"Unpretentious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Unterwalden should unite for protection of common interests against the encroachment of a common enemy—the ambitious house of Hapsburg. The lake formed at once a bond and a highway between them. On the first day of August, 1291, more than six hundred years ago, a group of unpretentious patriots, ignored by the great world, signed a document which formed these lands into a loose Confederation. By this act they laid the foundation upon which the Swiss state was afterward reared. In their naive, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... the detective and was fortunate enough to find him in. He expected to see a large man of impressive manners and imposing presence, and was rather disappointed when he found a small personage under the average height, exceedingly plain and unpretentious, who might easily have been taken for an humble clerk on a salary of ten ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... are beginning to come in, and it's such fun! But that isn't all. I have editorial work to do, besides the Mail, you know. I manage the 'Answers to Mothers' column in a little eastern magazine. I daresay you've never seen it; it is quite unpretentious, but it has a large circulation. And these mothers write me, some of them factory-workers, or mothers of child-workers even, or lonely women on some isolated ranch; you've no idea how interesting it ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... the wealthy planter's death and the departure of the Wrinkles under the high honor which had been conferred upon the unpretentious pair furnished food for gossip at Chester, what may be said of the later report which at first crawled from the bereaved mansion, and then, taking on speed, ran hurtling like ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... itself—the ditch—was not so variegated in coloring, but yet, in its softness, richness, and unpretentious elegance, it was more charming, more fascinating to the eye. There was nothing "loud" about its well-bred and well-creased look. Beautiful? One could stand and look down upon it for a week without getting tired of it. It had the semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender grasses and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lay between the garden and the road. Above the hedge showed an occasional shrub; at the corner nearest to the car a chestnut flourished. The wooden gate, once white, which they had passed, was grimed and rickety. The road itself was still the unpretentious country lane that the advent of the electric car had found it. When Carrados had taken in these details there seemed little else to notice. He was on the point of giving Harris the order to go on when his ear caught a ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... horse teams that had brought in grain. This square is still covered with fine primeval forest trees, and has at its centre a handsome soldiers' monument of the Civil War, to which four paved walks converge. It is an altogether pleasant and unpretentious town, which cherishes with no small amount of pride its association with the name ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... closet, with two berths, one above the other, and very little standing room between these and the wall. By paying nearly double fare a passenger might secure a room for himself, but the room given him did not compare well even with that of small and unpretentious modern steamers. ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... talked he was busy unwrapping the picture which he had brought with him, and he reminded the Little Doctor of a loquacious peddler opening his pack. He was much more genial and unpretentious since Chip entered the room, and she wondered why. She wanted to ask about that reference to the water, but he stood the painting against the wall, just then, and she forgot ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... sound judgment since coming under my command. The firmness and coolness with which he always met the responsibilities of a dangerous place were particularly strong points in Gregg's make-up, and he possessed so much professional though unpretentious ability, that it is to be regretted he felt obliged a few months later to quit the service before the close of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... unpretentious building, with mud walls and a tiled roof. The interior was like that of all the homes around. If you had seen one, you had a good idea of the appearance of the rest. You entered the guest-hall, where on the wall at the farther end hung a large centre scroll, representing the "Ruler ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... have written a play [Footnote: "Calchas," later called "Swansong."] on four sheets of paper. It will take fifteen to twenty minutes to act.... It is much better to write small things than big ones: they are unpretentious and successful.... What more would you have? I wrote my play in an hour and five minutes. I began another, but have not finished it, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... building, decent and well-lighted enough, but not otherwise remarkable—the very chapel of music—four business-like gentlemen, in modern attire and spectacles, take their places on an unpretentious platform amid refined applause; and soon the still air vibrates to the trembling of sixteen strings—only that and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... well explain here that Olaf Jansen, a man who quite recently celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday, has for the last half-dozen years been living alone in an unpretentious bungalow out Glendale way, a short distance from the business district of Los ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... an unpretentious poem, describing in six short cantos the six seasons into which the Hindus divide the year. The title is perhaps a little misleading, as the description is not objective, but deals with the feelings awakened by each season in ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... weapons and threatened to shoot; seized the bridles of horses and flung the horses back on their haunches; checked a panic-stricken army; held it at bay, until just when it seemed they were about to be overwhelmed, military reserves hurrying out from Fairfax Court House, took command of the road. Cool, unpretentious Riddle calls the episode "Wade's exploit," and adds "it was much talked of." The newspapers dealt with ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... roofs made of slate-coloured tiles, but most of them were shingled. In the earlier period, it is to be remembered, tiles were used almost exclusively for temple roofs. The architecture of the new city was in general very simple and unpretentious. The old canons of Shinto temple architecture had some influence even in this city built on a Chinese model. Whatever display or ornament there was, appeared not on the exterior but in inner rooms, especially those giving on inner court yards. That these resources were severely ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... eloquently significant of physical and mental refreshment, more expressive of remission of toil and restful relaxation, or so rich in associations with the comforts and serenity of home life, and also with unpretentious, ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... a small confectionery shop adjoining a cinema theatre to supplement her husband's wages by a little earnings of her own in order to support her child. Although the shop was an unpretentious one, and catered mainly for the ha'p'orths of the juvenile patrons of the picture house next door, it was called "The Camden Town Confectionery Emporium," and the title was printed over the little shop in large letters. Inspector Chippenfield walked into the empty ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... that seemed a festivity at Solferino's never gave us the holiday sense Paris filled us with from the early hour in the morning when, after our little breakfast, we met downstairs in the unpretentious hotel in the Rue St. Roch where most of us stayed—if we did not stay instead at the Hotel de l'Univers et Portugal for the sake of the name. The Rue St. Roch was convenient and if we were willing to climb to ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... to say "rather more than you have," but it occurred to him in time that jokes on this ground are dangerous. Wayne Carey had been married in November, was living in a somewhat unpretentious way in a downtown boarding-house, and certainly had to-night so much of a lost-dog air that it made the doctor pause. So he substituted: "—rather more than I should have expected, even of a fellow who has got the girl he has wanted all ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... scholar who has advanced into philosophical territory and now is pushing his investigations into the field of psychology. Modest and wholly unpretentious he sets up as no original genius, and is content with his double role of close observer and respectful critic. He is rather a guide to men than a light. He has nothing new to say, but nothing foolish. His words are words of purest wisdom, though you may have heard ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Nature has forbidden them to do—things which we can do so very much better than they, without any trouble. Heaven defend me from those meaningless palaces! But the little old music-halls have always attracted me by their unpretentious raciness, their quaint monotony, the reality of the enjoyment on all those stolidly rapt faces in the audience. Without that monotony there would not be the same air of general enjoyment, the same constant guffaws. That ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... satisfactorily, but declared that everything was "on a higher plane" in his present state of being, and that all life was "continuous and progressive." Mrs. Horner spoke of herself as a "psychic"; but otherwise she seemed oddly unpretentious and matter-of-fact; and Eugene had no doubt at all of her sincerity. He was sure that she was not an intentional fraud, and though he departed in a state of annoyance with himself, he came to the conclusion that if any credulity were ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... The translation is unpretentious. The translators are content to exhibit such a work to the American military public without changing its poignancy and originality. They hope that readers will enjoy it as much as they ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... of more of less ephemeral literature, as well as the records of the explorations of early days, I have been astonished at the rich treasures of scientific and descriptive literature that have Lake Tahoe as their object. Not the least service this unpretentious volume will accomplish is the gathering ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... was no less elegant in dress, for all that, from head to foot—saving the silver buckles on his shoes and the unpretentious lace at throat and wrists—he was dressed in the black that his office demanded. His countenance, too, though cast in a mould of thoughtfulness that bordered on the melancholy, bore a lofty stamp that might have passed for birth and breeding, and this was enhanced by ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... This unpretentious work makes no claim to deal with the whole subject which it has presumed to open. Its aim is rather to promote in others the desire which actuates the author to follow up and develop the new field of antiquarian research which it has attempted ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... force, and then marking his descent to his cab by the clanking of his sword upon the stairs, after which the joint service spent a good part of the night in celebrating the event at a banquet in the basement. At two lodgings in a most unpretentious street, it was the landlords' boast that a royal princess had taken tea with their tenants, who were of the quality to be rightfully taken tea with by a royal princess; and at certain hours of the afternoon ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... governor or justice of the Supreme Court comes home from her typewriter and her brother from the cotton mill or the lumber yard. Social life in a small town—and most Southern towns are small—is simple and unpretentious, although here too the influence of prosperity is beginning to be manifest. Social affairs are more elaborate than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and there is also less casual expression of informal hospitality. The higher ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... had been sitting with his first wife and his last. He came gallantly toward her; Brigham, whom she knew to be the most favoured of God on earth and the absolute ruler of all the realm about her—an affable, unpretentious yet dignified gentleman of seventy, who took her hand warmly in both his own, looked her over with his kindly blue eyes, and welcomed her to Zion in words of a fatherly gentleness. Later, when he had danced with some of his wives, Brigham came ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... social centre of this leadership in the British world was at Marlborough House—a large and unpretentious residence in the heart of London. That the place was exquisitely furnished and equipped goes without saying; that it was comfortable in the extreme is equally a matter of course to those acquainted with the taste and house-keeping capacities of the Princess of Wales. It was filled with fine engravings ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... to Forster by the fact that I was thus constituted his representative and champion in the Press, and I became a somewhat frequent visitor at his delightful but unpretentious residence on the banks of the Wharfe at Burley. It was on my first visit to him after his resignation that an incident took place which touched me deeply. I was sitting with his and my old friend, Canon Jackson, of Leeds, in the library after breakfast. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... frequently seen in a little carriage, drawn over the gravel-walks of the then rural Kensington Gardens, accompanied by her elder and half-sister, the Princess Feodore, and attended by a single servant. Many elderly people still remember the extreme simplicity of the child's attire, and the quiet and unpretentious appearance and manners of her sister, who was one day seen to stop the tiny carriage to indulge the fancy of an unknown little girl by allowing her to kiss ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... there stood in a side street in Kiel an unpretentious old frame house which had a forbidding, almost sinister appearance, with its old-fashioned balcony and its overhanging upper stories. For the last twenty years the house had been occupied by a greatly respected widow, Madame ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... an orphan of New England extraction. Her father, the eldest child of a simple unpretentious country family in Western Massachusetts, had been a brilliant but erratic throw-back to Mayflower traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had married a girl with much the same ancestry as his own, but herself born and brought up in New York, and of ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... when she speaks of the shops in darkened London conducting the last hour of business under lowered awnings, "as if it were a liaison." There are many such rewarding passages, some perhaps a little facile, but, taken together, quite enough to make this unpretentious little volume a very agreeable companion for the few moments of leisure which are all that most of us can get ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... other has designs on our national wealth, our trade, or our vast protectorates. In recent years that view has been dissipated, and the plan of broadening the national goodwill to men has been adopted and encouraged by a body of sound, unpretentious thinkers who have taken pains to train important gifts in the art of good government in all its varied aspects and international complexities. The whole public have had to pay appalling penalties in the past ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Fifth and Sixth Avenues, more and more affronted the day. We seemed to have come up from a world of quieter harmonies, the world of Washington Square and thereabouts, so decent in its dignity, so instinctively unpretentious. There were even there spots of shabbiness that I recall, such as the charmless void reaching westward from the two houses that formed the Fifth Avenue corner to our grandfather's, our New York grandfather's house, itself built ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... it was that she looked upon as she turned back toward that spot—it was one more low mound, simple, unpretentious, added to the many which had been placed there this last century and a half; one more little gray sandstone head-mark, cut simply with the name and dates of him who rested there, last in a long roll of our others. The slight ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the hull of a wreck, in the days when that Chinatown site was Rialto and Market-place for the overgrown mining camp. The wall moss which blew in with the trade winds, and the semi-tropic growth of old ivies and rose-bushes, had given to these houses the seasoning of two centuries. Unpretentious hovels beside the structures of stone turrets and mill-work fronts by which later millionaires shamed California Street and Van Ness Avenue, they had the simple dignity of a mission, a colonial farm-house, or any other structure wherein love of ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... effigies of Sir H. Fitzroger and wife, and a modern mural tablet with medallion to Viscountess Waldegrave. In the churchyard is a weather-worn but fine cross, with a canopied crucifix. The Communion plate is pre-Reformation, dating from 1511. The neighbouring Priory (Earl Waldegrave) is an unpretentious modern building, occupying the site of an ancient Benedictine house, afterwards tenanted by Carthusians. Portions of the old causeway which once connected the priory with the church are ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... brought over from Italy. The front of the building has been altogether modernized, but much of the beautiful decorated interior work remains, to enrich the rooms where the many unseeing visitors take their meals. The Trevelyan Hotel, in the High Street, which presents to the street a most unpretentious exterior, and where, indeed, the principal rooms are the Victorian of Dickens, with ugly curtains and carpets, wall-papers and furniture, Victorian pictures, and Victorian bronzes on the coffee-room ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... ready when he called. He could see by the weak-flamed, unpretentious parlor-lamp that she was dressed for him, and that the occasion had called out the best she had. A pale lavender gingham, starched and ironed, until it was a model of laundering, set off her pretty figure to perfection. There were little lace-edged cuffs and a rather high collar attached ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... stopped there. The tall, well-favoured youth leapt at once to the ground, and entered the inn with the air of a man who owned at least the half of the county, although his much-worn grey shooting costume and single unpretentious portmanteau did not indicate either ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... institution in a healthy locality in the neighbourhood of York. "The ground was elevated, and the situation afforded excellent air and water, as well as a very extensive and diversified prospect." The illustration (Frontispiece) will convey a better idea than any verbal description of this unpretentious building. Its character as a labour of love and humanity was embodied in an inscription written at the time, which may be discovered whenever the foundation stone ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... the "White Hart" is an ancient structure and very unpretentious (as great age often is), and being so very old, it has known full many a golden dawn. But surely never, in all its length of days, had it experienced quite such a morning as this. All night long there ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... As to the unpretentious little sticks themselves, the use of these bits of waste wood is entirely unique and characteristic. No one else would have deemed them worthy of a place in school apparatus or among educational appliances; but Froebel had the eye and mind ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... inspiration of St. Alban's that morning on the deck of the hospital transport, or had he thought about it at some other time? Was the sentence stored in the man's memory, or did it come with the first gleam of returning consciousness from a soul laid open by disaster? I think racial words, simple and unpretentious, may lies in any man close to the bone like that to be rived out with a mortal hurt. That's what keeps me wondering about the words he used. And ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... He pushed open an unpretentious glazed door and we followed him into the restaurant, whereof the atmosphere was pervaded by an appetising meatiness mingled with less agreeable suggestions of the destructive distillation ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... breakfast in the hastily-arranged dining-room, with the newspapers by the side of his cup and saucer. At nine he went into the hall to receive Dr. Jedd and Dr. Doddleson, who arrived almost simultaneously. His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an archbishop. Of all the cares and calculations of his long dreary night there was no trace, except a certain dulness in his eyes, and the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... an unpretentious abode in New York, occupied a peculiar and very influential position at the White House. Bound to the President by intimate friendship, he has always refused to accept any Ministerial appointment, either at home or abroad, although he ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... had mentioned "the average voter in tramcar or railway train," and the words had called up a haunting vision of disgust. He often said that he had no objection to the working classes as such. He rather liked them. He found them intelligent and unpretentious. He could converse with them without effort, and they always had the interest of sport in common. He felt no depression in passing through the working quarters of the city, and at Stennynge he ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Athenian liberty, and unpretentious style of living; the peace and learned leisure which they so abundantly enjoy. To dwell among such men, he declared, is to dwell with philosophy; a single-hearted man, who has been taught to despise wealth, may here preserve a pure morality; no life ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... performance; and Keats won, as to time. But the event of the after-scrutiny was one of many such occurrences which have riveted the memory of Leigh Hunt in my affectionate regard and admiration, for unaffected generosity and perfectly unpretentious encouragement: his sincere look of pleasure ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... means. From a somewhat similar motive a few of the leading artists of the nineteenth century for a time stood aloof from the movement for familiarising the people with at least the form, if not the colouring, of each notable picture of the year. From small and very unpretentious beginnings, the published pictorial notes of the Royal Academy and other exhibitions of the year have risen to most imposing proportions; and already there is some talk of attempting a few of the best from each ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... 47 on the west side in 1760, and lived in it until his death. Sir Isaac Newton lived in the little street off the south side of the square, at the back of the big new Dental Hospital. His house is still standing, and bears a tablet of the Society of Arts. It is quite unpretentious—a stucco-covered building with little dormer-windows in the roof. The great scientist came here in 1710, when he was nearly sixty, and his fame was then world-wide. Men from all parts of Europe sought the dull little street in order to converse with one whose power had wrought a revolution in ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the Union only four months before. Whatever the speculation aroused by the personnel of the party, however, the business that called them to Ann Arbor caused little comment, if we are to judge from contemporary reports. Yet this unpretentious gathering of notables was charged with the inauguration of what was to become one of the most significant developments in the history of American education,—the establishment and successful maintenance of a University by the people of ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... This unpretentious little book is the outcome of my own experiences and adventures in Alaska. Two trips, covering a period of eighteen months and a distance of over twelve thousand miles were ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the man himself. But the solitary stranger "who looked like Grant" was miles away before this was realized, and when the procession started on his track he was safely out of reach. Doubtless, the sight of this unpretentious man in citizen attire was disappointing to many who expected to see a dashing hero in a gorgeous uniform, but his dislike of all military parade soon came to be widely known. His hosts at one village, ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... on the limitless downs or the thwart-leading footpath through copse and spinney, not without pleasant fellowship with feather and fir. Nor does it follow from all this that the god is unsocial. Albeit shy of the company of his more showy brother-deities, he loveth the more unpretentious humankind, especially them that are adscripti gleb, addicted to the kindly soil and to the working thereof: perfect in no way, only simple, cheery sinners. For he is only half a god after all, and the red earth in him is strong. When the ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... four freshmen lived was an unpretentious dwelling, built of wood and painted a dull gray. A straggling bit of uneven lawn in front by no means added to its appearance. Even in the concealing twilight it had a neglected look. It was in glaring contrast to stately Madison Hall with ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... peter out into brick- and limestone-kilns and great scars of unworked and overworked quarries, the first and more unpretentious of its suburbs take up—Benson, Maplehurst, and Ridgeway Heights intervening with one-story brick cottages and two-story packing-cases—between the smoke of the city and the carefully parked Queen Anne quietude of Glenwood ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the Chicken Hill School stood the little vermin-infested house in which the Cavers family lived after they abandoned the weed-choked farm on the river-bank. This unpretentious log house had been the first home of Mr. and Mrs. Steadman, and was part of the "improvements" specified by the Government to show that a homestead is entered in good faith. The land had been rich and productive, and from it George Steadman had made the money to buy the half-section ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... village by a number of wretched lanes, lay the Jewish quarter. A decided improvement in the general condition of the houses which formed this suburb was plainly visible to the casual observer. The houses were, if possible, more unpretentious than those of the serfs, yet there was an air of home-like comfort about them, an impression of neatness and cleanliness prevailed, which one would seek for in vain among the semi-barbarous peasants of Southern Russia. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... respect for her great-grandmother, and everything that was fine and good in the child instinctively responded to the atmosphere of her little home. It was an unpretentious home, even for Los Lobos: only a whitewashed California cabin with a dooryard full of wall flowers and geraniums, and pungent marigolds, and marguerites that were budding, blossoming, and gone to rusty decay on one and the same bush. The narrow paths ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... A single thick-set man, apparently unarmed and dressed like an ordinary traveler, followed by half a dozen other equally unpretentious-looking men, entered. The ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted, tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... excitement. Across the street from the small, poorly lighted railway station there was an eating-house. Leaving the car in the shelter of a freight shed, we sloshed through the shiny rivulet that raced between the curbs and entered the clean, unpretentious little restaurant. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... the present day know how plain and unpretentious were the dwellings of the burghers of Paris in the sixteenth century, and how simple their lives. Perhaps this simplicity of habits and of thought was the cause of the grandeur of that old bourgeoisie which was certainly grand, free, and noble,—more so, perhaps, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... taking these new friends along. Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Edinburgh, everybody in Scotland, for that matter, and his story of Rab had won him a following throughout Christendom. He was an unpretentious sovereign. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... its gardens, its entrance lodge, its entire surroundings had shown him that only a well-to-do man could live there. How came it, then, that the Squire's relations—his cousin and her mother—lived in a small and unpretentious cottage, and were obviously not well off as regards material goods? Copplestone had the faculty of seeing things at a glance, and refined and cultivated as the atmosphere of Mrs. Greyle's parlour was, it had taken no more than a glance from ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... with such questions, that would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that the Elegy deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical manner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with the truest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to the poor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only of the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that especially suggests itself is the potential ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... demanded. Apparently, for them to charm and fascinate was not difficult, for, according to Mrs. Piozzi, "a woman in Italy is sure of applause, so she takes little pains to secure it." Accordingly, the women of Venice seem to have been quite unpretentious in their manners and dress. They wore little or no rouge, though they were much addicted to the use of powder, and their dresses were very plain and presented little variety. "The hair was dressed in a simple way, flat on top, all of one ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... English daily newspaper published in Paris, called the Paris Daily Post. It consists of a small single sheet—the Figaro, and the Echo de Paris, are the only papers now printed on double sheets—and in an editorial note declares that its policy is to "preach courage and confidence." It is an unpretentious, lively, amusing little production and may eventually have a ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... soon tire of it, and the sooner the better. Be honest. If you have only cheap material to work with, be satisfied with unambitious undertakings. Let them be in keeping with what you have to work with—simple, unpretentious, and without any attempt in the way of deception. The humblest home can be made attractive by holding fast to the principle of honesty in everything that is done about it. It is not necessary to imitate in order to make it ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... which had come to her as an inheritance, had yet had the courage to deliberately put from her the greatest happiness which she could have known, in order to devote herself to the care of others. The simple, unpretentious manner in which the tale was told, made so light of the incident that it might have involved little or no suffering; but Mademoiselle knew better, and her voice trembled with sympathy as she ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, that opened out of the low-ceilinged hall. The Manor House gave the impression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient, comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. And so it was. Only the heat of the place struck me as unnatural. This room with the blazing fire may have seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the night air; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphere of the house, breathed a warmth ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... guest wing; the other contained his own private offices, a special reception-room, furnished in Chinese style—stiff chairs and rigid tables—for Chinese guests, and his living-rooms. It was characteristic of the man that these were the most unpretentious rooms ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... acquaintances; as these cafes are frequented by male street prostitutes (Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home or to a hotel with a cafe acquaintance. There are also a considerable number of homosexual Kneipen, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually normal working men and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money; these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors insist on good order and allow ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... critic should be allegorical. Spenser may have lost by being less realistic than Fielding. But any good criticism of Tom Jones must be as mystical as the Faery Queen. Hence it is unavoidable in speaking of a fine book like Great Expectations that we should give even to its unpretentious and realistic figures a certain massive mysticism. Pip is Pip, but he is also the well-meaning snob. And this is even more true of those two great figures in the tale which stand for the English democracy. For, indeed, the first ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... the city are for the most part exceedingly plain and unpretentious. In striking contrast is the new Russian cathedral, the recently erected school, and a large retail store built by a resident Greek, all of which are fine specimens of Russian architecture. Among its institutions are an observatory, a museum containing an embryo ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... if I were drunk ..." she thought. She did not feel giddy any more. She could see the familiar outline of the House against an unpretentious sky, and that calm ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... small town in France about midway between the ancient and romantic cities of Tours and Poitiers. To-day it is an exceedingly unpretentious and an exceedingly sleepy place; but in the seventeenth century it was in vastly better estate. Then its markets, its shops, its inns, lacked not business. Its churches were thronged with worshipers. Through its narrow streets proud noble and prouder ecclesiastic, thrifty merchant ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... in France, covers a multitude of comfortable, unpretentious family mansions, as I had not to find out now, for the first time; and the dwelling of the Roquemartines, though a fine old house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high, slate ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... walking through the fragrant roads, in a dream they entered the unpretentious little church, and were questioned by the small Spanish sexton at the door. No, that was Miss Carroll,— this was Miss Brown. Yes, everyone was here. The groom and his best man had gone in the other door. Who would give away the bride? This gentleman, Mr. Eastman, who was just now standing ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... to-night," he said to me. And from that day on, I often dined with him informally with M. and Mme. Lockrou, Meurice, Vacquerie and other close friends. The fare was delightful and unpretentious, and the conversation was the same. The master sat at the head of the table, with his grandson and granddaughter on either side, saying little but always something apropos. Thanks to his vigor, his strong sonorous voice, and his quiet good humor, he ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... betrayed by people at home. The questions asked me about India, and our daily life there, showed in many cases such an utter want of knowledge, that I thought, surely there is room here for a chatty, familiar, unpretentious book for friends at home, giving an account of our every-day life in India, our labours and amusements, our toils and relaxations, and a few pictures of our ordinary daily surroundings in ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... range, at the same time thorough and unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... above the sea, which is seen far below, through vast masses of woodland. Steps lead down towards the water, from the centre of the scene. To the left, a large, low country-house, of unpretentious character, in the style of the late eighteenth century. Gardens belonging to the same period, and now somewhat neglected and overgrown, stretch on either side. The edge of the terrace is marked by a stone balustrade, with a stone seat running ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... had grown up. Stricter thinkers disliked the imposing ceremonies which the English church still retained: some of the ministers ceased to wear gowns in preaching, performed the marriage ceremony without using a ring, and were in favor of simplifying all the church service. Unpretentious workers began to tire of the everlasting quarreling, and to long for a religion simple and quiet. These soon met trouble, for the rulers had decided that salvation was by the Church of England, as the sovereign, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... Noningsby his extensive reading respecting the Iapetidae recommended him not at all, nor did his agricultural ambitions;—not even to Felix Graham, as a companion, though Felix Graham could see further into his character than did the others. He was not such as they were. He had not the unpretentious, self-controlling humour, perfectly free from all conceit, which was common to them. Life did not come easy to him, and the effort which he was ever making was always visible. All men should ever be making efforts, no doubt; but those efforts should not be conspicuous. But yet Lucius Mason ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... unpretentious, Skilful though seeming-slow; Unmoved by impulse of conceit contentious To risk ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... of the most unpretentious men on earth; utterly simple and honest—he would not even let anyone praise him. When some one called him "good Master," he answered, quickly, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is, God." ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... annoyances in the shape of excessive heat, dust, or rather fine blown sand,—dirt, flies, bad food, and general discomfort; and finding the aspect of the place not only untempting, but positively depressing, Alwyn left his surplus luggage at a small and unpretentious hostelry kept by a Frenchman, who catered specially for archaeological tourists and explorers, and after an hour's rest, set out alone and on foot for the "eastern quarter" of the ruins,—namely those which are considered by investigators to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the regime, as established under the Commonwealth, 1649, was reflected in the dress of both men and women when all finery was discarded. Fabrics became somber in color and unpretentious in texture. Men had their locks shorn close to the head, and women returned to the simple caps or hoods, which held the hair close to the head. Virginia authorities took cognizance of England's turn towards simplicity ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... library, and could he ever have imagined that there were so many books in the world! A cloud of dust rose under his feet as he went up to the cases and tried to read the tarnished titles of the volumes on the shelves. Again Chance led him aright, and his eye brightened as he discovered an unpretentious volume that proclaimed itself: The Official Visitors' Guide to the City of New York for the Year 1905. He pulled out the book and opened it. Of course it contained what he wanted, a large folding ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... falling to refresh the earth. He had left Paris, and was now in a provincial town under the protection of the princess Margaret, who, loving the gospel, extended her protection to its disciples. Calvin was still a youth, of gentle, unpretentious bearing. His work began with the people at their homes. Surrounded by the members of the household, he read the Bible, and opened the truths of salvation. Those who heard the message, carried the good news to others, and soon the teacher passed ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... altar-table, and cultus vases. To complete the list, a potsherd was found with the Double Axe moulded upon it, an indication, perhaps, that some who claimed kin with the masters of Crete paid their devotions at this unpretentious shrine.'[*] The smallness of the shrine at Gournia may be compared with the smallness of the sacred rooms at Knossos, and seems to have been characteristic of ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... a low, unpretentious church. The two visitors drove up the hill, stopped the horse while they looked at the tower and heard ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... played to the regular accompaniment of clapping palms, songs about ducks and parrakeets, dances full of shuffling and leaping. Even the movements of the sumptuous "Persian Dances" in "Khovanchtchina" are singularly naive and simple and unpretentious. Sometimes, however, the full gorgeousness of Byzantine art shines through this music, and the gold-dusty modes, the metallic flatness of the pentatonic scale, the mystic twilit chants and brazen trumpet-calls make us see the mosaics of Ravenna, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn't help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether too frail, too spiritual for this world. ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... on a narrow balcony that projected from the second floor of a neat but unpretentious boathouse. The rear end of the edifice was built against the sloping base of ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... it. Of course, what the French are real geniuses at is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I went ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet with chicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentious place near the harbour. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... an unpretentious dress of white—one which made the thing the Gay Lady had worn at dinner the evening before seem to her memory poor indeed. Later in the morning the Skeptic took Camellia boating on the river, and she went up and dressed for it in a yachting ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... the history of the academy ship and her crew of boys, with their trips into the interior as well as voyages along the coast of Ireland and Scotland. The young scholar will get a truer and fuller conception of these countries by reading this unpretentious journal of travel, than by weeks of hard study upon ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... nightcapped bourgeois pulling on his trousers. There flashed on me incongruously the thought of our English laureate's stately home by the sea, in which, jealously guarded by hedges and flunkeys, the poet chiselled his calm stanzas; and all the vagabond in me leapt out to meet the unpretentious child of Paris. He greeted me with simple cordiality; and, ugly and coarse though his face was, it was lit up throughout by a pleasant smile. His notorious leg was bandaged, but not repulsively. No, "homely" is the only impression I shall ever have of Verlaine, the man. Even in that much maligned ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... unpretentious in its architecture, and beautifully embowered amid elms and oaks. Several graceful fawns, and a noble elk, were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous turkeys, geese, and other domestic ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... to be celebrated in the Chapel Royal, Savoy, when enter Wife No. 1 who explains that she was a married woman when she met Cuthbertson, and therefore, a fair, or rather unfair, bigamist. Upon this Cuthbertson (who is conveniently near in a pew, wearing the unpretentious uniform of the Royal Horse Artillery), rushes into the arms of the lady who has erroneously been numbered Wife No. 2, when she has been in reality Wife No. 1, and all is joy. Now I need scarcely point out to you that nothing like this has ever been seen on the stage before. It is a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... it remained. It was a subject of ridicule with the two girls; but they had never ventured to urge its withdrawal, and after his wife's death Sir Thomas never alluded to the subject. Popham Villa it was, therefore, and there the words remained. The house was unpretentious, containing only two sitting-rooms besides a small side closet,—for it could hardly be called more,—which the girls even in their mother's lifetime had claimed as their own. But the drawing-room was as pretty as ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... success of this local brother's unpretentious discourse:—It cheered us, one and all. Faces brightened and drooping heads were lifted up as the old man pursued his way. The last hymn was the heartiest of all, not because, as is sometimes the case, the people were encouraged ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... here, tucked back behind a leafy lane, Low in a pocket of some sheltered ground, An unpretentious farm, so snug and plain, An invitation in itself; when found, Only a whining howl like dingoes' sound, Reminds one that there is a war near by. The tools of peace see littered here around, Weapons by which men learn ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... chief-mourner at the unpretentious funeral. He seemed much affected by his uncle's death; and his manner towards his ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and arms—a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition, sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze upon the very pinnacle of American fame ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... clanking chains, nor any of the time-honoured trappings that characterize this rather feeble literature of the supernatural. On the contrary, the scenes enacted in houses that appear to be really haunted are generally very simple and insignificant, not to say dull and commonplace. The ghosts are quite unpretentious and go to no expense in the matter of staging or costume. They are clad as they were when, sometimes many years ago, they led their quiet, unadventurous life within their own home. We find in one case an old woman, with a thin grey shawl meekly folded over her breast, who bends at night over ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Hawthorne and her daughter were transforming their Concord home into a small repository of the fine arts. Without much that would pass by the title of elegance, they succeeded in giving it an unpretentious air of refinement, and one could not enter it without realizing that the materials of a world-wide culture had been brought together there. Hawthorne soon found the dimensions of the house too narrow for the enlarged views which he had brought with him from abroad, and he designed a tower ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... old and the blatancy of the new. The little parish church is of the very far past, having lost its Cathedral rank over six hundred years ago to Sainte-Marie in Grasse, a town scarcely younger than its own. It is the type of the church of this coast, with its unpretentious smallness, its strength, and its disfiguring restorations; and it is, especially in comparison with Vence and Grasse, of small architectural interest. The facade, and the double archway which connects the church and the tower, are of the unfortunate XVIII century, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... gaunt, everything outside and in typical of the man who ruled there and over the little neighbourhood, a tyrant and a despot. The misery of those days laid hold of him, He turned away from the railings and walked Strandwards, past the door of his lodgings and round many side streets, grimy and unpretentious. He walked like a man possessed, but his memories had taken firm hold of him, shadowy but inexorcisable fiends. It was Cicely now who was walking by his side, and his heart was beating with something of the old stir. What a change her coming had ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... and flanked at either end by two square towers or pavilions under extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden, denuded now, but very pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a fine sweep of balustraded terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and always had been, the residence of unpretentious folk who found more interest in husbandry ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and flowers sprang up, and great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.... As they rode on beneath the leafy trees from every tree the birds sang out, for the spell of silence over the lonely moor was broken for ever." This unpretentious story, a child's story, is as engaging as a gem. And so, I think, are most of the others. One more example to illustrate the quality of Leamy's style—say, the description of the contest of the bards before the High King at the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... regular customer describes the excellent meals served daily in the quiet, restful, unpretentious, and admirably managed ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges of eternal friendship. Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, and hoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale. Dear Cousin Eleanor! Her heart was large, and her charity unpretentious. She slipped into Honora's fingers, as she embraced her, a silver-purse with some gold coins in it, and bade her not to forget to write ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a young Californian, Mr. Frank Norris, published a novel with the unpretentious title, "McTeague: a Story of San Francisco." It was a book that could not be ignored nor dismissed with a word. There was something very unusual about it, about its solidity and mass, the thoroughness and firmness of texture, and it came down like a blow from a sledge hammer among ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the town. The older of the boys was a strong man of twenty; the other a sickly lad of eight. The old people earned a slender income by cultivating small fruits. This was helped out by the wages of the older brother, who was a machinist in one of the big factories. They were a quiet and unpretentious little family, devout Christians, and very much ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... machinery for the cooperative laundry. Not far from the creamery, and also across the road, stood the blacksmith and wheelwright shop. Still farther down the stream were the barn, poultry house, pens, hutches and yards of the little farm—small, economically made, and unpretentious, as were all the buildings save the schoolhouse itself, which was builded for ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... was a beautiful one, commanding a view of valley and hill and the narrow winding river. The house, an unpretentious square of red brick, with sloping roof and dormer windows, wore its hundred years with dignity, and amid its fine trees was an object of interest to strangers, ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... in no wise resemble the present output except in form and stature. And our own forefathers—the people of the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxons who are to-day leading in the social world—were not one iota better throughout those pages than many of the smallest and most unpretentious of obscure tribes living here and there in ignorant, local isolation. One of the strongest points in our argument is the fact that history, as we have it, is composed of the clang of battles and the private lives of kings and despots. The ordinary, everyday life of the ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... followed. It also was very easily discouraged; an unfriendly push would have knocked it over at once. But nobody seemed to want to push so unpretentious a thing, so it gained courage and ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... circle in their own length. While unable to sail as close to the wind as a yacht, their chief point is in running, when with huge sails set on either side they will tear along at a pace perfectly astounding for craft of their unpretentious ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... each other small groups of the pear-cactus, full of deep yellow bloom, lighted up the barren waste. Here and there a simple wooden cross indicated a grave, the burial place of some lone traveler who had been murdered and robbed by banditti, and over whose body a Christian hand had reared this unpretentious emblem. As we got further and further southward, the graceful pepper tree, with myriads of red fruit, began to appear, and afterwards became a ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... had indeed been transformed! No one would have recognized it, covered as it was with a wealth of pure white blossoms and dark-green leaves, for it looked more like the throne of a fairy than like anything so ordinary and unpretentious. Mrs. Seabrook, who possessed exquisite taste, had so massed the blossoms around her and daintily perched an inverted one on her head that the effect was exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. Katherine, who had chosen to be "Lady Poppea," ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon |
