"Taciturn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taciturn, crotchety, strict; I seldom laugh, and people say I am growing like Radish, and, like him, I bore the men with ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... gloomy heart. It is certain he became Prince Henri's Adjutant soon after, and that in his KRIEGSKUNST, amidst the clearest orthodox admiration, he manifests, by little touches up and down, a feeling of very fell and pallid quality against the King; and belongs, in a peculiarly virulent though taciturn way, to the Opposition Party. His Book, next to English Lloyd's (or perhaps superior, for Berenhorst is of much the more cultivated intellect, highly condensed too, though so discursive and far-read, were it not for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... realized that he was placing everything upon the cast of a die. He undertook the campaign with a measure of confidence. He, almost as much as Grant, was a taciturn man, not much given to revelations of his purposes and hopes. No doubt he was somewhat surprised at the successful rising of the Union forces against him. Besides the Army of the Potomac, Pennsylvania seemed to rise ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... and out. Salina had come up from the Farnham's deserted mansion to spend the evening with aunt Hannah, and arrange the preliminaries for a "husking frolic," which was to take place on the morrow in uncle Nathan's barn. But she found the good lady so taciturn and gloomy, that even her active spirit was awed into stillness. So the two women remained almost in silence, knitting steadily, with a round candle-stand ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... found him tired and taciturn. She respected his mood, and said little, and they rode out and out from the town and up and up into the Westchester hills, dotted with dogwood, pink and white like huge nosegays. As the night came ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... had already presented itself to me. And that was, that the ha'nt was a very flesh and blood woman. Radnor was clearly in some sort of trouble; he was moody and irritable, so sharp with the farm hands that several of them left, and unusually taciturn with the Colonel and me. To make matters worse Polly Mathers was treating him with marked indifference, and openly bestowing her smiles upon Mattison; what the trouble was I could only conjecture, but I feared that she too had been ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... the ball-room when several men entered. They were Griffenberg, Baron Wirsch, the Beltons and the other financiers; they were all talking together and laughing, and their faces were flushed with triumph. Close behind them, but grave and taciturn as ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... when they first came aboard. The crowd called him Dashalong. Upon inquiry, Leonard found it to be Deschaillon. The young man who read the articles was named Farnol Greer. However, he proved a silent, taciturn youth, who seemed to converse with no one and to have ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... so alluring that they could not make up their minds to go inside. On the basket chairs in the low verandah they sat down, and looked and talked. Primrose did not talk much—she was quiet; nor Mr. Falkirk—he was taciturn; the burden of talk was chiefly borne by Wych Hazel and the Doctor. In a genial, enjoying, sympathising mood, Dr. Maryland came out in a way uncommon for him! asked questions about the woods, the property, the old ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... letter from Miss Benson, saying that Leonard was not quite well. There was so much pains taken to disguise anxiety, that it was very evident much anxiety was felt; and the girls were almost alarmed by Ruth's sudden change from taciturn langour to eager, vehement energy. Body and mind seemed strained to exertion. Every plan that could facilitate packing and winding-up affairs at Abermouth, every errand and arrangement that could expedite their departure by ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... days before my meeting with Francis, I had received tidings of the death of an old relative, whom I scarcely knew. In my childhood I had, on one or two occasions, spent my holidays at his house. He was gloomy and taciturn, but nevertheless he had always welcomed me kindly. I have a vague remembrance of having been told that he had been in love with my mother once upon a time, and that on hearing of her marriage he had retired into the solitude which he never ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... blow which had overtaken her with humble submission. She was then over thirty years of age, all her children had died, and her husband did not long survive. The time had arrived for her to come to a sense of her position; she did so. She became very taciturn and devout, never missed a single Matins service, nor a single Liturgy, and gave away all her fine clothes. Fifteen years she spent quietly, peacefully, with dignity, quarrelling with no one, yielding to every one. If any ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... found himself smoking a cigarette and walking up and down outside in the company of Uncle Pentstemon, while Mr. Voules replaced bottles in hampers and prepared for departure, and the womenkind of the party crowded upstairs with the bride. Mr. Polly felt taciturn, but the events of the day had stirred the mind of Uncle Pentstemon to speech. And so he spoke, discursively and disconnectedly, a little heedless of his listener as wise old ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... mind), could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a great liking and respect for this well-balanced, taciturn woman. She was the first woman for whom he had experienced any such feeling ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... be a success, I took up my book again, and began to read. Yet it was a strange thing that, though we sometimes passed whole hours together without speaking when we were alone, the mere presence of a third—sometimes of a taciturn and wholly uninteresting person—sufficed to plunge us into the most varied and engrossing of discussions. The truth was that we knew one another too well, and to know a person either too well or too little acts as a ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... twelve hours. Why the treadmill and the crank with their periodical respites must be pastime compared to this maddeningly monotonous occupation, which combines hard labour, with the wrist at any rate, with next to solitary confinement. One can understand these men becoming gloomy and taciturn, and affirming that they sometimes see devils hovering over the bottle-racks and frantically shaking the bottles beside them, or else grinning at them as they pursue their humdrum task. Still it may be taken for granted that the men who reach ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... that you were far away Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near? Who might have been, set on some outstep sphere, Less than a Want to me, as day by day I lived unware, uncaring all that lay Locked in that Universe taciturn ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... last upon their way returning, Taciturn, late, and loath, Through the broad meadow in the sunset burning, They reached the gate, one fine spell hindered ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... suddenly, and, going to Peterhead in its days of whaling prosperity, had there taken service on a whaler. Here off and on he had remained for some years, getting gradually more and more silent in his habits, till finally his shipmates protested against so taciturn a mate, and he had found service amongst the fishing smacks of the northern fleet. He had worked for many years at the fishing with always the reputation of being 'a wee bit daft,' till at length he had gradually settled down at Crooken, where the laird, doubtless ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... into the canal. Whisperings and murmurings were heard all round the cutter's decks. Obadiah Coble shrugged up his shoulders, as he took an extra quid—Dick Short walked about with lips compressed, more taciturn than ever—Jansen shook his head, muttering, "Te tog is no tog"—Bill Spurey had to repeat to the ship's company the legend of his coming on board over and over again. The only persons who appeared not to have lost their courage were Jemmy Ducks and poor ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, [v]taciturn stripling, All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered, Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness, Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom, Thus made ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... religious views he was exceedingly taciturn. He had no taste for metaphysical or theological discussions, although his library contained a large number of standard works on these subjects. Religion itself he never alluded to but with the deepest respect. Talking to me of Christianity, he quoted the observation of Goethe, that "it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... cures and extraordinary treatments, while the other, taller and more robust, although much younger, was Isagani, one of the poets, or at least rimesters, who that year came from the Ateneo, [6] a curious character, ordinarily quite taciturn and uncommunicative. The man talking with them was the rich Capitan Basilio, who was returning from a ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Empire, for a long time, he was enlisted in 1813, serving on the Guard of Honor. At Leipsic he was captured by the Russians and did not reappear in France until the Restoration. He suffered severely in Siberia; at thirty-seven he appeared to be fifty. Pale, lean, taciturn and somewhat deaf, he bore much resemblance to the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. He succeeded, however, in making himself agreeable to Renee de Maucombe whom he married, dowerless, in 1824. Urged on by his wife who became ambitious after becoming a ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... the first ride either Indian had ever had in an automobile, but the quick run back to the city seemed to make no impression upon them. Leaving the taciturn Crees in the baggage car, well supplied with sandwiches, fruit, and a half dozen bottles of ginger ale, the others once more headed for the Zept home. In two hours the expedition would ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... the gay talk-fests that filled their evenings, they began to hold long pessimistic discussions about their future on the island in case rescue were indefinitely delayed. Taciturn periods fell upon them. Frank Merrill showed only a slight seriousness. Billy Fairfax, however, wore a look permanently sobered. Pete Murphy became subject at regular intervals to wild rhapsodical seizures when he raved, almost in impromptu verse, about the beauty of sea and sky. These ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... it, Mallery?" Pliny asked in the same breath; while even the taciturn doctor questioned, "What is the meaning of ...
— Three People • Pansy
... of that day the engineer seemed preoccupied by some absorbing thought. He was unusually taciturn, and there was a scared, bewildered look in his eyes, as that of a man who has seen a ghost. At night, as we two were sitting alone in the lodging we shared together near the mouth of the mine, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of tears and violence, he had withdrawn to the palace of Thebes, alone, taciturn, and sombre; and there, instead of remaining seated on his throne in the solemn attitude of the gods and of kings, who, being almighty, neither move nor make a gesture, he walked feverishly up and down through the vast halls. Strange was it to see that tall Pharaoh with ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... gentleman, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Prussian Commandant of Stettin. Not over rich (would not even be rich if he came to be reigning Duke, as he will do); attentive at his post in those parts, ever since the Siege-of-Stralsund time; has done his orders, fortified Stettin to perfection; solid, heavy taciturn man:—of whom there is nothing notable but this only, That last year his Wife brought him a little Daughter, Catharine the name of her. His Wife is a foolish restless dame, highborn and penniless; let her ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... of the Jesuits, also accompanied the Bishop. His close, black soutane contrasted oddly with the gray, loose gown of the Recollet. He was a meditative, taciturn man,—seeming rather to watch the others than to join in the lively conversation that went on around him. Anything but cordiality and brotherly love reigned between the Jesuits and the Order of St. Francis, but the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... forests, canyons, mountains, valleys, and on lake and seashores are great observers of Nature, and her many and varied phenomena. He who deems the Indian dull, stolid and unimpressionable, simply because in the presence of the White Race he is reserved and taciturn, little knows the observing and reflecting power hidden behind so self-restrained a demeanor. Wherever natural objects, therefore, are of a peculiar, striking, unusual, unique, or superior character, it is reasonable to assume that ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... his fall among the fading flowers; every spring it was like Death himself urging on the resurrection; but he lived on year after year, and tended well Evelina's garden, and the gardens of other maiden-women and widows in the village. He was taciturn, grubbing among his green beds as silently as a worm, but now and then he warmed a little under a fire of questions concerning Evelina's garden. "Never see none sech flowers in nobody's garden in this town, not sence I knowed 'nough to tell a pink from a piny," he would mumble. ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as though General French would never tire. He rode on far ahead of his men—stern, taciturn, resolved—as they rushed across the veldt to Kimberley, or hastened to the doom of Cronje. Our soldiers did their best to follow, and did so till their horses dropped dying or dead upon the veldt. It says much for their Christian enthusiasm that after such days as these, and knowing that only ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... glance back at Bellegarde, black and formless against an empty sky; and he dared not look again, for the thought of her that lay awake in the Marshal's Tower, so near at hand as yet, was like a dagger. With set teeth he followed in the wake of his taciturn companion. The bishop never spoke save to growl ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... companion. Lumbe rejoined them at the footbridge which led across the meadows into the Heredith estate, and they proceeded on their way in silence. Sergeant Lumbe's brain—such as it was—was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently; Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the outcome of his investigations of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his promotion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Georg Ludwig" (Electoral Prince and Heir-Apparent), who became George I. of England; he, always a taciturn, saturnine, somewhat grim-visaged man, not without thoughts of his own but mostly inarticulate thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deep domestic intricacy. Uncle George the Kurprinz was painfully detecting, in these very ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... one cavalier in particular appears to hold himself aloof, neither speaking to his neighbors nor mixing in the throng. As he does not look like a "sulky swell," rendered taciturn by an overweening sense of his own importance, he is probably either a new resident in the county or a "stranger from a distance"—which, none whom I ask seems to know. There is something about ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... and then for the approbation of the bystanders, who declare they bear no resemblance to his Honor, or any one of the Board of Aldermen. One chubby urchin, with a bundle of Tribunes under his arm, looks mischievously into the pit, and says, "His 'Onor 'ill want the Tribune." Another, of a more taciturn disposition, shrugs his shoulders, gives his cap a pull over his eyes, and says, spicing his declaration with an oath, "He'll buy two Heralds!—he will." The taciturn urchin draws them from his bundle with an air of independence, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... gloomy and taciturn in the uninclosed passage between the two rooms, watching alternately the fire-flies, as they instarred the dark woods with ever-shifting gold sparks, and the broad, pale flashes of heat lightning which from time ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... always made his approaches very gradually. The taciturn humility with which he commenced his operations was in exact proportion to the enthusiastic volubility of his advanced intimacy. Mrs Yeld thought that it became her to address to him a few civil words, and he replied to her with a shame-faced modesty that almost ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... save in Angela's own studio, which she had herself made beautiful with a brightness and lightness found in no other corner of the vast and stately abode. Her father, Prince Pietro Sovrani, was of a reserved and taciturn nature,—poor but intensely proud—and he would suffer no interference by so much as a word or a suggestion respecting the manner in which he chose to arrange or to order his household. His wife Gita ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... they are naturally taciturn, and public and unfriendly criticism has been proved to be a hazardous diversion. If the thought and comment of the stranger upon the mountaineer could be compared with the keen and often humorous analysis of the stranger the score would be found in surprizing ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... on the island a few weeks Christian became more gloomy and taciturn, and his conduct to the others grew more overbearing and unreasonable day ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... institution, even this excuse for the omission cannot be made, for a stipulation was imposed by Mr. Girard in his will, that no minister of any denomination should ever enter its walls, even as a visitor, though this, we understand is not carried out. For the first time in America we met here with a most taciturn official, and could learn much less than we wished of the manner in ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... and the sun went down in the west; still the interloper, gloomy and taciturn, made no signs of departing. But as the evening advanced (whether the darkness was congenial to his sombre thoughts, or whether it merely chanced so) he seem'd to grow more affable and communicative, and informed Gills ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... crept through the moon-vine. Out on the wide veranda was the long table. They were a happy group at luncheon there. Even the taciturn Brand Williams had been persuaded to come. His native picturesqueness was rather effaced by a black, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... serious talk from a man I was accustomed to see either gay or taciturn so surprised and overwhelmed me that I could not frame a reply. He left me thinking over what he had said. Whatever was the soundness of his logic or the moral tone of his philosophy, his argument greatly impressed me. I could see, in spite ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... bad to worse. Claes became more taciturn and more invisible to his family. He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his habits. Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master's secrets. Mme. Claes had a rival. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... differences between them arose generally from the petulant quickness of the Prince; for in his son his own irascible character was joined with the melancholy gravity which Giovanni inherited from his mother, and in virtue of which, being taciturn, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... moment of his return she knew no peace of mind. Rough work was afoot, of which he told her nothing, and she knew he was playing his part in it. On more than one occasion she noticed fresh-broken skin on his knuckles. At such times he was remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding silence or go almost immediately to bed. She was afraid to have this habit of reticence grow on him, and bravely she bid for his confidence. She climbed into his lap and inside his arms, one of her arms around ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... was the day when the Lord who sitteth upon the floods did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliverance of the English dominions from popery and slavery." We wonder how the taciturn Hollander received this effusion of Connecticut? There is nothing more to add on the situation of the Catholics in the land ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... married, and his beautiful young wife died, leaving me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told, changed him—made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his temper also, except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger brother—my uncle Silas—which he ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Loves not the common people!" Humph! I stand As MARCIUS would not, in the market-place, And show my wounds to the people. Is that pride? I stooped to—her!—let me not think of that; 'T would poison paradise!—but is that pride? The Roman pride was stiff and taciturn, And I,—they tell me, I "will still be talking," And no MENENIUS is by to say In charity of the modern MARCIUS, "Consider this:—he has been bred i'the wars Since he could draw a sword, and is ill-school'd In bolted language: meal and bran together He throws ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... an interlude the fugitive hoped with confidence to have lost himself in a taciturn and apathetic wilderness of peak-broken land where his discovery would be as haphazard an undertaking as the accurate aiming of a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... forget the way that valet turned on poor Kennaway (for that was the detective's name) and laid him flat on the grass. Such a snarl of rage I never heard. The man seemed transformed in an instant from a silent, reserved, taciturn servant to a very maniac, fighting with teeth and claw, cursing and swearing horribly, and as ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... was made, Fogg was taciturn and gloomy-looking, but attended strictly to his duty. Ralph voted him to be a capital fireman when he wanted to be. As an hour after midnight they spurted past Hopeville forty minutes to the good, he could not help shouting over a delighted word of commendation ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... crystal-clear morning, with mist in the hollows and the hilltops sharp against the sky. When Stark, taciturn as ever, came to the door at nine o'clock, he found his party impatiently awaiting him on the doorstep, eager for another day of new ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... and already their brown eyes Are heavy with the poison of the air. Here never note of amorous bird consoles Their drooping hearts; here never the gay songs Of their Abruzzi sound to gladden these Pathetic hands. But taciturn they toil, Reaping the harvests for their unknowrn lords; And when the weary labor is performed, Taciturn they retire; and not till then Their bagpipes crown the joys of the return, Swelling the heart with their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... taciturn, seemed quite enlivened and talkative this day; but I verily believe that not the slightest ostentation or vanity inspired him, for I never before or since heard him talk or allude to his own good deeds: I am convinced his motive was to excite me to persevere in my ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... idea of publicity—a mistake for which Birralong soundly condemned them—they had kept their own counsel for days—days when, as Marmot impressively pointed out, Slaughter had visited the store and displayed that taciturn manner which was so easily understood under ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... was the Italian sailor whom all the Europeans in Sulaco, following Captain Mitchell's mispronunciation, were in the habit of calling Nostromo. And indeed, taciturn and ready, he did take excellent care of his charge at the bad parts of the road, as Sir John himself acknowledged to Mrs. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... packer was a taciturn inhabitant of the wilds who seldom indulged in an unnecessary remark. There was, however, no moroseness about him; the man was good-humored in his quiet way, and his usual ruminative calm was no deterrent from apparently tireless action. For the most ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... of the chambermaid. She is not the taciturn invisible that steals in and out of your bed-room, and does it up when you are at breakfast or at your out-door business—whom you never see, except by sheer accident, as in the American hotel. She is an important and prominent personage ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... himself in again with Father Kaleb, whom he had ordered to write down his last will; then he confessed himself, and after receiving the sacrament, he summoned Zbyszko, and the old taciturn Tolima, who used to accompany him in all his expeditions and fights, and in times of peace administered ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... men had continued their stroll and had passed from the Piazza del Popolo to the Corso. Giovanni was taciturn and moody. He looked straight ahead, failing to notice the gayly attired beauties thronging that great thoroughfare, who at ordinary times would have engrossed his attention. Not so with Esperance; he admired the vivacious ladies on the sidewalk or in ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... taciturn as some cave-keeping anchorite. During our inward progress, he had carefully pointed out every place and object of interest, and hurled his blue-lights here and there into domes and pits and cavernous retreats ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... quantity of information; but when they came to be reflected on, it was universally observed that nothing tangible could ever be got out of them. The housekeeper, a weird old woman, with a very abrupt and repelling manner, was too fierce and taciturn to be safely approached. The few indoor servants had all been long enough in the family to have learned to hold their tongues in public as a regular habit. It was only from the farm-servants who supplied the table at the Abbey that any information could be obtained, and vague enough it was ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the nature of an Englishman's feelings toward a Russian. My performance on the roof has put them in the best of humor, and has evidently whetted their appetites for further amusement. Pointing to a stolid-looking individual, of an apparently taciturn disposition, and who is one of the respectably-dressed few, they accuse him of being a Eussiau; and then all eyes are turned towards me, as though they quite expect to see me rise up wrathfully and make some warlike demonstration against him. My undemonstrative disposition forbids ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... little butte, leaving the taciturn ever-watchful Gutierrez sitting cross-legged on the ledge near me, with his projector ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... with Nina public as soon as he returned to Sunnybank, but as Mr. Russell's home was in Tallahassee, and he himself a quiet, taciturn man, he had not heard of it, and in speaking of Nina to Edith, he called her Miss Bernard, as usual, and thus Richard still remained in ignorance, never suspecting that golden haired Nina was the same young girl he had married ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, and taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and courtly manners, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and twenty Thomas was quite a colossus, already bearded and extremely like his father. But although he had a lofty brow and energetic features, he was somewhat slow both in mind and body. And he was also taciturn, almost unsociable, absorbed in filial devotion, delighted with the manual toil which made him a mere workman at his master's orders. Francois, two years younger than Thomas, and nearly as tall, showed a more refined face, though he had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... stars flickered and swam, deep down. Peter could have sworn he heard their thin, tinkling, submerged, funny song, somewhere above or beneath the soft and melodious "Cherie Birri-Bim," that someone (not Lord Evelyn's beautifully trained and taciturn poppe) ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himself from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster and station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... which he was completely taciturn, he said: "I reckon maybe this hyeh lonesome country ain't been healthy for Em'ly to live in. It ain't for some humans. Them old trappers in the mountains gets skewed in the haid mighty often, an' talks out loud when nobody's nigher 'n ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... brother, who seemed more taciturn, turned and nodded to two youngsters who had come out of the cabin while Tom was speaking. The elder of the two, a boy about thirteen years old, went into the shack and returned in a moment bringing out two rifles. I turned the broncho's head up ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... see that the work was being done as quickly as possible. She had interviews with Captain Wilson, who commanded the Ida, and Mr. Maurice Phillips, the first officer. She asked them both to dinner. Captain Wilson, a Scot, was taciturn and suspicious. He regarded the job before him as an objectionable kind of practical joke, likely, before it was over, to impair his natural dignity. Mr. Phillips was filled with delight at the prospect. He was a young man with curly fair hair and ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... in America read Rabelais and Madame Bovary. Then they ought to study some of the old English poets, like Marvell, to give them precision. It's lots of fun telling them these things. They respond famously. Now over in my country we poets are all so reserved, so shy, so taciturn. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... business, not excepting that of the Post Office, would come to a standstill. I went into the Mercantile Bank and found only Chinese clerks, in the Post Office and only saw the same, and when I went to the "P. and O." office to take my berth for Ceylon, it was still a Chinaman, imperturbable, taciturn, independent, and irreproachably clean, with whom I had to deal in "pidjun English." They are everywhere the same, keen, quick-witted for chances, markedly self-interested, purpose-like, thrifty, frugal, on the whole regarding honesty as the best ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... with cheerfulness, and was taken in charge by Morris, who, having passed on Iberville and Gering to the drawing-room, was once more at his post, taciturn as ever. The governor and his friends had gone straight to the drawing-room, so that Morris and he were alone. Wine was set before the sailor and he took off a glass with gusto, his eye cocked humorously towards his host. "No worse fate ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... doubt, this early realization of the conspicuous part he was to play in the history of his time that made the youthful Bonaparte reserved of manner, gloomy, and taciturn, and prone to irritability. He felt within him the germ of future greatness, and so became impatient of restraint. He completely dominated the household. Joseph, his elder brother, became entirely subject to the imperious will of the future Emperor; and when in fancy Napoleon ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... of his father that he never wailed. His puppy yelps passed with his lanky legs, so that he became grim and taciturn, quick to strike, slow to warn. He answered curse with snarl, and blow with snap, grinning the while his implacable hatred; but never again, under the extremest agony, did Leclere bring from him the cry of fear nor of pain. This unconquerableness but ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... subdued throughout the next day; his head was full of the oppressive secret, and he had no heart for new enterprises. At school his mates found him taciturn and uncompanionable, and Joel Ham was astonished at his obedience and industry. Harry Hardy returned home on the Wednesday evening, and visited Mrs. Haddon's kitchen that night. His head was swathed in bandages, and he was pale and hollow-eyed. Dick felt strange towards ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... be extremely jealous, saying that already Lillian cared more for Mrs. Morrison than she did for her; and on the other hand, although she herself had been sociable to the last degree with her neighbors, they openly preferred her taciturn companion. "It is well that virtue is its own reward, for it certainly does not get any other, in my ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... assigned, I do not recollect; I think, for Newfoundland, but certainly for some part of the coast of America. Yet everybody at the police office saw and knew that England was my object. They connived, nevertheless, at the accomplishment of my wishes, with significant though taciturn consciousness. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... walnut-shell for the baser sort. Paul Hentzner, who travelled in England in 1598, and Monsieur Misson, who wrote precisely a century later, note almost in the same words "a perpetual use of tobacco"; and the latter suspects that this is what makes "the generality of Englishmen so taciturn, so thoughtful, and so melancholy." In Queen Elizabeth's time, the ladies of the court "would not scruple to blow a pipe together very socially." In 1614 it was asserted that tobacco was sold openly in more than seven thousand places in London, some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... that she had never before known John Pendleton. The old taciturn moroseness seemed entirely gone since they came to camp. He rowed and swam and fished and tramped with fully as much enthusiasm as did Jimmy himself, and with almost as much vigor. Around the camp fire at night he quite rivaled Jamie with his story-telling ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... from the beginning of their journey and had struck up an especial friendship with the Indian whose dog had tackled the wild cat and had been later crushed by the Kodiak bear. The red man, while not morose, was taciturn, and replied to all questions with monosyllables and scarcely a smile. He showed friendliness in other ways, and as he became better acquainted with the boys responded to the young Scout leader's approaches. Day by day and word by word he inducted Rand into ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... became reserved and taciturn, which the more surprised me, as, up to the present moment, he had at all times been remarkably communicative with respect to his affairs and prospects. From what I could learn from his broken hints and innuendoes, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... from the tavern, one night, in a rather desponding mood, he found the man Wollaston smoking his pipe in bed. Wollaston was a taciturn man generally, but this night he was conversational, and Mr. Taggett, too restless to sleep, fell to chatting with him. Did he know much about the late Mr. Shackford? Yes, he had known him well enough, in an off way,—not to speak of him; everybody ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... any success attended his labors. Later he struck it rich, and in 1865, as soon as the snow melted on the mountain passes, he got together a party of men and several women and left Sacramento. He was a burly miner, bearded and uncouth, of rough speech and taciturn nature, and absolutely fearless. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... ordinarily taciturn man wanted to unburthen his mind. He was desirous of talking to some one of Jack Meredith; and perhaps Jocelyn reflected that she was as good a listener as he would find ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... a moment rather taken aback, he heard his father mount the stairs to his room. He was puzzled by the unexpected and unusual occurrence, but finally concluded that his father, realizing how taciturn they had become of late, wished to resume their former status, and this view was confirmed to his mind by the fact that they had been more companionable than usual that evening, albeit that nothing of any ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... full understanding of this history to explain how the natural discernment and spirit of analysis which old women bring to bear on the actions of others gave power to Mademoiselle Gamard, and what were the resources on her side. Accompanied by the taciturn Abbe Troubert she made a round of evening visits to five or six houses, at each of which she met a circle of a dozen or more persons, united by kindred tastes and the same general situation in life. Among ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... Bulan ["moon"] were his two favorites, and to these he gave each a fiery palace. In accordance with the wish of their father, Agueo and Bulan daily passed across the earth side by side, and together they furnished light to mankind. Now, Agueo was of a morose and taciturn disposition, but he was always very obedient to his father; Bulan, on the other hand, was ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... five rubbers. Lessingham was by far the most expert player, and he and Philippa in the end were the winners. The two men stood together for a moment or two at the sideboard, helping themselves to whisky and soda. Griffiths had become more taciturn than ever, and even Philippa was forced to admit that the latter part of the evening had scarcely been ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be Christians. But it was only the Jews whom the word set a-shivering. It is as I tell you—the Jew is painfully sensitive. Well, to cut my story short, Anna did not have a happy time of it. She was all alone, surrounded though she was by many people. She became taciturn in spite of herself. And this is a great misfortune when it happens with womenfolk. Women are naturally great talkers, and you may do them much harm, if you do not give them a chance to talk. So I became her crony as soon ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... high-boots, and a devil-may-care air that deceived no one but himself; a few Shuswaps and Siwashes, fat, ill-smelling, insolent, and plainly highly amused in their beady, watchful, black, ferret eyes at the mad ways of this white race; a still more ill-smelling Chinaman; and a taciturn, grizzled, ragged fellow, paying no attention to the fat squaw, keeping his observations and his thoughts inside his high-boots, but likely as not to turn out the man who {107} would conduct the squaw to the bank or the express office ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... Nannie's sense of duty to her charge led to requests and demands that took my mother's breath away. Eggs at unusual times, the reboiling of milk, the rejection of an excellent milk pudding—not negotiated respectfully but dictated as of right. Nannie was a dark, longfeatured, taciturn woman in a grey dress; she had a furtive inflexibility of manner that finally dismayed and crushed and overcame. She conveyed she was "under orders"—like a Greek tragedy. She was that strange product of the old time, a devoted, trusted servant; she had, as it were, banked all her ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... not say much. He is as taciturn as M. L. N. Bonaparte, et possede un grand talent pour le silence. Changarnier is a man of great nerve and energy, and is perfectly up to street warfare and to the management of the unruly Parisian population. He is popular with the soldiery and with the higher officers. As to his having ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... think, had better fortune than any of the others. Once I saw him land a large and handsome "speckled trout," to the unmistakable envy of his brother anglers. Still a third was a younger man, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a taciturn habit; no less persevering than Number Two, perhaps, but far less successful. I marveled a little at their enthusiasm (there were many beside these), and they, in their turn, did not altogether conceal their amusement at the foibles of a man, still out of Bedlam, who walked and walked and walked, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... in August, he and Eleanor went to Green Hill for a few days vacation, the effect of this repression was marked. There were wrinkles on his forehead under the thatch of his blond hair; his blue eyes were dulled, and he was taciturn to the point of rudeness—except to Eleanor. He was very polite to Eleanor. He never, now, amused himself by imagining how he could disappear if he had the luck to be in a theater fire. He knew that because he had enslaved himself to a lie, he had lost ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... mute friend, mark me, in my case the malady is not so exalted. I only want my green fields, my dark mountains, my early rivers, with liberty to tread them for a brief space. There lies over them in my imagination—there does, my worthy and most taciturn friend, upon my soul there does—a golden light so clear, so pure, so full of happiness, that I question whether that of heaven itself will surpass it in radiance. But now I am caged once more, and will never see anything even ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... many of the French officers, and soon became a favorite among them. He met Gernois, whom he found to be a taciturn, dyspeptic-looking man of about forty, having little or no ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... over. The great contrast between the reality she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man of business who had lurked in her imagination—a man with clothes smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk flavoured with epigram—was such a relief to her that Elfride smiled, almost laughed, in ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... be Sarudine, a captain of cavalry, one of Lida's most persistent admirers. The other was Lieutenant Tanaroff, who regarded Sarudine as the ideal soldier, and strove to copy everything he did. He was taciturn, somewhat clumsy, and not so good-looking as Sarudine. Tanaroff rattled his spurs in ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... capable of real friendship, it must certainly be the most disagreeable present he can possibly make to a man of a true English character. You know, madam, we are naturally taciturn, soon tired of impertinence, and much subject to fits of disgust. Your French friend intrudes upon you at all hours; he stuns you with his loquacity; he teases you with impertinent questions about your domestic and private affairs; he attempts to meddle in all your concerns, and ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... seemed to be about the middle age, wore his own black hair without any sort of dressing; by his garb, one would have taken him for a quaker, but he had none of the stiffness of that sect, on the contrary he was very submissive, respectful, and remarkably taciturn. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... at the strange old edifice, which had been so exactly described by the romancer, that no one could mistake it. Some even ventured to knock at the door and seek further information. They were received by a mysterious and taciturn old Hebrew, who looked as if he himself had charge of the great Rennepeal treasure, and three-quarters of the visitors went away convinced that they had seen the veritable Samuel himself. Now that the whole house has been thrown open to the public, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... during which Buvat—remaining absent from the office on pretext of indisposition—succeeded in completing the two copies, one for the Prince de Listhnay, the other for Dubois. During these four days—certainly the most agitated of his life—he was so taciturn and gloomy that Bathilde several times asked him what was the matter; but as he always answered nothing, and began to sing his little song, Bathilde was easily deceived, particularly as he still left every morning as if to go to the office—so that she saw no material alteration ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... part, Bruce did not particularly welcome the sea. There might be another man somewhere. No woman so beautiful as Kathlyn could possibly be without suitors. And when the journey down to the sea was resumed he became taciturn and moody, and Kathlyn's ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... latter individual a somewhat sullen and taciturn man of middle age, who had more the appearance of an Austrian than a Brazilian, and with a swinging gait and an uprightness of bearing which were ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... soon out of the town, and in a very beautiful country. After proceeding some distance on the high road, we turned off, and were presently in one of those mazes of lanes for which England is famous; the stranger at first seemed inclined to be taciturn; a few observations, however, which I made, appeared to rouse him, and he soon exhibited not only considerable powers of conversation, but stores of information which surprised me. So pleased did I become with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... exists of Rossetti at twenty-seven conveys the idea of a nature rather austere and taciturn than genial and outspoken. The face is long and the cheeks sunken, the whole figure being attenuated and slightly stooping; the eyes have the inward look which belonged to them in later life, but the mouth, which is free from ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... attended to a taciturn silence broken by never a sound to indicate that he wasn't a lonely tenant of the little dwelling, then irresolutely lifted a foot to the first step—and withdrew it. If she continued to sleep, why disturb her? He had much to do in ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... guarded with the utmost care. The Indians, who seemed to be from some tribe about the Great Lakes, did not speak any dialect he knew, and, if they understood English, they did not use it. He was compelled to do all his talking with the Owl who, however, was not at all taciturn. Robert saw early that while a wonderful woodsman and a born partisan leader, he was also a Gascon, vain, boastful and full of words. He tried to learn from him something about his possible fate, but ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his mother's story; and Buntingford had been able to verify it in all essential particulars by the evidence of the old bonne, who had lived with Anna in Paris before her flight, and had been present at the child's birth. The old woman was very taciturn, and apparently hostile to Buntingford, whom she perfectly remembered; but ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... handed him Captain Bontnor's epistle. She watched his face as he read—she had a trick of watching her husband's face. This was a hopelessly taciturn man, but ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... while in the sedentary, such as the printing, weaving, tailoring, and shoemaking trades, there are usually a considerable proportion of fluent speakers, in the laborious trades, on the other hand, such as those of the mason, ship-carpenter, ploughman, and blacksmith, one generally meets with but taciturn, slow-speaking men. We need scarce say in which of these schools we have been trained. You will at once see—to borrow from one of the best and most ancient of writers—that we are "not eloquent," ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller |
