"Recluse" Quotes from Famous Books
... needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained—a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "I think he good; he ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... assigned herself was done. To acquaint Bruce's father with Sprudell's plot and enlist him on Bruce's side seemed altogether the easiest part of her plan. She had no notion that she was the brilliant lady-journalist to whom the diplomat, the recluse, the stern and rock-bound capitalist, give up the secrets of their souls, but she did have an assured feeling that with the arguments she had to offer she ... — The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... summon through her little window would consider herself honoured and benefited by being allowed to minister to her even in the meanest manner. The loss of liberty was much assuaged and compensated, by being set against such advantages as these. The recluse was considered the holiest of nuns, not to say of women, and the Countess of Oxford herself would have held it no degradation to ... — One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... creed, but take you with me into that upper chamber that looks toward the golden sunrise. I would share your happiness and give you in return a portion in the hope that I too have found. With you at my side I could walk through the world, (for I am not such a recluse as you might suppose,) knowing that the desire of all men's hearts had fallen to me, and that my life was consecrated henceforth to noble uses. And yet to-day I ... — The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... to start with empty wallets. They asked but little, believing that in a few days help would arrive. "My friends," said the hermit, "earthly affairs no longer concern me. In what way could a poor recluse assist you? What could he do but pray for the help you need! My best hopes and wishes you may be assured of." With these words this latest among ... — The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... their country, by the agency of a long-promised messenger from heaven.* The rulers of the Jews, their leading sect, their priesthood, had been the authors of this persuasion to the common people. So that it was not merely the conjecture of theoretical divines, or the secret expectation of a few recluse devotees, but it was become the popular hope and Passion, and, like all popular opinions, undoubting and impatient of contradiction. They clung to this hope under every misfortune of their country, and with more tenacity as their dangers and calamities increased. To find, therefore, that expectations ... — Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... that he leads two lives, the one trivial and ordinary, the other sacred and recluse; the one which he carries to the dinner-table and to his daily work, which grows old with his body and dies with it, the other that which is made up of the few inspiring moments of his higher aspiration and attainment, and in which his youth ... — The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby. The offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed, incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr Abney's pursuits or temper. The ... — Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... dove, as fierce as a hawk when aroused; moving always in an eccentric orbit, which few understood; flashing out now and then gleams which some said were sparks of genius but which most people said were mere eccentricity, he had sunk into a recluse. He was in this state when he met HER. He always afterward referred to her so. He was at a reception when he came upon her on a stairway. A casual word about his life, a smile flashed from her large, dark, luminous eyes, lighting up her face, and Henry Floyd awoke. She had called him from the dead. ... — The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... comparative. From so large a collection of letters, written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventful a life, we should have expected a complete and spirited view of the literature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A traveller—a poet—a scholar—a lover—a courtier—a recluse—he might have perpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure of the age and body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hope of finding such information as this, will be ... — The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... man many more questions, but could get nothing much further from him. All I could gather was that the Trewinions had been a great people, but had fallen on evil days as the result of their own sinning, and that the present representative of the family was a recluse, living alone in the old Manor House, and that many curious stories ... — Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... have certainly made you see, a recluse of the most uncompromising type; but he was such for only half his time. From ten in the morning till five in the afternoon, he came and went like any other citizen, fulfilling his judicial duties with the same scrupulous care as formerly and with more affability. Indeed, ... — Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... in succession, a flush of morning sun; and Otto looked so gay, and walked so airily, he was so well dressed and brushed and frizzled, so point-device, and of such a sovereign elegance, that the heart of his cousin the recluse ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know that if they can boast a knighthood or a baronetcy or a Privy Councillorship, they will taste day by day and every day that respect, that confidence from all about them that no one but a trained recluse despises. And life will abound in opportunities. "Oh, well!" they will say. Such things give them influence, consideration, power ... — Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... glad to see Philip here to-night," Mary was saying, while Eve fastened for her the clasp of a refractory bracelet. "We were afraid he was becoming quite a recluse, and that must ... — A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... manner. With astonishing suddenness he could raise insurmountable barriers; and people, not of his order, who occasionally presumed on his simplicity of life and habits, found themselves put distinctly ill at ease by a quiet, curious look in his eye. No man was ever more the recluse and at the same time the man of the world. He had had his bitter little comedy of life, but it was different from that of his brother Frank. It was buried very deep; not one of his family knew of it: Edward Lambert, and one or two others who had good reason never to speak ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... were several bigamists; and one who was not only a heretic but a leader of heretics. For, among other heresies which he taught, one was that God had a beginning, [a doctrine] which only very learned men understood. Another was a prebend whom his illustrious Lordship held as a recluse in our college, for heinous and atrocious crimes, whose final end was a sentence of degradation, and delivery to the secular arm; the dean settled this case, without examining the documents in the case (which they did not find), by condemning ... — The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... whole. The classic movement, against which he set his face steadily, was not to be easily annihilated; it survived in Rome in such illustrious representatives as Canova, Thorwaldsen and Gibson. But Overbeck grew more and more the recluse; he shortly became a proselyte to the Romish Church, shut himself out from other associations, and thus after a time devoted his ... — Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... inquisitive and acquisitive, versatile yet stubborn, with thrift passing over into avarice, and mental power degenerating into smartness; cold and hard under long repression of emotion, yet capable of passion and fanaticism; at worst, a mere trader, a crank, a grim recluse; at best, endowed with an austere physical and moral beauty. Miss Jewett preferred to touch graciously the sunnier slopes of this provincial temperament, to linger in its ancient dignities and serenities. Miss Brown has shown the ... — The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... absent for two years, and during that time his friends heard much good of him. He lived the life of a recluse and a hard worker. He learned to know his own strength, and taught the world to ... — Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... making discoveries about life, and about myself. I had naturally some elements of the recluse, and would never, of my own choice, have lived in a crowd. I loved quietness. The noise of machinery was particularly distasteful to me. But I found that the crowd was made up of single human lives, not one ... — A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... mother, shadowed by the same cloud of dismay. I smothered in small halls situated over saloons and livery stables, travelling by freight-train at night in order to ride in triumph as "Orator of the Day" at some county fair, until at last I lost all sense of being the writer and recluse. ... — A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... where we stood. A horse or two and a couple of cows were tethered near, and we could hear the bark of a dog. A more complete hermitage could not have been desired by Diogenes himself, and for the first time we felt ashamed of invading the recluse in such a formidable body, but ungrudging, open-handed hospitality is so universal in New Zealand that we took courage and began our descent. It really was like walking down the side of a house, and no one could stir a step without at least one arm ... — Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... a silly-headed creature with no ideals or principles. You have nothing of the adventuress in your composition, but you are a young woman, with personal charms and talents, and life will be unutterably desolate for you if you make a recluse of yourself. You will be surrounded by people of artistic temperaments and tastes, and I know, if you do not, that many of these people do lack ideals, and some of them lack principles and take pride ... — A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... say 'hermit,' I mean 'recluse.' With all the will to be a social success and identify myself with the welfare of the place in which I dwell, my powers are circumscribed. Do not think I put myself above the people, or pretend any intellectual superiority, ... — The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... life of a perfect recluse with her child, during her husband's absence, at his villa somewhere in the south—near Marseilles, where the ... — Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... will find me so," said Herbert, interested more and more in the rough-looking recluse, about whose life he suspected there must be some sad secret, of which the world ... — Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... first bishop of Saintes, and St. Eustelle lived a recluse in her cavern, where miracles were long afterwards performed by her, and where she expired at the same moment that her holy companion suffered the martyrdom which secured him a crown of glory ... — Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... enemy came out against me with eight hundred men, whilst I had eight hundred thousand. I trusted in the number of my troops, whilst mine enemy trusted in God; so he defeated me and routed me and I was put to a shameful flight and hid myself in one of the mountains, where I met with a recluse, [who had] withdrawn [himself from the world]. So I joined myself to him and complained to him of my case and acquainted him with all that had befallen me. Quoth he, "Knowest thou why this befell thee and thou wast defeated?" "I know not," answered I, and ... — Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished ... — The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... have said, to look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak of the dark girl's which brought him there, for he had the air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse. ... — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... what's more, An officer," like his type of yore; And he asked if we grant such toleration, Pray, what's the use of our Reformation? What is the use of our Church and State? Our Bishops, Articles, Tithe and Rate? And still as he yelled out "what's the use?" Old Echoes, from their cells recluse Where they'd for centuries slept, broke loose, Yelling responsive, "What's ... — The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and undeniable fact; the captain no longer set foot inside the Cafe de Paris, where the chemist, it was averred, once more reigned in his stead, to the profound sorrow of the retired magistrate. An even more incredible statement was that Captain Burle led the life of a recluse in the Rue des Recollets. He was becoming a reformed character; he spent his evenings at his own fireside, hearing little Charles repeat his lessons. His mother, who had never breathed a word to him of his manipulations with Gagneux, maintained her old severity of demeanor as she sat opposite ... — Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... course of instruction in that institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew, applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber, he devoted ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... on my return, to lead a quiet, recluse life; but God knows and does best for us all; at least so they say, and I have nothing to object, as, on the whole, I have no reason to complain of my lot. I trust this will find you well, and as happy as one can be; you will, at least, be pleased ... — My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was the child of George's uncle, who was a recluse living at Tunbridge. He was a scholar and a pedant, and concerned himself but little about his only child, whose fortune ... — Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... authority, to avoid doing that which I proclaim my readiness, though not my willingness, to do, I can only say, that you are the first who has doubted the faith of Hugo de Lacy."—And while the proud Baron thus addressed a female and a recluse, he could not prevent his eye from sparkling, ... — The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... taking lessons in painting ever since I arrived, I was always very fond of it and mean to stick to it; it suits me and I am not without hopes that I shall do well at it. I live almost the life of a recluse, seeing very few people and going nowhere that I can help—I mean in the way of parties and so forth; if my friends had their way they would fritter away my time without any remorse; but I made a regular stand against it from the beginning and so, having my time pretty much in my own hands, work ... — The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... "Perhaps his father, the scientific recluse, had accumulated some money, and the boy came to America to get rid of it. He will be extravagant and wasteful for awhile, and then go back to his island with the idea that he has ... — Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... is!" exclaimed Manita. "Oh, I am so glad to see him!" and she bounded on ahead of Oliver. The recluse, for such he seemed, welcomed Manita affectionately, but his gaze was turned towards Oliver. "Who are you, young sir?" he exclaimed, looking from one to the other of ... — The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... a mockery! Once I had foreseen myself wearing it in the smoking-room at a late hour—the centre of a group of eminent men entranced by the brilliancy of my conversation. And now—! I was nothing but a small, dull, soup-stained, sticking-plastered, nerve-racked recluse. Nerves, yes. I assured myself that I had not seen—what I had seemed to see. All very odd, of course, and very unpleasant, but easily explained. Nerves. Excitement of coming to Keeb too much for me. ... — Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is ... — The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... for an Empire when its leading counsellors are ignorant. I will not question your good intentions, Halil, but it strikes me as very comical that you should wish us, on the strength of the prophecy of a Turkish recluse, to declare war against one of our neighbours who is actually living at peace with us, is doing us no harm, and harbours no mischievous designs against us. You speak as if Europe was absolutely uninhabited by any but ourselves, as if there was no such thing as powerful nations on every ... — Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... Christianity the solitudes in this Fenland had peculiar attractions for the hermits who fled from the world to embrace an ascetic life. Thus the islands each gradually got its hermit, and the great monasteries grew up by degrees, starting usually in the cell of some recluse. Guthlac, who lived in the seventh century, was of the royal House of Mercia, and voluntarily exiled himself in the Fens. This region was then, according to popular belief, the haunt of myriads of evil spirits, who delighted in attacking the hermits. They assaulted Guthlac ... — England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... death an angel informed him of the time of his departure, and that his lady would die a fortnight after him, which happening accordingly, they were both buried in the grave together. A romantic cavern, at the place called Guy's Cliff, is shown as the dwelling of the recluse. The story is a curious relic of the religious ideas of ... — Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... to his stay at Ceuta beyond the general suggestion and encouragement to take up a life-profession of discovery, it was at any rate put into practice on his second and last return (1418). From that time to the end of his life he became a recluse from the Court life of Lisbon, though he soon gathered round himself a rival Court, ... — Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... promise, destined to become distinguished. But the years slipped by, and his literary performance, consisting of desultory essays and several slight volumes of verse, was not enough to justify the prophecy. His life more and more became that of a bachelor recluse and valetudinarian. When he died, in 1881, at sixty years of age, after much suffering heroically borne, as pathetic entries in the last leaves of his Diary remain to show, there was a feeling that here was ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the telephone and called up New Scotland Yard. There followed some little delay before the requisite information was obtained. Finally, however, we learned that the Professor was something of a recluse, having few acquaintances, and ... — The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... forsake their homes, renouncing their luxurious life, and fly to the jungle, where they wander about for years as ascetics, wearing a single garment, subsisting on the most elementary food, and developing their spiritual consciousness. John remained a recluse until he reached the age of about thirty years, when he emerged from the wilderness to preach the "Coming of the Lord," in obedience to the movings of the Spirit. Let us see where he was, and what he did, during the ... — Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." ... — The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... the three brothers whom I have mentioned above as our neighbors, had not been remarkable during his lifetime, in consequence of his recluse habits, but became the more remarkable after his death, by leaving behind him a direction that common workingmen should carry him to the grave, early in the morning, in perfect silence, and without an attendant or follower. ... — Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Cape Ann children shout in glee, Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse; Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose Go honking northward over Tennessee; West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie, And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung, And yonder where, gigantic, willful, young, Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates, With restless violent hands and casual ... — Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... the recluse. "Your young eyes will wax heavy with these midnight vigils. You must sleep, my boy, and to-morrow I will communicate ... — Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... in the Middle and Eastern States, during the period of song, only in the deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampy localities. On this account the people in the Adirondack region call it the "Swamp Angel." Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the comparative ignorance that prevails ... — Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... somewhat of a recluse in her habits; she was a nervous, diffident woman, who made weak health an excuse for shutting herself out from society. Fay had lived with her ever since her father's death; but during the last year Miss Mordaunt had been ... — Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... form a mound over the skeleton. Jack, therefore, with his axe, cut down the other door-post, which, when it was done, brought the whole hut in ruins to the ground, and thus formed a grave to the bones of the poor recluse and his dog. Then we left the spot, having brought away the iron pot, the pistol, and the old axe, as they might be of much use to ... — The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... conversed with a motley crew of French, Italians, Danes, Greeks, Turks, and Americans,—wrote to his mother and others, saying he had swum from Sestos to Abydos, was sick of Fletcher bawling for beef and beer, had done with authorship, and hoped on his return to lead a quiet recluse life. He nevertheless made notes to Harold, composed the Hints from Horace and the Curse of Minerva, and presumably brooded over, and outlined in his mind, many of his verse romances. We hear no more of the, Maid of Athens, but there is no fair ... — Byron • John Nichol
... rapturous rejoicing of celestial beings, but his conception of the angelic nature remains unapproached, unapproachable: it is only his, for it was the gentle, passionless, refined nature of the recluse which stamped itself there. Angelico's angels are unearthly, not so much in form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become feeble and insipid. With their ... — Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... hunted, shot, or fished with the squiredom of the country. He was of large form, loud voice, had a sullen look, and no trust in her Majesty's ministers for the time being. At length, on some occasion of peculiar public excitement, the recluse had gone to Gravesend, where, tempted by the impulse of the moment, he had broken through his reserve, dashed out into a diatribe of singular fierceness, but of remarkable power, accused England of all kinds of oppression to all kinds ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... said she, looking also, and thinking what a sketch it would make, if she could keep on friendly terms with this old recluse, and get leave to sit in the garden. Then her conscience smiting her for selfishness, she turned her big eyes on him and ... — Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... grace and grandeur with the habits and sentiments of a recluse,—of austerity of life with gentleness of manner,—of inflexible moral principle with humility and even bashfulness of deportment, is delineated with the most beautiful and wonderful consistency. Thus when her brother sends to her, to entreat her mediation, her first feeling is ... — Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Monk or the devotee abandons society, becomes a recluse, flees into the desert or the mountain, subsists upon roots or herbs, sits in one posture till the joints of the body become fixed, holds the arms above the head till they become immovable, and the finger nails turn and grow through ... — The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... archimagus, first established by Zoroaster at Balch, but removed in the seventh century to Kerman, a province in Persia on the southern ocean. To gain the better reputation to his pretensions, Zoroaster first retired to a cave, and there lived a long time as a recluse, pretending to be abstracted from all earthly considerations, and to be given wholly to prayer and divine meditations; and the more to amuse the people who there resorted to him, he dressed up his cave with several mystical figures, representing ... — Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... conscious that her pride, which made a humble occupation repulsive to her, was a false pride. If it could have been carried on in private, it would not have seemed so galling. For years she had been a recluse from society, mingling only with her humble neighbors, and with them no more than her circumstances required. She had labored in solitude, and shunned observation as much as possible, by carrying her work back and forth in the evening. Years of hard toil had not ... — Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... more,—have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by their aid with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility, as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's day's work on the railroad. 'Tis said, the present and the future are always rivals. Animal spirits ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the "Recluse," translated from D'Arlincourt's popular novel Le Solitaire, and think the commendations bestowed upon it, in the translator's preface, just in the main. It is precisely such a novel as I should suppose would be very ... — Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... fond of the form of Lectures, because it seems to me the most natural form which in our age didactic composition ought to take. As in ancient Greece the dialogue reflected most truly the intellectual life of the people, and as in the Middle Ages learned literature naturally assumed with the recluse in his monastic cell the form of a long monologue, so with us the lecture places the writer most readily in that position in which he is accustomed to deal with his fellow-men, and to communicate his knowledge to others. It has no doubt certain disadvantages. In a lecture ... — India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... "For fifteen years you have lived the life of a recluse—a useless recluse, mind you. And why? Because of pride,—sheer pride. Those who had known you in the strength of your manhood, those who had known you as Nick the dare-devil, should never see the broken cripple. Pride ... — Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... in respect to his duty. It is said that he had a brother who was a monk, or rather hermit, who lived a life of reading, meditation and prayer, in a solitary place not far from Falaise. Arlotte's father sent immediately to this religious recluse for his spiritual counsel. The monk replied that it was right to comply with the wishes of so great a man, whatever they might be. The tanner, thus relieved of all conscientious scruples on the subject by this high religious authority, and rejoicing in the opening tide ... — William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... one should perform the offices conventionally attached to his station. In this way a perfunctory citizenship and humanity were restored to the philosopher. But the restored life was merely histrionic: the Stoic was a recluse parading the market-place and a monk disguised in armour. His interest and faith were centred altogether on his private spiritual condition. He cultivated the society of those persons who, he thought, might teach him some virtue. He attended to the affairs of state so as to ... — The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... found the would-be suicide looking very weak, sick, silly, and sheepish. He got well, and went on making pictures; but the picture of the fair, sweet girl, for love of whom he came so near dying, never faded from his mind. His face always wore a sad look, and he lived the life of a recluse, but he never attempted suicide again—he had ... — California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship—for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many ... — Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... written, when first perceiving that life was to be her portion, where her own intended feelings were ascribed to a maiden who had taken the veil, believing her crusader slain, but who saw him return and lead a recluse life, with the light in her cell for his guiding star. She smiled sadly to find how far the imaginings of four and twenty transcended the powers of four and thirty; and how the heart that had deemed itself able to resign was ... — The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proceeded to give me his advice upon my future conduct and pursuits in the university; remarked that his old friend, my father, could not have selected a more unfortunate person to usher me into notice: that his habits were those of a recluse, and his associations confined almost within the walls of his own college; but that his good wishes for the son of an old friend and schoolfellow would, on this occasion, induce him to present me, in person, to the principal of Brazennose, of whom ... — The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... moment old Christian came out, stood by the shoulder of the horse and rested his hand on Marks' knee. It was strange familiarity for such an acrimonious old recluse, and even at the distance the attitude of Woodford's henchman ... — Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... Sir Percivale, and smote him so on the helm, that it rove to the coif of steel; and had not the sword swerved Sir Percivale had been slain, and with the stroke he fell out of his saddle. This jousts was done to-fore the hermitage where a recluse dwelled. And when she saw Sir Galahad ride, she said: God be with thee, best knight of the world. Ah certes, said she, all aloud that Launcelot and Percivale might hear it: An yonder two knights had known thee as well as I do ... — Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... said to be derived, or rather corrupted, from A'rd Seir, a 'place or field of arrows,' where people shot at a mark: and this not improperly; for, among these cliffs is a dell, or recluse valley, where the wind can scarcely reach, now called the Hunter's Bog, the bottom of ... — Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... and ranged themselves in clearer shapes under the fresh, quickening breath of Coleridge's swift and discursive dialect. The radiant restless vitality of the more variously gifted man stirred the stiffer and more sluggish nature of the recluse to its depths, and Coleridge's quick and generous appreciation of his power gave him precisely the encouragement that ... — Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... town. A mysterious Mrs. Ventress is the centre of its rapidly unfolding series of peculiar situations. Mrs. Ventress is a puzzle to the townspeople. They believe odd things about her. The particular family in Tupton with which she comes in contact is an eccentric one. The father is a recluse—for reasons. His adopted daughter, Bessie Gedney, is an odd character among young girls in fiction. Dr. Gedney's real daughter had disappeared years before. Why? What has become of ... — When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... immediate environment. But it is quite compatible with a neglect of those wider aspects of duty that we call public morality. The Stoics, the anchorites, some communities of monks, and many a well-to-do recluse today, are examples of those who have found a selfish happiness for themselves without taking any hand in forwarding the general welfare. Yet the greatest total good is not to be attained in any such way; if man is to win in his inexorable ... — Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... gray stands the House, four-square to the wind, Embosomed in the hills. The garden old Of yew and box and fishpond speaks her mind, Sweet-ordered, quaint, recluse, fold within fold Of quietness; but true and choice and kind— A sober casket for a ... — Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... acknowledge, that, amongst some instances of importunity and coarse expressions of low-bred curiosity, I witnessed, on the part of many people of rank, a most delicate sensibility to the condition of the aged recluse. On sending in their cards, they would generally accompany them by some message, expressive of their unwillingness to gratify their wish to see him at any risk of distressing him. The fact was, that such visits did distress him much; for he felt it a degradation to be exhibited in his helpless ... — Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... rich, various, and instructive. Attached to his mountain home, and loving solitude as the nurse of his genius, he was no recluse, but keenly enjoyed the pleasures of social intercourse. He had seen much of the world, and lived on terms of intimate friendship with some of the most illustrious characters of his day. His reading was extensive, but select; indeed, his mind could assimilate only ... — Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... four days had passed and the recluse had not returned her call. True, there had come to her hotel a wicker full of superb wild tree blooms, and, again, a tiny box, cunning in workmanship of scented wood, containing what at first glance she had taken ... — The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... something in this report—in the manner of the man as well as his words—that caused the strangers to hesitate. The description of "the Student" led them to suspect he was a recluse who might not welcome them cordially, but Mary Louise reflected that there was a daughter and decided that any American girl shut up on this three-acre "estate" for three years would be glad to meet another American girl. So ... — Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... much even beyond these surpassingly beautiful things, and make a more unique and distinctive contribution to the verse of his era. In the years that followed the production of his early writings the poet matures in thought as his art ripens and reaches still higher qualities of craftsmanship. Recluse as he was, he moreover had his experiences of life and drank deeply of sorrow's cup, as we see in "In Memoriam,"—that noble tribute to his youthful friend, Arthur Hallam, with its grand hymnal qualities and powerful and reverent lessons for an age shifting ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... have never bathed in eastern moonlight, the description will sound hyperbolical and false. But when I think of those old days, how serene they were, how apart, I let the words stand: I am not artist enough to give them a more plausible simplicity. All conditions that a recluse might crave seemed now to be fulfilled for my benefit. The virgin forests and great hills were a perpetual joy, but there was a tranquil pleasure in the plantation which man's labour had reclaimed from these. That was a meet place indeed for the meditation of a quiet ... — Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... any other play, though but of a few lines. A similar peculiarity, though in a less degree, attends Mr. Wordsworth's style, whenever he speaks in his own person; or whenever, though under a feigned name, it is clear that he himself is still speaking, as in the different dramatis personae of THE RECLUSE. Even in the other poems, in which he purposes to be most dramatic, there are few in which it does not occasionally burst forth. The reader might often address the poet in his own words with reference to ... — Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the anxious guard followed to the steps and even within, talking earnestly, and no doubt pointing out the danger, yet if the owner unexpectedly appeared he met him at the threshold and fiercely defended the door against the proprietor himself. Occasionally the erratic recluse went to the floor—a place never visited by his little attendant, whose trouble was almost painful to see. He at once placed himself on the lowest perch, stretched out and looked over, following every movement with his eyes, in ... — In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he never attained during ... — Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... recluse is not God's kind—only running water is pure; the living love of a live man and woman absolves itself, refines, benefits, and blesses, though it be the love of Aucassin and Nicolete, Plutarch and Laura, Paola and Francesca, Abelard and Heloise, and they go to ... — Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... he carried with him a pamphlet he had written in 1889, an eulogium of the painter. On the way he asked his fellow-travellers for Cezanne's address, but in vain; the name was unknown. In Aix he met with little success. Evidently the fame of the recluse had not reached his birthplace. At last Bernard was advised to go to the Mayor's office, where he would find an electoral list. Among the voters he discovered a Paul Cezanne, who was born January 19, 1839, who lived at 25 Rue Boulegon. Bernard lost no time and reached a simple ... — Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Allerton had offered him the living in accordance with the family tradition that required a man of attainments to live in the neighbouring rectory. He had been there now for many years, a spare, grey-haired, gentle creature, who lived the life of a recluse in that distant village, doing his duty exactly, but given over for the most part to his beloved books. He seldom went away. The monotony of his daily round was broken only by the occasional receipt of a parcel of musty volumes, which he had ordered to be bought for ... — The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... poem, is only part of what Wordsworth meant to write. He meant in three books to give his opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be called The Recluse. To this great work The Prelude was to be the introduction, hence its name. But Wordsworth never finished his great design and The Excursion remains a fragment. Much of The Excursion cannot be called poetry at all. Yet, as one of Wordsworth's great admirers has ... — English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... sister—Margaret's and mine; but I ought not to think of it, since a recluse should have no kindred out of her Order and the blessed saints. And there are three Sisters in the Priory named Alianora: wherefore, to make diversity, the eldest professed is called Alianora, ... — In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... governor, forcing a laugh; "who would believe that a mere recluse, a man almost dead, could have committed crimes so numerous, and ... — The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... male attire, and of whom it had been said that she could outleap, outfence, and outswear any man her size, had made a fine match indeed, marrying an elderly nobleman and widower, who for years had lived the life of a recluse, at last becoming hopelessly enamoured of one who might well be ... — His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wall nearly as high as the eaves of the building. The wall suggests an asylum, a house of detention or some like place set apart for the unfortunate members of society. In reality, however, it is the residence of a mysterious recluse of the name of Lane, who shut himself up there nearly eighteen years ago and has since been rarely seen. It was built after his own plans, they say, when he came to Ogdensburg with his wife, who died soon afterward. Nobody knows whence he came or anything of his past history. ... — The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... has for its heroine a little French girl brought up in an old chateau in Normandy by an aunt who is a recluse and devote. A child of this type transplanted suddenly to the realistic atmosphere of New York must inevitably have much to suffer. The quaint little figure blindly trying to guess the riddle of duty under these unfamiliar conditions ... — Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel[1337], and came to ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... inquiry where Johnnie was, Maggie had replied that she had gone nutting by previous engagement with Mr. Alvord, and as the party returned in the glowing evening they met the oddly assorted friends with their baskets well filled. In the eyes of the recluse there was a gentler expression, proving that Johnnie's and Nature's ministry had not been wholly in vain. He glanced swiftly from Burt to Miss Hargrove, then at Amy, and a faint suggestion of a smile hovered about ... — Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... proud that she would have died rather than let the Spencervale people, among whom she had queened it in her youth, suspect how poor she was and to what straits was sometimes reduced. She much preferred to have them think her miserly and odd—a queer old recluse who never went anywhere, even to church, and who paid the smallest subscription to the minister's salary of ... — Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head. It wasn't altogether a normal life. She was only a woman, with all the aspirations of a woman, with all the yearning of youth for its measure of gayety and pleasure. True, she had not made a recluse of herself outside her work; but, equally, on the other hand, she had not made any intimate friends in her own station in life. She had never purposed continuing indefinitely the work she was doing, nor did she now; but, little by little, ... — The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... fierce little notes is not the gentle recluse we are apt to imagine him. They show, on the contrary, that he was not wanting in spirit when occasion demanded. He was himself upright and honest in all his dealings. And he never forgot a kindness, as more than one entry in his will abundantly testifies. ... — Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... thereby to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athene:—how much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray! ... — Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... has been thrown into prison on the charge of high treason; when all they proved against him was the remark, that if the king had signed the Quebec bill, he had broken his coronation oath. There, another, a poor harmless recluse, as I have ever supposed him, is dragged from his hut in the mountains and imprisoned to await his trial for an alleged murder, committed long ago, and in another jurisdiction; when his only crime, with his prosecutors, ... — The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... like myself, have once lived in intellectual society, and then have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate the delight of finding it again. Not that I have any right to complain, if I were fated to live as a recluse for ever. I can add little, or nothing, to the pleasure of any company; I like to listen rather than to talk; and when anything apposite does occur to me, it is generally the day after the conversation has taken place. I do not, however, love good talk the less for these defects ... — Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... letter to Wordsworth (February 8, 1804), thinking, perhaps, less of the chieftain than the sonnet, exclaims, "'Oh for one hour of Dundee!' How often shall I sigh, 'Oh for one hour of The Recluse!'"—an aspiration which ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... bring out the fact that between these two men, so different in outward fates,—between "the adored, the incomparable Nelson" and the homely poet, "retired as noontide dew,"—there was a moral likeness so profound that the ideal of the recluse was realized in the public life of the hero, and, on the other hand, the hero himself is only seen as completely heroic when his impetuous life stands out for us from the solemn background of the poet's calm. And surely these two natures taken together make the perfect Englishman. ... — Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... son of Baron Barminster, was one of the most noted figures in fashionable society. His father, who since the death of Lady Barminster had lived almost as a recluse, spent the days in the old Castle, and had practically abdicated in favour of his son. So that the colossal income accruing from the coal mines of Wales, the rentals of the Leroy estates in the Southern Counties, and the ground rents of a considerable acreage in one of the ... — Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... all," muttered he, as he wandered aimlessly from one deserted room to another: "the very house seems under a spell. Sybil, sitting like a recluse in her own rooms, growing pale, and wild-eyed, and spectre-like, every day. Evan, in his room, sick with drink, and verging on the D. T. Mother, gliding like a stately ghost from the one to the other, or closeted in her own room; she has not been down stairs ... — The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had never done any hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life. I had lived a placid, uneventful, sedentary existence all my days—the life of a scholar and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life and athletic sports had never appealed to me. I had always been a book-worm; so my sisters and father had called me during my childhood. I had gone camping but once in my life, and then I left ... — The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... name assumed by the daughter of a recluse naturalist in the valley of Virginia. She had known no life but that of the open country, where she ran wild all summer, aiding her father in collecting plants and butterflies. At twenty she had never seen a city, and her social contacts ... — Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... not to behold the eye-sparkle of pure admiration between young man and maid? 'They worship, truly, they know not what.' In bowing down to their ideal, they bow to the real human—the purified man or woman of the better land. The recluse is ever the true prophet and seer, in this as in still higher matters. Your modest-eyed student, stealing glances of unfeigned admiration at ordinary maidens, is not such a simpleton as some suppose. His seclusion has cleared his vision. He sees on through the eons—sees ... — Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... capacious, incipient *Caput, capitis head cape (Cape Cod), decapitate, chapter, biceps Cedo, cessum go concede, accessory Centum hundred per cent, centigrade *Civis citizen civic, uncivilized *Clamo shout acclaim, declamation *Claudo, clausum close, shut conclude, recluse, cloister, sluice Cognosco (see Nosco) *Coquo, coxi, coctum cook decoction, precocious *Cor, cordis heart core, discord, courage Corpus body corpse, incorporate Credo, credituin believe creed, discreditable Cresco, ... — The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... addition, Darrell's peculiar mental condition and the fact that his identity was enveloped in a degree of mystery rendered him doubly interesting. In the case of each this was his introduction to the social life of Ophir. Each had been a resident of the town, the one as a student and recluse, the other as a business man, but each was a stranger to the stratum known as society. Each held himself aloof that evening from the throng: the one, through natural reserve, courteous but indifferent to the passing crowd; the other alert, watchful, studying the crowd; ... — At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... return more than twice, Pringle never at all, and there came a time when Archie even desisted from the Tuesday Club, and became in all things - what he had had the name of almost from the first - the Recluse of Hermiston. High-nosed Miss Pringle of Drumanno and high-stepping Miss Marshall of the Mains were understood to have had a difference of opinion about him the day after the ball - he was none the wiser, he could not suppose himself to ... — Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sharply around the hillsides. No guardrails blocked the descent into the steep gullies. It was definitely a region for people who liked solitude. The farms that lay in the valleys of the hills were neat and well-cared for, however. The people Fenwick passed on the road didn't look like the recluse type. ... — The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... be wondered that I became a recluse. The recluse is usually one cast up from such bleak experiences of sin and grief that he fears to launch upon life again, and only seeks to hide him in any cavern that may be found along the shore that has received him. Thus ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... this admirable second leads us through one of the most entertaining of tutti frutti which we have ever met in the form of a biography. It is fortunate that IRVING—so generally imagined by 'those of the second after-generation' as a quiet recluse on the banks of the Hudson—was in reality, in his early time and full prime, a traveler, a man of the world, somewhat of a diplomat, and one who knew the leading minds of Europe and of his own country in the days when there were giants. It is really pleasant to travel in ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... financial rascality on the Bourses of France and Spain. After his sudden death from a stroke of apoplexy, the Princess shut up the great house in the Rue Saint-Lazare and retired with a maid to three rooms on the second floor, where she lived the life of a recluse. From thenceforth she lived solely for deeds of charity on a colossal scale. During five years she founded the St. Mary's Infant Asylum, the St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum, an Asylum for the aged at Chatillon, ... — A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... pleasant kitchen, was tempted to linger. Sallie's conversation yielded, to the discerning, something of the rich essence of the past; and Agatha began to yearn for a better knowledge of the recluse who had been her friend, unknown, through all the years. But she remembered her industrious plans for the day and postponed her ... — The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... lost in revery. The pure, ever-present breeze of Mackinac played in his long silvery hair, and his bright eyes roved along the wall of the old house; he had a broad forehead, noble features, and commanding presence, and as he sat there, recluse as he was,—aged, alone, without a history, with scarcely a name or a place in the world,—he looked, in the power of his native-born dignity, worthy ... — Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... this point. "It is the oldest of the seigniories," he continued. "In fact, it has never passed out of the hands of the original owners, because it is almost uninhabitable in winter, except by Indians. I understand that M. Duchaine has built himself a fine chateau there; but then he is a recluse monsieur, and probably not ten men have ever visited it. But mademoiselle is too fine a woman to ... — Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... amid the fields, in quiet introspection, and he might well be accused of a species of Pharisaism, were these poems not so artlessly and passionately sincere, and often so tinged with religious awe. His withdrawal, in his verse, from the life of his times was the act of a natural recluse. ... — Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... villager, a poor provincial," said the youth, in a somewhat maidenly voice. "The manners of your great city embarrass me. I admire but cannot imitate them. I have been always a recluse, a ... — Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... recluse, he was by no means an ascetic. He was marked by deep gravity of countenance coupled with a kindly humorous disposition. No one knew where he came from, or why he had taken up his abode in such a lonely spot. ... — Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... for the woman was his property, if he thought fit to claim her, by virtue of the marriage already had; but it was a present supply of her necessary wants, by which he acknowledged her as his wife, and engaged to furnish her with alimony, not ample indeed, but suitable to the recluse life which ... — Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... part, the rock itself. There stands what is now described as the Einsiedlerstein,—that is, the stony dwelling of the hermit; a grievous misnomer surely,—for though the last occupant of that dwelling was doubtless a recluse, its original purpose, which for many ages it served, was that of a strong-hold, or castle. And perhaps nowhere, even in Germany, can a more perfect specimen be pointed out of the sort of nest which used, in the dark ages of feuds and forays, to shelter the robber-knights ... — Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... and involuntary shudder ran cold over the affrighted girl, as with a wild and appalled look she gazed on the recluse birds, which their arrival had disturbed; she clung eagerly to Gomez Arias, as they both sat down on ... — Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Baird, the recluse of the Temple, was sometimes met in Hall's chambers. When he lifted his hat, the white locks growing amid the black, magnificent masses of hair caught the eye, and set the mind thinking on the brevity ... — Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Murtagh, with his wonderful stories of the Pope. These were the friends with whom he spent the real life of his latter days, and it is hardly surprising that under the influence of their companionship he should have become somewhat of a recluse, and lost touch ... — George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name was Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, and—" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour "—and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it is better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions should get about, ... — Widdershins • Oliver Onions |