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More "Unobtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feature. It should be comfortably furnished and scrupulously clean. As the room is for the use of all clean and orderly people, quiet should be maintained to give all a chance to read and study without interruption. There should be no signs commanding things, and the fewest possible—and they unobtrusive—requesting things. Signs giving information helpful to readers are always permissible; but see that they harmonize with the furnishings of the room and are clean. Gray, or some modest tint, is preferable to white cardboard for all signs. The general atmosphere of the place should be such ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... call too many of the religious movements of this day, in spite of their own loud self-laudations—whether, I say, one cause of these failures may not be, that the religious world is throwing itself into anything and everything novel and exciting, rather than into the simple and unobtrusive work of teaching little children their Catechism, that they may go home as angels of God and missionaries of Christ, teaching their parents in turn as they have been taught themselves, and so awakening ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of which he cowered with his servants, his taste for pictures and bric-a-brac, and his little branch of inquiry into Venetian history, whatever it was, ready to let himself or anything he had for hire at a moment's notice, but very pleasant, gentle, and unobtrusive; a cheat and a liar, but of a kind heart and sympathetic manners. Under his protection Mrs. Vervain set up her impermanent household gods. The apartment was taken only from week to week, and as she freely explained to the padrone ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... behave like young men who believe their privacy to be inviolable and complete. They soon had the place to themselves, except for one person whose entrance had been covered by the outgoing stream; and he had delicately turned his back on them, and taken a seat in the farthest window, where his unobtrusive presence could be no ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... landed in this country without undergoing the scrutiny of an unobtrusive little old gentleman with tall hat and umbrella, but the wag of whose finger sent a detective on the heels of the visitor until his actual business and location were assured and ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... verbatim; in fact, a familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments which were judged too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Haji Abdu was the Bahr Tawil (long verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that peculiarity, and to fringe it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the original. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... visit to that interesting island in the summer of 1855. Living respected in Edinburgh, in the bosom of his family, and essentially a self-made man, Mr Robert Chambers is peculiarly distinguished for his kindly disposition and unobtrusive manners—for his enlightened love of country, and diligence in professional labours, uniting, in a singularly happy manner, the man of refined literary taste with the man of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette. The servant was a woman named Toussaint, whom Jean Valjean had saved from the hospital and from wretchedness, and who was elderly, a stammerer, and from the provinces, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... her and her aunt; he accompanied them in their little excursions; and once or twice John noticed that she took the offered hand of Denbigh to assist her over any little impediment in their course, instead of her usual unobtrusive custom of taking his arm on such occasions. "Well, Miss Emily," thought John, "you appear to have chosen another favorite," on her doing this three times in succession in one of their walks. "How strange it is women will quit their natural friends for a face they have hardly seen." John ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... they, as well as all the family, looked up, as a person of talent and great amiability of disposition;" and, again, as "meek and retiring, while possessing more than ordinary talents, which she inherited from her father, and her piety was genuine and unobtrusive." ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... proceeded to her recess, where she expected to find Veronique ready to adjust her dress. Veronique, however, was missing; but anxious to lose no time, she had taken off her delicate white satin farthingale to change it for an unobtrusive dark woolen kirtle, when, to her surprise and dismay, a loud creaking, growling sound made itself heard outside the door at the other end. Half-a-dozen heads came out of their cells; half-a-dozen voices asked and answered ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cairnforth, his new-found cousin devoted himself in the most cousinly way. Tender, respectful, unobtrusive, bestowing on him enough, and not too much of his society; never interfering, and yet always at hand with any assistance required: he was exactly the companion which the earl needed, and liked constantly beside him. For, of course, Malcolm, fond and faithful ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... came in and set food and wine before Genevieve and Lord James. Blake went on, with quick-mounting enthusiasm, heedless of the coming and going of the soft-footed, unobtrusive servant. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... different from every other type; it would be totally atomic and discrete, instead of fluid and continuous like the rest. But its apparent discreteness is due to a failure to distinguish between the silent, unobtrusive working of comparison and the more obvious and self-conscious working. When rapt in the contemplation of a work of art, I may seemingly have no thought for other works; relative isolation and circle-like self-completeness are characteristic of the aesthetic experience; ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... hands of License, but Convention holds it. Comity has a toll-gate at which you must pay, or you may not enter the land of Freedom. In all the glitter, the seeming disorder, the parade, the abandon, I saw this law, unobtrusive, yet like iron, prevail. Therefore, in Manhattan you must obey these unwritten laws, and then you will be freest of the free. If you decline to be bound by ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... remarkable catches in the long field and look forward to establishing their manhood among the salmon and the grouse. So far as he had thought of Priscilla at all he had placed her in the background, a trim, unobtrusive maiden, who came down to dessert after dinner and was kept under proper control at other times by a governess. It shocked him a little to see a girl in a tousled blue cotton frock, with a green stain on the front of it, with a tangle of damp fair ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... remarkably idle and unobtrusive shop and yet money flowed into it without stint, mysteriously and unostentatiously, the conduits of its flow being certain modest and retiring Arab visitors in long brown or white haiks, with check cotton head-dresses girt with ropes of camel-hair, who ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... out that he, Varney, who had needed to seek the dark and unobtrusive ways, found himself thrust suddenly into the full glare of the calcium. He who was guarding an errand which nobody should know about was now to be asked by everybody who read newspapers just what that ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... we, who are strangers to the strife, to affect a deeper resentment than those concerned more closely. Those who can recollect the former residence of this unhappy prince in our Northern capital cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet manner in which his little court was then conducted, and now, still further restricted and diminished, he may naturally expect to be received with civility and respect by a nation whose good will he has done nothing to ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... as compared with that which preceded it. Still, there existed nothing but melody: harmony was unknown. It was not until Christian church-music had reached some development, that music in parts was evolved; and then it came into existence through a very unobtrusive differentiation. Difficult as it may be to conceive a priori how the advance from melody to harmony could take place without a sudden leap, it is none the less true that it did so. The circumstance ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... continue to command a select audience in every generation. The prose essays, under the signature of Elia, form the most delightful section amongst Lamb's works. They traverse a peculiar field of observation, sequestered from general interest; and they are composed in a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of the noisy crowd, clamoring for strong sensations. But this retiring delicacy itself, the pensiveness chequered by gleams of the fanciful, and the humor that is touched with cross-lights of pathos, together with the picturesque ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... other disguise than a traveling-cap pulled well down over his eyes. He took it for granted that Fenley, like every other intelligent person going abroad, was aware that all persons leaving the country are subjected to close if unobtrusive scrutiny as they step from pier to ship. Fenley, therefore, would have a sharp eye for the quietly dressed men who stand close to the steamer officials at the head of the gangway, but would hardly expect to ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... ma'am," said Mrs. Davids taking the chair in an unobtrusive spirit. "I am happy to have the occasion to make your acquaintance better. Husband would have come hisself, only he couldn't. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and, perchance, in some future sketch of life, we may meet her again in her ceaseless round of charity. Helen was one of her consolations. A truly Christian wife and mother; though timid and humble in her spiritual life, her unobtrusive piety, amidst temptation and worldly associations, made her an example and edification to all who knew her. Mr. Fielding, always devoted to May, and admiring the indomitable and cheerful energy of her character, was at last persuaded ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... them the means of transition from the hall. If this is decorated in dark red, the rugs leading from it into the parlor may shade off from this into more golden tones. The design of the rugs should be unobtrusive. The homemaker should not feel that Oriental rugs are too expensive for consideration. Every once in a while their is a glut of them in the market, owing to an extensive importation, when they can be purchased at ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the monasteries, such as they were, necessarily kept themselves very quiet and unobtrusive. They were situated usually in out-of-the-way corners, solitudes apart from civilisation, or, at least, apart from the busy haunts of men. In the eighth century there is a marked difference. The Capitular of Aix-la-Chapelle, of 789, required ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... as advocated by the foremost organizations of America form the background for these stories and while unobtrusive there is ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... (with his coach), by the Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the Washingtons, and many others; for the whole country esteemed the departed gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents, whose benevolence and unobtrusive urbanity, had earned for him the just respect of his neighbors. 18. When informed of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond's stepson, the Lord Castlewood of Hampshire in England, asked to be at the charges of the marble slab which recorded the names and virtues of his lordship's ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... spurred thither by a spirit of adventure. And having entered, a boyish interest in the motley crowd, which was evidently new to him, had induced him to remain. He had sat in a corner, keenly observant but wholly unobtrusive, for the greater part of an hour, till in fact the attention of the great bully now confronting him had by some ill-chance been turned ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... have done nothing of the kind. Her talk was like any pleasant talk; it was refined and simple, and— unobtrusive." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before the words were well out of his mouth we all became aware of a new presence—a woman, whose sombre grace and quiet bearing gave distinction to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringed eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment awakened by the soft pleading which infused ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to stay with you?" she asked. "You know you cannot stay here quite alone. She is a gentle creature, and very unobtrusive. I shall feel happy about you if ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... about the path in life of his spiritual son, although that path seemed to lead, in its unobtrusive manner, upward. It was an age when materialism was to the fore, when the old faiths had not yet seen their way to harmonise with the undeniable facts of science, when morality itself was of a rather priggish and material ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... for a special study, and then to have restored and readjusted the hero to the play, touching and modulating, here and there, character and incident in harmony with the new expression. In this way a new direction and significance would be given to the plot, but in a latent and unobtrusive way, so as not to weaken the popular interest. This leads to the ambiguity of which I have spoken. The new thought is often not earnestly but ironically related to the old material, and the spiritual hero seems almost to stand apart from the rude framework of the still highly sensational ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... took him over some of the buildings of the University. He called again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion. He sent me at different times several letters; he was always gentle, mild, unobtrusive, uncontroversial. He let me alone. He also gave me one or two books. Veron's Rule of Faith and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of St. Alfonso Liguori's Sermons was another; and to that the letter which I ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... thoughtful, unobtrusive nature; nothing could have made her worldly, nothing could have made ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... well worth their while. There is a freshness and originality about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness in the treatment, both of sentiment and incident, which is not often found. We imagine that few can read it without deriving some comfort or profit from the quiet good sense and unobtrusive words of ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... young men on setting out for College. As I looked upon the walls of these buildings, I thought as the rough stone is taken from the quarry to the finisher, there to be made into an ornament, so was the young mind brought here to be cultivated and developed. Many a poor unobtrusive young man, with the appearance of little or no ability, is here moulded into a hero, a scholar, a tyrant, or a friend of humanity. I never look upon these monuments of education, without a feeling of regret, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... than one point before the verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal made his last reconnaissance. It behoved to pass these points swiftly and unobtrusively, and his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive. McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once Dougal had to take ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... his mother's violent detestation of his wife, all this was most unpleasant. But Louison, the wife, upon sufficient pressure, had brought her child to the Melroses, and had doubtfully disappeared, and Theodore had returned from his wanderings to live, silent and unobtrusive, in his mother's home, for several years, and to die with his daughter beside him, and be duly laid in the Melrose plot at Woodlawn. And Leslie—Leslie had repaid them all, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... happy appearance as we pass briskly along: and we naturally think that there must be great exaggeration in what we have heard about the distressed condition of the people. But we forget that Misery is a most shrinking unobtrusive creature. It cowers out of sight. We may walk along the great thoroughfares of life without seeing more than the distorted shadow of it which mendicancy indicates. A little thought, however, will soon bring the matter home ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... we sat there for a couple of hours, afterwards strolling out past the great amber-coloured cathedral, and on to the walls, whilst the sun sank into the water beyond the little lateen-sailed fishing-boats that dotted the bay. With clever, unobtrusive tact she made herself my eyes. Into her talk she infused the tale of the quick and the still things we passed in our stroll, never entering into pointed descriptions, but rather mentioning them in her chat as though they were of interest to ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... and Leipsic, he was at successive periods chapel-master and concert-director at several of the German courts, which aspired to shape public taste in matters of musical culture and enthusiasm. But he was by nature singularly retiring and unobtrusive, and he recoiled from several brilliant offers which would have brought him too much in contact with the gay world of fashion, apparently dreading any diversion from a severe and exclusive art-life; for within these limits all his ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... nothings in the ear of the countess. From the other tables in the hall arose a varying cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din of the king's own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet unobtrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company. But the princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain, gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled to carol and make merry with less restraint. The pungent smell of roses permeated the hall, arising from ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... little month ago, When the sun was lying low, And the water lay aglow Like a pearl, I, remarkably arrayed, Dipped an unobtrusive blade In the lake—and in ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... quietly to himself as he felt Margaret Hutchins's startled and questioning eyes attempting to read his mind. He shook hands with the engine-driver without further comment, however, and walked out into the commonplace little street under Parkinson's unobtrusive guidance. ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... reproduced their mannerisms, their magnetism. If I had chosen to be an actor, I should have been the greatest actor living! No disguises—no grease paint—no false beards! Personality! I put it on like a glove! When I shed it, I was myself, quiet, unobtrusive, a man like every other man. I called myself Mr. Brown. There are hundreds of men called Brown—there are hundreds of ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... which he decided his shop should possess, and by means of which he succeeded. To enter Brunt's, with its silently swinging doors, its broad, easy staircases, its long floors covered with warm, red linoleum, its partitioned walls, its smooth mahogany counters, its unobtrusive mirrors, its rows of youths and virgins in black, and its pervading atmosphere of quietude and discretion, was like entering a temple before the act of oblation has commenced. You were conscious of some supreme ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Arthur's judgment and modesty aided him in avoiding the repellent methods of Murphy. He did not wait for emergencies to arise, but considering them in advance as possible contingencies, he exercised an unobtrusive but masterful authority when the necessity for action came. He played an honest game of diplomacy. What others did with Machiavellian intrigue or a cynical indifference to ways and means, he accomplished with the cards on the table in plain view, and with motives ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in that way, did he? There are the horses, there is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting Cock. I think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive way." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the muddy streets and can-strewn back yards to those far heights where dwell the high gods of poesy and romance. From the master, too, they learned to know their own wonderful woods out of which the near-by farms had been hewn. Many a home, too, owed its bookshelf to Alex Day's unobtrusive suggestions. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... and one which, with slight modifications in doors and windows, remained before the audience for the whole action of the play. It was, therefore, to be a scene of which people did not easily tire and that remained interesting, unobtrusive and formally neat. To find such a scene it is necessary to refer back to days when the Comic and the Tragic scenes were architectural and permanent. This I did and, taking Palladio's magnificent scene at Vicenza, by a shameless process of reductio ad absurdum, evolved the ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... over there in the brush a soft, persuasive cooing, a sound so subtile and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint, timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Tommies: Son of a wine merchant—a most respectable man, too; then "Importer" (Tommy altered the sign); elected member of an athletic club; always well dressed, always polite;—invited to a member's house to dine; was unobtrusive and careful not to make a break. Asked again to fill a place at the table at the last moment-accepted gracefully, not offended—never offended at anything. Was willing to see that the young son caught the train, or would meet the daughter at the ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and deliciously as he does, nor has so many to play with, nor can come so near making them look as if they were doing the playing themselves and he was not aware that they were at it. For they are unobtrusive, and quiet in their ways, and well conducted. His is a humor which flows softly all around about and over and through the mesh of the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes no more show and no more noise than does the circulation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... true to his word, the young man went a little early, as he wished to be as unobtrusive as possible. At the same time there was nothing furtive or cringing in his nature. As he had openly done wrong, he was now resolved to try as openly to do right, and let people ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... soon forgot when we are gone?" it is no wonder that sobs are heard throughout the house. His pleading with his child Meenie is not less affecting, and nothing could be more genuine in feeling. Yet all this emotion is attained in the most quiet and unobtrusive manner. Jefferson's sly humor crops out at all times, and sparkles through the veil of sadness that overhangs the later life of Rip Van Winkle. His wonder that his wife's "clapper" could ever be stopped is expressed in the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... his quiet he was acutely aware of the contrast between his own dishevelled aspect, and Desmond's unobtrusive neatness ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... no less remarkable than servile deliberation. The gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their lives; and except for civility, they bestirred themselves like so many American hotel clerks. The spectator was aware of an unobtrusive yet invincible inertia, at which the skipper of a trading dandy might have torn ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... courtliness that had first attracted her. Undoubtedly he was a pleasant companion. He clothed the information for which she asked in careful and picturesque language. He was ready at any moment to render any service, however slight, but his attentions were so unobtrusive that Hilary could not but accept them with pleasure. She maintained her pretty graciousness throughout dinner, anxious to set him ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... like some joint stock companies, strictly limited—she liked him well enough. It was something to her, in her monotonous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with August—it was something to have the unobtrusive attentions of Mr. Humphreys, who always interested her with his adventures. For indeed it really seemed that he had had more adventures than any dozen other men. How should a simple-hearted girl understand ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... occupied themselves with Diane or her affairs! Her place in the hurrying, scrambling social throng had been so unobtrusive that, now that she no longer filled it, she was easily forgotten. Among the few who paid her the tribute of recollection there was the generally received impression that Derek Pruyn, having discovered her relations with the Marquis de Bienville—relations ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... a small but well appointed room in which Mr. Corbett worked. It had an unobtrusive narrow stairway leading up to it. The only furniture it contained was several chairs and a round table with a well-concealed drawer, which opened with a spring, and held four packs and an assorted variety ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... has little French, nevertheless started, and fixed upon the face under the turban a stare of feverish interest. Brigit and the unobtrusive lady with the slanting eyes both showed such symptoms of surprise as must too late have warned Fenton that he had missed his footing, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Unobtrusive, physical reduction of the ship to completely unrecognizable debris might have to be accomplished eventually, but it certainly was not immediately possible. However, perception told him that the heavy vessel ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... be pleased. He proved a most exemplary husband—the chief of her subjects, nothing more; a loyal, unpretending vassal, who did not ask to share the purple, but was content to sit upon the steps of the throne. He continued a shy, reserved, unobtrusive little man to the end of the chapter; and the chapter was closed without unnecessary delay as soon as the birth of a son secured the succession of the Purling estates. Dr. Purling felt there was nothing more required of him, so he ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... arises over there in the brush a soft persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... conclusion, to men's attire, the lecturer suggested that the ill-success of dress reformers hitherto had been the too-radical changes they sought to introduce. We could be artistic without being archaic. Most men were satisfied without clothes fairly in fashion, a tolerable fit, and any unobtrusive color their tailor pleased. He would suggest that any reformation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... cabin. We never once catch them admiring the scenery or taking any interest in the wonders we pass. Then there is a Swiss, a gentle-mannered bronzed man with a brown beard; he speaks only French, and in an unobtrusive way seems to have seen a great deal of the world; we discover, for one thing, that he has lived out in the desert near Tunis for many years. There are three Russians, mother, father, and daughter, who speak practically nothing but Russian, with a few words ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... and jam between them, Oliver felt that so far things had slid along as well as could be expected. Elinor's manners in the first place and her genuine liking for him in the second had come to his help as he knew they would—she was too concerned now with trying to comfort him in small unobtrusive ways to be on her guard herself about her own troubles. All he had to do, he knew, was to sit there and look ostentatiously brokenhearted to have the conversation move in just the directions he wished and that, though it made him feel shameless was not exactly difficult—all he required ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... incompetent riding, for, having been accustomed to keep her mount under thorough control, she will carefully avoid spoiling the sport of others, while seeing as much of it as she can in a quiet, unobtrusive manner. A lady should remember that strangers are not hailed with delight in any English hunting field; but when they are found to be competent to take care of themselves and their horses, they are far more kindly received, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... of the country; nor did he resemble the violet, although he was somewhat redolent of the extract of that modest flower. He was dressed in the extreme of the prevailing mode, and evidently cultivated a metropolitan air, rather than the unobtrusive bearing of one who is so thoroughly a gentleman that he can afford to be himself. Mr. Strahan was quite sure of his welcome, for he felt that he brought to the little cottage a genuine Madison-avenue atmosphere. He was greeted with ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... in six months, and wanted a little ready money for her trousseau. The lady was informed that Miss So-and-so would come to her, not as a servant, but as hired "help." She was fain to accept any help with gladness. Forthwith came into the family circle a tall, well-dressed young person, grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not in the least presuming, who sat at the family table and observed all its decorums with the modest self-possession of a lady. The newcomer took a survey of the labors of a family of ten members, including four or five young children, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that of the Bishop. James's afflictions had been the means of bringing the merits of that excellent man before his spiritual superior, who became much attached to him, and availed himself of the earliest opportunity of rewarding his unobtrusive ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... with the spectacles," replied Fullaway. "Quiet, unobtrusive man, Delkin—but cute as they're made. Know ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... the land of their birth without a struggle. They wished rather to get control of the Government in order that their own ideas might prevail, and were more disposed to purify a corrupt society by act of Parliament than by passive renunciation and unobtrusive example. ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... on the other hand too delicate, so that they run together into confusion. The excellence of this sort of work lies in a clear but soft relief of the form, in colours each beautiful in itself, and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is also beautiful, though unobtrusive. Hardness ruins the work, confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye, and makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as destroying the raison d'etre of it. So you see it taxes the designer heavily enough after all. Nevertheless ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... jealousy but with delight the household companionship through life of the sister who formed so large an element in his being. Admiring the poet's genius to the full, and following the workings of his mind with a sympathy that never tired, she nevertheless was able to discern, and with unobtrusive care to hide or avert, those errors of manner into which retirement and sell-absorption will betray even the gentlest spirit. It speaks, perhaps, equally well for Wordsworth's character that this tendency to a lengthy insistence, in general conversation, ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... of the silent figure of Drummond at the other table—watching, watching. She felt sure that it was to him that the Surety Company had turned over the work of shadowing Halsey. Day after day, probably, the unobtrusive detective had been trailing Halsey from the moment he left his apartment until the time when he returned, if he did return. There was nothing of his goings and comings that was not already an open book to them. Of what use was it, ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... agreeable people she had met—unobtrusive, gentle-mannered folk whose homes may have lacked such Madeira and silver as this, but lacked nothing in ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... is as difficult to write as it would be to describe the dress of a gentleman we had met, who was so perfectly dressed that we paid no attention to his clothes. His style is called transparent, because at first we are not conscious of his manner; and unobtrusive, because we never think of Newman himself, but only of the subject he is discussing. He is like the best French prose writers in expressing his thought with such naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we receive exactly ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... went on to certain batteries of big guns which had played their part in hammering the Austrian left above Monfalcone across an arm of the Adriatic, and which were now under orders to shift and move up closer. The battery was the most unobtrusive of batteries; its one desire seemed to be to appear a simple piece of woodland in the eye of God and the aeroplane. I went about the network of railways and paths under the trees that a modern battery requires, and came presently upon a great gun ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... while on a walk in June to sit and look at the grass. How tame and dreary would be the landscape without it! How soul starved would have been mankind, condemned to live without the restfulness of its unobtrusive beauty! That is why the first command, after the waters had been gathered into one place and the dry land appeared, was, "Let the earth bring forth grass." The grasses cover the earth like a beautiful garment from Kerguelen land in the Antarctic regions to the extreme limit of vegetation ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... has an essential Influence in producing the effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected gleam upon the polish of the furniture. This warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon-beams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his home in this city Dec. 6, 1867, at the age of 67. A long and eminently useful although unobtrusive life entitles his memory to respect. He commenced his career as a mechanic in the steam engine establishment of James P. Allaire, soon after the application of steam for the propulsion of boats and long before its application to ships for ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... day after day peacefully enough, without feeling any particular illness, save a great weakness in his limbs. He was in himself particularly happy, for Mary was always with him, and Angus passed every evening with them both. Another great pleasure, too, he found in the occasional and entirely unobtrusive visits of the parson of the little parish—a weak and ailing man physically, but in soul and intellect exceptionally strong. As different from the Reverend Mr. Arbroath as an old-time Crusader would be from a modern jockey, he recognised the sacred character of his mission as an ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... coach was occupied by some Chinese official with guests and military attendants, including armed soldiers. The official and his guests were an attractive group of men with pleasant faces and winning manners, clad in many garments of richly figured silk of bright, attractive, but unobtrusive, colors, who talked, seriously or in mirth, almost incessantly. They took the train about one o'clock and lunch was immediately served in Chinese style, but the last course was not brought until nearly four o'clock. At every ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... labor organizations. But Bunner was no believer in stories with a tendency; the conditions which lie at the root of great sociological questions he used as artistic material, never as texts. His stories are distinguished by simplicity of motive; each is related with fine unobtrusive humor and with an underlying pathos, never unduly emphasized. The most popular of his collections of tales is that entitled 'Short Sixes,' which, having first appeared in Puck, were published in book form in 1891. A second volume came out three years later. When the shadow of death had ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... cut-and-dried quality which he affected when he was afraid of being found out. Careful observers are, however, rare, and we may be sure that on their first day in Venice his two companions had other things to think of than the unobtrusive ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... worst of it, especially on trains, where groups of young voices or extreme fashions in dress become quite unintentionally conspicuous. Experienced from within, the life, despite its many little roughnesses, its small lapses in taste, is gracious and gentle, selfless in unobtrusive ways, and genuinely kind. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... founder of the atomic theory in chemistry, lived; he was a devout Quaker, like so many of the townspeople, but unfortunately was color-blind; he appeared on one occasion in a scarlet waistcoat, and when taken to task declared it seemed to him a very quiet, unobtrusive color, just like his own coat. Several fine parks grace the suburbs of Manchester, and King Cotton has made this thriving community the second city in England, while for miles along the beautifully shaded roads that lead into the suburbs the opulent merchants and manufacturers have built ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... quiet, unobtrusive little figure in a black and white gingham, with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cluster of white roses in her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl, and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not marked out for herself ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... that memorable occasion. In fact, until the present summer they had scarcely met again. He was a celebrated man in the literary world, and he travelled far and wide. He was also immensely wealthy. Men said of him that whatever he touched turned to gold. And fame, wealth, and a certain unobtrusive strength of personality had combined to make him ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... built. Many of these Romanesque apses of the eleventh and twelfth centuries still remain in France, showing themselves in unsuspected parish churches, here and there, but always a surprise for their quiet, unobtrusive grace, making a harmony with the Romanesque tower, if there is one, into which they rise, as at Saint Sernin; but all these churches had only one aisle, and, in the interior, there came invariable trouble when the vaults rose in height. The architect ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... seat and approaching one of the walls of the apartment, whilst the baronet and the lieutenant stared in dismay at their own watch-faces. The German began to manipulate a couple of tiny knobs which occupied unobtrusive positions in the base of one of the pilasters, and the sunlight gradually deepened into a rich orange hue, then changed to a soft pearly grey, which gradually deepened into a dim delicious twilight in which little was visible ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... whether you will or no. Insular reserve cannot resist the prevailing friendliness and good-fellowship. How long such a state of things will exist, who can say? Fortunately for the lover of nature, most of the places I have mentioned are too unobtrusive ever to become popular. "Nothing to see here, and nothing to do," would surely be the verdict of most globe-trotters even ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... without demur. There was a quiet unobtrusive force about this man whenever his actions were directed into a definite channel. And Diane found herself complying without the least resentment, or even doubt as to the necessity for his orders. Now she came ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... those bumping, buzzing bugs, who "put out the light, and then put out their light." Lizards crawl over the walls and ceilings, but they are harmless, and catch flies. I do not know how it is, and it may be thought a strange taste, but I rather affection the lizard. His frugal habits, his unobtrusive manners, and that cunning blink of his bright black eyes, have taken away that aversion which is a natural sentiment towards that species of animals "which crawl upon the belly;" and upon the whole, must confess I consider him, despite his ugly ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... subjects, whose example can in reality be of the utmost use to us, for its general organization more nearly resembles our own in miniature than any other. This country is Switzerland. In her quiet fashion the unobtrusive little Confederation is working out some of the great modern problems, and her citizens, with their natural aptitude for self-government, are presenting object lessons which we especially in America cannot afford to overlook. It is true that ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... under, and gero, bring) brings something before the mind less directly than by formal or explicit statement, as by a partial statement, an incidental allusion, an illustration, a question, or the like. Suggestion is often used of an unobtrusive statement of one's views or wishes to another, leaving consideration and any consequent action entirely to his judgment, and is hence, in many cases, the most respectful way in which one can convey his views to a superior or a stranger. A suggestion may ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... conscious and deliberate effort, must entertain. On the contrary she entertained and interested him, although she said so little, and by some subtle power she unloosed his tongue and made it easy for him to talk to her. In the most quiet and unobtrusive way, she was not only making herself at home, but him also; she was very subservient to his wishes, but not servilely so; she did not assert, but only revealed her superiority, and after even so brief an acquaintance he was ready to indorse ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... students was of the same quiet, unobtrusive character, and, for that reason, all the more real. When she died, the students of the College felt themselves bereaved of a true friend. A spontaneous movement on their part to found a memorial of her in the College awakened a general response, and the Ratanbai Collection ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... original herd comprised Apollo, six cows and four calves, or half-grown cattle. The new acquisition brought the count up to twenty-six cows and twenty young animals. The vanquished bull was very meek from that time forward, and the surprising thing was that Apollo was thereafter the same quiet, unobtrusive animal he ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... interesting. Hume's diamonds, before the public can see them properly, want a proper setting in a methodical and consistent shape—and that implies writing a small psychological treatise of one's own, and then cutting it down into as unobtrusive a form ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... time so long that the memory of man or maiden aunt ran not to the contrary. She always declared, indeed, that they were born married, and that their wedding-day would seem like a silver wedding. Harry was quiet, unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem commonplace at first beside the brilliant Kate and his more gifted sister; but thorough manhood is never commonplace, and he was a person to whom one could anchor. His strong, steadfast ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple fact—and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his authorities—and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... eschewed his opry ways, An' the remnants uv his mind went back to earlier, happier days, An' grappled like an' wrassled with a' old familiar air The wich we all uv us had heern, ez you have, everywhere! Stock still we stopped,—some in their talk uv politics an' things, I in my unobtrusive attempt to fill on kings, 'Nd Hoover leanin' on the bar, an' Casey at the till,— We all stopped short an' held our breaths (ez a feller sometimes will), An' sot there more like bumps on logs than healthy, husky men, Ez the memories ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... gentle spirit came down from heaven to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce and vindictive nature was softened by the same griefs which had once irritated it. When the course of years had made the features of the unobtrusive mourner familiar in the settlement, she became a subject of not deep but general interest—a being on whom the otherwise superfluous sympathies of all might be bestowed. Every one spoke of her with that degree of pity which it is ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and intelligent, and believe to be the best; but their opportunities of learning the characters of the men have been few. They have seen and observed the young, active, and forward; but they often know nothing of the steady, unobtrusive old soldier, who has done his duty ably in all situations, without placing himself prominently forward in any. The commanding officers seldom remain long with the same regiment, and, consequently, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... were not united as a body, and consequently there was no test of character nor rules of discipline for those who assumed that name. They were very dissimilar men to their quiet and unobtrusive descendants. The markets, fairs, and every public concourse were attended by them, denouncing false weights and measures, drunkenness and villany, with the curses of the Almighty, calling upon the people, frequently with furious and fearful energy and powerful ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on deck watching the green little island as it sunk astern, and thinking of the kindly-hearted old trader who had so cheered her by his simple piety and unobtrusive goodness. Then her thoughts turned joyfully to home—for the Raymonds' house was home to her—and she sighed contentedly as the gallant Esmeralda, with every stitch of canvas that could be set, slipped gracefully over the blue Pacific on an east-south-east course, ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... which he hits the horse "between the ears," say authors);—and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or out, ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... rude, rectangular bulk is uncompromisingly practical and utilitarian; these rows on rows of windows, regularly spaced, and all of the same size, suggest the equality and monotony of obscure, laborious lives; the upspringing shafts of the vertical piers stand for their hopes and aspirations, and the unobtrusive, delicate ornament which covers the whole with a garment of fresh beauty is like the very texture of their dreams. The building is able to speak thus powerfully to the imagination because its creator is a poet and prophet of democracy. ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and originality about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness in the treatment, both of sentiment and incident, which is not often found. We imagine that few can read it without deriving some comfort or profit from the quiet good sense and unobtrusive words of ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... was simple, unobtrusive, and modest; but charming and even fascinating in an eminent degree. Sir John Lawrence has said of him that he was, of all others, the man he most delighted to meet in England—he was so manly, yet gentle, and withal so great. While ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... next morning Uncle Tobe, dressed in sober black, like a country undertaker, and with his mid-Victorian whiskers all cleansed and combed, would present himself at his post of duty. He would linger in the background, an unobtrusive bystander, until the condemned sinner had gone through the mockery of eating his last breakfast; and, still making himself inconspicuous during the march to the gallows, would trail at the very tail of the line, while the short, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... street beneath a mackintosh, pay her few calls. Maybe it was the unusual excitement that then brought colour into her furrowed cheeks, that straightened and darkened her eyebrows, at other times so singularly unobtrusive. Be this how it may, the change was remarkable, only the thin grey hair and the work-worn hands remaining for purposes of identification. Nor was the transformation merely one of surface. Mrs. Peedles hung on her hook behind ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... cheerfulness and mirth beneath the wand of this enchanter! How many a combatant beaten down in the battle of life—and nowhere is the battle of life more sharply waged than in the commonwealth of America—has caught new hope, new courage, new force from the manly lessons of this unobtrusive teacher! ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... a hurry, and yet had a sincere but secret respect for old Bruce's unobtrusive religious feelings, now backed up his ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweetwater grew very serious, and, while no change took place in his mind as to his present duty, he decided that his return must be as unobtrusive as possible, and his only too timely reappearance on the scene of the inquiry kept secret till Mr. Sutherland had given his evidence and retired from under the eyes of ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... that every guest has what he requires. This necessitates both activity and intelligence, and should be done without bustle, without asking any questions, except where it is the custom of the house to hand round dishes or wine, when it will be necessary to mention, in a quiet and unobtrusive manner, the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Dahlias. These should be painted some unobtrusive color. If this is done, and they are taken proper care of in fall, they will last for years. This is true of racks ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... marked it also, and was furious. Nothing could be urged against them; they were unexceptionable. The doctor, a chatty, straightforward, energetic man, of great intellect and learning, and emphatically a gentleman; his wife attracting by her unobtrusive gentleness; his daughter by her grace and modest self-possession. Whatever Maude Kirton might do, she could never, for very shame, again attempt to disparage them. Surely there was no just reason for the hatred which took possession ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... on College students was of the same quiet, unobtrusive character, and, for that reason, all the more real. When she died, the students of the College felt themselves bereaved of a true friend. A spontaneous movement on their part to found a memorial of her in the College awakened a general response, and the Ratanbai ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... I suppose, put among the things when poor Mrs. Tancred had the flat. I never noticed, of course—it's such an unobtrusive ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... Quiet and unobtrusive in manner, her face always wore a look of gravity befitting one who felt that God had entrusted to her charge a fresh human soul to mould for good or evil. She fully realized the fact that her son would grow up with honor or sink down into ignominy just as she should guide ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... carriages cleared, and the platform became a scene of bustle and animation. But he had no difficulty in distinguishing Gabriel's stiffly erect figure as it made its way towards the hall of the station, and his sharp eyes were quick to notice a quietly dressed, unobtrusive sort of man who sauntered along, caught sight of the banker, and swung round to follow him. Starmidge watched both pass along towards the waiting lines of vehicles—then he turned on his heel and went to the refreshment room and straight to a ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... conspicuous features cannot be forgone. In the term conspicuous is included plants that attract general attention. Possibly the skilled botanist might disregard obvious and pleasing effects, and find classic joy in species and varieties unobtrusive if ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sister of Aunt Debie's, some ten years younger than herself, Phoebe Barrett by name. She was attended by her husband, whom she addressed as Enoch. He certainly was not the predominant spirit of the family; for he was so quiet and unobtrusive as to scarcely ever utter a word, except it might be to make a remark in regard to the weather or answer a question. There was also a young Quakeress by the name of Rachel Stebbins, a distant relative of the others, and they were all related to Mr. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... have hurled their spears at us. Thirteen of them followed us to our resting place. They kept rather apart from us, and kindled their fire in a little hollow about fifty paces to our right; nor did they venture to approach the tents unless we called to them, so that by their quiet and unobtrusive conduct they made up in some measure for the unruly proceedings of others ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... books which his friends thought dull, but which appealed tenderly to his innate love of tenderness. He had probably lost many illusions, but the sweetest of them all was still fresh in him, for he loved nature unaffectedly. In an unobtrusive way he was something of an artist, and was fond of going out by himself, when in the country, to sketch and dream all day. Veronica did not understand how with such tastes he could bear the life in the Palazzo Macomer, for months ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... absolute command, whether for silence or attack," says Stevenson again; and, more than on any quality of force, business success depends upon that same nicety in the use of words which selects the tactful expression, the modest and simple phrase, in the drawing-room; the sort of nicety which is unobtrusive exactness and delicacy; an artistry which in no way labels itself skilful. But underneath all, the woof of the process is social skill—that skill which is the ability to go back to unadorned first principles with the dexterity of ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... thought; And unto me the calm, cold face Of manhood, and to thee the grace Of woman's pensive beauty brought. More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, The school-boy's humble name has flown; Thine, in the green and quiet ways Of unobtrusive ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... deliberation. The gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their lives; and except for civility, they bestirred themselves like so many American hotel clerks. The spectator was aware of an unobtrusive yet invincible inertia, at which the skipper of a trading dandy might have ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the new comer awakened a spirit of interest in the affairs of Sunnybank so it aroused the quiet unobtrusive master. Mr. Verne thanked God from the bottom of his heart that he could sit in his office and hear the voice of a true friend in kindly counsel with ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... Zephyr, the last-named being, according to Meredith Nicholson, the best story of college life ever printed, would possibly have attracted more general attention were it not for its prevailing tone of quiet, unobtrusive pessimism, an unwelcome note in America. I am as sure of the high quality of A Suburban Pastoral as I am sure of anything; and have never found a critic who, after reading the tale, disagreed with me. In 1885 ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... about with them an analogy to particular animals: Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion; Wilberforce is like a bee." Dr. Owen often reminds us of an elephant; the same ponderous movements—the same gentle sagacity—the same vast but unobtrusive powers. With a logical proboscis able to handle the heavy guns of Hugo Grotius, and to untwist withal the tangled threads of Richard Baxter, in his encounters with John Goodwin he resembles his prototype in a leopard-hunt, where sheer strength is on the one side, and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... meal finally came to an end, on account of Winn's inability to eat any more, the boy was surprised to find how much at home he had been made to feel by the unaffected simplicity and unobtrusive ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... could be expected. Elinor's manners in the first place and her genuine liking for him in the second had come to his help as he knew they would—she was too concerned now with trying to comfort him in small unobtrusive ways to be on her guard herself about her own troubles. All he had to do, he knew, was to sit there and look ostentatiously brokenhearted to have the conversation move in just the directions he wished and that, though it made him feel shameless was not exactly difficult—all ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... unassuming, unobtrusive men These critics are! Now, to have Aretino Aiming his shafts at you brings back to mind The Gascon archers in the square of Milan, Shooting their arrows at Duke Sforza's statue, By Leonardo, and the foolish rabble Of envious Florentines, that at your David Threw stones at night. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of humanity, and reposed in confidence on my bosom. (A pause, during which she gazes upon him with tenderness.) Oh! 'that the man, by whom, of all others, I least wish to be misunderstood, should compel me to turn braggart and parade my unobtrusive virtues to the glare of admiration! Walter, I have burst open the doors of prisons—I have cancelled death-warrants and shortened many a frightful eternity upon the galleys. Into wounds beyond my power ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... at its other end by a broad stone archway, which showed as in a semi-circular frame the glint of scarlet geraniums in the distance, and in the shadow cast by this embrasure was the small unobtrusive figure of a girl. She stood idly watching the hens pecking at their food and driving away their offspring from every chance of sharing bit or sup with them,—and as she noted the greedy triumph of the strong over the weak, the great over the small, her brows drew together in a slight ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... no claim from the world, no importunate chatter, only religious services in their quietest, most unobtrusive form; and Dr. Easterby's low tender tones, leading his silent listeners to deep heart-searchings, earnest ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of strength, evidences that he had fought stern battles, and was no craven. For good or evil he might be trusted to act instantly, and, if need arose, to the very death. His attire of fashionably cut black cloth, and his immaculate linen, while neat and unobtrusive, yet appeared extremely unusual in that careless land of clay-baked overalls and dingy woollens. Beside him, in vivid contrast, the girl trudged in her heavy shoes and bedraggled skirts, her sullen ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... worse for the wear of a quarter-century than she. Of the valiant champions who were leading the contending operatic armies of the time, Arditi, Maretzek, and Strakosch were still with us. The first was filling, as of yore, the leader's chair at the Academy and doing yeoman's service in the unobtrusive and modest manner which always characterized him; the second, withdrawn from all connection with operatic management, was watching the boiling and bubbling of the caldron with amused interest and spicing his comments with capitally told reminiscences of opera ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Cambridge, and represented the Middlesex district in Congress from 1817 to 1825. He was a "Jeffersonian Democrat" and a personal friend and political supporter of John Quincy Adams. He married Margaret, the daughter of Major Peter Crane. Mrs. Fuller was as gentle and unobtrusive as her stalwart husband was forceful and uncompliant. She effaced herself even in her own home, was seen and not heard, though apparently not very conspicuously seen. She had eight children, of whom Margaret was the first, and when this busy mother escaped from the care of the household, it was ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... melancholy man, who, having said one fatal "No" to himself, made it the satisfaction of his life to say a never varying "Yes" to his children. But though he left no wish of theirs ungratified, he seemed to have forfeited his power to draw and hold them to himself. He was more like an unobtrusive guest than a master in his house. His children loved, but never clung to him, because unseen, yet impassible, rose the barrier of an instinctive protest against the wrong done their dead mother, unconscious on their part but terribly significant ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... she despised the New York Stock Market and denounced its doings as gambling. She made fine distinctions, but she was a woman of sense, and was generally more likely to be right than wrong when she had a definite opinion, or expressed a definite dislike. Her religious views were simple and unobtrusive, ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... and dressed neatly and carefully; packed his valise with the bowler hat in it, turned up the brim of the common slouch hat and wore it jauntily. The overalls were rolled in an unobtrusive brown-paper parcel to be carried under the arm; and, having paid for his bedroom, he went out at about eight o'clock, walking boldly through the streets—just as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch, dressed in ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... unceasingly, and drew from it much of the vital truth with which it is inspired; but he perhaps too much tainted it with traditional interpretation and patristical logic. A student's life is always interesting; like a rippling stream, its unobtrusive gentle course is ever pleasing to watch, and the book-worms seems to find in it the counterpart of his own existence. Who can read the life and letters of the eloquent Cicero, or the benevolent ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... attentive, supplying all her wants in a thoughtful but unobtrusive way, and did not once by word or look remind her of ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... smiled at him. "What an adorable house," she pronounced; "I wish I could have it near the studio." She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, "Come, everybody has had enough drinks, and show it to me." They passed through the hall, and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusive lamp. "What a satisfactory fireplace!" she exclaimed in her faint key, as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. "How did they feel, do you suppose—the people, the men and women, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... him, he may have looked like a commissioner of lunacy, but he did not look like a poet; he was rather undersized, with a compact head and a solemn face, and the quietest, most unobtrusive bearing imaginable. He was a well-made little man, and he lived to a great age, dying some time in the seventies, at the age of eighty-seven. He told my father that after leaving Harrow School he was distinguished in athletics, and for a time sparred in public with some professional bruiser. He ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... simple question of who will ultimately marry whom. But by sedulously dwelling on the non-essentials of life, she contrives to remind the reader of its vast essentials. By talking to us skilfully about the many things that do not matter, she suggests to us, inversely and with unobtrusive irony, the few things that really do. Her very message, therefore, is immediately dependent upon her faultless art. If she had done her work less well, the result would have been ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... loyal, unobtrusive, simple-hearted, Loving his book, his pipe, his song, his friend, Peaceful he lived and peacefully departed, A gentle ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... of a fast fifteen-minute roughhouse with his round-faced, laughing, chubby son and heir. No doubt it was very bad, just after supper. But Nana, with a rather humanly anxious restraint, confined herself to an unobtrusive ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... feeling, he opened to the German thought the widest possibilities of victory.... A specially Germanic way of feeling, a Germanic modesty and distinction of thought, was here powerfully promoted by means of the Gospel. True distinction is always modest, in the sense of being unobtrusive and not bragging of deserts!—K. ENGELBRECHT, D.D.D.K., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... shrink once more within my shell, Where unobtrusive pleasures dwell; True, I shall here by Fortune be forgot Her favors with my verse agree not well; To importune the gods beseems ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... perplexed on any account, Rebecca always seemed to understand in that quiet, unobtrusive way of hers, and followed my movements with a grave, restful sympathy in her eyes. On several occasions I had asked her, playfully, to walk up the lane with me after school. So it became a matter of course that she should wait for me. Often we took longer walks, for it was an "open winter," ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... of Francoise touched the heart of Madame de Neuillant. She again took the orphan child under her charge and returned her to school in the convent. Francoise gradually developed remarkable beauty and intelligence. Her quiet, unobtrusive, instinctive tact gave her fascinating power over most who approached her. She often visited the countess, where she attracted much admiration from the fashionable guests who were ever assembled in her saloons. The dissolute courtiers were lavish in their attentions to the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... impartial. Bud had spent most of his time around the ranch, but once or twice he rode out with the others, and there was no attempt on their part to keep him and Buck from talking together as privately as they pleased. Only where Miss Thorne was concerned was Stratton conscious of the old unobtrusive surveillance. He saw her several times during his brief visits to Bemis, who was improving daily and fretting to be gone, but always Lynch, McCabe, or some one just "happened" to ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... irrepressible explosion of Union feeling—even to an outburst of cheers, according to one statement—occurred. Nor is such a state of feeling surprising, when we remember that not even in Kentucky is the memory of Henry Clay more a fireside treasure of the people. In this respect, the quiet, unobtrusive 'North' State was in striking contrast to its immediate neighbors—South Carolina in one direction, and Atlantic Virginia in the other. Politically, when the pennons of Clay and Calhoun rode the gale, the vote and voice of North Carolina were ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... attire, the lecturer suggested that the ill-success of dress reformers hitherto had been the too-radical changes they sought to introduce. We could be artistic without being archaic. Most men were satisfied without clothes fairly in fashion, a tolerable fit, and any unobtrusive color their tailor pleased. He would suggest that any reformation should begin ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... any man, represented in the movement the moderate and unobtrusive way of religious teaching. But it was his curious fate to be dragged into the front ranks of the fray, and to be singled out as almost the most wicked and dangerous of the Tractarians. He had the strange fortune to produce the first of the Tracts[30] which was by itself held ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... upon what the child says in the most favorable light, putting the best construction upon it, and admitting its force, and then presenting such additional views as ought also to be taken into account, with moderate earnestness, and in an unobtrusive manner, thus taking short and easy steps himself in order to accommodate his own rate of progress to the still imperfectly developed capabilities ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... simple and fervent love-poets of our pastoral times first applied to the maiden the words, "my bonnie burdie," they must have been thinking of the Grey Lintie—its plumage ungaudy and soberly pure—its shape elegant yet unobtrusive—and its song various without any effort—now rich, gay, sprightly, but never rude nor riotous—now tender, almost mournful, but never gloomy or desponding. So, too, are all its habits, endearing and delightful. It is social, yet not averse to solitude, singing ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... of Virginia (with his coach), by the Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the Washingtons, and many others, for the whole county esteemed the departed gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents, whose benevolence and unobtrusive urbanity had earned for him the just respect of his neighbours. When informed of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond's stepson, the Lord Castlewood of Hampshire in England, asked to be at the charges of the marble slab which ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Walpole, for whom Mr. Bedford had unquestionably done some service or other, and of whose son, Horace Walpole, the letter-writer, he had continued from that day to be a kind of dependent or protege, being precisely the sort of unobtrusive factotum which that fastidious eccentric needed to manage his mundane affairs. But now, after this long time, when the King's business was placed in the hands of George Grenville, who entertained the odd ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... much bebadged, rather conscious of white gloves, strove earnestly with hurried, ingratiating smiles to induce the younger members to break the ice. Ben Sansome, remarkable among them for his social ease and the unobtrusive correctness of his appointments, responsible head of the reception committee, masterfully seized a blushing, protesting damsel and whirled her away. This, however, was merely an informal sort of opening. The real bail ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... learned, and that I have had no part in communicating to you, this is the true grace of God.' If such be the primary application of the words (and I think there can be little doubt that it is), then we have an interesting evidence, all the stronger because unobtrusive, of the cordial understanding between the two great leaders of the Church in apostolic times; and the figments that have been set forth, with great learning and little common sense, about the differences that divided these great teachers of Christianity, melt away into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... mother's violent detestation of his wife, all this was most unpleasant. But Louison, the wife, upon sufficient pressure, had brought her child to the Melroses, and had doubtfully disappeared, and Theodore had returned from his wanderings to live, silent and unobtrusive, in his mother's home, for several years, and to die with his daughter beside him, and be duly laid in the Melrose plot at Woodlawn. And Leslie—Leslie had repaid them ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... two weeks and half of a third an unobtrusive spy upon the collective activities of the Wahaskan social group which included the Farnhams before he decided that nothing more could be gained ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... promptly, and while I dressed up in all sorts of life-saving inventions used at cricket, the Treasure took an unobtrusive, circuitous route back to the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... this bit of a thing. Blessed be "the belt of calms!" There was the usual pomp of a body-guard, some of whom are in attendance, and a military display on the pier, well drilled, and well officered in quiet, capable, admirable, unobtrusive Mr. Syers; but gentle Mrs. Douglas, devoted to her helpless daughter, standing above the jetty, a lone woman in forlorn, decayed Klang, haunts me as a vision of sadness, as I think of her sorrow and her dignified hospitality in the midst ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... a sharp observer in his own quiet, unobtrusive way, was struck by two peculiarities in little Mary's behavior during lunch. In the first place, he remarked with some interest and astonishment, that while the clown's wife was, not unnaturally, very ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... soon had the place to themselves, except for one person whose entrance had been covered by the outgoing stream; and he had delicately turned his back on them, and taken a seat in the farthest window, where his unobtrusive presence could be no possible hindrance ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... The real cowboys, unobtrusive in their overalls and flannel shirts, teetered around on their high-heeled tight boots and gazed open-mouthed at the flamboyance of the Fred Harvey imitations. Varied and unique remarks accompanied ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... scrupulous attention to extreme neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, a sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy often marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of unobtrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to have constituted a tradition which Englishmen have ever since sought, more or less successfully to follow; he ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... out he watched Sally with close and what he fancied was unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was sensible of the indelicacy of this, he was once more relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. After all, there was a certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... liked him well enough. It was something to her, in her monotonous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with August—it was something to have the unobtrusive attentions of Mr. Humphreys, who always interested her with his adventures. For indeed it really seemed that he had had more adventures than any dozen other men. How should a simple-hearted girl understand him? How should she read the riddle of a life so full of duplicity—of ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... upon himself. "Well, you needn't make 'em so bad as the old-style cuts; but you can make them unobtrusive, modestly retiring. We've got hold of a process something like that those French fellows gave Daudet thirty-five thousand dollars to write a novel to use with; kind of thing that begins at one side; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... men. They recommend those whom they have found most active and intelligent, and believe to be the best; but their opportunities of learning the characters of the men have been few. They have seen and observed the young, active, and forward; but they often know nothing of the steady, unobtrusive old soldier, who has done his duty ably in all situations, without placing himself prominently forward in any. The commanding officers seldom remain long with the same regiment, and, consequently, seldom know enough of the men to be able to judge of the justice of the selections for ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... tough as it is interesting. Hume's diamonds, before the public can see them properly, want a proper setting in a methodical and consistent shape—and that implies writing a small psychological treatise of one's own, and then cutting it down into as unobtrusive a form ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... houses of accommodation, "private hotels" on the Continent, chiefly frequented by English and American roues—Praed kept an eye on her career, and occasionally rendered her, with some cynicism, unobtrusive friendly services in disentangling her affairs when complications threatened. He was an art student in those days of the 'seventies, possessed of about four hundred a year, beginning to go through the aesthetic phase, and not decided whether he would ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... at mansion or cottage, when no man is at home! "Take heed unto thyself" then. The call under those circumstances should be as brief as possible. And the whole interview should be ruled by a heedful while unobtrusive respect and self-respect. Do not think a strong word of caution in this matter out of place and out of scale. Carelessness of even appearances here may wreck a life; it ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... stairway my father laughed, with flashing glances. He always laughed (it was a sound peculiarly passionate and low, full, yet unobtrusive) at dangers in which he could share himself, although so grave when, in the moral turmoil, he was obliged to stand and watch uneven battle; not the less sorry for human nature because weakness comes from our ignoring the weapons we might have used. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... his first wife, who had not married; this was that Agla, who so often helped her father with her childlike attentions, and, "her cheek blooming with animation," collaborated in some of his most famous observations (6/6.); an unobtrusive figure, a soul full of devotion and resignation, heroic and tender. Having in vain ventured into the world, she had returned to the beloved roof at Srignan, unable to part from the father she so admired ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... "That cleverly unobtrusive joker clause about 'reasonably satisfactory service,'" replied Chalmers angrily. "By the way, have you investigated the cause of those accidents very thoroughly? Whether there ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... dignified sorrows and refined delights, or whose story is illuminated by the light of artistic culture and adorned with gems of rhetoric and fine fancy; but it is sometimes surprising to observe the favor which attends a simple tale of humble, unobtrusive, we might almost say insignificant people, whose plane of life appears nowhere to coincide with our own, and to whom romance and passion seem entirely foreign. Such a tale was "Adam Bede," whose great success as a literary venture hardly yet belongs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... was my privilege in the case of John Loder, a man whose life was all sturdy simplicity and generous friendship. He shines in no merely reflected light, but in his own native nobility. I think there are a few lovers of England and of books who will be glad not to forget his unobtrusive services to literature. If only John Loder had kept a journal it would be one of the minor treasures of the Victorian Age. He had a racy, original turn of speech, full of the Suffolk lingo that so delighted his ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... young fellow that is?" had been remarked at different times by nearly every guest in the house. And the days slipped by, Harry very much "made of" by Lady Calvert, while Lady Geraldine's preference was of an unobtrusive and reticent nature—impalpable, yet grateful to the senses as the fragrance of ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... him to walk up to the mouth of a loaded cannon when the gunner was applying the match, as to remark to her, in however mild a tone, that he preferred his mutton boiled when he knew she liked it roasted. Yet he was a good man, in his meek unobtrusive way, and Christie liked her Uncle Thomas next best to her ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... pageant that it was thought well should mark the real wedding at Bowstead. So their banns were put up at St. Clement Danes, and one quiet morning they slipped out, with no witnesses but the Major, Aurelia, and Eugene, and were wedded there in the most unobtrusive manner. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their patriarchal form of government. The principles of the Christian religion were warmly accepted by the people, and cherished with a strong feeling. In their religious convictions they were peaceable and unobtrusive, never arming themselves with Scriptural texts in order to carry on offensive operations. Never being perplexed by doubt, they desired no one to corroborate their faith, and no inducement could persuade them to strut ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks himself alone. I, meantime, was free to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... easy always to be attentive to the maturing of wild fruit. Plants are so unobtrusive in their material processes, and always at the significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. One notices here and there a spike of bloom, and a ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... its spirit. So dull and uninviting is calm and practical religion, that religious persons are ever exposed to the temptation of looking out for excitements of one sort or other, to make it pleasurable to them. The spirit of the Gospel is a meek, humble, gentle, unobtrusive spirit. It doth not cry nor lift up its voice in the streets, unless called upon by duty so to do, and then it does it with pain. Display, pretension, conflict, are unpleasant to it. What then is to be ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... so hidden by a belt of mountains that its green lawns, its gardens, its fountains and flowers might have been originally discovered only by some happy accident. But the discoverer being of a practical turn of mind, he or his descendants had built a delightful though unobtrusive hotel on a spot which might still have been warm from the fairies. On the veranda of the hotel was Kate, beaming with smiles of welcome as the buckboard coming down from Glacier Point brought her ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the perception that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so sorely needed was within her reach. It ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... doing," replied Mrs. Ashton, "for I must rely upon my labor for a support for the future." Through the influence of these kind friends Mrs. Ashton soon obtained an abundant supply of work; and, when she became somewhat acquainted with the people of Rockford, her gentle and unobtrusive manner gained her many warm friends. Agreeable to her mother's wishes, Emma soon became a pupil in the seminary for young ladies, which was at that time under the direction of Miss Hinton, a lady who possessed uncommon ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... take care of her as no one had ever yet tried to do. She might safely give herself into his charge. The unobtrusive aid that was mingled tenderness and respect, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... also. She did not need to be told that he was glad to see her. He rang for tea and sat down somewhere near in his usual unobtrusive fashion. Eustace occupied the place of honour in an easy-chair drawn close to the end of the sofa on which Dinah sat. He was watching her, she knew but she could not meet his look as she met Scott's. His very nearness made her feel again ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... started to climb up onto his head, as expected. It seemed to disconcert Kellogg, also as expected. He decided to teach Baby to thumb his nose when given some unobtrusive signal. ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... sensitive sorrow the turning of the sweet page. He tried, too, to serve and help his simple country neighbours, as indeed he had desired to do even at Eton, by showing them many small, thoughtful, and unobtrusive kindnesses, just as his father had done. But he lived much, like all poetical natures, in tender retrospect; and the ending of the bright days brought with it a heartache that even nature, which he worshipped like a poet, was powerless ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... looked upon the walls of these buildings, I thought as the rough stone is taken from the quarry to the finisher, there to be made into an ornament, so was the young mind brought here to be cultivated and developed. Many a poor unobtrusive young man, with the appearance of little or no ability, is here moulded into a hero, a scholar, a tyrant, or a friend of humanity. I never look upon these monuments of education, without a feeling of ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... practically non-contentious Consolidation Bill, after several times securing the approval of the House of Lords, has hitherto for several years awaited the leisure of the House of Commons, but was suddenly reintroduced last Session, apparently as an unobtrusive vehicle for the new and highly debatable matter contained in the two above-mentioned documents. May I now repeat my suggestion that "the debatable questions arising under the Convention of 1907 ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... "classical" style, yet it is precisely in these traits that the "Elegy" proves most nobly. The artificial figures of rhetorical arrangement that are so omnipresent in the antitheses, chiasmuses, parallelisms, etc., of Pope and his school are in Gray's best quatrains unobtrusive or even infrequent. ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... be guilt-stained and miserable. The sea anemone on its half-tide rock, and the fern on its mossy hill-side, are low in their respective kingdoms; but they are, notwithstanding, worthy, in their quiet, unobtrusive beauty, of the God who formed them. It is only when the human period begins that we are startled and perplexed by the problem of a lowness not innocent,—an inferiority tantamount to moral deformity. In the period ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... not bear recital, by some scarcely perceptible change of tone, by an answer given in the right place, by a look of assent when no word was uttered, he gave what at that moment I wanted—sympathy, and that silent, constant, unobtrusive sympathy, fell like oil ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... civilization. The vigour of these great men, indeed, overcame the obstacles created by contemporary envy; but how seldom, especially in a refined age, can genius effect such a prodigy? how often is it crushed in the outset of its career, or turned aside into the humble and unobtrusive path of imitation, to shun the danger with which that of originality ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... France was every thing—the family nothing; every generous wish, every proud thought, every high ambition or noble endeavor belonged to the country. In this way, whatever patriotism may have gained, certainly all the home affections were utterly wrecked; the humble and unobtrusive virtues of domestic life seemed mean and insignificant beside the grand displays of patriotic devotion which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments which were judged too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Haji Abdu was the Bahr Tawil (long verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that peculiarity, and to fringe it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the original. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... made his way into the town—though not with the object of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the previous costume; ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... may be considered in England, it is looked upon in the United States, where Mrs. S—- was "raised," as extremely respectable; and I have never met with women, in any class of society elsewhere, who possessed more of the good-feeling and unobtrusive manners which should belong to ladies than in the family of this ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... alarmed by dogs or wolves or men, will take the alarm quickly, and the scattered herds, moved by a common impulse of danger, will trail far away to other ranges. That is why the wolf, unlike the less intelligent dog, hunts always in a silent, stealthy, unobtrusive way; and why he stops hunting and goes away the instant his own hunger is satisfied or another wolf kills enough for all. And that is also the probable reason why he lets the deer alone as long as he can find ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... should accept an inferior hospitality, other than with the idea of not inflicting themselves upon a strange host more than is necessary. The redman in the aggregate is an example of the peaceable and unobtrusive citizen; we would not presume to interfere with the play of children in the sunlight. They are among the beautiful children of the world in their harmlessness. They are among the aristocracy of the world in the matters of ethics, morals, and etiquette. We forget ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... theory in chemistry, lived; he was a devout Quaker, like so many of the townspeople, but unfortunately was color-blind; he appeared on one occasion in a scarlet waistcoat, and when taken to task declared it seemed to him a very quiet, unobtrusive color, just like his own coat. Several fine parks grace the suburbs of Manchester, and King Cotton has made this thriving community the second city in England, while for miles along the beautifully shaded roads that lead into the suburbs ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... with a cheerful vivacity that was exasperating to the highest degree, considering that everybody ought to be worn down to an unobtrusive state of limp inertia after the three busy months just concluded, "you've been cross ever ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... said Miss Hannah, managing to stare with unobtrusive delight at the girl while she talked. "The frost will soon be coming now, you know; so I want to live among them as much as I can ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... literature was not made for classification, but for higher purposes, and anything that draws attention from the pleasure-giving and spirit-invigorating qualities of the literature itself should be avoided. Hence, the classifications adopted are as simple and unobtrusive as possible. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... he was not rash. In fact, he was so unobtrusive that I began to fear that he had made off, and, it being obviously unsafe to go up and ascertain, I proceeded to make a few ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... society prescribes for her followers is fruitful of most injurious consequences. Evil effects do not always thrust themselves upon our notice in any directly pronounced way. Very often those which are most pernicious have a stealthy and unobtrusive progress, and it is only when their destructive mission is well accomplished that we become aware of their existence. There are physical, moral, and mental wrecks, the playthings of every varying circumstance that agitates the sea of life, who are living examples of the truth I uphold: men and ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... girlhood as advocated by the foremost organizations of America form the background for these stories and while unobtrusive there is a ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... methods, and did not leave the subject of Lucia Catherwood, but praised her, though now and then with slight reservations, letting fall the inference that she was her good friend and would be a better one if she could. Such use did she make of her gentle and unobtrusive sympathy that Prescott felt his heart warming once more to this ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... graduating leave and sought instant service in the field as a result of the tragedies of the early days of the campaign had won him instantly the interest and good will of officers and men throughout the entire command. He started well, so to speak, and his quiet, reticent, observant, but unobtrusive ways favorably impressed his regimental comrades and led to many a commendatory remark from veteran officers. But there was universal comment, half humorous, half commiserating, upon his assignment ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... are abundant enough in the southern country; and by their quiet, unobtrusive, and softer beauties, would seem, and not inefficiently or feebly, to supply in most respects the wants of those bolder characteristics, in which nature in those regions is confessedly deficient. Whatever may be the want of southern scenery in stupendousness ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... one which, with slight modifications in doors and windows, remained before the audience for the whole action of the play. It was, therefore, to be a scene of which people did not easily tire and that remained interesting, unobtrusive and formally neat. To find such a scene it is necessary to refer back to days when the Comic and the Tragic scenes were architectural and permanent. This I did and, taking Palladio's magnificent scene at Vicenza, by a shameless process of reductio ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... loosely after much using of brandy, aromatic ammonia, etc., take it to be repaired, and see that the needles are sharp, they become dulled very quickly; keep also the tiny wires pushed through them. It is just as well to keep this syringe in the room, its little case is very small and unobtrusive, and if you keep it near your thermometer in some safe, handy place, you will have it when some unforeseen emergency arises, and you do not want to lose time going to your ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... remembered; and with further thought about it, might occur a recognition of some wider application: new instances being aggregated with those already noted. Again, after an interval," etc., etc. "And thus, little by little, in unobtrusive ways, without conscious intention or appreciable effort, there would grow up a coherent and organized theory" (vol. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... to your mood by the external brilliancy of a glimpse of vivid blue sky above dazzling snow mountains far away. Then, in this monotone of dark green frond and dull brown trunk and deep olive shadow, where, like the ordered library of one with quiet tastes, nothing breaks the harmony of unobtrusive tone, suddenly flames the vivid red of a snow-plant. You will never ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... so long that the memory of man or maiden aunt ran not to the contrary. She always declared, indeed, that they were born married, and that their wedding-day would seem like a silver wedding. Harry was quiet, unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem commonplace at first beside the brilliant Kate and his more gifted sister; but thorough manhood is never commonplace, and he was a person to whom one could anchor. His strong, steadfast physique was the type of his whole nature; when he came into the room, you felt ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... visitor of the Bell's, Miss Hart, proved herself a most unobtrusive and retiring person. She was strangely reserved, no doubt, and would reveal none of the secret which she had dimly alluded to on the night of her arrival to Mrs. Bell, but she was chatty and pleasant enough to the girls when quite alone with them. She put them ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... heart-rending yet subdued despair, "Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?" it is no wonder that sobs are heard throughout the house. His pleading with his child Meenie is not less affecting, and nothing could be more genuine in feeling. Yet all this emotion is attained in the most quiet and unobtrusive manner. Jefferson's sly humor crops out at all times, and sparkles through the veil of sadness that overhangs the later life of Rip Van Winkle. His wonder that his wife's "clapper" could ever be stopped is expressed in the same breath with ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Divina Commedia is the only example of an attempt triumphantly achieved, and placed beyond the reach of scorn or neglect, wherein from beginning to end the author discourses concerning himself individually. Had this been done in any other way than the consummately simple, delicate, and unobtrusive one which he has adopted, the whole would have been insufferable egotism, disgusting coxcombry, or oppressive dulness. Whereas, this personal identity is the charm, the strength, the soul of the book; he lives, he breathes, he moves through it; his pulse beats or stands still, ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... result. Sir John was not aware however, of the minute and scientific observations then making at the very moment when Mr. Garnier was entertaining the commissioners with his witty and instructive conversation—by the unobtrusive menial who had accompanied the Secretary to Ostend. In order that those observations might be as thorough as possible, rather than with any view to ostensible business, the envoy of Parma now declared that—on account of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... always a gentleman of the world, who understands life because he has lived it, and is "wise with the quiet memory of old pain." He is moral because he knows the futility of immorality. He is lonely, lovable, dignified, reliable, and sound. By serene and unobtrusive understanding he straightens out the difficulties in which the other people of the play have wilfully become entangled. He shows them the error of their follies, preaches a worldly-wise little sermon to each one, ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... If they did follow, the aesthetic experience would be fundamentally different from every other type; it would be totally atomic and discrete, instead of fluid and continuous like the rest. But its apparent discreteness is due to a failure to distinguish between the silent, unobtrusive working of comparison and the more obvious and self-conscious working. When rapt in the contemplation of a work of art, I may seemingly have no thought for other works; relative isolation and circle-like self-completeness are ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... had known and appreciated her services, and from whom she held her commission, passed a series of resolutions, as a tribute to her worth, and her blessed memory, in which she was described as one who was "gentle and unobtrusive, with a heart warm with sympathy, and unshrinking in the discharge of duty, energetic, untiring, ready to answer every call, and unwilling to spare herself where she could alleviate suffering, or minister to the comfort of others," as "not a whit behind the bravest hero on the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... tragic tale, but one which carries the most optimistic of messages. The unobtrusive moral of the story is that the way to find consolation for one's own trouble is to consider those of others and to ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... was all that one might imagine him to be. A quiet, unobtrusive fellow, he seldom spoke except when he had something worth saying. Since childhood he had always been a leader among his fellows. Johnny was a good example to others, but no prude. He had played a fast quarter on the football team, and had won for himself early renown and many medals ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... school. He did not possess the sombre power or the intensely analytical skill of some of his later contemporaries, but his books are distinguished by a freshness and honesty, fortified by cosmopolitan knowledge and lightened by unobtrusive humour, which fully account for their wide popularity in many countries besides his own. His genius was the reverse of dramatic, and attempts to present two of his stories on the stage have not succeeded. His essays have all the merits due ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... over six feet in his stockings and tipped the beam close to the two hundred mark. Not one ounce of fat was on his huge frame. So fine was he drawn that unless one looked closely he would never suspect the weight of bone and muscle that his unobtrusive tweed suit covered. Piercing black eyes looked out from under shaggy brows. His face was lean and browned, and it took a second glance to realize the tremendous height and breadth of his forehead. A craggy jutting chin spoke of stubbornness and the relentless following up of a line ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... some of the words reminded you of her hats,—hats everyone thought she paid guineas for, but which she made for herself at a cost perhaps of five shillings: hats which were Paris with a touch of fairyland, somewhere an unobtrusive feather of the fantastic, somewhere a personal magic in the inimitable twist or lie of a bow—; her face looked out at you from a g or an x, a gesture flashed back to you in a sudden distinguished stroke of the pen, ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... city where Harriet has so long lived her quiet and unobtrusive life, it is not an uncommon thing to meet a young person who has never even ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... figure of Drummond at the other table—watching, watching. She felt sure that it was to him that the Surety Company had turned over the work of shadowing Halsey. Day after day, probably, the unobtrusive detective had been trailing Halsey from the moment he left his apartment until the time when he returned, if he did return. There was nothing of his goings and comings that was not already an open book to them. Of what use was it, then, for ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... believed that if a person had done wrong, he would be conscious of it; and that if he were found out he would at least try to appear penitent. But in this case my theory did not seem to be working; for my former chum, whom I remembered as a quiet, unobtrusive fellow, met my startled glance with a twinkle of suppressed humor. I confess that such a blow to my theory filled me ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... praise the ceaseless ministry of the great inanimate world around us only because its kindness is unobtrusive. Nature is always noiseless. All her greatest gifts are given in secret. And we forget how truly every good and perfect gift comes from without, and from above, because no pause in her changeless beneficence teaches us the sad ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... also possessed a melancholy wisdom. In the company of either Penrod or Sam, alone, affection often caused him to linger, albeit with a little pessimism, but when he saw them together, he invariably withdrew in as unobtrusive a manner as haste ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... home had been a-bustle with weeks of preparation for this hour, and nature was rejoicing and the heavens smiling upon the occasion. Sam Clayton, the bridegroom, was certainly a "lucky dog." A quiet, unobtrusive son of a neighboring farmer, he and Elizabeth had been school-children together. Probably the war had lessened her opportunity for choice but the night before he left for the front, they were engaged—and her family was the best and ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... in the smoke-room of the Alexandra—a very good friend of mine, myself, and, in the opposite corner, a shy-looking, unobtrusive man, the editor, as we subsequently learned, of a New York ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... south-west from the village of Chalfont St. Peter, and after a sharp curve brings the visitor to the Meeting House, a very plain and unobtrusive structure, dating from about the end of the seventeenth century. In the secluded burying-ground surrounded and overhung by great trees lies William Penn. Five of his children also rest among these quiet surroundings; and here are buried ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... comfortable, ma'am," said Mrs. Davids taking the chair in an unobtrusive spirit. "I am happy to have the occasion to make your acquaintance better. Husband would have come hisself, only he couldn't. Mr. Linden don't ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... the Museo, we found a little old man, gentle, grave, and unobtrusive, varnishing the ugly portrait of some Signor of the cinquecento. Round the walls hung pictures, of mediocre value, in dingy frames; but all of them bore sounding titles. Titians, Lionardos, Guido Renis, and Luinis, looked down and waited for a purchaser. In truth this museum was a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... love her," I heard a lady say not long ago, "but I can't imagine her making a beautiful home under any circumstances." Yet Miss Strong is gentle, sweet-tempered, thoroughly unselfish and high-minded, quiet and unobtrusive, neat and well-bred. Then what is wanting ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... observed to me, as we turned away: 'He had somebody with him, our friend Ruiz. I saw two figures for a moment. It was an unobtrusive companion.' ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... prisoner received this care and sympathy as he might have received the ministration of angels. The attendance was almost entirely confined to Montier and his wife, but now and then Elizabeth also could serve him. She served him with her heart, with unobtrusive zeal that was exhaustless as the zeal of love. Unobserved, she watched, as well as waited on him; and oh, how jealous and impatient of time and authority did she become! Her pity knew no limit; it beamed from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... and there was a flutter of laughter at the unobtrusive hint for seizing Dame England ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... qualifying the statement, that Mr. Chase was too good for me. I had always been under the impression that lieutenants in the royal navy were not brilliant at tennis. I had met them at various houses, but they had never shone conspicuously. They had played an earnest, unobtrusive game, and generally seemed glad when it was over. Mr. Chase was not of this sort. His service was bottled lightning. His returns behaved like jumping crackers. He won the first game in precisely four strokes. He served. I know now how soldiers feel under fire. The balls whistled ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... could not afford to consider. As a matter of personal preference, I should have liked the former, but I did not allow any such considerations to influence my conduct. My only hope was that the killing would take long enough to leave time for our unobtrusive exit. At the same time, as a matter of betting, I would have ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
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