"Aloof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some one of the envious neighbours said secretly that over water heated to boiling they had hewn asunder with a knife thy limbs, and at the tables had shared among them and eaten sodden fragments of thy flesh. But to me it is impossible to call one of the blessed gods cannibal; I keep aloof; in telling ill ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... closely pressed, Such holy drops her tresses steeped, 475 Though 'twas an hero's eye that weeped. Nor while on Ellen's faltering tongue Her filial welcomes crowded hung, Marked she, that fear, affection's proof, Still held a graceful youth aloof; 480 No! not till Douglas named his name, Although the youth ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... not understand your sign!" Will be the words of Caroline; While Jane will cry, "If I'd had proof of you, I should have learnt to hold aloof ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... had nothing to do with this charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the Company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for us passively to bear with oppressions committed under the sanction of our own authority ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... perhaps stand still also. This would be an art cultivated professedly by a few, and for a few, who would consider it necessary—a duty, if they could admit duties—to despise the common herd, to hold themselves aloof from all that the world has been struggling for from the first, to guard carefully every approach to their palace of art. It would be a pity to waste many words on the prospect of such a school of art as this, which does in a way, theoretically at least, exist at present, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... the funerary repast offered to Prince Horemheb by the members of his family (fig. 167). The subject is half ideal, half real. The dead man, and those belonging to him who are no longer of this world, are depicted in the society of the living. They are present, yet aloof. They assist at the banquet, but they do not actually take part in it. Horemheb sits on a folding stool to the left of the spectator. He dandles on his knee a little princess, daughter of Amenhotep III., whose ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... Sabine's crew chafed and fretted like captive birds which beat their wings against the bars of their cage to no purpose, there were two who stood aloof from every one and from each other; who never spoke a word, but who nevertheless came to a perfect understanding through the interchange of frequent and expressive glances. They were the captain and Jack Gray. Each ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... of early drinkers at Sim Ripson's dropped their glasses, yet did not go briskly out to work as usual. In fact, they even hung aloof, in a most ungentlemanly manner, from Jerry Miller, who had just stood treat, and both these departures from the usual custom indicated that something unusual was the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Britain's imperialism, of the All-British idea, for the sake of which Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had sent their sons to South Africa? England, whose grand mission it was to protect the palladium of Anglo-Saxon dominion, stood aloof in this conflict. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,—perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he was far from being alone: for, I am not alone, says he, but I, and the Father that sent me.[60] I cannot fear but that I shall always be with thee and him; but whether this disease may not alien and remove my friends, so that they stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off,[61] I cannot tell. I cannot fear but that thou wilt reckon with me from this minute, in which, by thy grace, I see thee; whether this understanding, and this will, and this memory may not decay, to the discouragement ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... and to put on looks of decent mourning; on the other side, the long-expectant legatee, Niece Jane, prudently concealed her questionable grief behind a scented pocket-handkerchief. Julian held somewhat aloof, for the scene was too depressing for his taste: so he affected to read a prayer-book, wrong way up, with his tongue in his cheek: Charles, deeply solemnized at the near approach of death, knelt at the poor invalid's bedside; and Emily stood by, leaning over her, suffused in tears. At the further ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... which make life amiable and indolent, were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... came and went through Pontiac, shunned and unrepentant. His silent, gloomy endurance was almost an affront to Pontiac; and if the wiser ones, the Cure, the Avocat, the Little Chemist, and Medallion, were more sorry than offended, they stood aloof till the man should in some manner redeem himself, and repent of his horrid blasphemy. But one person persistently defied Church and people, Cure and voyageur. Parpon openly and boldly walked with Pomfrette, talked with him, and occasionally ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... spins in space where thousand other spin— The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth Perhaps—what is there any man can win, Or any nation? Ultimates aside, Men have their aims, and Israel her pride. She stands among the rest, austere, aloof, Still the peculiar people, armed in proof Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die. She stands among the rest and answers: "I, Above ye all, must ever gauge success By ideal types, and know the more and less Of things as being ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... were all summer tourists, light of heart and gay of speech; all save one, Hubert Varrick, a young and handsome man, dressed in the height of fashion, who held aloof from the rest, and who stood leaning carelessly ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... &c. 287; recoil &c. 277; departure &c. 293; rejection &c. 610. shirker &c. v.; truant; fugitive, refugee; runaway, runagate; maroon. V. abstain, refrain, spare, not attempt; not do &c. 681; maintain the even tenor of one's way. eschew, keep from, let alone, have nothing to do with; keep aloof keep off, stand aloof, stand off, hold aloof, hold off; take no part in, have no hand in. avoid, shun; steer clear of, keep clear of; fight shy of; keep one's distance, keep at a respectful distance; keep out of the way, get ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... 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
... concealment,—for if any of thy co-wives were to speak of it unto Vasudeva, he might be irritated with thee. Feed thou by every means in thy power those that are dear and devoted to thy lord and always seek his good. Thou shouldst, however, always keep thyself aloof from those that are hostile to and against thy lord and seek to do him injury, as also from those that are addicted to deceit. Foregoing all excitement and carelessness in the presence of men, conceal thy inclinations by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... whisper, "a few days, a week ago—it seems like a year!—I was of some assistance to refugees fleeing from Mexico into the States. They were all women, and one of them was dressed as a nun. Quite by accident I saw her face. It was that of a beautiful girl. I observed she kept aloof from the others. I suspected a disguise, and, when opportunity afforded, spoke to her, offered my services. She replied to my poor efforts at Spanish in fluent English. She had fled in terror from her home, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... little distance from the post. All three of the herds were holding beyond it, a polite request having reached them to vacate the grazing-ground of the cavalry horses. Lovell still insisted that we stand aloof and give the constituted authorities a free, untrammeled hand until the inspection was over. The quartermaster and his assistants halted on approaching the first herd, and giving them a wide berth, we rode for the nearest good point of observation. The officers galloped up shortly afterward, reining ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... manners, and render our union more complete. Lord Chief Baron Orde was on good terms with us all, in a narrow country filled with jarring interests and keen parties; and, though I well knew his opinion to be the same with my own, he kept himself aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the Douglas cause shook the sacred security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation; a cause, which had it happened before the Union, when there was no appeal to a British House of Lords, would have left the great fortress of honours ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... kept aloof from Lady Eveleen de Courcy, but Captain Morville perceived that his eyes were often turned towards her, and well knew it was principle, and not inclination, that held him at a distance. He did indeed once ask her to dance, but she was engaged, and he did ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... closer to the animals than we are, lit by instinct more often than by reason, and hiding a soul in its infancy, a repressed, timorous, uncertain thing, spasmodically violent and habitually secretive and aloof. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... peal of thunder shakes the roof, Round the altar bright lightnings play, Speechless with horror the Monks stand aloof, 115 And the storm ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Tabs glanced at the aloof beauty of the painted face—it was like the face of a Roman Empress, so proudly secure in its serenity. "Make her cry! Why should any one want to make her cry? To do that would be ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... bright and witty piety of Pierre Camus, a friend of Francois de Sales, to the rigid and affected attitude which the French clergy has since assumed, and which has converted them into a sort of black army, holding aloof from the rest of the world and at war with it. But there can be no doubt that about the year 1640 the education of the clergy was not in keeping with the spirit of regularity and moderation which was becoming more and more the law of the age. From the most opposite ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... four powers, to which Chelsea, Battersea, Brompton, and Wandsworth are parties, and from which Pimlico has hitherto obstinately stood aloof, has at length been ratified by the re-entry of that impetuous suburb into the general views of Middlesex. We have now a right to call upon Pimlico to disarm, and to cut off its extra watchman with a promptitude that shall show the sincerity with which it has joined ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... interior; that to admit them "would produce a very unpleasant impression upon our people, which, on account of its religious notions and its general estimate of the moral peculiarities of the Jews, has become accustomed to keep aloof from them and to despise them;" that the countries of Western Europe, which had accorded fall citizenship to the Jews, "cannot serve as an example for Russia, partly because of the incomparably larger number of Jews living here, partly because ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... own loss of the tiara. Yet even now they seemed to shrink from the creation of an antipope. Urban precipitated and made inevitable this disastrous event. He was now alone; the Cardinal of St. Peter's was dead; Florence, Milan, and the Orsini stood aloof; they seemed only to wait to be thrown off by Urban, to join the adverse faction. Urban at first declared his intention to create nine cardinals; he proceeded at once, and without warning, to create twenty-six.[65] By this step the French and Italian cardinals together were now ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... issuing in state from the palace to take her barge, which lay manned and ready at the stairs. Repulsed by the gentlemen pensioners, and refused access to her majesty until after her return from the excursion, the young esquire stood aloof, to observe the passing of the pageant; and, seeing the queen pause and hesitate on the brink of a pool of rain-water which intersected her path, no convenience being at hand wherewith to bridge it, took off his crimson cloak, handsomely ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... visit her now and then; but he said nothing of the sort, though he spoke volubly of himself and his prospects. I suppose this spectacle of brother and sister had rubbed Lin the wrong way too much, for he held himself and Billy aloof, joining me on the road but once, and then merely to give me the news that people here wanted no more of Nate Buckner; he would be run out of the country, and respect for the sister was all that meanwhile saved him. But Buckner, like so many spared criminals, seemed brazenly unaware he was disgraced, ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... Providence!' She longed to repeat them to Leonard, as she watched his stern determined face, and the elaborately quiet motions that spoke of a fixed resentful purpose; but to her disappointment and misgiving, he gave her no opportunity, and for the first time since their sea-side intercourse, held aloof from her. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... our camp fire was a rather curious one, told by Boisverd, and not inappropriate here. Boisverd was trapping with several companions on the skirts of the Blackfoot country. The man on guard, well knowing that it behooved him to put forth his utmost precaution, kept aloof from the firelight, and sat watching intently on all sides. At length he was aware of a dark, crouching figure, stealing noiselessly into the circle of the light. He hastily cocked his rifle, but the sharp click of the lock caught ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Toward nightfall another messenger from General Diebitsch arrived at his headquarters. This messenger was Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, whom Diebitsch had sent to insist again on a categorical reply. York received him sullenly, and said to him: 'Keep aloof from me. I do not wish to have any thing to do with you. Your accursed Cossacks have allowed a messenger from Macdonald to pass through your lines, and he has brought me orders to march upon Piktupohnen, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... turn of the tide. The wave of the reconquest of the Netherlands ebbed from that moment. Parma took no more towns from the Hollanders. The Catholic peers and gentlemen of England, who had held aloof from the Established Church, waiting ad illud tempus for a religious revolution, accepted the verdict of Providence. They discovered that in Anglicanism they could keep the faith of their fathers, yet remain in communion with their Protestant fellow-countrymen, use the same liturgy, ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... week since Monmouth had come to turn the brains of women of all ages. The Misses Pitt, he apprehended, contemned him that he, a young and vigorous man, of a military training which might now be valuable to the Cause, should stand aloof; that he should placidly smoke his pipe and tend his geraniums on this evening of all evenings, when men of spirit were rallying to the Protestant Champion, offering their blood to place him on ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Margaret's fears with playful words, promising to be more discreet in the future, and keep aloof from the Earl, and in a short time they were back in the ballroom, and he, at least, was dancing as merrily as if there was no such ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... in her manners, she seemed more inclined to resent an injury than to forgive it. Still she was very different to her father, for whom Edda had conceived a great dislike. No one, indeed, liked him. Her father kept studiously aloof from his society, and even Father Mendez rarely or never spoke to him. Edda's chief annoyance arose from the attentions paid her by Alfonse Gerardin; they had become more frequent, and he was far more confident in his manner than he had ever before been. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... springs, the brooks, the caves, the hills, and with all the more fleeting and faithless pageantry of the sky, that to him came in place of those human affections from whose indulgence he was debarred by the necessities that kept him aloof from the cottage fire and up among the mists of the mountain-top. The still green beauty of the pastoral hills and vales where he passed his youth inspired him with ever-brooding visions of fairyland, till, as he lay musing in ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... inglorious as their delinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... follows? First of all, no one will furnish us with a market or means of providing ourselves with food. Next, we shall have no one to guide us; moreover, such action on our part will be a signal to Ariaeus to hold aloof from us, so that not a friend will be left to us; even those who were formerly our friends will now be numbered with our enemies. What other river, or rivers, we may find we have to cross, I do not know; but this we know, to cross the Euphrates in face of resistance ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... conditions of society to-day? On the one hand, Tolstoy 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 ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... de Lanneau shall be put at the head of it. Let it be noted that he is not an opponent, an irregular: M. de Fontaines himself praises his teaching, his excellent mind, his perfect exactitude, and calls him the universitarian of the university. But he does not belong to it, he stands aloof and stays at home, he is not disposed to become a mere cog-wheel in the imperial manufactory. Therefore, whether he is aware of it or not, he does it harm and all the more according to his prosperity; his full house empties ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... were plenty of dark little phials lurking on the shelves of his surgery in which the young man could have found "mortal drugs" without the aid of the apothecary, had he been so minded. Happily no such desperate idea ever occurred to him in connection with his grief. He held himself sulkily aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Halliday for some time after their marriage, and allowed people to see that he considered himself very hardly used; but Prudence, which had always been Philip Sheldon's counsellor, proved herself also his consoler in this crisis of his life. A careful consideration of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the people in court, from Simon Crood, pompous and aloof in his new grandeur of chief magistrate, to Spizey the bellman, equally pompous in his ancient livery, were already open-mouthed with wonder at the new and startling development. But the sudden advent of the young and pretty domestic, whose tears betrayed her unwillingness ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... her wherever she went, and a great restlessness kept her moving. She could not feel at her ease in his vicinity. She wanted very urgently to secure his friendship. She had counted upon that day in his society to do so. But it seemed to be his resolve to hold aloof. He seemed disinclined to commit himself to anything approaching intimacy, and that attitude of his filled her with misgiving. Had he begun to repent of the one-sided bargain, she asked herself? Or could it be that he also was oppressed by shyness? ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and stand face to face with squalor and hunger, with suffering, debasement and crime, to look upon the starved faces of children and hear their helpless cries, is what scarcely one in a thousand will do. It is too much for our sensibilities. And so we stand aloof, and the sorrow, and suffering, the debasement, the wrong and the crime, go on, and because we heed it not we vainly imagine that no responsibility lies at our door; and yet there is no man or woman who is not, according ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... opened in surprise at the implied intimacy between these men whom she had vaguely understood were anything but friends. But she remained coldly aloof, controlling even a shiver of astonishment when Colonel Arran's hand, which held hers, groped also for ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... him all she knew, which was not a great deal; he was respected; but he was a strange man, kept himself very much aloof from others ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... time to copy some of the fine old frescoes in the Church of the Carmine. He gave great attention to the study of anatomy, and he was known throughout the city for his talents, and for his pride and bad temper. He held himself aloof from his fellow-pupils, and one day, in a quarrel with Pietro Torrigiano, the latter gave Angelo a blow and crushed his nose so badly that he was disfigured for life. Torrigiano was banished for this offence and went to England; he ended his life in ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... before there stalked in the counterpart of the drummer in the back row, and there was some evidence in the Judge's deportment that he had the dramatic sense to wait for a proper pause so that the spectators might see him in all his aloof magnificence. Had the two girls played "See the Conquering Hero Comes," he might have accepted ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... youngsters were in earnest, and no mistake. Stephen Greenfield, as was only natural, did not altogether find cause for exultation over the event which led to the strike. For a whole day he was very angry on his brother's account, and threatened to stand aloof from the revolution altogether; but when it was explained to him this would lead to a general "smash-up" of the strike, and when it was further explained that the fellows who caught hold of his big brother's right foot couldn't possibly be ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of this anger, oddly enough, that the memory of the girl came to him. She was like the falling of this starlight, pure, aloof, and strange and gentle. It seemed to Andrew Lanning that the instant of seeing her outweighed the rest of his life, but he would never see her again. How could he see her, and if he saw her, what would he say to her? It would not be necessary to speak. One ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... with his life against Emperor and heretics. His intrigues were aided by the suspicions of both the religious parties. Luther refused to believe in the sincerity of the concessions made by the Legates; Paul the Third held aloof from them in sullen silence. Meanwhile Francis was preparing to raise more material obstacles to the Emperor's designs. Charles had bought his last reconciliation with the king by a promise of restoring the Milanese, but he had no serious purpose ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... Ole Bull, a Frithjof Nansen, an Edvard Grieg—who spread through the world evidences of its spiritual life. But the one who was more original, more powerful, more interesting than any other of her sons, had persistently kept aloof from the soil of Norway, and was at length recaptured and shut up in a golden cage with more expenditure of delicate labor than any perverse canary or escaped macaw had ever needed. Ibsen safely housed in Christiania!—it ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... pride, that had made the love in them brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof gaze remained fixed on the horizon; her lips rested on each other in sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling of foam under ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 from sound ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... mightily strong, and it was hard to tell which would outlast the other. Osvif's sons and Gudlaug set on Kjartan, they being five together, and Kjartan and An but two. An warded himself valiantly, and would ever be going in front of Kjartan. Bolli stood aloof with Footbiter. Kjartan smote hard, but his sword was of little avail (and bent so), he often had to straighten it under his foot. In this attack both the sons of Osvif and An were wounded, but Kjartan ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... Besides these five "affairs," on one or two occasions I dipped so low as the inky dismal sensuality of the streets, and made one of those pairs of correlated figures, the woman in her squalid finery sailing homeward, the man modestly aloof and behind, that every night in the London year flit by the score of thousands across the sight of ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... is Stephen Lumley, mother. My mother, Stephen," and left them to do the rest, watching, critical and aloof, to see how they would ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... it; could you draw aside the veil of Mother Isis herself, and draw it suddenly, I suspect you should surprise a laugh vanishing from her face. So the humor would remain; and with it there would be ... something calm, aloof, unshakable, yet vitally affectioned towards Athens, the Athenians, humanity; something unsurprised at, far less hoping or fearing anything from, life or death; in possession of "the peace which passeth ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... gracious will. No, mother, I feel that I must go, and you must consent and give me your best blessing. It is strange that we see no account of ministers or members of any denomination but the Roman Church volunteering to go to the stricken city. All seem to stand aloof but them. How noble are those truly Christian and devoted women, the Sisters of Mercy! And shall I be idle and listless when I might be saving life, or at least trying to do so. O, mother dear, I must go. I will come back safely to you. ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... the army, to my surprise I met Lopez, now raised to the rank of colonel. He appeared to be intimate with many of the officers, but kept aloof from Captain Laffan and me, as well as from Uncle Richard, whom I should properly designate as ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... Government of the country may change but the Monarch remains, subject to no changes of Parliament, above and aloof from the strife of political parties, the steadying influence ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... his physicians was appointed to use unguentum populeum to anoint his temples; but he so distasted the smell of it, that for many years after, all that came near him he imagined to scent of it, and would let no man talk with him but aloof off, or wear any new clothes, because he thought still they smelled of it; in all other things wise and discreet, he would talk sensibly, save only in this. A gentleman in Limousin, saith Anthony Verdeur, was persuaded he ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... her long muzzle, above which lay an interminable array of deep wrinkles, radiating out and downward from her high-peaked crown. Just once the noble head was lowered—as that of an ancient Greek philosopher to an inquisitive child—and the crimson-hawed eyes directed downward as, in a calm, aloof spirit of investigation, the Lady Desdemona took note of the fussy movements ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... I say to me, who am really free from forming any Hopes by beholding the Persons of beautiful Women, or warming my self into Ambition from the Successes of other Men, this World is not only a meer Scene, but a very pleasant one. Did Mankind but know the Freedom which there is in keeping thus aloof from the World, I should have more Imitators, than the powerfullest Man in the Nation has Followers. To be no Man's Rival in Love, or Competitor in Business, is a Character which if it does not recommend you as it ought to Benevolence ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... stancher Chartists than ever I had been—men who had suffered not only imprisonment, but loss of health and loss of fortune; men whose influence with the workmen was far wider than my own, and whose temptations were therefore all the greater, who manfully and righteously kept themselves aloof from all those frantic schemes, and now reap their reward, in being acknowledged as the true leaders of the artizans, while the mere preachers of sedition are scattered ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... a most solemn and important prohibition—to refrain from all uncleanness caused by contact with death. Death is the wages of sin: the consecrated one was alike to keep aloof from sin and from ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... which the actual is only the occasion; and since we remain empty of imagination, we find it impossible to enjoy ourselves. Our feeling in regard to a bad play might be phrased in the familiar sentence,—"This is all very well; but what is it to me?" The piece leaves us unresponsive and aloof; we miss that answering and tallying of mind—to use Whitman's word—which is the soul of all experience of worthy art. But a good play helps us to enjoy ourselves by making us aware of ourselves; it forces us to think and feel. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... condition when Count Herbert of Schonburg returned from the Holy Land, the fame of his deeds upon him, and married Beatrix of Gudenfels. Although the nobles of the Upper Rhine held aloof from all contest with the savage Baron of Schloss Wiethoff, his exactions not interfering with their incomes, many of those further down the river offered their services to Count Herbert, if he would consent to lead them against the Baron, but the Count pleaded that he was still ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the low whistle of her lover. The villagers were almost all asleep, now and then the laugh of some rioters was heard breaking in upon the stillness of night. She had not seen her lover for many days; from the time that her marriage was determined upon, the young warrior had kept aloof from her. She had seized her opportunity to tell him that he must meet her where they had often met, where none should know of their meeting. She told him to come when the moon rose, as her father would be tired, and her mother wished to sleep well ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... earth. He would never cumber his mind with the things of this world, and would not paint for money, nor for prince's favor; nor would he take places of power and trust in the Church, or else, so great was his piety, they had made a bishop of him; but he kept ever aloof and walked in the shade. He used to say, 'They that would do Christ's work must walk with Christ.' His pictures of angels are indeed wonderful, and their robes are of all dazzling colors, like the rainbow. It is most surely believed among us that he painted to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... exactly like the story of Goethe and Schiller. It was Schiller who held aloof and was full of fault-finding criticism: it was Goethe who made all the advances and did all the kindnesses. It was Goethe who obtained for Schiller that place as professor of history at Jena which gave Schiller ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Mrs. Layton had been highly born and nurtured, and there seemed to her delicate mind a something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were little accustomed to meet ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... the centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than he would have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a position, his orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the battlefield. It was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should keep aloof from the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the contrary, he was expected to take an active part in the combat; and therefore, though his place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks, it was towards the front, and the result followed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Victoire 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
... round-about way from one house to the other to avoid the dew-wet grass of the lawns, came fairly within arm's-reach before he saw or heard them, remained a thing inexplicable. But when he looked up they were there, Miss Euphrasia straightening herself aloof in virtuous disapproval, and Ardea looking as if some one had suddenly shown her the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... truth, or taste. Yet their poetry was admired, praised not less than Goethe and Schiller were praised by their contemporaries, and it lived beyond the seventeenth century. There were but few men during that time who kept aloof from the spirit of these two Silesian schools, and were not influenced by either Opitz or Hoffmannswaldau. Among these independent poets we have to mention Friedrich von Logau, Andreas Gryphius, and Moscherosch. Beside these, there ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... of other Buddhist sects had their share in these bloody affairs, as was natural at such a time, yet Zen monks stood aloof and simply cultivated their literature. Consequently, when all the people grew entirely ignorant at the end of the Dark Age, the Zen monks were the only men of letters. None can deny this merit of their having preserved learning and prepared for its ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... ago have ceased. Irving did not lack sympathy with humanity in the concrete; it colored whatever he wrote. But he regarded the politics of his own country, the revolutions in France, the long struggle in Spain, without heat; and he held aloof from projects of agitation and reform, and maintained the attitude of an observer, regarding the life about him from the point of view of the literary artist, as he was justified ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... hoped to go to France. In one way it was a pity he ever joined the Army, for khaki clashed badly with most of Mrs. Gustus's colour theories. But he had never noticed that: his eye and his ear and his mind were all equally slow to appreciate clashings of any kind. He was rather aloof from comparison and criticism, but not on principle. He had no principles—at least no original ones, just the ordinary stuffy old principles of decency and all that. He never turned his eyes inward, as far as the passer-by could see; he lived a breezy life ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... the law of force, ruthless, inexorable, would compel speech from Hicks. And since they would recognize no authority save that of force, it seemed meet and just to deal with them as they had dealt with us. So Piegan Smith and I stood aloof and watched the grim play, for the fate of a woman hung in the balance. Hicks' salient jaw was set, his ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind. Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should always keep aloof from public affairs ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... America's participation in the war there were certain disturbances caused by the I. W. W., but from such movements the American Federation of Labor held itself aloof. Occasional strikes, on account of special conditions, were easily settled. The governmental assumption of control over railroads and other essential industries had much to do with the peaceful attitude of the workmen. The very high wages which were ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... shake it off. It was a malady the very consciousness of which was an allurement, rather than a pain, and in which Death appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space. I had given myself up to the charm, and had determined to keep aloof from society, which might have dissipated it, and in the midst of the world to wrap myself in silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation of mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so as to contemplate God ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the fittings of the schooner. He was particularly struck with a musket which was shown to him, and asked where the white men got hatchets hard enough to cut the tree of which the barrel was made! While he was thus engaged, his brother chief stood aloof, talking with the captain, and fondling a superb cock and a little blue-headed paroquet, the favourites of which I have before spoken. I observed that all the other natives walked in a crouching posture while in the presence of Romata. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and down the room. And more than once he muttered, shaking his head: "I can't help it; I tried to prevent it, but couldn't." He told his wife that he was worried over a piece of business, and as business was the awe-inspiring word of the household, she stood aloof from him, in nervous sympathy with his worry; and the negro servants spoke in whispers. From her walk her daughter had returned in a solemn state of mind. Her manner, which had been growing gentler, was now touched ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Not only in this instance but in others he was convicted of doing precisely the opposite of what he taught in his philosophical doctrines. He brought accusations against tyranny, yet he made himself a teacher of tyrants: he denounced such of his associates as were powerful, yet he did not hold aloof from the palace himself: he had nothing good to say of flatterers, yet he had so fawned upon Messalina and Claudius's freedmen [that he had sent them from the island a book containing eulogies upon them; this latter caused him such mortification ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... making haste into thy roof; Thy humble faith and fear keeps Him aloof: He'll be thy guest; because He may not be, He'll come—into thy house? ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... time the girl was eying him through often-lowered lashes, and the more she looked at him the more she felt that he was not, like many "foreigners," to be distrusted and be held aloof. His clothes did not suggest to her the "revenuer," although they certainly were different from any she had ever seen before on man or beast (his knee breeches gave her some amusement), and he was totally unarmed, having laid his rifle down and ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... and which our good host and hostess withstood till she hinted that she feared it might be more than a swoon, since her father and sister were already indisposed. Then, indeed, all were ready enough to stand aloof; a coach was procured, I know not how, and poor Cornelia was lifted into it, still unconscious, or only moaning a little. I could not let the poor young stepmother go with her alone, and no one else would make the offer, the dread of contagion keeping all at a distance, after what had passed. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (M52) Sardinia alone held aloof. Its minister did not, like the other European ambassadors, seek the presence of the Pope when he was pressed by the revolutionists. Nor did he repair, as they did, to Gaeta, but remained in Rome, and, to the great surprise and scandal of all the European Courts, transacted business with the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... diameter, dressed in greasy buckskin from neck to foot, and with a fox-skin cap.'" The prisoners were at once sent by these raiders to Fremont, who was at that time on the American River. He immediately disclaimed any part in the affair. However, instead of remaining entirely aloof, he gave further orders that Leese, who was still in attendance as interpreter, should be arrested, and also that the prisoners should be confined in Sutter's Fort. He thus definitely and officially entered the ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... never won the deep affection of the rank and file, that Roberts inspired. He was taciturn, aloof, and a stern disciplinarian. His name evoked fear and respect, but never love. And yet, his men would follow him through fire and water, for they had unbounded confidence in his ability. It was his name that was placarded through London, when the ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... sea and sent down the great merchant ship, with American babies and their mothers, and gallantly dying American gentlemen, there came a change even to girls and boys and professors, until then so preoccupied with their own little aloof world thousands of ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... Beethoven's symphonies as a penance likely to give him the most excruciating torture."[111] And yet after this, and after his admission to the Academy, after Henry VIII and the Symphonie avec orgue, he still remained aloof from praise or blame, and judged his triumphs with ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... were not true, then it would be an utter humiliation to exist at all in this world. If it were solely our business to seek the Lover, and his to keep himself passively aloof in the infinity of his glory, or actively masterful only in imposing his commands upon us, then we should dare to defy him, and refuse to accept the everlasting insult latent in the one-sided importunity of a slave. And this is what ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... Like a spoiled boy he determined to leave Violet to herself—or rather to her chosen escort—for the rest of the evening. Glum as an owl, he took his place in the theater between the two girls, keeping himself severely aloof from the fickle lady of his dreams. She, on the contrary, stirred by the pleasurable excitement of her surroundings, and possibly not displeased by so evident a proof of Cuthhert's appreciation of her, gave herself wholly to the enjoyment ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... retaliate. 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 about yelling, and running away from the ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... that Lorna was not present now. It must have been irksome to her feelings to have all her kindred and old associates (much as she kept aloof from them) put to death without ceremony, or else putting all of us to death. For all of us were resolved this time to have no more shilly-shallying; but to go through with a nasty business, in the style ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... return there will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... principles of independence. He taught an unreserved submission to the laws of our country. He several times unequivocally displayed his valour in the field of battle, while at the same time he kept aloof from public offices and trusts. The serenity of his mind never forsook him. He was at all times ready to teach, and never found it difficult to detach himself from his own concerns, to attend to the wants ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... as a chorus of raucous laughter came to his ears. He glared belligerently at a group of newcomers who stood aloof from his own gathering. Seven or eight of them there were, and they wore the gray with obvious discomfort. Slummers! Well, they'd hear something they could carry back with them when they returned ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... to have travelled far from the simplicity of early Greek religion. Yet, apart always from Plotinus, who is singularly aloof, most of the movement has been a reaction under Oriental and barbarous influences towards the most primitive pre-Hellenic cults. The union of man with God came regularly through Ekstasis—the soul must get clear of its body—and Enthousiasmos—the God must enter ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... horse sense, as we call it in America. Warren has been systematically robbing the rich men of New York for three years, under various subterfuges. No wonder he could afford such gorgeous collections of art, keeping aloof from his associates in crime. His treasures, like those in many European museums were bought with blood. It is curious how a complex case like this smooths itself out so simply when the key is obtained. And you, Helene, have been the genius ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... should otherwise have to assume the familiarity of the reader with much that I have gathered into these chapters, though the reader may have forgotten or never known it; and, third, because I wish the reader to look at these new-world regions from without, and, standing apart and aloof, to see the present restless life of these valleys, especially of the Mississippi Valley, against the background of Gallic adventure and pious endeavor which is seen in richest color, highest charm, and truest value at ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... amusements. And the art which reflected this life was called upon to give gaiety rather than thought, costume rather than character. Yet if the Venetian art had lost all connection with the grave magnificence of the past, it had kept aloof from the academic coldness which was in fashion beyond the lagoons, so that though theatrical, it was with a certain natural absurdity. The age had become romantic; the Arcadian convention was in full force, Nature herself was pressed into the service of idle, sentimental men and women. The ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... an artist, does not remain aloof from this educational work. In his "Annals of a Sportsman," he attacks bondage. And when it was abolished, and when in the very heart of Russian society, among the younger generation, the revolutionists appeared, Turgenev attempted to paint these "new men." ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... reader! perfume ladies' hair And scent the ringlets of the fair With eau Cologne and odors rare Aloof ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... embraced the liberal cause with a zeal which left his daughter no excuse for half-heartedness. But he found it less easy than he had expected to recover a footing among his own people. In spite of his patriotic bluster the Milanese held aloof from him; and being the kind of man who must always take his glass in company he gradually drifted back to his old associates. It was impossible to forbid Faustina to visit her parents; and in their house she breathed an air that was at least ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile;—still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it men were going always. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; if one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that, although they knew the pain and thirst and pressure to be unendurable. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... have persuaded Philip to join him and Simpson in their drink, but Philip was in no sociable mood, and sate a little aloof, watching the staircase down which sooner or later Sylvia must come; for, as perhaps has been already said, the stairs went up straight out of the kitchen. And at length his yearning watch was rewarded; first, the little pointed ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... never taken very seriously by the regular followers of the Duke's hounds. All those to whom hunting was the one worthy occupation in life kept religiously aloof. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... of the solitude and the shyness which solitude breeds. Against Douglas there was the presumption, which every New England man who goes southward or westward has to live down, that he would in some measure hold himself aloof from his fellows. But the prejudice was quickly dispelled. No man entered more readily into close personal relations with whomsoever he encountered. In all our accounts of him he is represented as surrounded with intimates. ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... plenty of powder and ball with them, they were ill provided with food for a protracted season. They had expected that Cartier would have an abundant crop growing round his establishment, but they found that he had not even broken the soil that year. They found, too, that the Indians held aloof, and would do naught to help them. The few stragglers whom they could attract by "firewater," had no stores of food, as they were too inert to till the soil, and depended merely on game and fish; feasting while it was abundant, and starving when ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... of Archimedes."—In the revival agitation which swept over America in the decades following 1830 practically all of the English Lutheran churches (the German churches, in part, stood aloof) caught the contagion in a malignant form and in great numbers. While even Prof. J. W. Nevin, Schaff's colleague at Mercersburg, in his book The Anxious Bench (1844), antagonized the extravagances ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... seem to be holding themselves aloof, from what I hear. I suppose you seldom meet in society now, the people you used to be familiar with twelve ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... event, my father and I walked home from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the eastern horizon; the entire countryside had the solemn stillness of a summer night; our footfalls and the ceaseless song of the katydids were the only sound aloof. Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the road, which, in the short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As we approached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in which no light shone, my father suddenly ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... put by his father suddenly; and the appearance of cowardice and prevarication displeasing Dr. May further, rendered his tone louder, and frightened Tom the more, giving his manner an air of sullen reserve that was most unpleasant. At school it was much the same—he kept aloof from Norman, and threw himself more into the opposite faction, by whom he was shielded from all punishment, except what they chose themselves ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... clients, according to the extent of their faith, and the weight of their purses. A few profane Cavaliers might make his name the burthen of their malignant rhymes—a few of the more scrupulous among the Saints might keep aloof in sanctified abhorrence of the 'Stygian sophister'—but the great majority of the people lent a willing and reverential ear to his prophecies and prognostications. Nothing was too high or too low—too mighty ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... evening of the third day, Marmaduke, who had kept aloof for several hours, came and stood by his sister-in-law. She was leaning at the stern, looking shorewards at two columns of rock, which the watery wear of ages had parted from the cliffs, leaving them set upright ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock) |
