"Modest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the Kingston plantation, and then her granddaughter Milly, who in later times clung to the changing fortunes of the Carroll family, and is at this day a devoted attendant on her invalid mistress, Miss Anna Ella Carroll. A visitor to the modest home in Washington, now occupied by the Carroll sisters, is met at the door by the comely face and pleasant smile of this same faithful Milly. The life-long devotion of the affectionate "Mammy" illustrates one of the most touching features of the old plantation ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... relating to the Beaumantles, and one anecdote especially, drawn, I may say, from the archives of our family, which throws a new light upon the reign and character of Charles II. It is a very able performance is this 'History of the County of Huntingdon;' it is written by a modest and ingenious person of my acquaintance, and I felt great pleasure in lending him my poor assistance in the compilation of it. My name is mentioned in the preface. Perhaps," he added with a significant smile, "it might have claimed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... burghers, who witness the happy meeting of St. Joachim and Anne at the golden gate of the temple, in his series of prints illustrative of the Life of the Virgin, are such as Duerer might have seen daily loitering by the tower gate opposite his own windows; and the modest-looking maiden with the extravagantly fashionable head-dress, whom he has introduced in his "Marriage of the Virgin," has been absolutely copied from nature; the original sketch, made by his own hand from a Nuernberg damsel, is preserved with many similar studies by him in the British Museum. He ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... it," he went on, "I should pack you off on a trip round the world. That would not only amuse you royally but afford you a liberal education into the bargain; but I haven't the money to do that just now, I'm afraid. Some more modest entertainment must be found. H-m! I don't suppose as a makeshift you would care to go into the store with me for a week or two until a better plan ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... were a violet I'd think it a shame To be always so simple and modest and tame, To be hidden away like a hermit or nun While the hare-brained pink roses can dance in the sun! But consider the naughty wild ways of the rose— There must be respectable flowers, ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar
... exclaimed the Colonel, striking hands with him dramatically. "I swear, we shall get along famously. There is nothing I admire more than a gentle, modest woman, an ornament to her husband and her home; but when she puts on the trousers and presumes to question and dictate, what is there left for a gentleman to do? He cannot strike her, for she is his wife and he has sworn to cherish and protect her; and yet, by the gods, ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... stands in her modest way just within the celestial gate, I seem to see a kind hand laid upon her dark head, and to hear a gentle voice saying in her ear, "Friend, come ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... but lived constantly at home. There was something much more serious in her life, had she known, which was that she had nothing, and no power of doing anything for herself; that she had all her life been accustomed to a modest luxury which would make poverty very hard to her; and that Lady Mary was over eighty, and had made no will. If she did not make any will, her property would all go to her grandson, who was so rich already that her ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... influence, and coming into public to discuss questions of morals and politics with men. The scene in which Rev. Mr. Hatch violated the decorum of his cloth, and was coarsely offensive to such ladies present as had not lost that modest "feminine element," on which he dwelt so forcibly, is the natural result of the conduct of the women themselves, who, in the first place, invited discussion about sexes; and in the second place, so broadly defined the difference ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants should not have left their tasks to help Lily in her's,—since here is Violet thinking she ought to leave her tasks, to help God in His. Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that 'He ought to learn ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and early education have wound about me. In vino veritas, my son, but the truth must be measured in quarts for each individual. Some men I know might be drowned in wine and still be hypocrites, so solidly are their heads placed upon their shoulders. But my demands are modest, my son, just as modest as I ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... modest desire," laughed Kat. "Hasn't some one else got a disappointment, because they can't sit on a gold throne and eat sauce made of pearls ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... If I have read Aright Johanna's soul, her modest heart's Her fairest jewel. She deserveth well The homage of the great, but her desires Soar not so high. She striveth not to reach A giddy eminence; an honest heart's True love content's her, and the quiet lot Which with this ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... perfect blonde in complexion; her hair was of a very pretty light shade of brown, and perfectly straight; her eyes a clear, honest gray; and her skin as delicate and fair as a child's. Her manner was modest and ingenuous, and her language indicated ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... of her mother's modest fortune, and grown to restless, intelligent womanhood, Palla had gone abroad with a married school-friend, Leila Vance. Under her auspices she had met nice people and had seen charming homes in England—Colonel Vance being somebody in the county ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... was celebrating a solemn feast to Hercules, together with his only son Pallas, and his senate, welcomed the warriors to his modest home, promised his alliance, and sent forth with Aeneas his son Pallas and four hundred knights. He also advised him to go to Argylla, whose people were stirred up against Turnus because he ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... character, as respected the softer sex, was such as you might expect from these traits. No modest woman had been seen at Crompton for many a year; although not a few such—if at least good birth and high position include modesty—had, since his majority, striven to give a lawful mistress to the place. His eccentricities ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... least in size comes the violet. For "the flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly," and has taken a modest place ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... down to the slender waste Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dissheveld, but in wanton ringlets wav'd As the Vine curles her tendrils, which impli'd Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yeilded, by him best receivd, Yeilded with coy submission, modest pride, 310 And sweet reluctant amorous delay. Nor those mysterious parts were then conceald, Then was not guiltie shame, dishonest shame Of natures works, honor dishonorable, Sin-bred, how have ye troubl'd all mankind With shews instead, meer shews of seeming pure, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... run, by establishing myself in some honest way of life, however modest; but now, and principally, by making reparation for at least one crime ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... 1895. A pupil of Guichard and Oudinot. After her marriage to Eugene Manet she came under the influence of his famous brother, Edouard. This artist signed her pictures with her maiden name, being too modest to use that which she felt belonged only to Edouard Manet, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... The modest herring had been the foundation of the great Canby fortune. Small and unpretentious, the herring had swum in the icy waters of the Maine coast until transformed into a French sardine by Canby, Sr. It had brought wealth and renown to the shrewd ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... writer, without being in the least degree heavy. Political men of the old school read his papers with pleasure, and most foreigners may read them with profit and instruction. M. de Sacy is a simple, modest, and retiring gentleman, of great learning, and a taste and tact very uncommon for a man of so much learning. Though he has been for more than a quarter of a century influentially connected with the Debats, and has, during eighteen or twenty years of the period, had access to men in the very highest ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... neighbours. Of these I have about five thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, put as many as you can into this room. Make it populous with books, and, furthermore, paint me a good fire, and furniture plain and modest, befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And near the fire paint me a tea-table, and (as it is clear that no creature can come to see one such a stormy night) place only two cups and saucers on the tea-tray; and, if you know how to paint such a thing symbolically ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... forgivenesses of injuries follow, to observe the complacency with which husbands who have sold their wives' favours, wives who have been at the command of the first comer or the highest bidder, mix cheek by jowl, and apparently unrebuked, with the modest maidens, the virtuous matrons, the faithful lovers of the piece. Shakespere never does this. Mrs. Quickly is indeed at one time the confidante of Anne Fenton, and at another the complaisant hostess of Doll Tear-sheet, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... trying to look disappointed, flattered and modest all at the same time. "Well," he went on after a second, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... indifference of 1830 is again settling upon Rome, the race for imaginary wealth is over, time is a drug in the market, money is scarce, dwellings are plentiful, the streets are quiet by day and night, and only those who still have something to lose or who cherish very modest hopes of gain, still take an interest in financial affairs. One may dream again, as one dreamed thirty years ago, when all the clocks were set once a fortnight to follow ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... broad that three or four carriages may be driven abreast down the length of it. It is composed entirely of one and two story cottages. A few short streets branch off at right angles, and in these is all of Cettinje that is not comprised in the main street. The king inhabited a modest-looking, brown edifice with a small garden attached. Overlooking the capital is Mt. Lovcen, on top of which the Montenegrins planted guns to defend any attack that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Victurnien with uneasy eyes and coaxing manner, but steady voice, to the modest house in the Rue du Bercail; there had been losses at cards at the Troisvilles, or the Duc de Verneuil's, or the prefecture, or the receiver-general's, and the Count had come to his providence, the notary. He had only to show himself ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... I wouldn't. He's such a modest chap that he didn't want father to thank him, even. So I ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... artists have all been a little modest about ourselves lately. During the war we asked ourselves gloomily what use we were to the State compared with the noble digger of coals, the much-to-be- reverenced maker of boots, and the god-like grower of wheat. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... Ulysses rose, in thought profound, His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground; As one unskilled or dumb, he seem'd to stand, Nor raised his head, nor stretch'd his sceptred hand; But, when he speaks, what elocution flows! Soft as the fleeces of descending snows, The copious accents fall, with easy art; Melting ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... called the host, and desired him to send his teal, tourteau, and cider up to the chamber of the gentleman of modest exterior. He himself climbed, a plate in his hand, the wooden staircase which led to the chamber, and began to knock at ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind; that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overborne by the damage it has done to clear and ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... sport, what with resistance flying backe, and seconding of one an other, with such a measured circulation, reuerence, pause, and modest continencie, endured the space of an hower, whereat I tooke such pleasure and delyght, that I imagyne (and not amysse) that I was rapt vpon the sodaine from the liking of the sportes of Olympus to ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... reputation, but also because he was the son of such a father. He did not, however, begin public life by staking his fame on the results of one elaborate oration; on the contrary, he rose now and then on comparatively unimportant occasions; made a few brief modest remarks, stated a fact or two, explained a difficulty when he happened to understand the matter in hand better than others, and then sat down without taxing too severely the patience or good nature of an auditory accustomed to great performances. Still in the second year ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... scholarly Benedict, Leonardo Bruno, complained in his own case. But Bardo, who in his poverty had kept himself proudly free from any appearance of claiming the advantages attached to a powerful family name, would have no invitations given on the strength of mere friendship; and the modest procession of twenty that followed the sposi were, with three or four exceptions, friends of Bardo's and Tito's selected ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... exercise a profound influence upon the sentiments and moral ideas of a great proportion of mankind. Modest in its beginnings, it was at first a simple struggle against the abuses of the clergy, and, from a practical point of view, a return to the prescriptions of the Gospel. It never constituted, as has been claimed, an aspiration towards freedom of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... the haze, saw the familiar streets, saw her far, far ahead of him, and hurrying onward, saw her turn a sharp corner, caught one backward look from her dear brown eyes as she vanished—and awoke! He gave much thought to that look in the months which followed. He was a modest youth, singularly unconscious of his own charms; but the eloquent glance had conveyed to him a sense of longing—of more ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... her that morning by Fanny. On first getting into the wagon, she pressed Mary's hand without waiting for the ceremony of an introduction, for she knew her name. Mary loved to have Emma so near her; for though they had never spoken together before, a mutual affection existed between them; but the modest girl felt that Henry ought to have given Emma a seat beside some one ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... the Cerulean Warbler as "extremely sweet and mellow," whereas it is a modest little strain, says Chapman, or trill, divided into syllables like zee, zee, zee, ze-ee-ee-eep, or according to another observer, rheet, rheet, rheet, rheet, ridi, idi, e-e-e-e-ee; beginning with several soft warbling ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Paribanou pronounced these last words with a different tone, and looked, at the same time, tenderly upon Prince Ahmed, with a modest blush on her cheeks, it was no hard matter for the Prince to comprehend what happiness she meant. He presently considered that the Princess Nouronnihar could never be his and that the Fairy Paribanou ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... feigned, as is often the case in these instances of arrested mental development. However that may have been, on the occasion of this visit I found him marvellously improved, his hair cut, his nondescript garments evolved into a modest sort of livery, his vocabulary no longer a series of grunts, his very pantomime more elastic. Margarita never changed her old methods of communication with him, but the rest of us, at Miss Jencks's ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... scientific reality like the fourth state of matter, he may have a statue raised to him by grateful posterity. But this will neither recall him to life, nor will it obliterate the days and months of mental agony that harassed the soul of this intuitional, far-seeing, modest genius, made even after his death to receive the donkey's kick of misrepresentation and to be ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Modest Vindication of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in a Letter to a Friend concerning his having been elected King of Poland," Dryden is named poet-laureate to the supposed king-elect, and Shadwell his deputy. ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... beat inside the fence and recalled the thrill that had animated him with the certainty that Vesta Philbrook would turn out to be the girl, his girl. The disappointment had been so keen that he had almost disliked Vesta that first day. She was a fine girl, modest and unaffected, honest as the middle of the day, but there was no appeal but the appeal of the weak to the strong from her to him. They were drawn into a common sympathy of determination; he had paused ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... perfect sense, never, even when herself reduced to illness and helplessness, desiring to absorb either time or attention that he could give to the great War in which she always encouraged him as no other ever could. Remaining to her latest hour a woman of the tenderest and most modest character, she shrank from public duty, and merely submitted so far as she felt "constrained," for Christ's sake, to association with anything that she was convinced ought to be done to gain the ears of men for the Gospel, however contrary it might be to her ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... broken. All the front doors stood ajar. I hesitated to walk in, for these houses seemed to be mysteriously protected by influences invisible. But in the end the vulgar, yet perhaps legitimate, curiosity of the sightseer, of the professional reporter, drove me within the doors. The houses were so modest that they had no entrance-halls or lobbies. One passed directly from the street into the parlour. Apparently the parlours were completely furnished. They were in an amazing disorder, but the furniture was there. And the furnishings of all of them were alike, as the furnishings ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... the one blends harmoniously with the other. He is no longer thinking of himself. He has given up his own way. The true childhood comes to the surface, and you see what the boy is meant to be always. Look at the jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet fluency of motion in the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything for certain," continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. "Ye see, we never gave a thought to him, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother, to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favorite ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... rain, and that it would be best to postpone their excursion, and then went into the house. Rollo was very confident it would not rain, and was very eager to have them go. He asked Lucy if she did not think it was going to be pleasant, but Lucy was more modest and reasonable than he was, and said that she did not know; she could not judge of the weather ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... consulting me, prepared for her a dressing-room at the back of the stage. A modest man himself, he insisted upon my leading her to it. We found there a shelf, covered with newspaper. On it was a shaving mirror, a large galvanised-iron tub half full of cold water, a cake of brown soap, a tattered towel, and ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... tent Of the wild Peak, where new born waters glide Through fields whose thrifty occupants abide As in a dear and chosen banishment With every semblance of entire content; So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried! Yet he whose heart in childhood gave his troth To pastoral dales, then set with modest farms, May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth, That not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms; And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms The extremes of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... "Northumberland Household Book," to present a strong contrast to the ordinary dietary allowed to the members of a noble and wealthy household, especially on fish days, in the earlier Tudor era (1512). The noontide breakfast provided for the Percy establishment was of a very modest character: my lord and my lady had, for example, a loaf of bread, two manchets (loaves of finer bread), a quart of beer and one of wine, two pieces of salt fish, and six baked herrings or a dish of sprats. My lord Percy and Master ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... British trade-unionism, it seems to me, has erred in conceiving labor and capital as both permanent forces, which were to be brought to some equality of strength by the organization of labor. This seems to me too modest an ideal. The ideal which I should wish to substitute involves the conquest of democracy and self-government in the economic sphere as in the political sphere, and the total abolition of the power now wielded by the capitalist. The man who works ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... find fault with my modest productions, and perhaps justly, in regard to grammatical construction, and mechanical arrangement, but I shall be satisfied, if the public discern a vein of true poetry glittering here and there through what I have just written. ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... [Footnote: Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria, p. 72.] "among the outside public there was a great wave of enthusiasm. Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, above all, struck everybody with overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... far the worst offender. He pretends to take his "mission" very seriously. He does not tell us who confided the trust of philanthropy to him, but he is very sure that he has been singled out for special service. It is his modest pleasure to suggest a comparison with William Pitt. "He lived without ostentation and he died poor." These are the words which Mr Carnegie quotes with the greatest relish. How or where Mr Carnegie lives is his ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls, cereal, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this hell-brew was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she ate. The majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... from Murray Bay; even if it lasted for years, it would still not reach that remote haven, he says. Meanwhile Murray Bay can help him. Two pairs of socks, one flannel and one linen shirt, have been the modest increases to his wardrobe since the hasty exit from Fort George many weeks before. He begs his sisters to make him some shirts and socks, but not many, since on the marches, usually made at night, he has to carry all his belongings on his own back. The charge of a too elaborate transport service ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... always difficult, even for the most modest of us, to remember that other people do not know quite as much as one does one's self. I myself frankly admit I cannot imagine how a casual reference to Suetonius and Petronius Arbiter can be construed into evidence of a desire to impress an unoffending ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... passing in his heart, save Margaret, who could not fail to see that she possessed it wholly. His wealth was likewise still a secret, his position in society unknown. His liberal sentiments and unaffected demeanour had gained him the regard of the unsophisticated parent—his modest bearing and politeness were not less grateful to the sisters. Mildred had resolved a hundred times to reveal to Margaret the depth and earnestness of his attachment, and to place his heart and fortune at her feet, but he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... handicrafts in small sheds or temporary workshops at the Castle, behind the palisades which separated them from their free customers outside. There was just room between the bars of the palisades for them to hand through their exquisite works, and to receive in return the modest prices which they charged. The front of these palisades became a favourite resort for the inhabitants of Edinburgh; and especially for the young folks. I well remember being impressed with the contrast between the almost savage aspect ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... streets. In the house in Barn Street, off the Euston Road, where he lodged, he was called "Mr. Paul" by his landlady, Mrs. Seddon, and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Jane, which was comforting and stimulating. Jane, a lanky, fair, blue-eyed girl, who gave promise of good looks, attended to his modest wants with a zeal somewhat out of proportion to the payment received. Paul had the novel sensation of finding some one at his beck and call. He beckoned and called often, for the sheer pleasure of it. So great was the change in his life that, in these early ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... for me in every way that a modest maiden could do, is certain. I did, however, make one last struggle; I did not deny my feelings towards her, but I pointed out to her the consequences which would ensue, which it was my duty as a friend, and her duty as a daughter, to prevent. She ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... would give me much pleasure; for nothing could be more eloquently winning than the modest, timid bearing of that tender young creature in the presence of her lord. She laughed low and pleasantly as he translated my sympathetic words to her, and seemed so enraptured with the graciousness of his act that I took my leave of her with ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... fashion I can," returned Rooney, with a modest look, "though I don't pretend to be much of a dab at it. Are ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes merry, his heart was a fountain of joy. He would lean forward, swaying his head, and shouting "Yip!" as the bow hurried. D'ri was a hard-working man, but the feel of the fiddle warmed and limbered him from toe to finger. He was over-modest, making light of his skill if he ever spoke of it, and had no ear for a compliment. While our elders were dancing, I and others of my age were playing games in the kitchen—kissing-games with a rush and tumble ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... calmly at her, his pleasant, sunburned face betraying none of the surprise he felt at such a reception. In his modest way he was a quick and keen observer, though he had never deliberately prided himself on being a judge of character. It seemed to him that the handsome, hard-eyed woman with the white face and scarlet lips was startled at the sight of his black ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you ladies'll r'member how one short year ago Miss Lyddy Orr Bolton came a'walkin' int' our midst, lookin' sweet an' modest, like she was; and how down-in-th'-mouth we was all a-feelin', 'count o' havin' no money t' buy th' things we'd worked s' hard t' make. Some of us hadn't no more grit an' gumption 'n Ananias an' S'phira, t' say nothin' o' ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... like a well-bred young woman in the presence of the Queen; modest, but stately—but, of what use is canvas, in a chase where witchcraft breeds squalls, and shortens sail in one vessel, while it gives flying kites to another! If Her Majesty, God bless her! should be ever persuaded to do so ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... a modest bit of architecture, lies Long Isle, just where the river seemingly pauses for a deep breath after its bold sweep around the promontory crowned by the Academy Buildings. Here and there along the path are little wooden benches to tempt the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... for oatmeal-porridge, onion-potage, and other modest dainties, during which Mrs. Bundle constantly fell back on the "bits of things in ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... continued, "to me Captain Granet seems just the type of young Englishman who is going to save the country. He is a keen soldier, clever, modest, and a wonderful sportsman. I can't think what there is about him for any one ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... certain things she had said to him, of a smile she had given him. Although he was good and modest and still perfectly pure, a warm, irresistible hope insinuated itself into his heart. Listening to the story of despair that his friend confided to him, he raised his face bit by bit and gave the woman a smile. And nothing could keep that evening, now falling ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... State. There were a number of stores, interspersed with private dwellings, and everything wore a sort of leisurely aspect. A little farther up was another park,—commons, they were called then. The modest old houses and large gardens and fields gave it a still more complete ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... a ju-ju of its own. It can rise up as high as the Peak, 13,760 feet. I never saw the Cameroon ju-ju do this, but I saw it start up from four feet to quite twelve feet in the twinkling of an eye, and I was assured that it was only modest reticence on its part that made it leave the other 13,748 ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... slender, graceful girl, and her modest, gentle demeanour as she waited upon her husband himself impressed the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... man of God, with modest mien, With faltering steps and looks serene, As to the sacred desk they knelt And poured forth what their ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... Jennie stood face to face with this new and overwhelming complication in her modest scheme of existence. There was really no alternative, she thought. Her own life was a failure. Why go on fighting? If she could make her family happy, if she could give Vesta a good education, if she could conceal the true nature ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... suppose, then, that our gracious sovereign was sacrilegiously murdered; his exemplary queen, at the head of the matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner; that those princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the ornaments of the country, and who are the leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth of their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious death, with hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the first distinction; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... satisfactory. But now that the revision of these letters is apparently complete, the reader has some right to expect a formal introduction to a lady whose name he has, in all probability, never heard; and one may not be overstepping the modest and Johnsonian limits of an editor's office, when the writing of a short introduction is included ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... enemies of innovations. Coffee at its introduction was stigmatized as a devilish invention; tea was no better; as to tobacco, whether snuffed or smoked, it was worse yet. Low-necked dresses and low-quartered shoes were rigorously forbidden. Games and all dances, 'except three modest dances on wedding-days,' were unlawful.... The Sabbath was strictly observed; silence reigned in the villages, even those remotest from the church, until the divine service of the afternoon was closed; no cart might pass in the street, ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... moment Ben-Hur's attention wandered. Before his mind's eye there arose the image, pure, gentle, and appealing, of Esther, the merchant's daughter. Her dark eyes bright with the peculiar Jewish lustre met his in modest gaze; he heard her step as when she approached him with the wine, and her voice as she tendered him the cup; and he acknowledged to himself again all the sympathy she manifested for him, and manifested so plainly that words were unnecessary, and so sweetly that ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... allegiance to this government, to abjure all sort of temporal power in any other, and to renounce, under the same solemn obligations, the doctrines of systematic perfidy with which they stood (I conceive very unjustly) charged. Now our modest petitioners came up to us, most humbly praying nothing more than that we should break our faith, without any one cause whatsoever of forfeiture assigned; and when the subjects of this kingdom had, on their part, fully performed their engagement, we should refuse, on our part, the benefit ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Congress with the modest request to be allowed to buy ships where we can do so upon the most satisfactory terms, Mr. Roach is always on hand to give assurance that it is needless for us to go abroad, for by his skill and his labor-saving processes ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... more unquestionable, as the theatrical art was not then surrounded with all those foreign ornaments and inventions of luxury which serve to distract the attention and corrupt the sense, but made its appearance in the most modest, and we may well say in the most humble shape. For the admirers of Shakspeare it must be an object of curiosity to know what was the appearance of the theatre in which his works were first performed. We have an engraving of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... empty themselves into it, one from the north, the other from the east. The land is extremely fruitful, and the climate is perhaps the finest and most healthy in the world. It has hitherto been the fate of these regions, like that of modest merit or humble virtue, to remain unnoticed; but posterity will do them justice; towns and cities will hereafter flourish where all is now desert; the waters, over which scarcely a solitary boat is yet seen to ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... one fancying that he had caught a glimpse of the great man, and trying to describe him to the old gentleman, who in return told them (no doubt for the thousandth time) what sort of a person the great Lord Clive was. His son, the old Subadar, now and then, with modest deference, venturing to imagine a resemblance between one or the other, and his beau ideal of a great man, Lord Lake. Few things in India have interested me more than scenes ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to the opening of the season. But Mignon herself was counted a powerful adversary. The sympathy of the boys lay for the most part with Marjorie's squad. The Weston High lads were decidedly partial to the pretty, brown-eyed girl, whose modest, gracious ways had soon won their boyish approbation. Among the girls, however, Mignon could count ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of these great working-places—this time, a group of mills as large as a modest village, yet devoted to one special product. In 1864, Mr. Henry B. Seidel purchased a rolling-mill which had already been in operation with varied success for eighty years, and established the manufacture of large plates for iron ships and boilers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... hour next day this timidity had worn off, and they crowded about him with the pointed questions and out-spoken criticisms which constitute the breaking in of a new scholar. The boy received their sallies with such politeness and good humor and with such an air of modest dignity, that the wags soon ceased their gibes for very shame and the ring-leaders began to show in their manner and speech, an air of approval in place of the suspicion with which they had at ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... in the Pan Handle, an' then I went North. In them days Kansas an' Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it, as these days right here on the border of Utah. I got to be pretty handy with guns. An' there wasn't many riders as could beat me ridin'. An' I can say all modest-like that I never seen the white man who could track a hoss or a steer or a man with me. Afore I knowed it two years slipped by, an' all at once I got homesick, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... of naked, vulgar-looking dwellings, scattered up and down our country highroads, which only need a little deft and adroit adaptation of the hospitable feature which I have made the subject of this paper, to assume an air of modest grace, in place of the present indecorous exposure ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... looked for, not in the objective reality, since it was an idle illusion to fancy we could get at that, but in the growth of this conviction itself, and in the prosperous adventure of the whole soul, so courageous in its self-trust, and so modest in its dogmas. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... a woman modest, if she rebuffed her lover in order to increase his passion, or because she feared the law or her ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Noble Dame her offering now prepares.— A Father's counsels, and a Mother's cares. Upon the Altar's gilded surface lie, With winning grace, and sweet simplicity; The gay, yet decent, look; the modest air, Which loves the brow of Youth, and triumphs there; The power to give delight, devoid of art, Which stole unconscious o'er the Lover's heart; The wish to bless, with all those Virgin charms Which heighten'd rapture in a Husband's arms; ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... to afford the least intelligent government means of making rational nominations; but, in all ages, human weaknesses will exercise an influence in one way or another, and artifice will often carry off the prize from modest or timid merit, which awaits a call for its services. But, leaving out of consideration all these influences, it will be profitable to inquire in what respects this choice of a commander will be difficult, even when the executive shall be most anxious to make it ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... that always. Lots of good football players are quiet, modest fellows, ready to mind their own business, if let alone. I guess it must be something in a fellow's nature that makes him long to buck up against difficulties, and down them. And seeing that you've always been so quiet and unassuming a fellow, I hardly know how to apply that to you, either. ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... was another religious reminder. It was a modest pasteboard window card and announced Bible ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... derived from seeing the one is greater than that of the other. Hence those who visit exhibitions, having but a limited time, are gratified; but place one of the chaste productions of CLAUDE LORRAINE, who diligently followed nature with all the tenderness of a modest student, by the side of one of the tinsel class, and observe the ultimate effect. The former will gradually win your admiration, and continue to arouse pleasing reminiscences; the latter will finally ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... hold of. You see, I didn't know but she might be a little rebellious, or resentful of my interference; but in the little gingerly attempts I did make she was so submissive, don't you understand? And she was very modest about Mr. Kendricks' attentions, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... seen the princess, his heart could not withstand those inclinations so charming an object always inspires. She was the most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault, her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red; in a word, all the features of her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore surprising that Aladdin, who had never before seen such a blaze of charms, was dazzled, and his senses ravished ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... beguiled much of the tedious journey, that occupied a week ere it was ended and they entered Paris. Here they were finally set down before a modest dwelling near the King's palace, ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... the crowd to a murmur, during which Sam took breath, casting a bold gaze upon the bystanders. Then again, this man, who could not read, was as gentle, polished, select in his language, as a well-informed person—at other moments modest, measured, attentive, going step by step over the irritating parts of the argument, courteous to his judges. Once only he gave way to a burst of passion. The attorney-general had proved in his speech that Sam Needy had assassinated the director without ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... (Johnson) was born at Torrington in Devonshire, on January 9, 1823. He was the son of Charles William Johnson, a merchant, who retired at the early age of thirty, with a modest competence, and married his cousin, Theresa Furse, of Halsdon, near Torrington, to whom he had long been attached. He lived a quiet, upright, peaceable life at Torrington, content with little, and discharging simple, kindly, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... of happiness. His joy overflowed from his soul like water from a vase placed upon the fire, and in the exasperation of his enthusiasm for Nyssia he had reached the point of desiring that she were less timid and less modest, for it cost him no little effort to retain in his own breast the secret ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... journey to the Grange by easy stages, following so far as I could little used roads and lanes on account of a modest desire to avoid publicity. 'Twas early morning when I reached the Grange. I remember the birds were twittering a chorus as I rode under the great oaks to the house. Early as it was, Cloe and Aileen were already walking in the garden with their arms entwined about each other's waists in girl ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... again. Hail, goodly company of generous youth, Hail, nobler sons of Temperance and Truth! I see attendant Ariels circling there, Light-hearted Innocence, and Prudence fair, Sweet Chastity, young Hope, and Reason bright, And modest Love, in heaven's own hues bedight, Staid Diligence, and Health, and holy Grace, And gentle Happiness with smiling face,— All, all are there; and Sorrow speeds away, And Melancholy flees the sons of day; Dull Care is gladden'd with ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... then turn to this life which we are looking upon to-day. Think of the nameless scandals, the hideous immorality of the reigns that preceded hers, and you will not wonder that every decent man and every modest woman was thankful that, with the young girl, there came a breath of purer air into the foul atmosphere. I am old enough to remember hearing, as a boy, the talk of my elders as to the probabilities of insurrection if, instead of our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... cannot tell what they mean, who are so fond of the leavings of popish dregs.'" When the conformist party had triumphed at Frankfort, they "wrote to Mr. Calvin to countenance their proceedings; which that great divine could not do; but after a modest excuse for intermeddling in their affairs, told them, that, 'in his opinion, they were too much addicted to the English ceremonies; nor could he see to what purpose it was to burden the church with such hurtful and offensive things, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to one small room on the third floor of the little palazzo erected by Luigi in the Via Venti Settembre—a room where he lived cloistered with a single servant, subsisting on his own scanty income, and accepting nothing but that modest ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... invaders and depopulated by plague, it was foaming with civil strife and treason to the national cause, many of the most powerful men and women, both openly and in secret, taking sides with the enemy. The crisis had reached a point when this modest, uneducated, clear-witted, fearless maiden was launched by her "voices" to the scene of battle, there to inspire hope and enthusiasm in the hearts of her people. In a few weeks she had established confidence, smashed the invader, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Chopin's friends were not remiss in exerting themselves to procure him pupils and good fees at the same time. They told all inquirers that he gave no lesson for less than twenty francs, although he had expressed his willingness to be at first satisfied with more modest terms. Chopin had neither to wait in vain nor to wait long, for in about a year's time he could boast of a goodly number ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... avalanches kept falling with a roar like that of artillery. The long stretches of glaciers made a loud echo. The contrast between this wintry scene and the thaw made a wonderful sight. The brig sailed along very near the coast; they were able to see on some sheltered rocks a few bushes bearing modest little roses, some reddish moss, and a budding dwarf willow barely ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... staunch advocate for the marriage of the clergy glow with admiration. "Da mihi uxorem," he commences. "Get me a wife, Frederick, after my own heart, such as you know I should like—neat, young, fairly educated, modest, patient; one with whom I may joke and play, and yet be serious; to whom I may babble and talk, mixing hearty fun and kisses together; one whose presence will lighten my anxiety and soften the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... learn the rules of the Latin grammar in the Latin language—that being the language you were going to learn! I thought then that this was an odd way of learning a language, but did not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now, perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself to think that it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be no less absurd, if we were to set about teaching Biology by putting into the hands of boys a series of definitions of the classes and orders of the animal kingdom, ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... hero, whose real character was marked with nothing but deceit and treachery to his country. It is also amazing, that such men should meet with the highest success, and bear their blushing honors thick upon them, whilst modest merit and true patriotism could neither gain the suffrages of the people, nor the approbation of those who ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... turned from her first long, appraising gaze at the modest home. No change, indeed! The paint on the house was peeling, gutters had rusted out, some of the porch flooring had rotted through, the yard was an unkempt tangle of matted grass and weeds and neglected shrubbery. The sight of it was like a stab to her, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... fairy-like in figure, with an air of modest reserve more in keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand, her appearance produced an astonishment which none of the gentlemen were able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social problems and odd elusive cases! ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... thou seest," the modest youth thereupon made her answer,— "What thou seest is our dwelling, to which I am leading thee downward, And that window yonder belongs to my room in the attic, Which will be thine perhaps, for various changes are making. All these fields, ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... wild band of outlaws, he shows himself sagacious, full of resource, prudent in counsel, and swift as lightning in act; frank and generous, bold and gentle, cheery in defeat, calm in peril, patient in privations and ready to share them with his men, modest and self-restrained in victory, chivalrous to his foes, ever watchful, ever hopeful—a born leader and king ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... "that he was a common frequenter of ale-houses, not only himself sitting dayly tippling there ... but hath oft been drunk,"—a charge indignantly denied by the royalists, who asserted that he was a "worthy Pious man, ... always ... a very Modest, Sober Person;" and this latter claim is supported by the fact that though the Puritans sequestered the rich living, they made no objection to his serving as rector at Brixted Parva, where the living was "such a Poor and Miserable one that it was always with difficulty ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... history of our earth— springing irrepressibly out of the facts, like the Djin from the jar which the fishermen so incautiously opened; and like the Djin again, being vaporous, shifting, and indefinable, but unmistakably gigantic. However modest the bases of one's calculation may be, the minimum of time assignable to the coal period remains ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Germany. Lord SYDENHAM attributed it to the Declaration of London, which had crippled the Navy; Lord BERESFORD thought it was the result of trying to run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. Lord LANSDOWNE, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by appointing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... and faithful servant was now gone for a soldier. In addition to all this, poor Mr. Bumpkin could not help recalling the happiness of his past life, his early struggles, his rigid self-denial, his pleasure as the modest savings accumulated—not so much occasioned by the sordid desire of wealth, as the nobler wish to be independent. Then there was Mrs. Bumpkin, who naturally crossed his mind at this miserable moment in his existence—at home by herself—faithful, hardworking woman, who believed not only in her ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... of that army, holding the command of the centre—either nominally or actually the second in command. Upon his judgment and military skill every commander of that army depended, and no movement was made without his approbation. Yet so modest was he that his face would color with blushes when his troops cheered him, which they did at every opportunity; and so diffident, that, prior to the battle of Chickamauga, he doubted his ability to handle large bodies of troops upon the battlefield, and for this reason refused to accept ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... you know, sometimes 'goes by favour,'" said father's old friend, smiling; and then, to turn the current of conversation from this rather personal theme, Captain Mordaunt, as I afterwards found out for myself when I sailed with him, being of a singularly modest and retiring disposition, he abruptly asked, ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... amiss by Rama done Offend thee, O thou wicked one, What least transgression canst thou find In her, thou worst of womankind? What shade of fault in her appears, Whose full soft eye is like the deer's? What canst thou blame in Janak's child, So gentle, modest, true, and mild? Is not one crime complete, that sent My Rama forth to banishment? And wilt thou other sins commit, Thou wicked one, to double it? This is the pledge and oath I swore, What thou besoughtest, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the power which violates the right, still greater is the power which protects the right. To destroy is much easier than to build. To be great and to be proud means not to be great at all. To be great and to be modest means real greatness and belief in God. For who can be proud believing in God? Or who can feel God in this Universe and still say, I am great? Our modesty is only our confession that there is a God. Since we see both ends of our life—birth and death—so near us, ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... the Confraternity of that name. It was founded in the city of Manila by the Confraternity of La Misericordia of Lisboa, and by the other confraternities of India. [351] It has apostolic bulls for works of charity, such as burying the dead, supporting the modest poor, marrying orphans, and relieving many necessities. There the slaves of the city are treated, and lodgings are likewise ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... virtues," Deborah Watts was saying, trying to assume a modest attitude, and failing; "but I think I am fairly courageous—that is, I meet big things rather ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... not even average. Every time she saw him she wondered afresh at his extraordinary wealth of attraction. One could have forgiven him a few airs and mannerisms; but no forgiveness was asked: in every single phrase she found him always the modest, unassuming, high-bred gentleman. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... keeping in mind real immediate human interests; as the sentimentalist has to be reminded of the importance of strictly logical considerations. And I think too that a very brief study of the most famous systems of old days will convince us that philosophers should be content with a more modest attitude than they have sometimes adopted; give up the pretensions to framing off-hand theories of things in general, and be content to puzzle out a few imperfect truths which may slowly work their way into the general structure of thought. I wish ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a faculty of caricature, consisting "chiefly in a certain superficial distortion or reversal of objects"—the method of Swift or Voltaire. That is, Carlyle uses irony in the common English sense; the Socratic irony, the irony of the "Modest Proposal." The earliest attempt that I have encountered to interpret to the English public what Tieck and the Schlegels meant by "irony" is an article in Blackwood's for September, 1835, on "The Modern German School ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... "I'm modest. My merit's an uncertain quantity, but there's no doubt about your influence. I'd ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Under the chilling sky. Roll'd o'er that mass Had Tabernich or Pietrapana fall'n, Not e'en its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams The village gleaner oft pursues her toil, So, to where modest shame appears, thus low Blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice the spirits stood, Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork. His face each downward held; their mouth the cold, Their eyes express'd the dolour of their heart. A space I look'd around, then ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... with his modest savings and lost them. He had borrowed and lost again, and now, for some time, had been betting on horse races. This last had made him acquainted with a certain Montgomery Hicks, who lived well without visible source of income. Through Hicks, Owen had betrayed one of his employer's ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard |
