"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had a glimpse of cells where fouler deeds were being done than modesty permits to mention, and which caused my companion to snatch me away in anger from this fatuous court into the princess' treasury (for we went where we list notwithstanding doors and locks). There we saw myriads of fair women, all kinds of beverages, fruits ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... greatest success with the gentlemen of the Poughkeepsie. Her youth, beauty, and modesty, told largely in her favor; and the simple, womanly affection she unconsciously betrayed in behalf of Harry, touched the heart of every observer. When the intelligence of her aunt's fate reached her, the sorrow she manifested was so profound and natural, that every one ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was about the only one whose images could pass at once to canvas, almost exactly as they came into my head." And he gives illustrations, how he instantly furnished to La Grenee a subject for a picture of Peace; to Greuze, a design introducing a nude figure without wounding the modesty of the spectator; to a third, a historical subject.[50] The first of the three is a curious example of the difficulty which even a strong genius like Diderot had in freeing himself from artificial traditions. For Peace, he cried to La Grenee, show me Mars with his breastplate, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Saxton's silk shirt with Milt's darned cotton covering, and in light of that contrast chuckling at Milt's boast and Saxton's modesty? Milt became overheated. His scalp prickled and his shoulder-blades were damp. As Saxton turned from him, and crooned to Claire, "More ham, honey?" Milt hated himself. He was in much of the dramatic but undesirable position of a man in pajamas, not ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... gamekeeper towards a young girl who had just arrived. She entered slowly, her hands clasped across her bosom, her eyes fixed on the ground, and the strangeness of the spectacle caused Mr. Leopold to pause. It was whispered that she had never worn a low dress before, and Grover came to the rescue of her modesty with a pocket-handkerchief. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... peculiar ornament their state is denoted by their having rings or bracelets of silver or gold on their wrists. Strings of coins round the neck are universally worn by children, and the females, before they are of an age to be clothed, have what may not be inaptly termed a modesty-piece, being a plate of silver in the shape of a heart (called chaping) hung before, by a chain of the same metal, passing round the waist. The young women in the country villages manufacture themselves the cloth that forms the body-dress, or kain-sarong, which for common ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... crafty modesty of her sex, Julia evaded this very pleasant shaft by saying: "How much you know, August! How do you ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... a street-car to-day and, when asked for her fare, should hide her face with womanly modesty and declare that she did not wish to be involved in such public matters, but preferred that the man swinging on the strap before her should pay, she would be informed that all who use the cars must pay for their maintenance. Women in America now have more than their share of education ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... said nothing whereby your modesty might be wounded," answered Philothea: "I wrote as I was moved; and I felt strong assurance that my words would waken a response in Philaemon's heart. But there is one subject, on which my mind is filled with foreboding. I hope you will leave Athens as soon as it is ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... things so much above our comprehension as the employment and happiness of a future state, doubtless it behoves us to speak with all modesty and distrust of ourselves. But the Scripture represents the happiness of that state under the notions of seeing God, seeing Him as He is, knowing as we are known, and seeing face to face. These words are not general or undetermined, but express a particular ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... his return: "When the train reached Concord, the bells were rung and a great company of his neighbors and friends accompanied him, under a triumphal arch, to his restored house. He was greatly moved, but with characteristic modesty insisted that this was a welcome to his daughter, and could not be meant for him. Although he had felt quite unable to make any speech, yet, seeing his friendly townspeople, old and young, in groups ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... over the confessions: admiration for the generosity of her character—for she never did a mean thing, and probably never had a mean thought—disgust at the recklessness with which she has cast off the delicacy and modesty of woman, and undermined the morality on which the holiest institutions of society depend. The interest with which the French public look forward to the book may be understood from the enormous price she has received ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... of high degree, Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, And stand astonisht lyke to those which red Medusaes mazeful hed. There dwels sweet love, and constant chastity, Unspotted fayth, and comely womanhood, Regard of honour, and mild modesty; There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne, And giveth lawes alone, The which the base affections doe obay, And yeeld theyr services unto her will; Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill. Had ye once seene these her celestial ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... amiability, and generosity, which a life-long contact with slavery could not taint; his cordial scorn of Southern ideas; his fine and flawless instinct of honor; his warm-hearted courtesy and gentleness, and his gayety and wit; his love of his daughter and of mineralogy; his courage, modesty, and humanity,—these are the traits which recur in the differing situations with constant pleasure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... there is no backwardness now; on hers no coyness, no mock modesty. They come together not as at their last interview, timid sweethearts, but lovers emboldened by betrothal. For she knows, that he proposed to her; as he, that her acceptance was sent, and miscarried. It ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... innocent face in the mirror, resolve that you will give your hand to no girl who is not just as innocent as you are and no brighter than yourself. So that you must first find out how innocent she is. Ask her quietly and frankly—remember, dear, that the days of false modesty are passing away—whether she has ever been in jail. If she has not (and if YOU have not), then you know that you are dealing with a dear confiding girl who will make you a life mate. Then you must know, too, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... holiness. The author divided his characters into thirty-five classes, illustrating qualities, and found that national activity led, with piety a close second; that then came in order those illustrating firmness of faith, bravery, modesty, and chastity; then pity and sympathy, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... When Festing first came to the prairie from a mountain construction camp, where he had not seen a woman for twelve months, he had felt Sadie's charm. Moreover, he imagined that the girl liked him and consciously used her power, although with a certain reserve and modesty. For all that, he fought against his inclination and conquered without much effort. Marriage had not much attraction for him, but if he did marry, he meant to choose a wife ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... a euphemism invented to describe the status of a personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its fortune is assured; the word lorette has passed into the language of every class ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... the nut may be too hard for your teeth? I see no fault in your modesty: diffidence is not cowardice. But you will have help in your nut-cracking, you will have three good friends in Amboise, Greed, Fear, and Love: with these three I have made France what she is. Money—a man—a woman; what will these not do! With the first—bribe and see that you do not hold my ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... defenceless women learn, too late, how constantly associated is the retiring modesty which decries, with the pleasing ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... "Modesty and a humble mind," said she, "are the very first and rarest gifts in page or squire. Your words prove that you have these, and all the rest is but the work of use and time. But there is no call for haste. Rest upon it for the night, and ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the phenomena of organic nature."), my opinion of its absolute excellence, and of its being well worth wide distribution and worth correction (not that I see where you could improve), if you thought it worth your valuable time. Had I read No. VI., even a rudiment of modesty would, or ought to, have stopped me saying so much. Though I have been well abused, yet I have had so much praise, that I have become a gourmand, both as to capacity and taste; and I really did not ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... President of the Royal Council of that Country even while he was very young, an Honour the greatest of the Nobility were well pleased to see him adorned with, and made no Scruple to sit below him: His distinguish'd Modesty and Humility in all his publick Appearances, recommends him to the Affections of the whole Country; and tho' the Fortunes of his Family have suffered by the Disasters of the Times, yet he supports a handsome Figure suitable to the Dignity of his Character, Rich without Gaiety, Great ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... with becoming modesty as the bearer of the penguins' eggs, and proffer them. The Chief Custodian takes them into custody without a word of thanks, and turns to the Person of Importance to discuss them. I wait. The temperature of my blood rises. The conversation ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... he said nothing. I wondered that he did not offer his services to the lady; but he manifested what seemed to be a very strange modesty for him, standing a little apart from the rest of us, and not even looking at the pretty face of Miss Edith. I took the liberty to introduce the Floridian. He removed his Panama, and bowed low when I ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... have found himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible, consistently with the respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject terms either of mystification or of obscure or indirect allusion. The clouds have been dispelled; ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... military employments, except a few offices which were specified. This ordinance was the subject of great debate, and for a long time rent the parliament and city into factions. But at last, by the prevalence of envy with some; with others, of false modesty; with a great many, of the republican and Independent views; it passed the house of commons, and was sent to the upper house. The peers, though the scheme was in part levelled against their order; though all of them were at bottom extremely averse to it; though ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Word Love, is a Fig-Leaf to cover the naked Sense, a Fashion brought up by Eve, the Mother of Jilts, she Cuckold her Husband with the Serpent, then pretended to Modesty, and fell a ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... know One of my sex! no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,— The jewel in my dower,—I would not wish Any companion in the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... fighting was apparent to all who met him, and no one in his presence could question the single-hearted honesty and unselfishness of the man. His bearing under fire was good, and his personal courage beyond question. He shrank from responsibility with sincere modesty, because he questioned his own capacity to deal with affairs of great magnitude. He was not only not ambitious to command a great army, but he honestly sought to put it aside when it was thrust upon him, and accepted it at last from a sense of obligation to the administration ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... muscle for the purpose of walking around trouble. Doesn't sound very dignified, does it? A dock-walloper's idea; eh? Well, among other things, I've been a dock-walloper, a beach-comber by force of circumstance, not above settling arguments with fists, or boots, or staves. No false modesty for me. I confess I've been mauled some, but I've never been whipped in a man to man fight. It was generally a scrap for the survival of the fittest. But I am going into this affair . . . Well, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... modesty was not the test of virtue then, And few took pains to swoon away at sight of ugly men; For well they knew the purity which woman's heart should own Depends not on appearances, but on ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... to treat—but of weddings my diplomacy was to speak: and to premise my Lady Dashfort would have come herself in her carriage, but is hurried out of her senses, and my Lady Isabel could not in proper modesty; so they sent me as their double, to hope you, my dear Mr. Reynolds, who is one of the family relations, will honour ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... or errors of Edward Irving's peculiar creed; but there can be no doubt that he himself was true and faithful till death, and that he preached only what he entirely believed. And what can man do more? If he was wrong, his errors arose from his extreme modesty, his extreme veneration for the subject to which he ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... that no question of modesty entered the model's mind, and she went back to her easel to paint the rounded limbs and marble huelessness of fair Dian, chastest of all Olympia's deities, wondering if, after all, what is called modesty does not come as much of habit as of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... sometimes reading aloud to the assembled company. Here was Rose Lamb, artist and dear friend; and here Mrs. Mary Hemenway was a most beloved presence, with her eager enthusiasm for reform, yet with a modesty of bearing which made young and old press to her side. She loved Celia Thaxter, who in her turn was deeply and reverently ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line stretches ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... doctrine. It is said of this pious couple that "they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly." [116:3] Priscilla was no less distinguished than her husband [116:4] for intelligence and zeal; and though she was prevented, as much, perhaps, by her native modesty, as by the constitution of the Church, [116:5] from officiating as a public instructor, she was, no doubt, "apt to teach;" and there must have been something most interesting and impressive in her private conversation. It is a remarkable fact that one of the ablest preachers ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... arm, this action occasioned to subside, and to yield place to those emotions which this spectacle was calculated to excite. She watched me in silence, and with an air of ineffable solicitude. Clarice, governed by the instinct of modesty, wrapped her bosom and face in the bedclothes, and testified her horror by ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... was our duty to assure the other colonies that the country would carry stock, and stock would be forthcoming. If Mr. Forrest in former days established his fame as an explorer, his late expedition only proves that he must commence de novo. Of the modesty and bearing of Mr. Forrest and his party in South Australia he could not speak too highly. There was, however, one exception, and that was his friend Windich (native). He was the man who had done everything; he was the man who had brought Mr. Forrest to Adelaide, and not Mr. Forrest him. He (Mr. ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... public to cashier Shakespeare, who is now utterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R. Planche as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominent place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with much modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor and Albert Smith, Esquires, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... full and determinate Convincement. She thought his Behaviour, in personating a Sick Man so readily, upon the first hint was not amiss, and smil'd to think of his Excuse to procure her Handkerchief; and last of all, his sifting out the Means to write to her, which he had done with that Modesty and Respect, she could not tell how to ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... sighted, had been first entered by the Lady Nelson. Flinders sailed into the bay on April 26th, thinking that he had made a new discovery, until, on his arrival at Port Jackson, he heard of the Lady Nelson's prior visit, and that Governor King, with modesty and regard for his old chief, had altered Murray's name of ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... self-glory... In Haydon's work there is not sufficient forgetfulness of self to disarm criticism of personality. His pictures are themselves autobiographical notes of the most interesting kind; but their want of beauty repels, and their want of modesty exasperates. Perhaps their principal characteristic is lack of delicacy and refinement of execution.' While describing Haydon's touch as woolly, his surfaces as disagreeable, and his draperies as deficient ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... me. That she was a lady was at once apparent. Her age was about twenty-two, and her countenance one of the most beautiful that I had ever gazed upon. Her dark, luminous eyes met mine with an expression half of innate modesty, half of fear. The white hand lying in her lap trembled, and with the other she stroked ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... of this, also, he is ambitious. Observation is his forte. To see, and to tell with grace, often with dignity and pathos, what he sees, is his proper vocation. Yet, where he fails, he has too much tact and modesty to be despised; and we cannot enough admire the absence of faults in a man whose ambition soared so much beyond his powers, and in an age and a country so full of false taste. He is never seduced into sentimentality, paradox, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Her voice was softer and her laugh more attractive than that of many an American belle of high social standing. In fact the women of this island village were, as a class, of remarkable dignity and modesty, so that there was probably less to shock one's modesty here than at many a fashionable American watering place. Of course ignorance of their language made it impossible to understand all that was going on, but to judge by their actions and the tones of their voices it would seem ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... he had forgotten everything but the vision before him. He was living in the world that never was; the sound of flutes was wafted on the breeze from fairyland. Pulsing bosom and sheen of sun-kissed shoulders.... Ah! maddening modesty and virtue, how inconsistent are thy ways! No wonder so many forget ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... notorious Eric Haeberlein was actually in London last week in connection with the disgraceful Kellner business. ON DIT that he escaped detection through the instrumentality of one of the fair sex, whose audacity outweighed her modesty." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... to her after that. He dominated the conversation, much more so than on the previous evening, when there had been some little difficulty in extracting any account of his exploits from him. Now he was willing to talk of them, and he talked well, not exactly with modesty, but with no trace of boastful quality, such as would certainly have aroused the prejudices of his listeners ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent, insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a thing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with modesty, and Equanimity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or singular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious of the skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; no streets that ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... is used in writing, to show that some-thing is omitted; as, Manner. I love her for her modesty and virtue. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... fell back promptly, his native modesty getting the better of his zeal; and the party halted twenty yards from the shed while Jeffreys advanced to reconnoitre. He saw at a glance that things were not exactly as he had left them. Two out of the three prisoners remained securely bound, but the unlucky Corporal had slipped his ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the amiable character of our poet; that his modesty is equal to his merit, the following extract, from a letter to a friend, will afford a pleasing evidence. Speaking of his literary career, he says, "it has been marked by an indulgence on the part of the public, and the dispensers of literary fame, which I never anticipated. When I consider that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... her and Florence was in every way striking enough to prove what a wonderful and mysterious man Enoch Peake was. Florence was accustomed to audiences. She was a pretty, doll-like woman, if inclined to amplitude; but the smile between those shaking golden ringlets had neither the modesty nor the false modesty nor the docility that Bursley was accustomed to think proper to the face of woman. It could have stared down any man in the place, except ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... all beyond me," I said; "but he would fill a throne well. But his own modesty in the matter of his worthiness is likely to stand in the way. Why should we not tell him all that we know? Then he will feel that he ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... His modesty goes hand-in-hand with kindliness, and I have seen him let himself be introduced in his own church to his congregation, when he is going to deliver a lecture there, just because a former pupil of the university was present who, Conwell knew, was ambitious to say something inside of the ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... proposed to take his young pupil with him as an interpreter. Writing to Sir William Johnson about the matter, he referred to Joseph in most glowing terms: 'As he is a promising youth, of a sprightly genius, singular modesty, and a serious turn, I know of none so well calculated to answer my end as ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Francis—he could not decide precisely its purport—when she who had succeeded Chateaubriant floated into the room, dressed in some diaphanous stuff, a natural accompaniment to the other decorations; her dishabille a positive note of modesty amid the vivid colorings and graceful poses of those tributes to love with which Primaticcio and other Italian artists had adorned ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... church. He had been the means of aiding many to establish themselves, and had saved many immigrants from being lured away into evil. He said the place to get the heart of the foreigner was when he first landed. It was a simple story, told without any false modesty. Plainly his heart was in the work. He was a home missionary, doing a definite service of importance, and setting an example that inspired that company. They could not help the round of applause that followed his statement. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... representing not only my own sentiments and convictions but those of our dear old friend Hoch. We all wish that he might be with us to express himself the warm feelings toward the Bloomingdale Hospital and its active representatives, from the managers to the humblest workers. Hoch in his modesty could probably not have been brought to state fully and frankly his own share in the achievements of this Hospital. But I know how much he would have liked to be here to express especially the warmth of appreciation we all entertain of what our friend William L. Russell means to us ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... "I know your modesty as well as your courage, Captain Lewis," smiled Mr. Jefferson. "You may be seated, sir, since now we ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... such as we think used to be and are not now. The place for the women in the hall of the Board of Education is good enough and on one side facing the hall so that all the men can look at them freely and so protect that famous modesty which I have heard more of in China than ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... get the contract—yes," Sprague answered with palpably assumed modesty. "My plans, naturally, call for a great deal of research work, a large expenditure of money, a very ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Thus did one opportunity after another pass away, and as often did he form the towering resolution to reveal his affection if he were ever favored with another. Still would some disheartening reflection, arising from the uncommon gentleness and extreme modesty of his character, throw a damp upon his spirit. He questioned his own penetration; perhaps she was in the habit of glancing as much at others as she glanced at him. Could it be possible that the beautiful daughter of Bodagh Buie, the wealthiest man, and of his wife, the proudest woman, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... it does now, of an overdoing of the outward demonstrations of modesty; a 'leer' was once a look with nothing amiss in it (Piers Plowman). 'Daft' was modest or retiring; 'orgies' were religious ceremonies; the Blessed Virgin speaks of herself in an early poem as 'God's wench.' ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... nose, tended to give them a disgusting appearance; but in the women, that feminine delicacy which is to be found among white people was to be traced even upon their sable cheeks; and though entire strangers to the comforts and conveniencies of clothing, yet they sought with a native modesty to conceal by attitude what the want of covering would otherwise have revealed. They have often brought to my recollection, "The bending statue which enchants the world," though it must be owned that the resemblance consisted solely ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... this peerless flower of Swabia, and turned aside to the Castle of Kirchberg to see if perchance he might win a good and lovely wife. He was made welcome, and no sooner had he looked on Itha's fair and loving face, and marked with what modesty and courtesy she bore herself, than he heard joy-bells ringing in his heart, and said, "Now, by the blessed cross, here is the pearl of price for me!" Promptly he wooed her with tender words, and with eyes that spoke more than tongue could find words for, and ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... in a soft voice, a strange, soft aplomb that was very attractive. And she moved round with rather mechanical, attractive movements, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. But she had always this dim far-awayness in her bearing: a sort of modesty. The strange man by the fire watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... disregard of all those laws of prudence and economy which regulate the expenditures of families. They are made by women whose sole and only hold on life is personal attractiveness, and with whom to keep this up, at any cost, is a desperate necessity. No moral quality, no association of purity, truth, modesty, self-denial, or family love, comes in to hallow the atmosphere about them, and create a sphere of loveliness which brightens as mere physical beauty fades. The ravages of time and dissipation must be made up by an unceasing study of the arts of the toilet. Artists of all sorts, moving in ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... my story first. I left you that night abruptly—as you know. I went to her. I put aside all false modesty. I forgot that I was only a journalist with a possible future and no past—and that she was an aristocrat—my passion carried me away. I knew only that I was a man and she was the woman I loved. So I pleaded with her, and at first I thought that ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... his companion with well-affected modesty; "I a fop! I a pretender to wit? No, no, my dear Sir Asinus, you do me injustice: I am the simplest of mortals, and a very child of innocence. But I was speaking of Shadynook and the fairies of that domain. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... young man[32], was at first led by inclination, like most others, to engage in political affairs[33]; but in that pursuit many circumstances were unfavorable to me; for, instead of modesty, temperance, and integrity[34], there prevailed shamelessness, corruption, and rapacity. And although my mind, inexperienced in dishonest practices, detested these vices, yet, in the midst of so great corruption, my tender ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... Wells displayed unexpected modesty and at the same time inexperience of the ways of the world. His first criticism of the Society, his first project of reform, related to our tracts. To this point he directed an unpublished preface to his paper "This Misery of Boots," when he read it to the Society before the ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... telescope at home, and had almost given the matter up in despair, when, on the twenty-seventh day of his visit, he was suddenly confronted with the person whom he sought. The first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away from kirk on some pretext of indisposition, which was more truly modesty; the pleasure of beholding Archie seeming too sacred, too vivid for that public place. On the two following, Frank had himself been absent on some of his excursions among the neighbouring families. It was not until the fourth, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that he had not handled his man skilfully. He remembered that even Socrates, for all the popular charm of his mock-modesty and his true geniality, had ceased after a while to be tolerable. Without such a manner to grace his method, Socrates would have had a very brief time indeed. The Duke recoiled from what he took to be another pitfall. He almost ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... are of the opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterward by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peaceably, and with all modesty, and for a long time have borne a good report with all—these men we consider to be unjustly thrust out of their ministrations.(18) For it will be no light sin for us, if we thrust out those who have offered ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... they were covered with burning blushes most of the time. Languor, hysteria and general debility were regarded as the outward indications of a sweet and gentle character. Woman was a tendril clinging to the strong oak of masculinity. Modesty was her cardinal virtue. One is, of course, entitled to speculate on the probable contemporary causes for the seeming overemphasis placed on this admirable characteristic. Perhaps feminine honesty was so rare as to be at ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... and horns resounded. Much more joyfully than on the previous occasion the musicians marched in front. Upon a milkwhite palfrey, as formerly, sat a noble maiden in bridal state, clothed in undulating robes bordered with fur. Her head was bent in maiden modesty as she listened to the endearments which the youthful knight whispered in her ear. Behind rode the father of the bride sunk in thought, and along with him was his pious sister Notburge, the canoness ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... true to say that nobody in the Menuet elicited more sympathy and admiration than Pauline Belmont. The perfection of her dancing, the sweetness of her face, the modesty of her demeanour, and the childlike reliance which she seemed to place on the cooperation of her stalwart partner, Roderick Hardinge, were traits which could not pass unobserved, and more than once when she swung back into position after ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... at Stirling had received his plan with enthusiasm. And when, on the day of his parting with the released chiefs on the banks of the Esk, with all the generous modesty of his nature, he submitted his design to them, rather to obtain their approbation as friends, than to enforce it with the authority of a regent; when they saw him, thus coming down from the dictatorship to which ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the rear. But, though Sophia had great curiosity to know why the other lady continued to travel on through the same bye-roads with herself, nay, though this gave her some uneasiness, yet fear, or modesty, or some other consideration, restrained her from ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of a man, and the experience of old age. His dress consisted of a long purple robe with sleeves, and the yellow boots worn by the Lydians;—his whole appearance produced an impression of the greatest modesty and a total absence ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura, getting up from her chair and coming towards him. "You shall not leave this room till you have promised me that you will do nothing of the kind. I do not know as yet what has occurred to-night; but I do know that that modesty which has kept you silent is more often a grace ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... masticated particles of those who had preceded them along the pathway of life; when they wished to feast their eyes and ears on beauty, art offered them works and precedents established by the dead. Even love suffered this servitude. Woman in modesty or in bursts of passion, which she deems spontaneous, unconsciously imitated her grandmothers, who had been temptresses with hypocritical modesty or frankly voluptuous, according to the epochs in which ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was never carried into effect: his Romish biographers say, because he had imbibed at Winchester a distaste to the Protestant religion; adding that "he obtained the rank of captain [of the school], and by his modesty and urbanity, his natural abilities and quickness in learning, so recommended himself to the superiors, that had he" entered at Oxford, "he might safely have calculated on attaining the highest academical ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... I received a letter, which I think should not remain in the obscurity of my coat pocket. I wish to submit it to public attention as a model of all that a letter from a good friend should be, and so seldom is! There is an engaging modesty in so large a man's referring to himself continually with a little letter "i." My correspondent tells me of himself, he gives me intimate news of the place of my recent sojourn, he touches with taste and feeling upon the great subject of our time, he conveys to me patently sincere ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... a dash of vanity in the latter part of this remark, which surprised March not a little; for it seemed to him quite inconsistent with the stout hunter's wonted modesty of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... the apparent presumption and vain-glory of this last communication for today...My modesty will sufficiently come to my rescue to prevent my putting too many feathers in my cap! [The German proverb of which Liszt makes use is "allzugrosse Rosinen im Kopfe tragen." Besides, thank God, I am too honest and truth-loving to fall a victim ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... "common girls" came suddenly round the cliff into her sheltered nook, with shouts of laughter, also bent on bathing. Beth plunged in deeper to cover herself the moment they appeared; but they did not expect her to have anything on, and her modesty was ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... that the morals of the Tahaitians were very exceptionable in another point, in which also the influence of the Missionaries has been beneficially exerted. If the modesty which conceals the mysteries of love among civilized nations be the offspring only of their intellectual culture, it is not surprising that a wholly uninstructed people should be insensible to such a feeling, and in its unconsciousness should even have ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... considered not only one of the prettiest girls in that part of Shetland where she was known, but as good and modest as she was pretty, which is saying much in her favour, where beauty, modesty, and kindness of heart are the characteristics of the people. Her cottage, which was one of the largest in the island, was fitted up with more taste and comfort than was usually found in others, and everything about it bore ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... on his horse and brought her to his castle. Then he caused rich clothing to be put upon her, and her beauty shone as bright as the morning, but no word would she utter. He seated her by his side at table, and her modesty and gentle mien so pleased ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... beautiful young woman shrunk back with modesty. "There, sir, is the very gal that was made for you. If she had been made to your order, she could not ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... the keeper in attendance. And (on receiving permission), she soon entered that brilliant and charming palace. But, O monarch, upon beholding her at night in his mansion, Arjuna, with a fearstricken heart, stepped up to receive her with respect and as soon as he saw her, the son of Pritha, from modesty, closed his eyes. And saluting her, he offered the Apsara such worship as is offered unto a superior. And Arjuna said, 'O thou foremost of the Apsaras, I reverence thee by bending my head down. O lady, let me know thy commands. I wait ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... turning them into prigs dried up the children's well of consolation. The Fathers of the Church lent a hand too, and a vigorous one; and for centuries the face of the Muse was sicklied o'er with a pale determination to combine amusement with instruction. Even our noble Sidney allowed his modesty to be overawed by the pedantic tradition, though as a man of the world he tactfully gave it the slip. "For suppose it be granted," he says, "(that which I suppose with great reason may be denied) that ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the fact that she is a girl, and has not seen you for a year, remember. It is all very well for you to talk of to-the-point confessions and plain statements, but practically, if a girl were to talk as frankly as you would like, I am afraid the idea of modesty ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... "The modesty of the man who has just addressed you," he began unsteadily, "will deceive no one. You all know what I owe to him—what our town owes to him. You all know that if I am almost too proud and too happy to speak at all just now, it is ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... saw, because he always went to bed much later than I did and I always got up much earlier than he did. On the last day, however, he rose at the same time and I saw that he was a man I knew named Carter, and nicknamed "Modesty" Carter. He was a stalwart, good-looking fellow, and I was sorry when later I heard that he had been ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... beautifully musical, and it is calculated to attract wherever it is heard. He is a man of calm intrepidity, of a patriotic and warm heart, with manners the most affable, temper the most gentle, a rectitude of principle entirely natural, a freedom from ambition, and a modesty quite singular. As Napoleon kept the Old Guard in reserve, to turn the tide in battle, so do the Abolitionists keep Mr. Phillips in reserve when opposition is expected in their great gatherings. We have seen the meetings turned into a bedlam, by the mobocratic slave-holding spirit, and ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... of the empty money-boxes; and though he never fancied that there was any danger in meeting his brother-in-law, for he had no idea that he had been seen on the night of the attack, with a natural modesty, which did him really credit, he kept out of the young bridegroom's sight as much as he could, and showed no desire to be presented to him. At supper, however, as he was sneaking modestly down to a side-table, his father shouted after him, "Ho, Dominic, come hither, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it is woful, when the young usurp the place, or despise the wisdom, of the aged; and among the many dark signs of these times, the disobedience and insolence of youth are among the darkest. But with whom is the fault? Youth never yet lost its modesty where age had not lost its honor; nor did childhood ever refuse its reverence, except where age had forgotten correction. The cry, "Go up, thou bald head," will never be heard in the land which remembers the precept, "See that ye despise not one of these little ones;" and ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... people were willing to tell anything about their marriages to him. There was a great deal of foolish reticence in the world ... at this point Mr. Palfrey emphatically said, "Hear! Hear!"... and he trusted that those present that evening would cast away false modesty and would say quite openly what their experiences had been. He would not detain them any longer ... he was quite certain that they were all very anxious to hear Mr. Palfrey ... and so without any more ado he would call upon him to read his poems and ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Scarcely is there a Christian lady in our land more honoured than she was, and none more loved and esteemed. For good sense, prudence, sincerity, benevolence, unaffected piety, disinterested zeal in every good work, deep humanity and retiring modesty—for all the virtues which adorn the wife, the mother, and the friend—I ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... grudge against you," Dorothy said, without any emotion, "and—hardens your heart, as of old He hardened Pharaoh's heart, to your own destruction. I have done my utmost to save you. My woman's modesty I have put aside, and death and worse than death I have dared to encounter to-night,—ah, my Lord, I have walked through hell this night for your sake and another's. And in the end 'tis yourself who rob me of what I had so nearly gained. Beyond ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of the enterprise, the place of honor at these ceremonies was naturally given to the Empress Eugenie, who went to Cairo as the representative of the French nation; while to De Lesseps, as naturally, was given the next place, a position which he filled with equal dignity and modesty, winning "golden opinions ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... not because she feared to have her father know she had come riding to his rescue in the last hours of her troubled night; not because she feared his censure or his anger, or wanted to conceal her deed for reasons of modesty from anyone. Only to spare him the humiliation of having his failure known, Mackenzie understood. That was her purpose, and her sole purpose, in seeking his pledge ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... and, he doubted not, encourage them to strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to mince and mash it between their teeth, as if they had some base cause to be ashamed of the words they uttered? Was this modesty? He knew better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment—the offspring or the forerunner of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing, this mincing and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this general affectation and sickening ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... arouse the unbounded, and almost delirious, devotion which none but Sir Edward Carson ever evoked in the North of Ireland, the deep respect and warm affection felt towards him by all who knew him, and by great numbers who did not, was a tribute which his modesty and integrity of character and genial friendliness of disposition richly deserved. He was faithfully described by Carson himself to the Ulster Unionist Council several months after his death as "a great leader, a great and devoted public servant, a great patriot, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... where she was able to stand up without shocking the sensibilities of any one. The little boys were still some distance from her. The water, muddy beyond all chance of transparency, came up to their chests. To them, however, this was not enough. The excessive modesty of eight or nine made them keep even the white of their angular little shoulders ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... of spirits, there were the greatest modesty and simplicity in the demeanour of these poor girls. When they proceeded in a more sober mood, we joined in the conversation, asking questions about their prospects at Ajaccio, and the schooling they had received. They had no friends at Ajaccio; ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... head away instinctively, for I felt that my cheek wuz a gettin' as red as blood, partly through delicacy and partly through righteous anger. Sez I, "Josiah Allen, be you a calculatin' to go there right out in public before men and wimmen, a showin' your bare bosom to a crowd? Where is your modesty, Josiah ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... history would have counted a Magellan or a Captain Cook the more. But what strikes us as most remarkable about her was the absolute simplicity of her character and conduct; the unpretending way in which she accomplished her really great achievements; her modesty of manner and freedom from pretension. She went about the world as she went about the streets of Vienna; with the same reserve and quietness of demeanour, apparently unconscious that she was exposing herself to death, and hazards worse than ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... as we usually see it in the Italian school. This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be "the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods." It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and, under this respectable patronage, it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, in the use ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... "It isn't modesty!" Mrs. Hsueeh replied smiling. "It's all a dread lest I shouldn't be able to observe the order and thus ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... conversation I also imagined. They were beginning, they were going to love. Their hearts were so shy in finding each other. "Do you want me to go on that trip?" "Shall I do this and that?" She answered, "No." An intense feeling of modesty gave this first avowal of love so humbly solicited the form of a disavowal. But yet they were already thinking of the full ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... repeated Lucy, with streaming eyes. It was too terribly real a moment for any attempt at concealment. A little reticence, in her maiden modesty; but ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... glory of his military exploits and the happy success of his more peaceful undertakings, but beloved for his affectionate concern for the welfare of his subjects, his liberality, his moderation, his modesty, his indifference to the formal honors due to his royal state, and (what is most rare in Asiatic character) his sincere aversion to flattery, his shyness even toward ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... of Britain and England" from which the following chapters are drawn. He gathered his facts from books, letters, maps, conversations, and, most important of all, his own observation and experience; and he put them loosely together into what he calls "this foul frizzled treatise." Yet, with all his modesty, he claims to "have had an especial eye to the truth of things"; and as a result we have in his pages the most vivid and detailed picture in existence of the England ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... concludes with the more peaceful scenery of a summer's evening, when the story of Damon and Musid[o]ra is introduced. Damon had long loved the beautiful Musidora, but met with scant encouragement. One summer's evening he accidently[TN-165] came upon her bathing, and the respectful modesty of his love so won upon the damsel that she wrote upon a tree, "Damon, the time may come when you need not fly." The whole book contains ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... me just off," said Mr. Johnston. "Hours it takes 'em sometimes, sometimes days." It was clear that he was restrained from adding "weeks" only by a natural modesty. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... intently. She raised her eyes again and he tossed her a half of the smoking flesh. She saw the movement, caught the food deftly in one hand as it reached her, and looked at Ab and laughed. There was no mock modesty. She began eating the choice morsel contentedly; the two were, in a manner, now ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... for, with a face kind and bright, he was yet no beauty; while if Surrey had one crowning gift in this day of fast youths and self-satisfied Young America, it was that of modesty with regard to himself and any gifts and graces nature had blessed ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... naturally dutiful class of society are numerous. As to such as are to be employed as servants, they will be intrusted with domestic concerns and the care of young children. How important, then, it will be that these girls shall have imbibed religious principles, and have been trained up in habits of modesty, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Modesty, Intelligence, and, above all, Enthusiasm, shone through her, and out of her, and made her an airy, fiery, household joy. Briefly, an ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of these very colleagues of Lincoln at the Springfield bar have sat in Cabinets, have held their own on the floor of the Senate, have led armies in the field, have governed States, and all with a quiet self-reliance which was as far as possible removed from either undue arrogance or undue modesty. [Footnote: A few of the lawyers who practiced with Lincoln, and have held the highest official positions, are Douglas, Shields, Logan, Stuart, Baker, Samuel H. Treat, Bledsoe, O. H. Browning, Hardin, Lyman Trumbull, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... young imp would stare you in the face with the effrontery of a man about town. He was active, sharp, and nice-looking, and there was nothing which he was either afraid or ashamed to do. He had not a particle of that modesty which in every good boy is as natural as it is graceful; he could tell a lie without the slightest hesitation or the faintest blush; nay, while he was telling it, though he knew that you knew it to be a lie, he would not abash for an instant the cold glance of his wicked ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... infidel. Had he great Maro's Muse, or Tully's tongue, Or raping numbers like the Thracian Song, In crowning of her merits he would be Sumptuously poor, low in Hyperbole. To write is easy; but to write on thee, Truth would be thought to forfeit modesty. He'l seem a Poet that shall speak but true; Hyperbole's in others, are thy due. Like a most servile flatterer he will show Though he write truth, and make the Subject, You. Virtue ne'er dies, time will a Poet raise Born under better Stars, shall ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... details of the evening, she could think of nothing which presented him under other than a favourable and interesting aspect. She smiled to herself softly, her colour rose by fine gradations, as she felt the full luxury of dwelling on the perfect truth and modesty of his devotion to her. Was the depression of spirits from which she had suffered so persistently on her travels attributable, by any chance, to their long separation from each other—embittered perhaps by her own vain regret when she remembered her harsh reception of him ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... faults which cause them the deepest solicitude are those which are most apparent to others. They have a hidden love of self, stronger than ever, an esteem for their own position, a secret desire to attract attention, an affected modesty, a facility in judging others, and a preference for private devotion rather than domestic duties, which renders them the cause of many of the sins of those around them. This is of great importance. The soul, feeling itself drawn so strongly ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... enter for two. One was a short novel, and the other a comedietta. The "L5 humorous story" competition I did not go in for; but when the last day of sending in MSS. for that had passed, I reproached myself with not having despatched one of my manuscripts. Modesty had prevented me sending in old work, as I felt assured it would stand no chance, but when it was too late I was annoyed with myself for having thrown away a possibility. After all I could have lost nothing. Then I discovered that I had mistaken the last date, and that there was still ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... do not fear to repeat, in the face of heaven and man, that they are without manners; they took advantage of the darkness of the staircase to make rude remarks on my wife's very person. On hearing the cries of her offended modesty, in spite of myself, I yielded to the impulse of my temper. I do not disguise it, my first movement was ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... I could play," Sally hurried to say, feeling that she had failed in effectiveness. He was loud in protest against her modesty. "Well, I mean, I've never—well, hardly ever—had any lessons. No, nor my voice. It's just ear. Mrs. P—— a friend of maine says I've got a very quick ear." Every now and then Sally was betrayed into Nosey-like refinement. She fought against it from an instinctive feeling ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... always been somewhat timid; saving only when a just indignation against some wrong or lapse of duty to himself or to others moves him, then he plucks up more spirit than those who are held to be courageous; otherwise he is of a most patient disposition. Of his modesty it is not possible to say as much as he deserves; and so also of his manners, and his ways, they are seasoned with pleasantries and sharp sayings: for instance, his conversation at Bologna with a certain gentleman, who, seeing the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... long, white, sleeveless garment; the camisa, or the pina bodice, with wide sleeves; and the skirt, caught up on one side, and preferably of red material. A yoke or scarf of pina folds around the neck, and is considered indispensable by senoritas. The native ideas of modesty are more or less false, ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... one gushing orator, "if we had the money the only course we could take would be to offer his Royal Highness whatever he pleased to accept, and even in that case we should have reason to fear lest his modesty might do an injury to his generosity by making him confine his demand within the strictest bounds of bare necessity." "Were we," another member of the Court party declared, "to measure the prince's allowance by the prince's merit, as we know no bounds to the latter, we could ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... there are many whose skins are almost white, with the most pleasing symmetry and proportion of feature; with hazel, with gray, and with blue eyes; with mildness and sweetness of expression and excessive modesty of demeanor, which render them exceedingly pleasing and beautiful. Why this diversity of complexion I cannot tell, nor can they themselves account for it. Their traditions, so far as I can learn them, afford us no information ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... They will then subside mentally with a feeling of having covered the whole ground in a thoroughly safe manner. Or they will adopt an air of critical aloofness. They will say, "How is it possible to foretell what may happen in this tremendous sea of change?" And then, with an air of superior modesty, they will go on doing—whatever they feel inclined to do. Many others, a degree less simple in their methods, will take some entirely partial aspect, arrive at some guesswork decision upon that, and then behave as though that met every question ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... uncertainly. Already she was beginning to repent her modesty. Suppose she had taken her courage into her hands, and had said boldly, "A gold watch," could it possibly have been true that the ambition of a lifetime would have been gratified, as by the stroke of a magician's wand? Really and truly the General had tumbled (literally tumbled) ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... exceptional reserve of this and other descriptions makes M. H. Zotenberg suspect that the tale was written for one of the Mameluke Princesses: I own to its modesty but I doubt that such virtue would have recommended it to the dames in question. The H. V. adds a few details:—"Then, when the bride and bridegroom had glanced and gazed each at other's face, the Princess rejoiced with excessive joy to behold ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... faded away, when the court of Montebello, as the Italians now called the residence of the general of the republic, had no brilliant reception, they gathered in the drawing- room, where Josephine, with all the affability of a lady from the great world, received her guests, and with all the modesty and grace of a simple housewife served ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... all. Your faith is our victory. In this case most men, in their search for the true religion, when they consult priests, or are moved by the suggestion of companions, are wont to allege the custom of their family, and the rite which has descended to them from their fathers. Thus making a show of modesty, which is injurious to salvation, they keep a useless reverence for parents in maintaining unbelief, but confess themselves ignorant what to choose. Away with the excuse of such hurtful modesty, after the ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the prominent characteristics of both sexes. With the boy this is satisfied without much pretence at secrecy. False modesty prevents the girl from openly obtaining the desired information. She obtains it secretly from her companions. Mothers do not give their daughters credit for the instinct that compels the satisfaction of their curiosity. Sometime during her life, nearly every mother ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... universally innate than egoism; for egoism may be conquered by nature, whereas only by reflection do we get the better of vanity. It does not seem, indeed, as if men were ever born modest, unless we dub with the name of modesty a sort of purely physical bashfulness, which is nearer to pride than is generally supposed. True modesty can be nothing but a meditation on vanity. It springs from the sight of others' mistakes and the ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... history. It deserves indeed an abler historian; but one qualification at any rate may be claimed by the present writer: an eye- witness from first to last, but a minor actor only in the scenes he chronicles, he enjoyed good opportunities of watching the play, and risks no personal modesty ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... of England would delight to honour, who was the man? But he was gone; and a grave among England's worthies was all that could be offered him now; and it was offered. But those whose will on such a point was law, judged it to be more in keeping with the exquisite modesty and humility of Frederick Denison Maurice, that he should be laid out of sight, though not out of mind, by the side of his father and his mother. Well: be it so. At least that green nook at Highgate ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... alike in doing no good, and as his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in. The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the patient. He maintained, with peculiar satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty is a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did it every day, and felt and thought, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... true love; you had not a pure and genuine love for your idol. If you had undergone the conversion you boast of having felt, you would have acquired the virtues which are a part of womanhood; you would have known the charm of chastity, the refinements of modesty, the two virtues that are the glory of a maiden.—You ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... here add an adventure with an elephant of one who has had more narrow escapes than any man living, but whose modesty has always prevented him from publishing any thing about himself. When we were on the banks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell pursued one of these animals into the dense, thick, thorny bushes met with on the margin of that river, and to which the elephant usually flees for safety. He followed ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... no longer a congery of houses huddling shamefully together and terrified lest any one should look at them and laugh. Each house then recaptures its individuality. The very roadways are aware of themselves and bear their horses, and cars, and trams in a competent spirit, adorned with modesty as with a garland. It has a beauty beyond sunshine, for sunshine is only youth and carelessness. The impress of a thousand memories, the historic visage becomes apparent: the quiet face which experience has ripened into knowledge and mellowed into the wisdom of charity is seen ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... estimate, but, unluckily, he returns no income. But at least he is rich enough to own a gorgeous house in town and a sumptuous seat in the country, a stud of horses, and a set of palatial stables. His native modesty shrinks from blazoning abroad the exact extent of his present wealth, or the exact means by which it was acquired. His sensitive soul revolts even at the partial publicity of the income list. We are tossed upon the boundless ocean of conjecture. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... truth, to perform a promise to the utmost, to reverence all women to maintain right and honesty, to help the weak, to treat high and low with courtesy, to be fair to a bitter foe, and to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness of heart and bearing; and the nineteenth century knight is he who takes the same oath of fidelity to truth, honesty and purity of heart. The illustrations are full of fire and spirit, and add very much to ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 'that's jist like your mock-modesty. Your great-grandmother wur a Romany, and it's my belief that if you only went back fur enough, you'd find you had jist as good Romany blood in your veins as I have, and my daddy is a duke, you know, a real, reg'lar, out-an'-out ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... take care of my sister, and that if you dare to make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you. I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh at the idea of your turning lover to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot |
