"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his 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 been made in ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... never seen it, so far does it lie removed from the main roads. But unless by stratagem, I doubt if my force is strong enough to capture it; nor would I attack were I sure of capturing it without the loss of a man. The nobles and landowners stand aloof from me; but it may be that after I have wrested some more strong places from the English, they may join me. But I would not on any account war against one of them now. Half the great families are united ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... disporting" for the time being, on the "margen green" of Father Thames. A particularly lively, pleasant, entertaining, well-mannered boy was Gerald, but, all the time, Marian was feeling that he was holding aloof both from her and Edmund, never allowing either of them the opportunity of speaking to him alone, for even a minute; and his manner, whenever Edmund either spoke to him or looked at him, was such as to betray to her that he was ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the two 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 ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... illuminated in the other. What is anticipated is objective and impersonal; to-morrow's rain; the possibility of being run over. But for an active being, a being who partakes of the consequences instead of standing aloof from them, there is at the same time a personal response. The difference imaginatively foreseen makes a present difference, which finds expression in solicitude and effort. While such words as affection, concern, and motive indicate an attitude ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... riding or bathing, and they laugh all day long. Mrs. S. has trained nearly seventy since she has been here. If there were nothing else they see family life in a pure and happy form, which must in itself be a moral training, and by dint of untiring watchfulness they are kept aloof from the corrupt native associations. Indeed they are not allowed to have any intercourse with natives, for, according to one of the missionaries who has spent many years on the islands: "None know ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... urged by their riders to frantic speed, or dashed with emptied saddles through the throng, to carry afar the news of defeat. Flight was all that was left to the troops of Antiochus or the priests of Bacchus, and few succeeded in making their escape, for many Jews who had stood aloof from the struggle joined in the pursuit. The very women caught up stones from the path to fling at the flying foe; children's voices swelled the loud shout of triumph. The altar of Bacchus was thrown down with wild exultation; ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... called "The Struggle for the Beautiful." It pictures the unending struggle with the gross and stupid, both objective and subjective, that confronts the champion of the beautiful. Art stands serene, aloof, unassailable in the center of the fray. The panel of "Pegasus" shows the winged steed of the poets controlled by a true aspirant, attended by ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... this:—If the great talker attempts the plan of showing off by firing cannon-shot when everybody else is content with musketry, then undoubtedly he produces an impression, but at the expense of insulating himself from the sympathies of the company, and standing aloof as a sort of monster hired to play tricks of funambulism for the night. Yet, again, if he contents himself with a musket like other people, then for us, from whom he modestly hides his talents under ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... trying time to a man of his refined upbringing and frail constitution. But he looks, here as elsewhere, at the bright side of people and things; and even for the Chinaman, from whom the other emigrants hold themselves aloof, he has a good word to say. He keenly observed everything from his fellow-passengers, the character of the newsboys on the cars, and the petty oppressions of the railway officials to the glories of the scenery on that marvellous journey of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... forties he had neither sympathy nor comprehension.—FRIEDRICH RUeCKERT (1788-1866), endowed with a fatal facility of lyric expression, a virtuoso for whom no tour-de-force was too difficult, lived most of his life aloof from the political and social movements of his time. In his youth his Sonnets in Armor had done sturdy service in the national awakening against Napoleon, but his maturer years were devoted to domestic and academic interests. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... in throwing off the yoke of the mother country. They were ignorant of our commerce, which had been always monopolized by England, and of the exchange of articles it might offer advantageously to both parties. They were inclined, therefore, to stand aloof, until they could see better what relations might be usefully instituted with us. The negotiations, therefore, begun with Denmark and Tuscany, we protracted designedly, until our powers had expired; and abstained from making new propositions to others having no colonies; because our ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... contact, but it is substantial and born of knowledge of the necessary limitations that Nature places upon the wishes of men and women. The farmer by his vocation is taught to be suspicious of easy solutions. He stands aloof from men who claim to have found the panacea and regards men of such abounding enthusiasm as belonging to the same group of the pathetically deluded as the believers in the machine of perpetual motion. ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... The idea was ridiculous. Probably he did not even know that her name was Scales. And even if he knew her name, he had probably never heard of Gerald Scales, or the story of her flight. Why, he could not have been born until after she had left Bursley! Besides, the Peels were always quite aloof from the ordinary social life of the town. No! He could not have suspected her identity. It was infantile to conceive ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... still, toward the south, Achernar seemed to reserve his gracious prestige, whilst, across the invisible Pole, the beneficent constellations of Crux and Centaurus exhibited the very paralysis of hopelessness. Worst of all, Jupiter and Mars both held aloof, whilst ascendant Saturn mourned in the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the meaning of things than could those comfortably normal and healthy souls who suffered little because they ventured little. She had ventured much, and she had lost much. She had thought to hold some inmost self aloof and immune. She had dreamed that some inward irreproachability of thought, some light-hearted tact of open conduct, might leave still untainted that deeper core of thought and feeling which she had long thought of as conscience, while some deceiving and sophistical transmutation of values whispered ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... and "Auld Rob Morris" I think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of opiniatrete, but cordially to join issue with you in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... their courage remained unshaken, but after that they ceased to boast, and began to look at each other in silent consternation, while their faces grew paler every instant. At last one or two rose and stood aloof; the others followed their example, and some grinding their teeth with rage, others chattering with terror, they all began ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... doesn't go round by any Halfway! If he takes a fancy to come here by it, and strikes your tracks as you two came into Skunk's Misery, the rest wouldn't take him long! I believe—hang on a minute, while I speak to Baker!" He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the dark of the cave where Baker stood aloof. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... remaining money for liquor, and went into debt as much as they were permitted for more liquor. They became noisy and quarrelsome. The few men who were opposed to the strike could make no headway against public opinion. These men held aloof from the saloons, husbanded their money, and confined themselves as much as possible to their ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... golden August afternoon the game waxed joyfully. For a long time, Margery sat aloof, playing with the baby. But when the excavating of the cave began, she succumbed, and began to grovel in the sand with the other two. She was allowed to come in as Friday's father, and baby Patience, panting at her work of scratching the sand with a crooked stick, was entered as the ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... fellows, brought the one under condemnation; while patience in suffering, faith in God and such righteous life as is implied though not expressed, insured happiness to the other. The proud self-sufficiency of the rich man, who lacked nothing that wealth could furnish, and who kept aloof from the needy and suffering, was his besetting sin. The aloofness of the Pharisees, on which indeed they prided themselves, as their very name, signifying "separatists," expressed, was thus condemned. The parable teaches the continuation of individual existence after death, and the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... befell what the aunt called a "season" of baking. It was the only occasion in the week when Mrs. Croom was sure to stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannah beside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen, and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon his upper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time that Ephraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered with delight. She always coveted more of her ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... he attracted her. He stirred her to an interest which she had believed herself too old, too jaded with the ways of the world, ever to feel again. But she did not want to yield to the attraction. She wanted to hold aloof for a space. She had come to this quiet corner of the world in search of peace. She wanted to avoid the problems of life, to get back her poise, to become an onlooker and no longer a competitor in ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... sanctity of private life. The men of wealth, education, and talent, who have little either to gain or lose, and who would not yield up any carefully adopted principle to the insensate clamour of an unbridled populace, stand aloof from public affairs, with very few exceptions. The men of letters, the wealthy merchants, the successful in any profession, are not to be met with in the political arena, and frequently abstain even ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... however, held aloof, saying that they had come to see their English brothers fight, but, animated no doubt with the idea that, if they abstained from taking part in the fray, and the day went against the English, their friends the Iroquois ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... standing at the foot of the sign-post. It was a pleasant summer day, the air very clear, the place very slumbrous. I looked up the street at a pair of great stone gate-posts, august, in their way, standing distinctly aloof from the common houses, a little weather-stained, staidly lichened. At the top of each column sat a sculptured wolf—as far as I knew, my own crest. It struck me pleasantly that this must be the entrance ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... head of the school, and from his constitutional want of geniality, he was so little of a boy that he had no sympathy from the others, and little authority over them. He simply kept aloof, holding his own way, and retiring into his own tastes and pursuits, and the society of one or two congenial spirits in the school, so as in no way to come in contact ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... granted him subsidies. Railroad men from all parts of the world have seen his model; but he has not been ardent in the hunt for customers. Perhaps that will not be necessary; the mono-rail car should be its own salesman; but, in the meantime, it is not amiss that a great inventor should stand aloof ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... 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 ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... in token of comprehension. He waited to see if she had aught further to say. But the woman remained standing where she was, slightly aloof and with her arms folded. Her sleepy eyes were watching the last dying gleam of daylight away in the west. Suddenly, out upon the still air, came a doleful cry. It was long-drawn-out and mournful, but it travelled as mountain cries will travel. It ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... my rapture. "I take more pleasure," he said, "watching your vivid emotions, than in witnessing this wonderfully graceful exhibition. What a perfect child of nature you are, Gabriella. You should thank me for keeping you somewhat aloof from the fascinations of the world. It is only in the shade, that the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... limitless a thing was Tennyson's own spirit's upward flight!" The Duke of Argyll, again, during the space of forty years, had found him "always reverent, hating all levity or flippancy," and was struck by his possessing "the noblest humility I have ever known." Lord Macaulay, who "had stood absolutely aloof," once having been permitted to glance at the proof-sheets of Guenevere, was "absolutely subdued" to "unfeigned and reverent admiration." The duke was the glad emissary who was "the medium of introduction," and he recognised ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... tact, too, in talking to women. Of all the ladies on the Algeria, I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants. Some few held themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction. "Father Shamrock! An Irish priest! How can Miss Meyrick walk with him and present him as she does?" But the party of recalcitrants grew less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was very frank in her admiration. "Convert you?" she laughed ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love, Doth work like madness in' the brain. * * * * * * Each spoke words of high disdain, And insult to his heart's dear brother, But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between, But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been. CHRISTABELLE ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... form a Whig Administration himself, of which Lord Palmerston, however, must be the chief member. Lord Palmerston would not like to serve under Lord John Russell—would be ready to form an Administration, which could not have duration, however, in his opinion, if Lord John Russell held aloof! ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... direct her woman to furnish some patterns of I know not what articles of dress; and, in the mean time, all the company joined in canvassing the merits and demerits of the dress and characters of the two ladies who had just left the room. Lady Geraldine, who had kept aloof, and who was examining some prints at the farther end of the room, at this instant laid down her book, and looked upon the whole party with an air of magnanimous disdain; then smiling, as in scorn, she advanced towards them, and, in a tone of irony, addressing one of the Swanlinbar ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Prevost left Canada for England, through New Brunswick, by way of the River St. John. He received several valedictory addresses speaking of him in the highest terms, from the French Canadian population, but the British who were annoyed about Plattsburgh stood aloof, while the office holders secretly rejoiced that his rule had terminated. Lieut.-General Sir Gordon Drummond succeeded Sir George Prevost in the government of Lower Canada, the Lieutenant-Governorship of Upper Canada being again in the hands of His Excellency, Francis Gore, Esquire. General ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Augustine says (De Civ. Dei ix, 13), cannot rightly be called mediators between God and men. "For since, in common with God, they have both beatitude and immortality, and none of these things in common with unhappy and mortal man, how much rather are they not aloof from men and akin to God, than established between them?" Dionysius, however, says that they do occupy a middle place, because, in the order of nature, they are established below God and above man. Moreover, they fulfill the office of mediator, not indeed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... "You seem so aloof," he said all at once watching her as she sewed away on the bit of linen, "You seem almost as if you—well—despised me. Excuse me if I say that it's a rather new experience. People in my world don't act that way to me, really they don't. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... long time aloof from her husband, a woman makes overtures of a very marked character in order to attract his love, she acts in accordance with the axiom of maritime law, which says: The flag ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... beware of a too early movement, as it might subject us, however unjustly, to the imputation of seeking to establish the claim of our neighbors to a territory, with a view to its subsequent acquisition by ourselves. Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate that we should still stand aloof, and maintain our present attitude, if not until Mexico itself, or one of the great foreign powers, shall recognize the independence of the new Government, at least until the lapse of time or the course of events shall ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... and Sophie are faint shades leaving no impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof, looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng. It is Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by her father's infatuation for the Du Barry—an infatuation which, beginning within a month of Marie Leczinska's decease, ended only when on his deathbed the dying Monarch ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... in the west. They grew gradually to bewildering shapes and colors, for the girls came dressed in gowns woven of brilliant flowers. And the torrents of their beautiful hair floated loose. This time they held themselves grouped close; they kept themselves aloof, high. But again came the sinuous interplay of flower-clad bodies, the flashing evolution of rainbow wings, the dazzling interweaving of snowy arms and legs. It held ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... a masterpiece and its thus teaching itself, spreads ruin both ways. The masterpiece is partitioned off from the pupil, guarded to be kept aloof from him—outside of him. The pupil is locked up from ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... other groups, the born artists with their responsive minds, the "home children" for whom everything centres in their own home-world, and who have in them the making of another one in the future; the critics, standing aloof, a little peevish and very self-conscious, hardly capable of deep friendship and fastidiously dissatisfied with people and things in general; the cheerful and helpful souls who have no interests of their own but can devote themselves to help anyone; the opposite class whose life is in their own ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... but he could say little more than we knew. He says nothing could be more exemplary than Kendal's whole conduct in India, he only regretted that he kept so much aloof from others, that his principle and gentlemanly feeling did not tell as much as could have been wished. He has always been wrapped up in his own pursuits—a perfect dictionary ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... details by West, and a lurid extrapolation of things to come by Jamison. The sponsors who got hold of commercial time with that expanded and souped-up version would expect, and get, an audience-rating unparalleled in history. Dabney was to take a bow on the rebroadcast, too—very much the dignified and aloof scientist. There were other interviews. Dabney again, from a script written by Bell. And Jones. Jones hated the idea of being interviewed, but he had faced a beam-camera and answered idiotic questions, and gone angrily ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... hollow, or a momentary entanglement in your dress,—and you are lost! I declined joining in the diversion ever after the first attempt, which was nothing but a headlong plunge from top to bottom. But though I heroically stood aloof while the girls were enjoying the sport, and making the air ring with their laughter, I was sure, afterwards, to come upon the slippery places unintentionally, and take a slide whether I would or not. I had, I remember, a most unfortunate ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... fair and beautiful Eve have foreseen the future that to her seemed so promising, would she not have given up to despair and remained aloof ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... things be what ye have learned from him that is come, then he never can be the Sent of God. God forbade all idolatry, and all image-making: if he taught it, can he be Messiah? This is why in all the ages we have stood aloof. We might have received him, we might have believed him,—but ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... better keep out of the field its assistant adjutant-generals, and especially those in the Bureau of Conscription, unless they are put in subordinate positions. Some of them have sought their present positions to keep aloof from the fatigues and dangers of the field; and they have contributed no little to the disaffection in North Carolina. Gen. Whiting suggests that one of Gen. Pickett's brigades be sent to Weldon; and then, with Ransom's brigade, he will soon put ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... utterance was confidentially delivered from the leathern chair at the writing-table, in an inner recess of Rachel's sumptuous sitting-room. The chair had been wheeled aloof from the table, on which were Steel's hat and gloves, and such a sheaf of book-stall literature as suggested his immediate departure upon no short journey, unless, indeed, the magazines and the Sunday newspapers ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... been mentioned, she had consented to remain out of sight; but each explosion of the mob increased her unwillingness to keep back. It was, she felt, her duty to be always at the king's side; if need be, to die with him; to stand aloof was infamy; and at last, as the demands for her appearance increased, even those around her confessed that it might be safer for her to show herself. The door was thrown open, and, leading forth her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... miller, who had an ass to turn his mill; and he was married to a wicked wife, whom he loved, while she hated him because she was sweet upon a neighbour, who misliked her 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 round in the mill, and thou shalt find a hoard." When he awoke, he told his wife the vision and bade her keep the secret; but ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Man and the Hour—Man who was strong for the shock— Fierce were the lightnings unleashed; in the midst, he stood fast as a rock. Comrade he was and commander, he who was meant for the time, Iron in council and action, simple, aloof, and sublime. ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... thought with much frequency of Barfoot, and looked forward to his coming. Never had she wished so much to see him again as after their encounter in Chelsea Gardens, and on that account she forced herself to hold aloof when he came. It was not love, nor the beginning of love; she judged it something less possible to avow. The man's presence affected her with a perturbation which she had no difficulty in concealing ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... that presence with a grief which sought neither comfort nor mitigation. He had followed his routine; he had eaten and slept; he had gone out when he was taken out and come in when he was brought in; but he had lived shut up within himself, aloof in his sorrow. For the first time in all those eighteen months he had come out of this proud gloom when Rashleigh's key had turned in the door that night, and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... barrooms, colored-minstrel haunts and theater entrances. I can find only one incident to show that Foster ever went to hear his own songs sung in public. He was essentially a solitary, who, while keenly observant of and entering sympathizingly into the facts of life, held himself aloof from immediate contact with its crowded stream. He was solitary from sensitivity, not from bitterness or indifference. He made a large fortune for his day with his songs and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... firing ceased altogether; for as these were not regular soldiers, and knew that the object of the English attack was to plunder the public treasuries, rather than private property, the townsmen readily deemed it to their interest to hold aloof, rather than to bring upon their city and themselves so grievous a calamity as that threatened by ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... of passion; and at such a time it would be impossible to make you understand the honeymoon of life is made up of more than two, and a third being inimical can make it wretched. The knowledge that people we respect hold aloof from us is bitter." ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... again to the Muse whom he had invoked at the beginning of his task,—not Clio nor her sisters, but the spirit of heavenly power and heavenly wisdom; his mind reverts to that story of Orpheus which had always had so singular and personal a fascination for him; of Orpheus, who, holding himself aloof from the mad amorists of Thrace, was by them torn to pieces during the orgy of the Dionysia, and sent rolling down the torrent of the Hebrus; and he prays to his ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... than a thousand Seneca warriors took part. Happily, as has been mentioned, Sir William Johnson was able to keep the other tribes of the Six Nations loyal to the British; but the 'Door-keepers of the Long House,' as the Senecas were called, stood aloof and hostile. ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... more unhappy than I had ever before done. The midshipmen of the corvette kept aloof from me, fancying that my cousin had communicated some ill news, or perhaps that I was in disgrace. I don't know. I was glad that no one came and spoke to me. The dinner hour at last arrived, and I went into the cabin. Of ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... out of her soft berth. Of this fact the pirates themselves soon began to be convinced, for they were seen pumping out their water. As for the brigs, they were by no means well handled. Instead of closing with the battery, and silencing the gun, as they might have done, they kept aloof, and even rendered less assistance to the ship than was in their power. In point of fact, they were in confusion, and manifested that want of order and submission to authority, as well as self-devotion, that would have been shown ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... proper name—had never taken kindly to the conditions imposed upon him by the disguise he had chosen to assume. He had never sought for work, and had done as little of it as he possibly could, and he had held aloof from the people around him, treating them with a supercilious indifference which they were not slow to resent. Under such conditions it was by no means surprising that he was decidedly unpopular in the neighbourhood, and the dislike to him was heightened by the intimacy which grew up ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... possessor of a very nice little fortune, afterwards held her head very high. Later, in consequence of some little indiscretions of her brother at the time when he was set free in the world—the result of the popular superstition held by him that "the world owed him a living,"—she held herself aloof from and ignored ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with bear and chamois shooting to be had for the asking, seem to me "an unknown species," as Voltaire said of the English. From what I learned of the ways of the place it seems that the Magyar and Transylvanian visitors keep quite aloof from the Roumanian coterie; they have never anything pleasant to say of one another. At Boseg, a bath in the Eastern Carpathians which I visited later, the separation is so complete that the Roumanians go at one period of the season and ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... would have us follow the example of Jesus to the letter, and rigidly practise the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, even to the extent of refusing to resist wrong and possess property, and of holding aloof from all culture and enterprise, and the interests of life generally. On the other hand, philosophers like Paulsen and Bradley, perceiving the utter impracticableness of Tolstoy's contentions, yet at the same time recognising his attitude as the only consistent one if the imitation of Christ is ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... 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 that Bonaparte should not only be invested with the Consulship ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ransoming into execution. Chingachgook had remained in Hutter's bed room, where the elephants were laid, to feast his eyes with the images of animals so wonderful, and so novel. Perhaps an instinct told him that his presence would not be as acceptable to his companions as this holding himself aloof, for Judith had not much reserve in the manifestations of her preferences, and the Delaware had not got so far as one betrothed without acquiring some knowledge of the symptoms ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... so overwhelmingly different from the peaceful atmosphere of things at home. The mellow Virginia country, with its winding, red roads, wealth of woodland, and its grave old houses that were the more haughtily aloof for the poverty that gnawed at their vitals. This wilderness was so gaunt, so parched; she closed her eyes and thought of a bit of landscape at home. A young forest of silver beeches growing straight and fine as the threads ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... at last, that Robin hight, Renown'd for pinching maids by night, Has bent him up aloof; And full against the beam he flung, Where by the back the youth he hung To sprawl ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... of thought on his brow, "it is this perpetual consciousness of struggle; this difficulty in merging toil into ease, or stern duty into placid enjoyment; this refusal to ascend for one's self into the calm of an air aloof from the cloud which darkens, and the hail-storm which beats upon, the fellow-men we leave below,—that makes the troubled life of Christendom dearer to Heaven, and more conducive to Heaven's design in rendering earth the wrestling-ground and not the resting-place of man, than is that of the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... apparently from nowhere and going no-whither thronged the platform and climbed into the carriages. Thresk looked impatiently through the clouded windows, wondering what he should find in Chitipur if ever he got there. The capital of that state lies aloof from the trunk roads and is reached by a branch railway sixty miles long, which is the private possession of the Maharajah and takes four hours to traverse. For in Chitipur the ancient ways are devoutly followed. Modern ideas of speed and progress may whirl up the big central railroad from ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... 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 to righteousness and reality. They incurred ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... would be too marked. Best leave the affair to Aveline and me. You others must stand aloof and look disinterested but sympathetic. I'll speak to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... ago we walked in the jangling city Together . . . . forgetful. One by one we crossed the avenues, Rivers of light, roaring in tumult, And came to the narrow, knotted streets. Thru the tense crowd We went aloof, ecstatic, walking in wonder, Unconscious of our motion. Forever the foreign people with dark, deep-seeing eyes Passed us and passed. Lights and foreign words and foreign faces, I forgot them all; I only felt alive, defiant of all death and sorrow, ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... had a favorite cafe, which during the whole time the Empire lasted was also frequented by Protestants without a single dispute caused by the difference of religion ever arising. But from this time forth the Catholics began to hold themselves aloof from the Protestants; the latter perceiving this, gave up the cafe by degrees to the Catholics, being determined to keep the peace whatever it might cost, and went to a cafe which had been just opened ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... commercial and religious nature were held with neighbours during the following four hundred years. Regular diplomatic intercourse with Western nations was established as a result of a series of wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Until recently the nation held aloof from alliances and was generally averse to foreign intercourse. From 1537 onward, as a sequel of war or treaty, concessions, settlements, etc., were obtained by foreign Powers. China has now lost ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... have its central committee at the principal seat of manufacture. The central committee of the cotton trades ought to be at Manchester; that of the silk trades at Lyons, etc. He did not consider it a disadvantage that trade unions kept aloof more or less from politics, at least in his country. By trying to reform the State, or to take part in its councils, they would virtually acknowledge its right of existence. Whatever the English, the Swiss, the Germans, and the Americans might hope to accomplish ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... All those who smoked with us were men of standing and repute. Two or three others dropped in also; young fellows who neither by their years nor their exploits were entitled to rank with the old men and warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of their superiors, stood aloof, never withdrawing their eyes from us. Their cheeks were adorned with vermilion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with beads. Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... aloof from the native population. Indeed, almost the only relations in which they stand to Russians are those of masters and agricultural labourers. They hire Russian peasants to till their land and they compel them to work hard for small wages. Many of ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... save ourselves from that honest bond. Our levies have barely brought the amount necessary to, maintain an army large enough to inspire respect among those who are ready to leap upon us the instant we show the least sign of distress. There are about us powers that have held aloof from war with us simply because we have awed them with our show of force. It has been our safeguard, and there is not a citizen of Graustark who objects to the manner in which state affairs are conducted. They know that our army is an economy at any price. Until last spring we were confident that ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... prosecuted for atheism, he was also the friend of Phidias, who expressly said that his Zeus was the Zeus of Homer, no mere abstract ideal of divinity. If this was the case with Pericles, who held himself aloof from the common people, it must have been much more so with other statesmen, who mingled with them more freely, or even, like Nicias, shared their superstitions. Under such conditions the influence of art upon the representations of the gods ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... politics; yet he saw the use of politics in finance, and he did not stick his head into the sand as some of his colleagues did when political activities hampered their operations. In Johannesburg he had kept aloof from the struggle with Oom Paul, not from lack of will, but because he had no stomach for daily intrigue and guerrilla warfare and subterranean workings; and he was convinced that only a great and bloody struggle would end the contest for progress and equal rights for all white ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yellow sand between the rills, following the floating green robe of Smain, she rested her eyes, and her soul, on countless mingling shades of the delicious colour; rough, furry green of geranium leaves, silver green of olives, black green of distant palms from which the sun held aloof, faded green of the eucalyptus, rich, emerald green of fan-shaped, sunlit palms, hot, sultry green of bamboos, dull, drowsy green of mulberry trees and brooding chestnuts. It was a choir of colours in ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Rule is likely to be; and both parties refer to it as a ground for their opinion. It is curious now to note that it was Gerald Balfour, the Unionist Chief Secretary, who, when introducing the measure, appealed to the Irish gentry not to stand aloof from the new order of things, but to seek from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens that position which no others were so well qualified to fill as themselves—in much the same way that English Radical orators now accuse the Ulstermen of want of patriotism ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... had first met in Florence. She was an English lady of means (being part proprietor of the Liverpool Mercury) and of a reserve of temperament which kept her aloof from people in general. With the poet and his sister she was seen in all that cordial sweetness of her nature which her sensitive reserve veiled ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... alter your mind,' said Dare carelessly. 'Your success with your lady may depend on it. The truth is, captain, we aristocrats must not take too high a tone. Our days as an independent division of society, which holds aloof from other sections, are past. This has been my argument (in spite of my strong Norman feelings) ever since I broached the subject of your marrying this girl, who represents both intellect and wealth—all, in fact, except the historical prestige that you represent. And we mustn't flinch at things. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... at a distance from a moral precept, and therewith bring souls under the law. Thus he did with some of old; he did not make the Galatians fall from Christ by virtue of one of the ten words, but by something that was aloof off; by circumcision, days, and months, that were Levitical ceremonies; for he knows it is no matter, nor in what Testament he found it, if he can therewith hide Christ from the soul—'Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... against his elder brother, Nicomedes II., who on his father's death had been acknowledged as king by Rome. Socrates had soldiers from Pontus with him; but Mithridates, though his hand was plain in these disturbances, outwardly stood aloof; and the Senate, sending Manius Aquillius to restore the two kings, ordered Mithridates to aid him with troops if they were wanted. [Sidenote: Mithridates submits to Aquillius.] The king submitted as before, not, indeed, sending troops, but without resisting, and as a proof ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... be seen at home and abroad, that the American Colonization Society, while it properly enough stands aloof from the question of slavery, and the abolition of slavery,' &c.—[Report of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... miseries which that conquest inflicted on our Saxon ancestors from the time of the battle of Hastings to the time of the signing of the Great Charter at Runnymede. That last is the true epoch of English nationality: it is the epoch when Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon ceased to keep aloof from each other, the one in haughty scorn, the other in sullen abhorrence; and when all the free men of the land; whether barons, knights, yeomen, or burghers, combined to lay the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... states cannot be realized without war, and that the forces which hope to benefit by war are stronger than the forces which hope to benefit by peace. That is the indubitable reason why the United States must remain aloof from the European system and must avoid scrupulously any entanglements in the complicated web of European international affairs. The policy of isolation is in this respect as wise to-day as it was in the time of its enunciation by Washington ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... sufferings. As well might a man try to snatch her prey from a puma robbed of her whelps, as to turn them from their purpose. With the men it was otherwise, however. Some of them mingled in the orgie indeed, but more stood aloof watching with a fearful joy the spectacle in which they did not share. Near me was a man, a noble of the Otomie, of something more than my own age. He had always been my friend, and after me he commanded the warriors of the tribe. I went to him and said, 'Friend, for the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... over European thought by the wit and tone of his writings, notably the "Praise of Folly," the "Colloquia" and "Adagia"; he has been regarded as the precursor of the Reformation; is said to have laid the egg which Luther hatched; aided the Reformation by his scholarship, though he kept aloof as a scholar from the popular movement ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... conservative country, the worship of the new god had not attracted the public in great numbers. In fact, except for the Grand Vizier, who, always a faithful follower of his sovereign's fortunes, had taken to Gowf from the start, the courtiers held aloof to a man. But the Vizier had thrown himself into the new worship with such vigour and earnestness that it was not long before he won from the King the title of Supreme Splendiferous Maintainer of the Twenty-Four Handicap Except ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... The players were slim young men like himself, their clothes replicas of his own, their faces lean and somewhat hard. Two of them dropped out. Nick took a cue from the rack, shed his tight coat. They played under a glaring electric light in the heat of the day, yet they seemed cool, aloof, immune from bodily discomfort. It was a strangely silent game and as mirthless as that of the elfin bowlers in Rip Van Winkle. The slim-waisted shirted figures bent plastically over the table in the graceful postures ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... It's Joe. He's my brother." The little girl, in spite of her evident satisfaction at the accomplishment of her purpose, yet kept quite aloof from the boy. Nor did the fact that he refused the money appear to bring her anything ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... admire; but you can suggest whole vistas of his taste and philosophy by talking a great deal about what he does not think, or like, or admire. You say of him—"But little attracted to the most recent schools of German philosophy, he stands almost as resolutely aloof from the tendencies of transcendental Pantheism as from the narrower ecstasies of Neo-Catholicism." Or suppose I am called upon to praise the charwoman who has just come into my house, and who certainly deserves it much more. I say—"It would be a mistake to class Mrs. Higgs among the ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... followed Jimsy's meteoric flight down the hillside. Everybody seemed to know and like him, and Jimsy, as ever, was noisily responsive. Yes, he was more a part of this village of Lindon than the first citizen himself standing aloof upon the hill-top, and the first citizen had spent his life in Lindon. Abner Sawyer felt hurt and alone. He had slipped in an unwary moment from his wound-proof armor of conscious superiority and in this world of friends outside it, there was more room for Jimsy than there was for him. Small ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... sunshine of a court, had for some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much of ancient manners and primitive integrity, a great proportion of obstinate and unyielding prejudice, stood aloof in haughty and sullen opposition, and cast many a look of mingled regret and hope to Bois le Due, Avignon, and Italy. [Footnote: Where the Chevalier St. George, or, as he was termed, the Old Pretender, held his exiled court, as his situation compelled him to shift his place of residence.] ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... stalked in countless numbers among the tepees that went rapidly up, tall fellows, mighty of build and fearless of carriage and of eagle eye, aloof, suspicious, watching the fort, guarding the rich piles of peltry and ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Walpole (Letters, vii. 510) wrote on Feb. 5, 1781:—'I saw Dr. Johnson last night at Lady Lucan's, who had assembled a blue stocking meeting in imitation of Mrs. Vesey's Babels. It was so blue, it was quite Mazarine-blue. Mrs. Montagu kept aloof from Johnson, like the west from the east.' In his letter of Jan. 14 (ib. p. 497), the allusion to Mrs. Vesey's Babels is explained: 'Mrs. Montagu is one of my principal entertainments at Mrs. Vesey's, who collects all the graduates and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... him back. It was playing something which he had heard before—on a street barrel-organ, and which he disliked now with an intensity for which he could give no reason. It was perhaps because he wanted to remain aloof and indifferent, and because it would not let him be. It destroyed his isolation. His pulse caught up its beat like the rest. His personality lost outline—merging itself into the cumbrous uncouth being ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... down the track, and holding his pursuers in check, with a pistol in each hand. They might easily have shot him; but, recognizing him as the commander of the French, they were bent on taking him alive. Their chief coveted this honor for himself, and his followers held aloof to give him the opportunity. He pressed close upon Maisonneuve, who snapped a pistol at him, which missed fire. The Iroquois, who had ducked to avoid the shot, rose erect, and sprang forward to seize him, when Maisonneuve, with his remaining pistol, shot him dead. Then ensued a curious ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most particularly admire—sulkiness?—the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps—pettishness? ... which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? obstinacy?—which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, and describes ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... commonly the life and soul of the conversation at home; but she was more silent than usual upon this occasion (perhaps because Tim and Miss La Creevy engrossed so much of it), and, keeping aloof from the talkers, sat at the window watching the shadows as the evening closed in, and enjoying the quiet beauty of the night, which seemed to have scarcely less attractions to Frank, who first lingered near, and then sat down beside, her. No doubt, there ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... her cause, advised her to purchase Frederick's aid against France and her allies by the cession of part of Silesia. The counsel was wise, for Frederick in hope of some such turn of events had as yet held aloof from actual alliance with France, but the Patriots spurred the Queen to refusal by promising her England's aid in the recovery of her full inheritance. Walpole's last hope of rescuing Austria was broken by this resolve; and Frederick was driven to conclude the alliance with France from which he had ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... rejected the red, sullen, thundering river, with its swift, changeful, endless, contending strife—for that was tragic. And she rejected the frowning mass of red rock, upreared, riven and split and canyoned, so grim and aloof—for that was barren. But she accepted the vast sloping valley of sage, rolling gray and soft and beautiful, down to the dim mountains and purple ramparts of the horizon. Lucy did not know what she yearned for, she did not know why the desert called to her, she did not know ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... as being more powerful than the sea itself, "for this man," said he, has "drunk up the fields which the sea itself could not swallow." When King Eumenes came to Rome the Senate received him with special honours, and he was much courted and run after. Cato, however, held himself aloof and would not go near him, and when some one said "Yet he is an excellent man, and a good friend to Rome," he answered, "It may be so, but a king is by nature an animal that lives on human flesh." None of those ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... befalls this, as the physicians say of the hectick feaver, that in the beginning it is easily cur'd, but hardly known; but in the course of time, not having been known in the beginning, nor cured, it becomes easie to know, but hard to cure. Even so falls it out in matters of State; for by knowing it aloof off (which is given only to a wise man to do) the mischiefs that then spring up, are quickly helped; but when, for not having been perceived, they are suffered to increase, so that every one sees them, there is then no cure for them: therefore the Romans, seeing these inconvenients ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... put to the test. The two statesmen failed to agree on the Cabinet question; M. Jonescu kept aloof from office, and the post of second delegate fell to Rumania's greatest diplomatist and philologist, M. Mishu, who had for years admirably represented his country as Minister in the British capital. From the outset M. Bratiano's position was unenviable, because he ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... own fault. I offered him Marian Atherton for a partner ages ago, but he plays badly; as for the girls, they keep aloof from everybody. I introduced Mr. Sayers and Major Sparkes to them, but they have evidently frightened them away. Mamma, are we engaged for Thursday? because Captain Grant wants us to go and see the officers ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... laughter, seeing him now 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 ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... two of Annabel's most intimate friends: Sue Hemphill, from somewhere in the Middle West, and Ruth Biddle, a Pennsylvania girl. Ruth was Annabel's room-mate; a plain-looking girl, but decidedly aristocratic—blue blood written in every line of her delicate features and rather aloof bearing. ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... foreign god, who was to eat up all the gods of Samoa except one, and that was himself; and then he added pathetically through the priest to the family where he was supposed to reside, "When the great god comes, do not you all leave me, but let two still keep aloof and stand by me." On the introduction and rapid spread of Christianity many said, "The prediction of Ave i le tala has ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... up into the old man's troubled face, but her eyes had a strangely aloof expression, as though the matter scarcely ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... persuasive eloquence persuaded them to preserve the peace. FitzOsbert, finding himself deserted, clove the head of the man sent to arrest him, and shut himself up in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow. His followers kept aloof, and a three-days' siege was ended by the church being set on fire. On his attempt to escape he was severely wounded by the son of the man he had killed, was dragged away, and burned alive. But his memory was ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... to the forecastle. In the morning he discovered what he wanted to know. The men were aloof from him. He was conscious of eyes upon him whenever his back was turned, but while he faced them, no one would meet ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... This made him furious. He had not been in college two weeks before he could distinguish the sophomores from the seniors by the look on their faces. He hated the sneering "Sophs," and felt rising in him the desire to fight. But he both feared and admired seniors. They seemed so aloof, so far above him. He was in awe of them, and had a hopeless longing to be like them. And as for the freshmen, it took no second glance for Ken to pick them out. They were of two kinds—those who banded together in crowds and went ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... pedagogical specimens and not persons. I have contracted the habit of thinking of them as persons, and it will not be easy to come to thinking of them as mere objects to practise on. The folks in the hospital speak of their patients as "cases," but I'd rather keep aloof from the hospital plan in my schoolmastering. But, being a member of the band, I suppose that I'll feel it my duty to conform and do my utmost to help prove that our cult has discovered the great and universal panacea, the balm ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... fall'n fortunes coldly whispering round, Scowl'd they aloof in that disastrous hour? On keen Misfortune's agonizing wound Did foul Ingratitude ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... circumstances than well-defined ill-will. But having been convicted, he finds himself shunned by all but criminal society, and together with other influences, educational in character, he is frequently allured into a relapse. If a prisoner endeavours to behave himself in gaol and keep aloof from evil contagion, he is bullied by his fellow-prisoners, and even his keepers regard him with suspicion. The one twit him with being a white-livered coward, the other consider him to be either a sneak or a "deep fellow." He is almost sure ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... aloof on god-like wings, Taking no thought of wire or mud, Saps, smells or bugs—the mundane things That sour our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... me, that he found me grown to his liking; "beautiful, graceful, and agreeable," says he, and condescended to praise even my black hair and pale face, after which I would not have exchanged it against the golden hair of Helen. But still held aloof except when I was in company with others. And I took note that, of all the ladies that came and went at Moor Park, there was not one but hung upon his talk, and held up her head when he came near, spreading out all her graces. Mr Swift had always that power with our sex ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... men! We know not when Death or disaster comes, Mightier than battle-drums To summon us away. Death bids us say farewell To all we love, nor stay For tears;—and who can tell How soon misfortune's hand May smite us where we stand, Dragging us down, aloof, Under the swift ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... interesting society." Shortly after, Campbell named his first son after Telford, who stood godfather for the boy. Indeed, for many years, Telford played the part of Mentor to the young and impulsive poet, advising him about his course in life, trying to keep him steady, and holding him aloof as much as possible from the seductive allurements of the capital. But it was a difficult task, and Telford's numerous engagements necessarily left the poet at many seasons very much to himself. It appears that they were living together at the Salopian when Campbell composed the first draft ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... with ease, totally uninfluenced by his magnetism—calm and aloof as a man watching a ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... half of the population left their homes to emigrate to Piedmont and Switzerland. On August 9, an armistice was arranged at Vigevano. Venice refused to accept it, and detaching itself once more from Sardinia, restored Manin to power. Garibaldi with his volunteers likewise held aloof and carried the fight into the northern mountains. From there he was eventually dislodged by D'Aspre and crossed the frontier ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson |
