"Distrustful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a placid, rather weak nature, true and steadfast in his dealings with others, and quite capable of holding his own as long as he kept in a certain groove; but for a man he was strangely uncertain and distrustful of himself, and one who always found it easier to take advice ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... uncertain, a. distrustful, hesitating; dubious, precarious, problematical, insecure; equivocal, ambiguous, indefinite, irresolute, inconstant, fickle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he would make some attempt to possess himself of the persons of the children. On the other hand, our uncle, whose proud disposition might, perhaps, have been soothed by the offer of her confidence, revolted against the distrustful and suspicious manner in which Lady Darsie Redgauntlet acted towards him. She basely abused, he said, the unhappy circumstances in which he was placed, in order to deprive him of his natural privilege of protecting and educating the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... always harbor the hope of being able to dispose of it again as money. Hence, such an acceptance always supposes the existence of a certain amount of commercial confidence. The savage Goahiros, between Rio de la Hacha and Maracaibo, are too "distrustful" to take anything in trade but commodities fit for the most immediate use. (Depons, Voyage dans la Terrefirme, I, 314.) Similarly in the twelfth century, the heathen Laplanders. (Arndt, Liefl. Chronik, II, 3.) Commodities ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... respective nations, and so diametrically opposed to each other, that one could hardly recognise in them scions from a common stock. The first was dull, obstinate, straight-forward, hearty in his manners, and not without sincerity, though wily in a bargain, with all his seeming frankness; the last, distrustful, cunning rather than quick of comprehension, insincere, fawning when he thought his interests concerned, and jealous and detracting at all other times, with a coldness of exterior that had at least the merit of appearing to avoid ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... company. We were pleased at this information ad hoped that it was all true, but we were not so credulous as to believe that all these buildings were intended merely for the accommodation of a trader. Being distrustful of their intentions, we were anxious for them to leave off building and go ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... January 13, 1846. The earliest British observer of the phenomenon (noticed by Wichmann the same evening at Koenigsberg) was Professor Challis. "I see two comets!" he exclaimed, putting his eye to the great equatoreal of the Cambridge Observatory on the night of January 15; then, distrustful of what his senses had told him, he called in his judgment to correct their improbable report by resolving one of the dubious objects into a hazy star.[258] On the 23rd, however, both were again seen by him in unmistakable ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... with equanimity, biding their time. Some, on the other hand, forgive the Poles because they recognize that Russians would have done the same in like case. The people of the other neighbouring States are distrustful or aloof. In a friendship with France, however, Poland would make up for all other enmities. Marshal Pilsudsky, with the glory of having defeated the Russians and won a victorious peace, is now pictured ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... shocking transaction of the morning, in which he was seen acting a principal part, made me feel the utmost horror at finding myself so near him; and as he came up to me, with feigned tears, and embraced me, I was so distrustful of his intentions, that I could not help taking hold of the point of the pahooah, which he held in his hand, and turning it from me. I told him, that I had come to demand the body of Captain Cook; and to declare war against ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... by Christiern with a view to win sympathy in Europe; but Gustavus had written to all the potentates of Europe to deny the charge, and had sent a messenger to the pope to raise a counter charge against Christiern as the murderer of two Swedish bishops in the slaughter of 1520. The pope, already distrustful of his Danish ally, had listened favorably to the message, and in the following summer, 1523, had sent a legate to Sweden to inform ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... speedily betray him into his old ways. She was sure this would be the case unless the strong and steady hand of God sustained him, and she had tried to make him realize the same truth. This he did in a measure, and was exceedingly distrustful; and yet he had not been able to do much more than hope God would help him—for to anything like trustful confidence ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of treaties, and the treachery and wantonness with which, in time of apparent peace, they will suddenly fly to hostilities. The intercourse of the white men with the Indians, however, is too apt to be cold, distrustful, oppressive, and insulting. They seldom treat them with that confidence and frankness which are indispensable to real friendship, nor is sufficient caution observed not to offend against those feelings of pride or superstition which often prompt the Indian to hostility ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... them, but two of their number were of outstanding capacity. John Beverley Robinson, Attorney General from 1819 to 1829 and thereafter for over thirty years Chief Justice, was a true aristocrat, distrustful of the rabble, but as honest and highminded as he was able, seeking his country's gain, as he saw it, not his own. A more rugged and domineering character, equally certain of his right to rule and less squeamish about the means, was John Strachan, afterwards Bishop of Toronto. Educated a Presbyterian, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... secret I bear about me; wherefore (saving only my good friend Nicholas Frant who ... perished) I have ever been a solitary man walking alone and distrustful of my fellows. For, Martin, I have here the secret of a treasure that hath been the dream and hope of roving adventurers along the Main this many a year—a treasure beyond price. Men have sought it vainly, have striven and fought, suffered and died for it, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Simon, when—?" The smile would not be denied though it came timidly, afraid for its welcome and distrustful of its right. "When you're ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... precincts of the little town. Our old apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... from its chain of lakes to the west, and other heights presiding over its other sides. And up and down and in and out of this hollow square of mountains, where waters plentifully flowed, and game and natural pasture abounded, there skulked a nomadic and distrustful population. This in due time built cabins, took wives, begot children, and came to speak of itself as "The honest settlers of Jackson's Hole." It is a commodious title, and doubtless to-day more accurate ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... drove out into the country on business, she would go miles out of her way to call on some of the old people, or to see the women who seldom got to town. She was quick at understanding the grandmothers who spoke no English, and the most reticent and distrustful of them would tell her their story without realizing they were doing so. She went to country funerals and weddings in all weathers. A farmer's daughter who was to be married could count on a wedding ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... Having rung, the distrustful applicant was not a little astonished at finding the head clerk busily arranging in a convenient order on his master's dining-room table the papers relating to the cases to be tried on the morrow. The clerk, not less astonished, bowed to the Colonel and begged him to take a seat, ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... it was a question of money, the peasant wanted a clear understanding and exacted perfect frankness on the part of his master. He again became distrustful and suspicious. ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... long time a subject of discussion; but the consciousness of irreparable national loss, perhaps, never struck deeper than amid the crash of that irresistible cannonade of the walled towns and cities of Leinster and Munster. O'Neil had lately, despairing of binding the Scots or the English, distrustful alike of Coote and of Monck, been reconciled to Ormond, and was marching southward to his aid at the head of 6,000 chosen men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon assures us that Ormond had the highest hopes from this junction, and the utmost confidence in O'Neil's abilities. But ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... distrustful expression upon the face of Mrs. Earle, which was habitual, was now most strongly in evidence. Her eyes searched ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, are apt to be suspicious and distrustful. He commands the horse; you know you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let slip some jest or other that may vex him. Should he take it into his head that he is cheated, and resent it, who knows what the consequences might be? for he is commonly attended by eight or ten horsemen. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... head and gazed at Bessie with shy, distrustful eyes. Bessie, quite unconscious, reined in Miss Hoyden under the shadow of a spreading tree to wait while the doctor paid his visit in-doors. She perceived that there was a whispering between the two under the white umbrella, and with a pleasant recognition ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... in our first winter we had worked. He had gone back to his independent trading, and, at my request for employment, sent me up here to look after his interests at Murder Point. I was glad to come; after my experience on the Sleeping River, I was distrustful of myself in the company of men, never knowing when that foreshadowing of my evil desires might not return to hound me on to fresh villainies and despair. For one who wished to be alone, Heaven knows, I chose well. ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... of 1821.—The same distrustful and, as it turned out, just view of the chances of success were taken by him also on that occasion:—"I shall not," he says, "fall back;—though I don't think them in force or heart sufficient to make much ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... very well, when Mademoiselle de la Mariniere understands us," she said. "I have no wish to complain, but at present she is a little sure of herself, a little distrustful of me, and so—" ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... cheese of which, unless a miracle accompanied it, it was impossible for all in the fleet to partake. On the occasion of the death of the gentleman whom they killed, the natives scattered themselves through the island. They are naturally of a cowardly disposition, and distrustful, and if one has treated them ill, they will never come back. They possess, in common with all these islands, swine, goats, hens of Castile, rice, millet, and in addition a great variety of excellent fruit. The people wear ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... is that the English spirit is distrustful of emotion and display. It is ashamed of making "a fuss" and hates heroics. The typical Englishman hides his feelings even from his family, clothes his affections under a mask of indifference, and cracks a joke to avoid "making a fool of himself." It is not that he is without ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the causes for Henry's resolve to be secret," said Richard. "I thought it harsh and distrustful then, but he dreaded Simon's knowledge ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knowledge, and who would have nothing to do with gods or demigods or "Providence," as the Indian saints likewise had nothing to do with them. He should also be healthy, and should keep himself so, otherwise he would necessarily become distrustful of himself. And perhaps he would not bear the slightest resemblance to the ascetic saint, but would be much more like ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and jealousy, are general symptoms: they are commonly distrustful, apt to mistake, and amplify, facile irascibiles, [2508]testy, pettish, peevish, and ready to snarl upon every [2509]small occasion, cum amicissimis, and without a cause, datum vel non datum, it will be ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and an amicable league with the Araucanians. A small military escort would therefore have been amply sufficient to protect the travellers from all danger of annoyance; but here the weakness of the newly established government betrayed itself. They are distrustful of strangers, and act upon the old Spanish maxim,—to close the interior of the country against them. The recent discovery of gold and silver mines in the mountains, which was still kept secret, from the fear that foreign powers might covet these treasures, probably, also, contributed ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... quite steadily. I know that longer stories went, soon and often, to the old magazine, which never sent them back; and to which I am glad to pay the tribute of a gratitude that I have never outgrown. There was nothing of the stuff that heroines and geniuses are made of in a shy and self-distrustful girl who had no faith in her own capabilities, and, indeed, at that time, the smallest possible amount of interest ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... green eyes, and though distrustful she was not unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set down before the kittens. They lapped it eagerly, and as the two human beings withdrew ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... worse How much more insupportable and painful an immortal life How uncertain duration these accidental conveniences are Humble out of pride Husbands hate their wives only because they themselves do wrong I always find superfluity superfluous I am a little tenderly distrustful of things that I wish I am apt to dream that I dream I am disgusted with the world I frequent I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road I am no longer in condition for any great change I am not to be cuffed into belief I am plain and heavy, and stick to the solid and ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... in the City by times the next morning, but he found that the City did not look with favourable eyes on his four bills. The City took them up, first horizontally, and then, with a twist of its hand, perpendicularly, and looked at them with distrustful eyes. The City repeated the name, Alice Vavasor, as though it were not esteemed a good name on Change. The City suggested that as the time was so short, the holder of the bills would be wise to hold them till he could collect the amount. It was very clear that the City ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the Condesa. She was not of the devotional sort, where it seemed unlikely to be of practical service. Good Catholic enough, and observant of all the ceremonies, but no believer in miracles; and therefore distrustful of what Santa Guadalupe, or any other saint, could do for them. She had more belief in the Cromwellian doctrine of keeping the powder dry; and that she meant to practise it, not with powder, but with her purse, was soon made ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... gloomy and uncommunicative. At the breakfast table, when Brown glanced up from his plate, he several times caught the lightkeeper looking intently at him with the distrustful, half-suspicious gaze of the night before. Though quite aware of this scrutiny, he made no comment upon it until the meal was nearly over; then he ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... distrustful that they think that the ground on which they walk and the air which they breathe are about to fail. This does not make them more provident and industrious, but more foolish and dull. Therefore, if there are many to confess they troop together all in a body, each one desirous of being first. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... meantime, however, there were still some suspicious, distrustful souls who would not admit that the growth of the Madonna's hair was a testimony in favor of the bishop. But these stiff-necked unbelievers, these heartless skeptics, were at last convinced. Two days later this lovely ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... fact! As I wrote those last words, a noise of horses' hoofs came from the street. Distrustful now of everything, I opened my window, and in the dawning light I saw a travelling carriage before the door of the inn, the postilion in the saddle, and Jacques Bricheteau talking to some one who was seated in the vehicle. Deciding quickly ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... midsummer. The wily tongue of the Duke had been more effective than his batteries in obtaining the much-coveted city. The Queen obstinately held back her men and money, confident of effecting a treaty, whether Sluys fell or not. Was it strange that the States should be distrustful of her intentions, and, in their turn, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... near, they all begged the missionary to make one of their party,—not, as he thought, out of any love for him, but solely with a view to the provisions with which they doubted not he would be well supplied. Le Jeune, distrustful of the sorcerer, demurred, but ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... plan. It comes rather as the result of his being superior to his colleagues in many ways. His reserve of manner, his invariable good judgment and the exhibition of his erudition, instead of endearing him to the members, make them distrustful of him. ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... Mildmay was severe, but she was not distrustful or suspicious, and the candour of the ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... at moments more prudent than the Servite Fra-Paolo, the most terrible adviser that the Ten at Venice ever had; more deceitful than a king; more adroit than Louis XI; more profound than Machiavelli; as sophistical as Hobbes; as acute as Voltaire; as pliant as the fiancee of Mamolin; and distrustful of no one in the whole wide ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... to conversing with the doorman. That adamantine individual, unaccustomed to being addressed as a human being, was startled at first, surly and distrustful. But he mellowed under Hosey's simple and friendly advances. They became quite pals, these two—perhaps two as lonely men as you could find in ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... of imprisonment and retreat, while I was very heedless, and distrustful that the governor would take such action (although very confident in the mercy of God), the governor sent an order to me at St. Dominic to come out and assume my duties. Although I hesitated considerably about going out on account of the great ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... Berry yielded to the combination of mental and superior physical force in his son. While his own mind had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... out of the lives of a half-dozen of the eminent persons whom France produced during the closing years of the nineteenth century. Romain Rolland himself is of this sort. It was for these people, self-distrustful, disillusioned, doubtful, that Charles Peguy wrote, bidding them remember the divine origin of the life and the institutions that seemed so false to them, bidding them remember that the Republic itself was the result of a mystical impulse ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... brighter to-morrow if you are a man!" exclaimed Katuti, and her eyes sparkled with scorn. "You cannot now retreat. Here in Pelusium you welcome Rameses as if he were a God, and he accepts the honor. I know the king, he is too proud to be distrustful, and so conceited that he can never believe himself deceived in any man, either friend or foe. The man whom he appointed to be his Regent, whom he designated as the worthiest in the land, he will most unwillingly condemn. Today you still have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... shed tears of joy (as he said) at seeing me so well and prosperous after so many years. The reader will guess that the abbe addressed me in the most flattering terms, and perhaps he may know that one may be clever, experienced in the ways of the world, and even distrustful of flattery, but yet one's self-love, ever on the watch, listens to the flatterer, and thinks him pleasant. This polite and pleasant abbe, who had become extremely crafty from having lived all his days amongst the high dignitaries at the court of the 'Servus Servorum ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shadows of the trees, and he was soon in the middle of the road. I followed his example. We kept staring at each other suspiciously, each of us holding his stick in his hand. When I was sufficiently close to him, I felt less distrustful. He evidently was disposed to assume the same attitude towards me, for ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... taking her just as she was, for just what she seemed, while suspicion and jealousy are so foreign to my nature that I was more surprised at feeling them toward Brigitte than she was in discovering them in me. Never, in my first love, nor in the affairs of daily life have I been distrustful, but on the contrary, bold and frank, suspecting nothing. I had to see my mistress betray me before my eyes before I would believe that she could deceive me. Desgenais himself, while preaching to me after his manner, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... acquainted with these rough youths to know that some deviltry was preparing, and, already furious with his bride and distrustful of the future, his self-command at last gave way. Drawing Fan away from the crowd ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... depredations than the United States of America in this year 1807. For this unpreparedness many must bear the blame, but President Jefferson has become the scapegoat. This Virginia farmer and landsman was not only ignorant and distrustful of all the implements of war, but utterly unfamiliar with the ways of the sea and with the first principles of sea-power. The Tripolitan War seems to have inspired him with a single fixed idea—that for defensive purposes gunboats ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... of it; but HALSBURY not to be taken in. All very well, but all in due order. So new Peer taken charge of by the Reading Clerk; Procession moved on to table; documents mumbled over; oath taken; roll signed. New Peer turned to look at LORD CHANCELLOR; decidedly more friendly; haughty, forbidding, distrustful look, vanished from his ordinarily genial countenance. Young Peer encouraged to venture on friendly nod; LORD CHANCELLOR in response, lifted three-cornered hat, and on replacing it, was observed to cock it slightly on one side. Procession now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... all that England and Oxford had given her rose up in revolt ... But the discarded, subconscious Aruna was centuries older than the half-fledged being who hovered on the rim of the nest, distrustful of her untried wings and the pathless sky. That Aruna had, for ally, the spirit of the ages; more formidable, if less assertive, than the transient spirit of the age. And the fledgling Aruna knew perfectly ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... curious pause for one so self-confident as the young Irishman—a pause like that of a man grown suddenly doubtful, timid, distrustful. His hand was actually on the latch when, to Thor's surprise, he wheeled away, returning to his "team" with head bent and stride slackened thoughtfully. By the time he had mounted the wagon, however, and begun to tug at Maud he was whistling the popular air of the moment ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... went into Ypres one day tried to coax one of the dogs to come with them. "Might have brought us luck," they said, hiding their pity for a poor beast. But it slunk back into the ruin of its master's house, distrustful of men who did things not belonging to the code ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... hopped about all round him and even picked crumbs out of his hand without running risk of getting a sly sprinkle of salt. That wary prelate himself might perhaps have been of a different opinion, but the robins and thrushes that hop about our lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand that throws them out crumbs of bread in winter, than the Archbishop would ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... I wish to remark on William's chief distress, that my changing my opinion seemed to unsettle one's confidence in truth and falsehood as external things, and led one to be suspicious of the new opinion as one became distrustful of the old. Now in what I shall say, I am not going to speak in favour of my second thoughts in comparison of my first, but against such scepticism and unsettlement about truth and falsehood generally, the idea of ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... had lately been confined in a prison, was distrustful of everything; the spy had no doubt hidden himself merely to return in a few moments. The girl flung herself on her brother, bent her tearful face to ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... defendant pleading before a gagged judge. But even so the constitution was not sufficiently guarded against Jacobins or royalists. If by any chance a dangerous proposal were forced through these mutually distrustful bodies, the Senate was charged with the task of vetoing it, and if the Grand Elector, or any other high official, strove to gain a perpetual dictatorship, the Senate was at once to absorb ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... this forced selfish labor may be briefly summed up thus. The Negro by training and example became prejudiced against severe struggle and toil, physical or intellectual. He is now distrustful of attempts made to induce him to labor. He is willing to let somebody else do the work while he reaps the benefit, just as his masters did during slavery. Thus slavery became a foe to true Christian manliness, self-respect, and faith in one's self and others. It took 200 years to force these ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various
... right and that some great principle was involved in his case, and he would come out with an earnestness of conviction, a power of argument, and a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen surpassed.... Simple in his habits, without pretensions of any kind, and distrustful of himself, he was willing to yield precedence and place to others, when he ought to have claimed them for himself. He rarely, if ever, sought office except at the urgent solicitations of his friends. In substantiation ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the small, grotesque figure, distrustful, suspicious, ready to take flight at a word, ventured slowly forth. So slight she was, and so frail, and so softly she moved, it was almost as if the wind blew her toward him. Every thought that came ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... his reader in the most unexpected places, that his ingenuity could devise. He then began to base hopes upon the book in proportion to its originality. At the last moment, however, the Author grew querulous about his work, distrustful of the reception that would be given to it, and even as to the advisability of producing it at all. Much yet remained to be done, but for a long time he refused, not only to forward new copy to Albemarle Street, but even to revise the proofs of that which he had already written, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... other existing abuses, was the most perfect government which had ever been established on earth, and that a reformation of these abuses would make it an impracticable government.' I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions: and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... against us—their every notion of what the truth ought to be, of what the service of the truth ought to be—their every "thou shalt" was launched against us.... Our objectives, our methods, our quiet, cautious, distrustful manner—all appeared to them as absolutely discreditable and contemptible.—Looking back, one may almost ask one's self with reason if it was not actually an aesthetic sense that kept men blind so long: what they demanded of ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... gracious, Washington, why don't you come out and tell me what it is? What, do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an old friend like me, for? Don't you reckon I can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... distinguishable, though yet at a considerable distance—the road over which it came lying upon a long ridge of bald and elevated rocks. Its number was not large, comprising not more than forty persons; but, as the squatters were most commonly distrustful of one another, not living together or in much harmony, and having but seldom, as in the present instance, a community of interest or unity of purpose, such a force was considered adequate to all the duties assigned it. There was but little of the pomp or circumstance ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... stool by the window sat the sexton's wife, Raissa Nilovna. A tin lamp standing on another stool, as though timid and distrustful of its powers, shed a dim and flickering light on her broad shoulders, on the handsome, tempting-looking contours of her person, and on her thick plait, which reached to the floor. She was making sacks out of coarse hempen stuff. Her hands moved nimbly, while her whole body, her eyes, her eyebrows, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... is a very charming and very sweet little lady, excellently equipped by experience to take the field with Sainte Ursula's Sisterhood, but self-distrustful and afraid of her own behaviour on a battle-field where the emergency corps might be under fire. In this sort of woman I have ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Shy and distrustful at home, even toward Frederick, who had treated him for his last knife wound on his neck, his manner here, with the other passengers crossing the great waters, was frank and trustful. He was like a ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Captain Bainbridge. Unable to deliver an effective shot, the enemy could kill every one of his men. He therefore flooded his magazine, blocked the pumps, bored holes through the bottom of the ship in order to sink her if his enemies succeeded in releasing her, and then struck his flag. Distrustful at first, though they ceased firing, the Tripolitans finally came aboard, plundered the officers and men of their personal property, and then took them—three hundred and fifteen in all—to the city, where they were lodged ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... conviction that the integrity of the cherished institutions of their ancient province could be best assured by moving slowly (festina lente), and not by constant efforts to make radical changes in the body politic. The Liberals, of whom Hincks was leader, were also very distrustful of Brown, and clearly saw that he could have no strength whatever in a province where French Canada must have a guarantee that its language, religion, and civil law, were safe in the hands of any government that might at any time be formed. The wisest men among the Conservatives also felt that ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... establish myself in a small retail business—preferably a candy store with an ice-cream parlor in the rear. Then I took her to wife, not forgetting to reward Mr. Barton handsomely in the day of his ruin. Dimly, in the background of this hasty dramatization, the distrustful Mr. Hawley, who refused to share the loan with Mr. Barton, figured as a rival for my love's hand; and lived to hear her say that she hated, loathed, and ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... pleasure or delights,—not to speak of sweet companionship, or even of a return to that more godly life which, I think, you would find in your father's house. Had not this ruin come, unhappy though I might have been, and distrustful, I should not have interfered. Those whom God has joined together, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... unusual way, and to which she yielded without resistance, filled as she was with divine pity. At first she had felt somewhat afraid of the doctor; in her own drawing-room she would have been cold and distrustful, in harmony with her nature. Here, however, in this garret they were far from the world, sharing the one chair, and almost happy in the midst of the wretchedness and poverty which filled their souls with emotion. A week passed, and they knew one another as though they ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the troops, yet the greater part of the staff and regimental officers had transferred themselves to the Bourbons with cordial sincerity. Perhaps a few, who were less confident than the rest, still appeared distrustful and lukewarm; but they might have been easily won over, either by those sugared and alluring phrases which sound so sweetly when pronounced by royalty, or even by merely leaving them quiet until their ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... under the reign of Louis XVIII., he had always maintained very cordial relations with the Duke, and had tried to efface the bad memories of Philippe Egalite. Charles X. was as confiding as Louis XVIII. was distrustful. Optimist, like all good natures, the new King would not believe evil. He attributed to others his own good qualities. Louis XVIII. always had suspicions as to the Duke of Orleans. "Since his return," he said, in 1821, "the Duke of Orleans is the chief of a party without seeming ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... however, and on the head of the family having been called aside by the old woman, Philip was greeted with a hearty welcome, and instantly led into a little back room, where he found the person whom he sought, gazing about him with a distrustful if not an alarmed air. To this individual he showed Barry's note, which he had previously abstracted from the envelope, requesting him, as he perused it, to return it to him again, as he wished to destroy it himself, lest, by accident, it should fall into other hands, and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... have gathered from the extract just given that, fourthly, the "ruling class" of Communist Russia is much more distrustful of the "common people" than any class in the United States, Great Britain or France would think of being. Thus the lords and lordlings of the "proletarian dictatorship" barricade themselves in "citadels," behind "barriers of bayonets ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... out of the train window and looked at everything with greedy eyes, like a man going over the inventory of his possessions, all tense and distrustful, for fear something may have been lost in his absence. As each group of trees for which he waited darted by, he gave a satisfied nod, measuring the correctness of the landscape by the picture of it that he carried fairly seared in his memory. Everything ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... for the greater part, running waters: and over an excellent country, available, almost in its whole extent, for pastoral purposes. The length of time we had been in the wilderness, had evidently made the greater portion of my companions distrustful of my abilities to lead them through the journey; and, in their melancholy conversations, the desponding expression, "We shall never come to Port Essington," was too often overheard by me to be pleasant. My readers will, therefore, readily understand why Brown's joyous ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... were afraid of each other, especially were the small states distrustful of the large ones. This is evidenced in the provision that each state should have one vote. By this arrangement the states had equal power ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... that is going to be their dinner: let's give her some every day." And so they did, until mousie grew so tame and so wise she seemed to know the dinner hour as well as they, and would come nearer and nearer, and run in and out under the table picking up the crumbs; but she was ever a little distrustful. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... politician whose daily life consists in dodging the thousand and one conflicting prejudices of his constituents, in bickering with committees, intriguing and playing for the vote; to the business man harassed on four sides by the trust, the union, the law, and public opinion,—distrustful of any wide scheme because the stupidity of his shipping clerk is the most vivid item in his mind, all this discussion about politics and the inner life will sound like so ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... acumen. His will, however, was inflexible, and his anger was terrible. His passionate temper, which gave way to bursts of wrath, was not improved by his experiences. As time advanced he withdrew more and more within himself, and grew fitful and jealous, disinclined to seek advice, and distrustful of his counsellors; and we can scarcely wonder at this result when we consider his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... she evinced no emotion, and seeing this, I became more distrustful of her than ever; for, for her to hear without apparent interest the name of the chief witness in the inquest which had been held over the remains of the woman with whose death she had been more or ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... a proposal so important to the interests of James, is supposed never to have reached the Chevalier. Mar, distrustful and offended, is suspected of having broken it open, and given it his own answer in a letter to the Duke of Argyle, which tended to affront and repel the Duke rather than to invite him to allegiance. When, some time afterwards, Lockhart's son spoke on the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... faces before him. For a moment Willie Brown forgot where he was, forgot the crowd and the great station and the strange sights and sounds about him, forgot even why he was in New York, while his mind went back to that first summer at Camp Brady, when he had been the most backward, self-distrustful, helpless lad in camp. Now he was chosen to serve his government, to do work of the greatest importance for his country; and he had been selected because of his ability. No wonder Willie blessed the day he first saw Camp Brady. No wonder his eyes were wet ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... France. Was she not the old enemy who had so long harassed the frontiers of New England and New York? If George III was a despot what of Louis XVI, who had not even an elected Parliament to restrain him? Washington himself was distrustful of France and months after the alliance had been concluded he uttered the warning that hatred of England must not lead to over-confidence in France. "No nation," he said, "is to be trusted farther than it is bound by ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... had become extinct, while others, owing to marriages, were absorbed into the royal family; the fiefs conceded to the relations or favourites of the Pharaoh continued to exist, indeed, as of old, but the ancient distrustful and turbulent feudality had given place to an aristocracy of courtiers, who lived oftener in attendance on the monarch than on their own estates, and whose authority continued to diminish to the profit ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and yet he had thrown a new light on the strike, and he had reminded Joe of his long-forgotten guilt. And suddenly Joe knew. All are guilty; all share in the corruption of the world—the laborer anxious for mass-tyranny and distrustful of genius, the aristocrat afraid of soiling his hands, the capitalist intent on power and wealth, the artist neglectful of all but a narrow artifice, each one limited by excess or want, by intellect or passion, by vanity or lust, and all struggling with one another ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... policy peculiarly his own, to qualify him for the leadership of his party? Distrustful Whigs accused him of being willing to offer Cuba for the support of the South.[381] Indeed, he made no secret of his desire to acquire the Pearl of the Antilles. Still, this was not the sort of issue which it was well to drag into a presidential ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... you will find not a master, but a friend,' said my uncle on the way to the Rue Payenne. 'But he is distrustful, or to be more exact, he is cautious. The statesman's friendship can be won only with time; for in spite of his deep insight and his habit of gauging men, he was deceived by the man you are succeeding, and nearly became a victim to his ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... distrustful expression the Punan is a likeable person, rich in good qualities and innocent of vices. He never slays or attacks men of other tribes wantonly; he never seeks or takes a head, for his customs do not demand it; and he never goes upon the warpath, except when occasionally he ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... self-distrustful, had shrunk from the combat, and he entered upon it with the solemn avowal, "I acknowledge no other standard of judgment than the word of God."(262) Though gentle and courteous in demeanor, he proved himself able and unflinching. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... spoke through the eternal pout of his black lips; it looked at us through the impertinent mournfulness of his languid and enormous stare. We watched him intently. He seemed unwilling to move, as if distrustful of his own solidity. The slightest gesture must have disclosed to him (it could not surely be otherwise) his bodily weakness, and caused a pang of mental suffering. He was chary of movements. He lay stretched out, chin on blanket, in a kind of sly, cautious immobility. Only his eyes ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... got a hoe in my hand—" He could not quite explain it. He had always had a flow of words on paper, but since he had believed his life was finished his tongue had been more and more lethargic. It would not obey his brain because, after all, what could the brain report of his distrustful heart? Lydia had a moment of bitter mortification because she had not seemed to understand. Anne understood, she knew, and had tried, with infinite patience, to help on this queer experiment, both for Jeff's sake and Farvie's. Tears rushed ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Bansemer with the naturalness of the unsuspecting. His manner was beyond reproach, and yet, for the first time, she saw the real light in his black eyes. She talked to him as if nothing had happened to make her distrustful, but no self-control in the world could have checked the growth of that remorseless thing called suspicion. For her own sake, for her mother's, for Graydon's, she tried to put it down. Instead, it grew greater and stronger as she looked ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon |
