba Sasa, in his profession as gunbearer, had to accompany those who hunted badly. In them he took no pride; from them he held aloof in spirit; but for them he did his conscientious best, upheld by ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Christian Citizen is to recognize the state, to give it loyal support and obedience and to seek to make its law conform to the law ordained by God. No man ought to hold himself aloof from the political interests of his community or country. In many towns and cities where Christian public sentiment has secured the passage of excellent laws for the suppression of certain evils, the evils flourish in spite of the good laws because they are not strongly supported by that ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... useless. The duke has already informed me that he wishes to speak to me. The duke is now playing cards with the king. Let us both go there. I will draw him aside in the gallery: you will remain aloof. Two words will ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Kenneth stood aloof. For the first time in his life, he felt that Patty had intentionally slighted him. He had asked her to come to the pergola for flowers, and she had refused. Then a few minutes later she had accepted a similar invitation ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... person with the young prodigal, who lived with the noblest and gayest in the land, and who, thirty years before, would, in the same country, have, been on the back of a horse that had been victor for a plate, or smoking aloof in his travelling chaise-and-four. My sentiments were not less changed than my condition. I could quite well remember that my ruling sensation in the days of heady youth was a mere schoolboy's eagerness to get farthest forward ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... to be mild and dry. Say recovered slowly. Shotaye kept aloof after the conjuration, for a long time at least. All of a sudden she made her appearance at the home of her convalescent friend. It was in order to remind her that the first step was only a preliminary, and that it could not effect a radical cure. All that had been achieved was to prove that ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... and copy out the parts, and prompt and make up. And I also had to look after the various effects such as thunder, the singing of a nightingale, and so on. Having no social position, I had no decent clothes, and during rehearsals had to hold aloof from the others in the darkened ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... your friend, lad, that I do not pretend to be one," he answered in a low tone. "I guessed from the first the sort of chap you've got for a skipper, and that you'd very likely want my aid; so I kept aloof; the better to be able to afford it without being suspected, d'ye see? You lead but a dog's life on board here, Peter, I ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... of 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 her ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... know him to be very great and wise and pure, and, be it said with bated breath, very dry and cold.... In death as in life, there is something about Washington, call it greatness, dignity, majesty, what you will, which seems to hold men aloof and keep them from knowing him. In truth he was a difficult ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... 7th, bound for New York. He had decided, after all, not to remain aloof from the political campaign. He deeply distrusted the Democratic Party, on the one hand, and he was enraged at the nominations of the Republican Party, on the other; but the "Mugwumps," those Republicans who, with a self-conscious high-mindedness which irritated him almost beyond words, were supporting ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the company thought Erlingsen very bold to talk in this way; but he was presently justified by Oddo's appearance on the balustrade. His master seized him as he touched the ground, while the others stood aloof. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... never been popular, and now his old schoolfellows gradually drew aloof from him. Nothing was ever openly said. The thing was talked of in whispers, but even whispers, sometimes, are heard; and during his last year at the University Fred Barkley stood alone among his fellows. The whispers found their echo in town, and ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... enchanted castle is convey'd, Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains, In durance strict detain him, till, in form Of money, Pallas sets the captive free. Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware, Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft Lies perdu in a nook or gloomy cave, Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch With his unhallowed touch. So, (poets sing) Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn An everlasting foe, with watchful eye Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap, Portending ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the commoner, made himself one of the passengers at once; but Byron held himself aloof, and sat on the rail, leaning on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy, from the gloomy Rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. There was in all about him that evening much waywardness; he spoke petulantly to Fletcher, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... there was formerly any parochial sentiment in the village, any sense of community of interest, it has all been broken up by the exigencies of competitive wage-earning, and each family stands by itself, aloof from all the others. The interests clash. Men who might be helpful friends in other circumstances are in the position of rival tradesmen competing for the patronage of customers. Not now may their labour be a bond of friendship between them; it is a commodity ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... there, Even as he grasp'd the skirts of victory, Achilles fell, nor any man might dare From forth the Trojan gateway to draw nigh; But, as the woodmen watch a lion die, Pierced with the hunter's arrow, nor come near Till Death hath veil'd his eyelids utterly, Even so the Trojans held aloof in fear. ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Anna found in actual life far exceeded what Hannah had prophesied. The women of the village kept aloof from her, and for many reasons. The first reason was that she never visited the village tavern. She never drank any liquor herself, nor treated her visitors with it. And nothing in the world brings such people together as liquor does. Then the men hated her for the purity and ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... books. He worked in his flower beds. With flowers he had a cunning touch, almost like a woman's. He loved them, and they responded to his love and bloomed and bore for him. He walked downtown to the business district, always alone, a shy and unimpressive figure, and sat brooding and aloof in one of the tilted-back cane chairs under the portico of the old Richland House, facing the river. He took long solitary walks on side streets and byways; but it was noted that, reaching the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... for a while in disrepute, because DESAUDRAY, the director who founded it, exercised over it a tyrannic sway; it has succeeded in getting rid of him, and, since then, several persons of merit, who had before kept aloof, aspire to the honour of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Lapelle. He kept well in the rear of the motley throng of voyagers, an elegant, lordly figure, approached only in sartorial distinction by the far-famed gambler, Sylvester Hornaday, who likewise held himself sardonically aloof from the common horde, occupying a position well forward where, it might aptly be said, he could count his sheep ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... made of the 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for its inner development, there is no better adaptation of means to ends than this, namely, that right at the start I begin by abolishing what we call orderly arrangement, keep myself entirely aloof from it, frankly claiming and asserting the right to a charming confusion. This is all the more necessary, inasmuch as the material which our life and love offers to my spirit and to my pen is so incessantly progressive and so inflexibly systematic. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fell upon one of the passengers a little aloof from the group about the motorman. He, too, after a last look at the car, seemed to be resolving on that long tramp to the station. He was a sightly young man, tall, heavily built, and dressed in garments that would on any human form have won Bean's instant ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... try to set up a salon after the fashion of the continent, and would gather a few feeble wits about her for a time. But for the most part the intellectual workers of the city held themselves severely aloof; and Society was left a little clique of people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, and who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their personalities a veil ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... lady-killer's rebuff. He too was wondering if the social life of a Swiss hotel would permit him to seek a dance with Helen. Under existing conditions, it would provide quite a humorous episode, he told himself, to strike up a friendship with her. He could not imagine why she had adopted such an aloof attitude toward all and sundry; but it was quite evident that she declined anything in the guise of promiscuous acquaintance. And he, like her, felt lonely. There were several Americans in the hotel, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... was soon struck, and Tui entered upon his self-imposed task. It was immediately evident that he had a bigger contract on hand than he had imagined. The natives, who had previously held somewhat aloof from him in a kind of deferential respect, no sooner got wind of the fact that we needed some of them than they were seized with a perfect frenzy of excitement. There were, I should think, at least a hundred and fifty of them on board at the time. Of this crowd, every member ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... between rudeness and reserve. You can be courteously polite and at the same time extremely aloof to a stranger who does not appeal to you, or you can be welcomingly friendly to another whom you like on sight. Individual temperament has also to be taken into consideration: one person is naturally austere, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... frantic to renew his assault upon his wife, got up and withstood and held him back, averring that the lady was in no wise to blame for what had happened, but only he, who, witting that things lost their virtue in the presence of women, had not bidden her keep aloof from him that day; which precaution God had not suffered him to take, either because the luck was not to be his, or because he was minded to cheat his comrades, to whom he should have shewn the stone as soon as he found it. And so, with many words they hardly prevailed upon ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... consulting the Council of State as to the mode to be adopted for invoking and collecting the suffrages of the people. For this purpose au extraordinary meeting of the Council of State was summoned on the 10th of May. Bonaparte wished to keep himself aloof from all ostensible influence; but his two colleagues laboured for him more zealously than he could have worked for himself, and they were warmly supported by several members of the Council. A strong majority were of opinion ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... palace 'mid the rocks Uplifts its lowly roof, Scarce seen by the far sun that shines aloof. Of such a rude device Is the whole structure of this edifice, That lying at the feet Of these gigantic crags that rise to greet The sun's first beams of gold, It seems a rock that down the ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... alighted to eat a little at a wretched tavern by one of the innumerable fords. A solitary traveller who was here before us, and for a time kept aloof, wearing a grand and mysterious manner with a shabby coat, presently moved; edging himself up to me where I sat a little apart, eating ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... believed in their friend's newly-developed talent, but art-critics and the public held aloof. No medal was decreed by the jury, and, accustomed as he had been to triumph after triumph, his fondest hopes for the second time deceived, Dor grew bitter and acrimonious. That his failure had anything to do with the real question at issue, namely, his genius as a historic ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... bombs, and beef, and officers' valises; And I at eve have marked my wistful mare By thronging dumps where cursing never ceases And rations come, for oft she brings them there, Patient, aloof; and when the shrapnel dropp'd And the young mules complained and kicked and hopp'd, She only stood unmoved, with one leg propp'd, As if she heard it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... aboard, from the captain down. His laughing, half-aloof manner was very taking; and his ironical comments on the various points of discussion, somehow, conveyed no sting. He was continually accepting gifts of newspapers—of which there were a half a thousand or so brought aboard—with ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... to deal fully with the phenomena of prostitution because, however aloof we may personally choose to hold ourselves from those phenomena, they really bring us to the heart of the sexual question in so far as it constitutes a social problem. If we look at prostitution from the outside, as an objective phenomenon, as a question of social dynamics, it ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lasted but a day. I was a great deal with Colonel Clark in the few weeks that followed before his departure for Virginia. He held himself a little aloof (as a leader should) from the captains in the station, without seeming to offend them. But he had a fancy for James Ray and for me, and he often took me into the woods with him by day, and talked with me of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of lands, Far above the convent stands. On its terraced walk aloof Leans a monk with folded hands, Placid, satisfied, serene, Looking down upon the scene Over wall and red-tiled roof; Wondering unto what good end All this toil and traffic tend, And why all men cannot be Free from care and free from pain, And the sordid love of gain, And as indolent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Rabbis, who celebrated their "feast of tabernacles" on board; their chief men performing worship twice or thrice a day, dressed in their pontifical habits, and bound with phylacteries: and there were Turks, who had their own ceremonies and usages, and wisely kept aloof from ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... altogether in that country three months, a total to his name and reign of a poor six. Then he left it for good and all, carrying away with him grudging men and grudged money, and leaving behind the memory of a stone face which always looked east, a sword, a heart aloof, the myth of a giant knight who spoke no English and did no charity, but was without fear, cruelly just, and as cold as an outland grave. If you ask an Englishman what he thinks of Richard Yea-and-Nay, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... gone Raven, sitting there by Dick, who did not speak again, listened for the murmur of voices from the library. Would they keep companionable vigil, the two women, heartening each other by a word, or would they sit aloof, each wrapped in her own grief? There was not a sound. They were falling in with that determination of the house to maintain its sinister stillness, its air of knowing more ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... contemptible fellow I should be if I wished you to hold aloof!" He spoke sincerely, having overcome his misgivings of a short time ago. "The fight will be fought on large questions, you know. I want to win, but I have made up my mind to win honestly; it's a fortunate thing that I probably sha'n't ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... afternoon, aided by the scents and colors and propinquity, he did his very best to make gradual love to her, and for some unaccountable hideously annoying reason felt every moment more aloof. It almost seemed at last as if he were guarding something of fine and free that was being assailed. His dual self was ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... afforded this opportunity. Women were rarely seen now upon the square, but the avenue literally teemed with men. They crowded the aisles of the stores; they blocked the sidewalks. Only the victims held aloof. Acres, Thad Bailey, and the other merchants remained bitterly faithful to the square. The usual groups of loafers occupied the courthouse veranda. Colonel Marshall Adams had apparently retired from public life. He spent his days on his farm, which lay upon the ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... me, who had been standing all the while aloof, and stretched out her hands towards me, her eyes filled ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... birds; when unmolested, gathered like ants; that the conscripts from the Bando provinces were reported to be weak and unfit for campaigning, and that those skilled in archery and physically robust stood aloof from military service, forgetting that they all owed a common duty to their country and their sovereign. Therefore, his Majesty directed that the sons and younger brothers of all local officials or provincial magnates should be examined with a view to the selection ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... She had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never generally known, was nearly forgotten in Marlott. But it became evident to her that she could never be really comfortable again in a place which had seen the collapse ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... gave him useful hints for his lecturing tour in the United States, by which the humorist duly profited. But Dickens, who reached the popular heart as Barnum did their senses, seems to have held aloof from one whose knowledge of men ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... people repent and believe the Gospel. They were alike in attending no prophetic school, and avoiding each of the great Jewish sects. Neither Hillel nor Shammai could claim them. They had no ecclesiastical connections; they stood aloof from the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Herodians and Essenes. They attracted similar attention, gathered the same crowds, and protested against the same sins. Rearing the same standard, they summoned men from formality and hypocrisy ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... his command he turned to Nantes, where he had left his wife the countess, who was a sister of the Count of Flanders. He immediately invited the nobility of Brittany to a grand banquet, but only one knight of any renown presented himself at the feast, the rest all holding aloof. With the wealth of which he had possessed himself he levied large forces and took the field. He first marched against Brest, where the garrison, commanded by Walter de Clisson, refused to acknowledge him. After three ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... And along with this masculine intellect was a heart of feminine tenderness, which would enable him to enter, so far as it was possible for a celibate priest to enter, into the sad yearnings of the dying mother, whose children did not care to come to her, and held aloof even in the last hour of her weary life. In those times, when worldliness had eaten like a canker into the heart of the Church, almost as much as in our own— when preferment was set higher than truth, and Court favour was held of more worth than faithfulness, one of the most ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... since Miriam and Long Robin had divided themselves from the tribe; and they had long since returned, though still keeping aloof in part from the rest—still forming, as it were, a separate party of their own. Long Robin had dealings with the robbers of the King's highway; he often accompanied them on their raids, he and some of the men with him. The tribe began to have regular dealings with the freebooters, as thou ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... The German militarists persisted in the belief that the United Kingdom was degenerated by democracy, intent upon the acquisition of wealth, distracted by strife at home, uncertain of the Empire, and thus would selfishly remain aloof while the Kaiser's armies overran and enslaved the continent. What happened, to Germany's detriment, was the instant socialization of Britain, and the binding together of the British Empire. Germany's second great blunder ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the property ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... time taken by the younger keeper to fetch the big pointed crowbar was utilised for further search, during which the two blacks came back and stood a little aloof, watching curiously the acts ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn |
