"Distrustful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thorns of unkind thoughts, to choke the weak seed; it is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that falls on it. It is an honest and good heart, that shows no too ready springing before the sun be up, but fails not afterwards; it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to believe and to try all things; and yet so trustful of itself, that it will neither quit what it has tried, nor take anything without trying. And the pleasure which it has in things that it finds true and good, is so great, that it cannot ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... made me a little distrustful of him, and I received his advances on this point with a coldness which I did not wish to make more marked than his own ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... containing a proposal so important to the interests of James, is supposed never to have reached the Chevalier. Mar, distrustful and offended, is suspected of having broken it open, and given it his own answer in a letter to the Duke of Argyle, which tended to affront and repel the Duke rather than to invite him to allegiance. When, some time afterwards, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... nothing, of exterminating misery and vice, of developing the arts and sciences to the fullest extent,—all this is, in my opinion, no proof that ordinary men, given perhaps to squabbling with each other, and to being mutually distrustful, will achieve the like or even approximately similar results on poorer land and in the midst of the turmoil of the world's competitive struggle. My doubts upon this point will appear the more reasonable when it is remembered that in America ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... distance, to be sure, and Mr Robins had not had much to do with babies of late years, and was a little distrustful of his ability to carry one so far without rousing it and so proclaiming its presence, but there was a path across the fields but little frequented, by which he could convey the child without much risk of being met ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... Colter with dark and distrustful glances. What he might have replied never transpired, for the reason that his gaze, always shifting around, had ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... might go? Her brother John had been married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all gone well—and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature, and was resting ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... "Quite a suitable match!" he had pronounced it, but Pixie obstinately withheld her approval. Mademoiselle, as mademoiselle, would have been a regular visitor for life; Madame, the wife of a husband exigent in disposition, and deeply distrustful of "le mer" must perforce stay dutifully at home in Paris, and was therefore lost to ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the hunting season drew near, they all begged the missionary to make one of their party,—not, as he thought, out of any love for him, but solely with a view to the provisions with which they doubted not he would be well supplied. Le Jeune, distrustful of the sorcerer, demurred, but at length resolved ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... morning, at a time when the Emperor never visited Barbara. Nothing remarkable had taken place during their interview, but Cassian had heard her dismiss him with a warning which, even to a less distrustful person, would have seemed suspicious. Why had she assured the Wittenberg theologian, as she extended her hand to him in farewell, that what he offered her had given her great pleasure, and she would gladly invite him to bring her similar things often, but must deny herself this gratification ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of world-politics has been the existence of an informal and one-sided alliance between Britain and America. The alliance has been informal, because it has not rested upon any treaty or even upon any definite understanding. It has been one-sided, because while average opinion in America has been distrustful of Britain, has been apt to put unfavourable constructions upon British policy, and has generally failed to appreciate the value and significance of the work which Britain has done in the outer world, Britain, on the other hand, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... conversed with you as with a man, not as with a child; and though parental partiality has never concealed from me the fact of your deficiency in certain powers of mind which are essential to early excellence in learning, yet I have never been for a moment distrustful of your possessing an intellect which, if well disciplined and well cultured, will continue to expand, improve, and yield excellent fruit long after the mental faculties of many of your more fortunate rivals will have passed from their full maturity ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... my lord," he repeated volubly, touching his forelock. "Hope her la'ship told you as I could not get it out again, or I'm sure I would have done to oblige your lordship, and her la'ship calling on purpose. But the post-office is that mean and distrustful as it don't leave me the key, and once hanything is ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... I would have refused to do this without knowing more of my man. But the shame from which I had suffered for the last few days had made me so distrustful of myself that I was ready to impute to cowardice even the most ordinary ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of the capture came, had seen and said privately that on the principles which America had itself upheld in the past the prisoners would have to be given up with an apology. But there is evidence that he now wavered, and that, bent as he was on maintaining a united North, he was still too distrustful of his own better judgment as against that of the public. At this very time he was already on other points in painful conflict with many friends. In any case he submitted to Seward a draft despatch making the ill-judged proposal of arbitration. He gave way to Seward, but at the Cabinet meeting ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... between the classes represented by these men and the proletariat represented by the Social Democrats was absolute. It was not surprising that the leaders of the Social Democratic party should be suspicious and distrustful of the Constitutional Democrats and refuse to ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... like all persons who have a secret to conceal, was distrustful of strangers. She took an instant dislike to Reuben Ashcroft, and ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... on my hands and feet towards the other side of the pool, when coming to my waggon-driver, I found him looking with no little alarm in an opposite direction, and with good reason, as no fewer than two lions with a cub were eyeing us both, apparently as uncertain about us as we were distrustful of them. We thankfully decamped to the waggon and sat down to keep alive our scanty fire, while we listened to the lion tearing and devouring his prey. When any of the other hungry lions dared to approach he would pursue them for some paces ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a monastery on top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. With the same air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from his books to bestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, 'Ah! we know all about YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and to inform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend them immediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it might have been illuminating a missal, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... countenance was the most engaging and truly good-natured which I ever beheld in these islands. The king and he staid and dined with us this day, eating with a very hearty appetite of all that was set before them. Otoo had entirely lost his uneasy, distrustful air; he seemed to be at home, and took a great pleasure in instructing Towha in our manners. He taught him to make use of the knife and fork, to eat salt to his meat, and to drink wine. He himself did not refuse ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... music generally as a melodramatic auxiliary to the drama, and I discussed my views on the subject in accordance with the highest principles I had conceived. He met all the chief points of my discussion with a nervous distrustful silence, but finally explained that I really went too far in the significance which I claimed for music, and that he failed to understand how music would be degraded if it were applied more sparingly to the drama, seeing that the claims of verse were often treated with much less ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... McClernand and his command at Napoleon. It was here made evident to me that both the army and navy were so distrustful of McClernand's fitness to command that, while they would do all they could to insure success, this distrust was an element of weakness. It would have been criminal to send troops under these circumstances into such danger. By this time I had received authority ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the primitive forces are brimmed. Like featherings hither and yon Of aery tree-twigs over marge, To the comb of the winds, untrimmed, Their measure is found in the vast. Grief heard them, and stepped her way on. She has but a narrow embrace. Distrustful of hearing she passed. They piped her young Earth's Bacchic rout; The race, and the prize of the race; Earth's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at Miletus heard of the recall of Alcibiades and, already distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far more disgusted with him than ever. Indeed after their refusal to go out and give battle to the Athenians when they appeared before Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his payments; and even before this, on account ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the Prior away, or escape by himself, find his way back to the convent and report his master's condition, his strange loss of memory for names and the like, his illusions about himself and [166] others. And he is more than ever distrustful now of his late beloved playmate, who quietly obstructs any movement of the kind, and has undertaken, at the Prior's entreaty, to draw down the moon from the sky, for some shameful price, known to the ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, are apt to be suspicious and distrustful. He commands the horse; you know you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let slip some jest or other that may vex him. Should he take it into his head that he is cheated, and resent it, who knows what the consequences might be? for he is commonly ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... impressive pause, during which the speaker gazed in his face, he finished: "Suddenly the war of the corporation against the people is on us, and you find you are the paid tool of the corporation, and that the people are distrustful of you, and that you are ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... urged the admiral to send him more ships, and abounded in willingness towards De Vins. For the latter he had at first felt the esteem and confidence which he almost invariably showed, even to the point of weakness, towards those associated with him; but he now became distrustful, and devoted himself to stopping every loophole of excuse which might afterwards be converted ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... confidence. After some vociferous and unintelligible parley, one of our gentlemen, in order to give them further cause for the surprise which they had already manifested to a great extent, unadvisedly fired his fowling-piece; upon which, as might be expected, they became distrustful and frightened, and, fixing their spears in their throwing sticks, walked backwards at a quick pace, and withdrew altogether ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the animal which the brutality of man subjects to so much ill-treatment; its character depends very much on that of his master, kindness and confidence produce the same qualities in the dog, while ill-usage makes him sullen and distrustful of beings far ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... himself as happy to be of any service. He glanced at Putnam Jones as he made the statement. It was at once borne in upon him that the landlord's attitude toward him had undergone a marked change in the last few minutes. The furtive, distrustful look was missing from his eyes and in its place ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... all after-dinner speeches such as those at the Reform Club,[28] all Polish legions such as are talked of, and in short any of these little matters, which are painfully felt here, and which always produce an uncomfortable and distrustful effect. The Emperor expressed himself in the most grateful manner towards yourself, and I think is pleased at your having permitted me to be present on this occasion.... Hoping that you will approve of my humble endeavours here, and with sincere ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... strange!... And you say you're not distrustful! Or perhaps they're worrying you, torturing you terribly here—more than ever ... At all events we'll leave this very night. I am ready. And so, as soon ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to him every moment of ease and facility which may be enjoyable in the course of the work. I am afraid that at the easiest you will find it a vexatious business, but I throw everything on your kindness, and am not distrustful on such a point of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... down completely, and I sat there feeling big-footed and blundering at this revelation of what it was that had put that clear, logical mind of hers off the track, left her confused, groping, just a girl, timid, distrustful of her own judgment where her heart ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... his sojourn in the islands is here concluded from the preceding volume. He finds the Mindanaos friendly to the English, but distrustful of the Dutch and Spaniards. They are ingenious and clever in metal-work, and with very primitive tools and appliances make excellent utensils and ship-repairs; another industry of theirs is shipbuilding. The English ship remains about a week on ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... official superiors at Scotland Yard to continuing the investigations he had commenced. But Inspector Weyling, when notified of the crime by Sergeant Lumbe, had telephoned to the Chief Constable for instructions. The latter, distrustful of the ability of the county police to bring such an atrocious murderer to Justice, had begged the help of Scotland Yard, with the result that Superintendent Merrington and his assistants appeared at the moat-house in the early morning before the astonished eyes of Caldew, who was taking a ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... them, and all their feeling is about her. It is very difficult to see anything of them, for they want nothing of you, and expect nothing but dislike and contempt. It would take a long time to make many friends, as they are naturally distrustful. I found that eating or drinking anything, if they offer it, made most way, as they know they are accused of poisoning all Christians indiscriminately. Of course, therefore, they are shy of offering things. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... whether either writer or reader is benefited by what is commonly called criticism. The former is rendered cautious and distrustful; he fears to give way to those kindling emotions, and brave sallies of thought, which bear him up to excellence; the latter is made fastidious and cynical; or rather, he surrenders his own independent taste and ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... medicines to come in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our old apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... have gathered from the extract just given that, fourthly, the "ruling class" of Communist Russia is much more distrustful of the "common people" than any class in the United States, Great Britain or France would think of being. Thus the lords and lordlings of the "proletarian dictatorship" barricade themselves in "citadels," ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... can see that I wasn't right in being so distrustful as to be afraid of what came naturally in my way. Mamma says that to be afraid of what may involve temptation, when God's providence, rightfully construed, leads us into it, is something like the dread which keeps people from doing their duty in cases of infection; whereas ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... somewhat surprised at this intelligence. "Your meeting with the emperor," said she, "is happy and honourable, and may in the end be highly advantageous to you, but it is very disagreeable and distrustful to me. It was on my account, I know, you refused the emperor, and I am infinitely obliged to you for doing so. I know by this your affection is equal to my own, since you would rather be guilty of incivility towards ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... again coiled his rope. The big roan was once more surrounded by a crowd of his fellows, his ears erect, his long neck outstretched, his eyes watchful and distrustful. The man who was beginning to look upon lassoing as a sheer matter of sleight of hand made his loop again carefully, slowly, trying to convince himself that here was an easy matter, and that the next time ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... alas! ye frantic youths, distrustful of friends, and unsubdued by troubles, have wretched seized on your paternal ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted, without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and the obstinate refusal of the senate to allow, in the embarkation, the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic King was exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the rank of patrician, and who afterward excused his double perfidy, by declaring, without a blush, that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... of a subdued species of pepper-and-salt, it always opened chiefly in the back, and a plain silver cross invariably dangled from a cord about his neck. As a matter of course, he always kept himself clean-shaven; and his scholarly stoop endured still, although the old, self-distrustful shamble had strengthened into a manly stride. His eyes were as lustrous as of old, his close, up-springing hair lay as thick as ever on his crown; but the lower part of his face showed changes, born of the years. Still lined, still looking just a little worn, it had gained ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... after answering in those terms, had looked at her niece, instead of looking at her governess, she would have seen Carmina—distrustful of her own self-control—move on the sofa so as to turn her face to the wall. As it was, Miss Minerva's attitude and look silently ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... that we rested contented with the risk, and the bearers having gradually crept back to the palankeens, we once more moved on. In spite of all that had passed, some of the party remained so doggedly sceptical, from being habitually distrustful of all things wonderful, that they declared the whole affair a mere matter of panic, and dared to swear there could not be found an elephant within fifty miles of us. Scarcely had this opinion, so injurious to the honours and glories of our late adventure, been uttered, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... know," he answered. "I have known resentment preponderate over every other feeling and passion—in the mind of a woman too. I once heard of a good woman who cherished this feeling against a good man because of some distrustful words he had once addressed to herself. She had lived to a great age, and was expressing to her clergyman her desire that God would take her away: she had been waiting a long time. The clergyman—a very shrewd as well as devout man, and not without a touch of humour, said: 'Perhaps ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... man to have had his Boswell, inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished people about them for ever restless and distrustful. I can imagine a succession of Boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship. Secondly, I cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, I think, or greatly enlarged by Hunt) of italicising lines and words and whole passages ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... and varying phenomena of the spiritual life was like an instinct. A purer or more whole-hearted love of "the truth as it is in Jesus," I never witnessed in any human being. At the same time she was very modest and distrustful of her own judgment when opposed to that of others whom she regarded as experienced Christians. I wish you could enjoy a tithe of the happiness that was mine during the winter and spring of 1873-4, as, evening after evening, she talked over with me the various points discussed ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... attitudes were abject, and the expression of their countenances distrustful, surprised, and startled. After we had presented them with some scarlet cloth, which they immediately tied round their necks, they became good friends. This was shown by the old man patting our breasts, and making a chuckling kind of noise, as people ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... wit he had out of the playhouse, and speak his mind, like Defoe, to the people themselves every post-day. But he would affect no pedantry of moralizing, he would appeal to no passions, he would profess himself only 'a Tatler.' Might he not use, he thought, modestly distrustful of the charm of his own mind, some of the news obtained by virtue of the office of Gazetteer that Harley had given him, to bring weight and acceptance to writing of his which he valued only for the use to which it could be put. For, as he himself ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... self-distrustful, neither was he over-confident. He was naturally energetic and ambitious to distinguish himself, and not afraid ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... many aliases, being known by the names of Goldsched, Slowman, as well as by other noms de guerre; and he was altogether of a different cast from King, being avaricious, distrustful, and difficult to deal with. He counted upon his gains with all the grasping feverishness of the miser; and owing to his great caution he had an immense command of money, which the confidence of his brethren placed in his hands. To the jewellers, the coachmakers, and the ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... to make contracts with their former masters. They are afraid lest in signing a paper they sign away their freedom, and in this respect they are distrustful of most southern men. It generally requires personal assurances from a United States officer to make them feel safe. But the advice of such an officer is almost uniformly followed. In this manner an immense number of contracts has been made, and it is daily increasing. A northern man ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... nothing for it but for all hands to go down with the ship, thanks to the terror-stricken selfishness of the 'tween-decks passengers, who were too ignorant to do anything useful themselves, and too obstinate and distrustful to allow anyone else to do anything. For myself, I had made up my mind not to give in and die so long as I could do anything to help myself; I was a good swimmer, and when the ship went down I should look out for a piece of wreckage, and cling to it until I ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... that it had never come into her blessed little heart to tremble, for she was one of those children of the bride-chamber who cannot mourn, because the bridegroom is ever with them; but then, when she saw the man for whom her reverence was almost like that for her God thus distrustful, thus lowly, she could not but feel that her too calm repose might, after all, be the shallow, treacherous calm of an ignorant, ill-grounded spirit, and therefore, with a deep blush and a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of wisdom, noting no smooth darkness, wrapped in thought. The mere fact of having given pleasure was enough to produce a warm sensation in a man so naturally kind. But, as with all self-conscious, self-distrustful, natures, that sensation had not lasted. He was left with a feeling of emptiness and disillusionment, as of having given himself a good ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I seem distrustful," I said with a wholly sympathetic expression. "I have my principles, and cannot depart from them. But I have every wish to convince you of my ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... been more shocked. Had those wicked men that thus seduced my husband entered my house and done the same things that they caused him to do, they might have been indicted for the outrage. In the morning Robert had come to himself; but he saw in the broken furniture, in the distrustful looks of the children, in the swollen eyes and distressed countenance of his wife, more than he cared to know. There was a mixture of remorse and obstinacy in his looks, and when he left me for the morning, instead of his usual "Good-morning, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... over one, then over the other shoulder, making it tell in long, clean cuts at every blow, I had never dreamt of. It was splendid. I wished myself back in Copenhagen just long enough to tell the numskulls there, who were distrustful of American tools, which were just beginning to come into the market, that they didn't know what they were talking about. Of course it was reasonable that the good tools should come from the country where they had ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... vacant place in the diligence from Bordeaux to Paris; Derville begged Corentin to allow him to take it, urging a press of business; but in his soul he was distrustful of his traveling companion, whose diplomatic dexterity and coolness struck him as being the result of practice. Corentin remained three days longer at Mansle, unable to get away; he was obliged to secure a place in the Paris ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to marry Badialzaman, begged him to allow himself to be drawn up before her [as she was distrustful of his brothers], but he would not listen to her. As soon as the two princes had drawn her up so high that they could see her, they began to dispute who should have her. Then the fairy cried out to Badialzaman, "Prince, did I not ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Douglas no policy peculiarly his own, to qualify him for the leadership of his party? Distrustful Whigs accused him of being willing to offer Cuba for the support of the South.[381] Indeed, he made no secret of his desire to acquire the Pearl of the Antilles. Still, this was not the sort of issue which it was well to drag into a presidential campaign. Like ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... say she evinced no emotion, and seeing this, I became more distrustful of her than ever; for, for her to hear without apparent interest the name of the chief witness in the inquest which had been held over the remains of the woman with whose death she had been more or less intimately concerned, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... distrustful that they think that the ground on which they walk and the air which they breathe are about to fail. This does not make them more provident and industrious, but more foolish and dull. Therefore, if there are many to confess they troop together ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... to draw, I confess myself at fault; and cannot account for the fellow's movements; though I take you'll all acknowledge they were odd. As I've said, M. Dupre, I didn't from the first like your man of versatile talents; and I'm now more than ever distrustful of him. Still I profess myself unable to guess what he was after last night. Can any ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... past,—just such a man as can set a woman's heart thrilling when he lays siege to her. If he had made an open bid for Stella's affection, she, entrenched behind all the accepted canons of her upbringing, would have recoiled from him, viewed him with wholly distrustful eyes. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... but which in him often proved the germs of philosophical imaginings. He was the least qualified for any sort of business of all men I have ever known; so skinless in sensibility as respected himself, and so distrustful in his universal apprehensions of human nature, as respected others. It was, indeed, a wild, though a beautiful, error of nature, to endow a spirit with such discerning faculties, and yet render it unfit to deal with mankind. But ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... roundly accuses the missionaries of having fabricated the inscription on the monument of Si-ngau-Fou, from motives of "pious fraud." "As if," says Remusat, "such a fabrication could have been practicable in the midst of a distrustful and suspicious nation, in a country in which magistrates and private people are equally ill-disposed towards foreigners, and especially missionaries, where all eyes are open to their most trivial proceedings, and where the authorities ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... however, as a graceful compliment to a party who have numbered few good players in their ranks; for certainly the Tories could quote folly ten to one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs are too superficial, too crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be whist-players; and, worse than all, too distrustful. A Whig could never trust his partner—he could not for a moment disabuse himself of the notion that his colleague meant to outwit him. A Whig, too, would invariably try to win by something not perfectly legitimate; and, last of all, he would be incessantly appealing to ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... have ever won have been of the second type. I never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment and careful planning and working long in advance. Having been a rather sickly and awkward boy, I was as a young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my own prowess. I had to train myself painfully and laboriously not merely as regards my body but as regards my ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... people of the United States, and to do all in his power to promote kind feelings between the two countries. Soon after he landed at New York he made a speech at the annual dinner of the St. George's Society, in which he repudiated the previous distrustful and vexatious policy of the British Foreign Office towards the United States, and declared that the interests of the two countries were so completely identified that their policy should never be ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if she were sedulously keeping IT warm, instead of it keeping her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud—and a very unmelodious laugh ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... handful had I wished. There are also a lot of those weird, semi-transparent, yellow, spotted little sandfish with cup- shaped pectoral fins, which I see they use to enable them to make their astoundingly long leaps. These fish are of a more nervous and distrustful disposition, and hover round my hand but will not come into it. Indeed I do not believe the other cheeky little ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and zeal for all that is best was however merely hypocrisy; he wished only to win the favor of the people. Tyrants are always distrustful, they are always afraid that others will rob them of their power by the same unrighteous means by which they themselves have succeeded. As soon as Macbeth discovered any plans against himself, he no longer ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... chain of lakes to the west, and other heights presiding over its other sides. And up and down and in and out of this hollow square of mountains, where waters plentifully flowed, and game and natural pasture abounded, there skulked a nomadic and distrustful population. This in due time built cabins, took wives, begot children, and came to speak of itself as "The honest settlers of Jackson's Hole." It is a commodious title, and doubtless to-day more ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... does it matter, one infamy more or less in him? Besides, he will accomplish his purpose in some other way of which I shall not know." But this was only the beginning of the battle. Punishment on punishment for an act which seemed right at the time had made her morbid, distrustful of herself. And she could not conquer the dread lest her longing to be free was blinding her, was luring her on to fresh calamities, involving all whom she cared for, all who cared for her. Whichever way she looked she could see only a choice ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... and distinct though it is. Pictor Ignotus expresses the subdued sadness of a too timid or too sensitive nature, an "unknown painter" who has dreamed of painting great pictures and winning great fame, but who shrinks equally from the attempt and the reward: an attempt which he is too self-distrustful to make, a reward which he is too painfully discriminating ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... working on them when once accepted, a nature that Alick Keith had discerned and valued amid its worst errors far more than mere attractiveness, of which his sister had perhaps made him weary and distrustful. Nor, indeed, under the force of the present influences, was attractiveness wanting, and she suited Alick's peculiarities far better than many a more charming person would have done, and his uncle, knowing her only by her clear mellow voice, her consideration, helpfulness, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Eternal Laughter. This was serious. It was desperate—the crisis, as she told herself, of her life and fate. The result was singular. Never had she been more vividly, more electrically, alive. Never had she been more diffident and self-distrustful. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... efficiently in the Senate of the United States, which he entered March 4, 1855, at thirty-five years of age. He was a pronounced and unflinching Republican, ready from personal attachment to Mr. Lincoln to follow him in any public policy, and while somewhat distrustful of Johnson was undoubtedly gratified and re-assured by the tone of his speeches. Mr. Harlan was not hasty in judgment but thoughtful and reflective, and aimed always to be just ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... black wizards of Ashantee would strike up with their hatchets, as in ominous comment on the white stranger's thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas: and portents, it would have been almost against nature, had not, even into the least distrustful ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... reproaching Mr. Lincoln for his delay in taking this step. It would seem right and natural that the emancipationists should have rallied with generous ardor to sustain him. They did not. They remained just as dissatisfied and distrustful towards him as ever. Some said that he had been forced into this policy, some that he had drifted with the tide of events, some that he had waited for popular opinion at the North to give him the cue, instead of himself guiding that ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... attractive personality. Miss Kite had one failing: it was lack of vanity. She was unaware of her own delicate and refined beauty. If Miss Kite could only see herself with his, the stranger's eyes, the modesty that rendered her distrustful of her natural charms would fall from her. The stranger was so sure of it Miss Kite determined to put it to the test. One evening, an hour before dinner, there entered the drawing-room, when the stranger only was there and before the gas was lighted, a pleasant, good-looking lady, somewhat ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... in none of these feelings, nor even suspected their existence. When he became aware of the depth of his own passion for the lovely orphan, he spoke it frankly, and with all the earnestness of a true-hearted man. Love makes the proudest heart distrustful, and even Isabel's pride was satisfied with the humility of his pleading. Now came her punishment. In every throb of her heart and nerve of her body, Isabel felt a response to the generous love offered to her. But her will rose proudly against him, and ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... rest, we have both been a little unlucky, there's no denying, in overcoming the embarrassments of a first acquaintance—but suffer me to say as one other last word, (and quite, quite the last this time!) in case there should have been anything approaching, however remotely, to a distrustful or unkind tone in what I wrote on Sunday, (and I have a sort of consciousness that in the process of my self-scorning I was not in the most sabbatical of moods perhaps—) that I do recall and abjure ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... me approach as near as I would, they never molested me, though the hives were full and the bees ready to swarm. At these times I have been surrounded, having them on my hands and face without apprehending any danger. All animals are distrustful of man, and with reason, but when once assured he does not mean to injure them, their confidence becomes so great that he must be worse than a barbarian who ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... attendants, and roughing it with the Indians. In this way I spent in all a year and a half among the Tarahumares, and ten months among the Coras and Huichols. At first the natives persistently opposed me; they are very distrustful of the white man, and no wonder, since he has left them little yet to lose. But I managed to make my entry and gradually to gain their confidence and friendship, mainly through my ability to sing their native songs, and by always ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... doughty but confident swagger; "incredulous varlet, do you doubt the authenticity of my information? He disclosed to me every word of it himself, and sought me out here for the purpose of getting me to influence my friends, who, you distrustful caitiff, are persons of rank and consequence, for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation between him and old Grinwell, the toothbrush man, and having the prosecution stopped. Avaunt! now, begone! This is all the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... operation under the supervision of Washington, as the first President of the Republic. The people, influenced by certain "elective affinities," had become sundered into two great political parties—Conservative and Progressive, or Federal and Democratic. Both were distrustful of the Constitution. The former believed it too weak to consolidate a government capable of protecting its subjects in the peaceful enjoyment of their rights, from discord within, and attacks from without. The latter apprehended that it might easily be transformed, by some ambitious Napoleon, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... distrustful at home, even toward Frederick, who had treated him for his last knife wound on his neck, his manner here, with the other passengers crossing the great waters, was frank and trustful. He was like a well-behaved child ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... science?" asked the archdeacon, fixing his piercing eye upon Coictier's companion. He found beneath the brows of the stranger a glance no less piercing or less distrustful than his own. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Free of all tribute, without fee or fine; The golden brooch, too, from the queen's own cloak, And, above all, fair Finavair[39] for wife. But doubtful was Ferdiah of the queen, And half excited by the fiery cup, And half distrustful, knowing wily Mave, He asked for more assurance of her faith. Then she to him, in rhythmic rise of song, And he in ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... Distrustful as the American people were of the new Constitution, they yet had the political sagacity to prefer its imperfections, whatever they imagined them to be, to the mad spirit of innovation; and in order that the great instrument ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... she doesn't want to explain. Oh, the cunning one. What a sly look she has in her eyes." So thought the captain's wife. From the very beginning of the conversation, the two warm friends, it need scarcely be said, were mutually distrustful. Each had the conviction that everything the other said was to be taken in the very opposite sense. They were of about the same age, Mrs. Shaldin possibly one or two years younger than Mrs. Zarubkin. Mrs. Zarubkin ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... equanimity, biding their time. Some, on the other hand, forgive the Poles because they recognize that Russians would have done the same in like case. The people of the other neighbouring States are distrustful or aloof. In a friendship with France, however, Poland would make up for all other enmities. Marshal Pilsudsky, with the glory of having defeated the Russians and won a victorious peace, is now pictured with Napoleon. He is even represented on picture post-cards pinning an order of ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... have grown old in dealing with men—old before my time. If he who told thee that whereof thou speakest was a friend acquainted with my history, and spoke of it not harshly, he must have persuaded thee that I could not be else than a man distrustful of my kind. The God of Israel help him who, at the end of life, is constrained to acknowledge so much! My loves are few, but they are. One of them is a soul which"—he carried the hand holding his to his lips, in manner unmistakable—"a soul which ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Oregon, but its fulfillment had been postponed from time to time for nearly two years, whilst those who made it had been anxiously waiting for Congress to establish a Territorial government over the country. The Indians became at length distrustful of their good faith and sought redress by plunder and massacre, which finally led to the present difficulties. A few thousand dollars in suitable presents, as a compensation for the country which had been taken possession of by our citizens, would have satisfied the Indians ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... difficult to approach and greet James Bansemer with the naturalness of the unsuspecting. His manner was beyond reproach, and yet, for the first time, she saw the real light in his black eyes. She talked to him as if nothing had happened to make her distrustful, but no self-control in the world could have checked the growth of that remorseless thing called suspicion. For her own sake, for her mother's, for Graydon's, she tried to put it down. Instead, it grew greater and stronger as she looked into his eyes, for in them she saw the light ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... brow was clouded and troubled; the arrow which Earl Sudley had shot with so skilful a hand had hit. The king, ever suspicious and distrustful, felt so much the more disquieted as he saw that the greater part of his cavaliers evidently reckoned themselves friends of Henry Howard, and that the number of Seymour's adherents was ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... Louisa, did he continue to reason. Nor could I forbear to apply the doctrine to myself: I have been too distrustful of him; my conscience accused me, and I am resolved to remedy the fault. I have always held suspicion to be the vice of mean and feeble minds: but it is less difficult to find rules by theory than to ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... rights of colored men. Our fathers in the meetings held to ratify the Constitution, said they had done all that could be expected, said that the death-blow was struck at the institution of slavery, that it would soon die a natural death; and thus they quieted those who were distrustful because slavery was not explicitly abolished in the Constitution. The people, engaged in their various pursuits, ambitious for office, eager for wealth, let this seed of wrong become a mighty upas tree that covered our republic all over, and scattered ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... he would make some attempt to possess himself of the persons of the children. On the other hand, our uncle, whose proud disposition might, perhaps, have been soothed by the offer of her confidence, revolted against the distrustful and suspicious manner in which Lady Darsie Redgauntlet acted towards him. She basely abused, he said, the unhappy circumstances in which he was placed, in order to deprive him of his natural privilege of protecting and educating the infants, whom nature and law, and the will of their father, had ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... leaned way out of the train window and looked at everything with greedy eyes, like a man going over the inventory of his possessions, all tense and distrustful, for fear something may have been lost in his absence. As each group of trees for which he waited darted by, he gave a satisfied nod, measuring the correctness of the landscape by the picture of it that he carried fairly seared in his memory. Everything agreed. ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... the last night I have to live, and I will set down the naked truth without disguise. I was never a brave man, and had always been from my childhood of a secret, sullen, distrustful nature. I speak of myself as if I had passed from the world; for while I write this, my grave is digging, and my name is written in the black-book ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... the non-commissioned officers, who, on promotion, would be his comrades, promised to be but little better than with the recruits. Among them he met, for the most part, with the same distrustful reticence that he had experienced among the men, though a few of them made up to him, thinking him the protege of the captain, and this he resented. Kaeppchen, in particular, a little man, with unpleasant cunning eyes, offered to his ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... which were brown and prominent amid the general pallor of his skin, showed a physical structure which was likely to ensure him a long life. His hard, light-yellow eye fell upon mine like a ray of wintry sun, bright without warmth, anxious without thought, distrustful without conscious cause. His mouth was violent and domineering, his chin flat and long. Thin and very tall, he had the bearing of a gentleman who relies upon the conventional value of his caste, who knows himself above ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the defeated forces, had first chanted those words to the swinging march of his western command—"The Yellow Rose of Texas"—and they had been passed from company to company, squad to squad, by men who had always been a little distrustful of Hood, men who had looked back to the leadership of General Johnston as a good time when they actually seemed to be getting somewhere ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... time, and all the brains we have. Look at me, Herr Doctor, for years I never had more than five hours' sleep, and always used half the night to learn the little I know. There are plenty of people among us who—more's the pity—are distrustful of the better educated—call them upstarts, and won't have anything to do with them. Their idea is that the proletariat should be led by proletariars. But that is nonsense. No oppressed class has ever yet been emancipated by its own members. It was ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... a little pause. Harry was surprised. Here was what he had been wanting—friendship; a week ago he would have seized it with both hands; now he was a little distrustful; a week ago it would have been natural, delightful; now it was unusual, even ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... I wish to remark on William's chief distress, that my changing my opinion seemed to unsettle one's confidence in truth and falsehood as external things, and led one to be suspicious of the new opinion as one became distrustful of the old. Now in what I shall say, I am not going to speak in favour of my second thoughts in comparison of my first, but against such scepticism and unsettlement about truth and falsehood generally, the idea ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... to the superb bosom of a hill covered with palaces. He remembered these sights not without some filial emotion, though he had been habitually and severely beaten as a boy on one of these feluccas by a short-necked, shaven Genoese, with a deliberate and distrustful manner, who (he firmly believed) had cheated him out of his orphan's inheritance. But it is mercifully decreed that the evils of the past should appear but faintly in retrospect. Under the sense of loneliness, abandonment, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... on her programme. He was feeling timid and self-distrustful, and having taken a dance near the beginning he hesitated perceptibly before taking another lower down. She thanked him gravely as he returned her the card and he thought he detected a half-sorrowful expression in her face. No doubt she had been quick to observe the constraint of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the mischievous and excited Felix lay fast asleep with his arms round the neck of one of the dogs, as if he was determined the dog should not play if he could not; but the watchful eye of Bernard shewed that he was merely still for his little master's sake, and that he even looked with a distrustful eye at the measured pacing of Madame, fearing that her slight movement would disturb the profound repose into which his charge had fallen. With her long curls sweeping half over the other dog, and half over herself, lay the tired little Lilly, so mixed ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... is emphasized by one document coming from a writer presumably unbiased, but presumably distrustful of Germany, wherein the confirmation is found that England and Russia had come to a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... the Prince of Teutoburg's aide-de-camp. They had not met for some days, and Nick had a vague feeling that if the Prince's matrimonial designs took definite shape he himself was not likely, after all, to be their chosen exponent. He had surprised, now and then, a certain distrustful coldness under the Princess Mother's cordial glance, and had concluded that she perhaps suspected him of being an obstacle to her son's aspirations. He had no idea of playing that part, but was not sorry to appear to; for ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... purchaser: unless (gentle reader) the pleasing pourtraictures of Peter Pattieson, now given unto thee in particular, and unto the public in general, shall have lost their favour in thine eyes, whereof I am no way distrustful. And so much confidence do I repose in thy continued favour, that, should thy lawful occasions call thee to the town of Gandercleugh, a place frequented by most at one time or other in their lives, I will enrich thine eyes with a sight of those precious manuscripts whence ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was in degrading the authority of the princes, and giving an odious latitude to that of the Emperor, tended not a little to augment the irritation of the Elector. Discontented with the Emperor, and distrustful of his intentions, he had entered into an alliance with France, which the other members of the League were suspected of favouring. A fear of the Emperor's plans of aggrandizement, and discontent with existing evils, had extinguished among them all feelings of gratitude. Wallenstein's exactions ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of them only by hearsay. Then you know the effect of suggestion in such cases. The undefinable sense we were speaking of is a ticklish instrument, easily thrown out of gear by a sudden fall of temperature; and the sharpest experts grow shy and self-distrustful when the cold current of depreciation touches them. The sale was a slaughter—and when I saw the Daunt Diana fall at the wink of a little third-rate brocanteur from Vienna I turned sick at the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... League of the Three Brothers. To the end of his life he steadfastly persisted that the rebellion was insidiously fanned, if not actually carried out, by a secret confederacy of all the verse-makers of the Empire, who were distrustful of his superior powers. He spent the years of his exile in composing a poetical epitaph to be carved upon his tomb, but his successor, the practical-minded Liu-yen, declined to sanction the expense of procuring so fabulous a supply of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... would never believe the story,' said the good gentleman, shaking his head; 'she will imagine that I want to keep this letter instead of giving it up like the rest, so as to have a hold over her. She is so distrustful, and M. de Mazarin so—Yon devil of an Italian is capable of having us poisoned at the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... presence, the child was deferred to and courted from respect for that master's weakness, while, behind his back, the old wrongs, the old hatred, showed themselves unquenched. And so the child grew up bitter and distrustful. Matters got a little better for a while, when the untameable Hindley was sent to college; yet still there was disturbance and disquiet, for Mr. Earnshaw did not love his daughter Catharine, and his heart was yet further embittered by the grumbling and discontent of old Joseph the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... by the canons of various distrustful Church councils, or by the sermons of a few vehement bishops, the Jews on the whole led a peaceful, though not a very prosperous, existence, which has left scarcely any traces in history and literature. Aside from a few unimportant names and facts, ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber |
