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More "Taciturnity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... writing Miss Bronte's Life who were eager to fan that feeling in the usually kindly biographer. Mr. Nicholls himself did not work in the direction of conciliation. He was, as we shall see, a Scotchman, and Scottish taciturnity brought to bear upon the genial and jovial Yorkshire folk did not make for friendliness. Further, he would not let Mrs. Gaskell 'edit' and change The Professor, and here also he did wisely and well. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... as you'd get from the cutler; I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel, And your livery carry, as Butler. I'll ever rest your debtor If you'll answer my first letter; Or must, alas, eternity Witness your taciturnity? Speak—and oh! speak quickly Or else I shall grow sickly, And pine, And whine, And grow yellow and brown As e'er was mahogany, And lie me ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... strap. Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual contact, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... wondering at the moody silence he maintained among his comrades. He did indeed reply to their questions in a careless, off-hand tone, but he never volunteered a remark. The only difference between him and the others was his taciturnity and his size, for he was nearly, if not quite, as large a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... mats or cushions, on which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence of coffee and tobacco. The coffee is served in very small cups, not larger than egg-cups, grounds ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... how sad the little girl was looking, and that she intentionally refused to answer her. At any other time she would not have troubled herself about this, but to-day this taciturnity provoked her, nay it really worried her; she stood straight in front of Mary, who was still indefatigably busy with the ruler, and said loudly and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... turning, saw Isaac Welles standing at the gate. He had overheard the conversation and felt that there was no danger of a quarrel, and he now came eagerly forward with offers of assistance. They were gratefully accepted; for even the taciturnity of the brothers seemed to give way before the pressing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... him," replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest. Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity, for he wished me "um berry fine v'y'ge, Mass' Tom," when drinking ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... white nails on the gnarled bony fingers of his sinewy red hands. He had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and compressed lips, which he was for ever twitching and biting; and this, together with his habitual taciturnity, produced an impression almost sinister. His grey hair hung in tufts on his low brow; like smouldering embers, his little set eyes glowed with dull fire. He moved painfully, at every step swinging his ungainly body forward. Some of his movements recalled the clumsy actions ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... I ran upon two hermit thrushes (one had been seen on the 25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I whistled softly to the first, and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! And ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... in spite of his chagrin, to entirely despair of the present. Chemerant, recovering from his surprise, attributed the somber taciturnity of the Gascon to the painful thoughts which the criminal conduct of the Duchess of Monmouth must cause him; while the adventurer, summing up the chances of escape which remained to him, analyzed the state of his heart, reasoning as follows: "Blue Beard (I shall always call her that—it ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... entered the city. One had little to tell, but the other made amends for his companion's taciturnity with a graphic, Othellonian description of the dangers he had passed, and his wondrous experiences for many days and nights. He had, it appeared, a regard for Mr. Rhodes, (who is less popular in the Free State than in Kimberley), and the Government across ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... N. {ant. 525} latency, inexpression[obs3]; hidden meaning, occult meaning; occultness, mystery, cabala[obs3], anagoge[obs3]; silence &c (taciturnity) 585; concealment &c. 528; more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear; Delphic oracle; le dessous des cartes[Fr], undercurrent. implication, logical implication; logical consequence; entailment. allusion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... resolved not to stir. At last the good old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the argument, I rose and with a constrained smile told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit began to be ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... of subjection in which she was kept, the dissatisfaction this evidently created, the gloom that was visible in her countenance, and that seemed to oppress her heart, added to a disconsolate and habitual taciturnity, soon occasioned Mr. Elford to consider her with compassion: and the very question—can I not afford her relief? gave birth to ideas of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... had been the author played perhaps a part in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims to be so deeply impressed by the death of an ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... she saw how I was caring for her gift; but I puzzled and disheartened her by my preoccupation and taciturnity. She took the children off on a long ramble in the afternoon, and heaped coals of fire on my head by bringing me ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... his disposition left the good cleric, like many another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and trustfulness of others. Did he ever complain that he was oppressed and saddened by his self-chosen life in the Bush? We have seen the high estimate he once gave of it; and Mr. Woods, who has recorded ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... an evident desire on the part of the host to enter into conversation, but either from an apprehension of treading on dangerous ground, or an unwillingness to intrude upon the rather studied taciturnity of his guest, he several times hesitated, before he could venture to make any further remark. At length, a movement from Mr. Harper, as he raised his eyes to the party in the room, encouraged him ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... and for the rest of the day Vera was silent and thoughtful, excusing her taciturnity by the fact that she had a lot of packing to do and needed to concentrate her ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... watching its progress, with sleepy, half-shut eyes, changing his position only to reach the cider-mug on the shelf near him. Although he seldom opened his lips save to assent to some remark of his host or to answer a direct question, yet at times, when the cider-mug got the better of his taciturnity, he would amuse us with interesting details of his early experiences ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... other constellations some years before or after the birth or death of other persons: the attendant phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, from immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... changed, so there seemed to be subtle differences in the others of the party. Gale himself lost a certain sickening dread, which had not been for himself, but for Mercedes and Nell, and Thorne and the rangers. Jim, good-natured again, might have been patrolling the boundary line. Ladd lost his taciturnity and his gloom changed to a cool, careless air. A mood that was almost defiance began to be manifested in Thorne. It was in Mercedes, however, that Gale marked the most significant change. Her collapse the preceding day might never have ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... which you are accustomed to in England,—the amusing groupes of the villagers, who flock out of their houses, to see the English pass,—the grotesque and ludicrous figures of the French beggars, who, in the most unbounded variety of costume, surround the carriage the moment we stop,—and the solemn taciturnity of Monsieur Roger, our coachman, who is an extraordinary exception to the general vivacity of his nation; these are the only circumstances which serve at present to exhilarate our spirits, and to remove the tedium of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... national genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his own roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, Con el rey y la inquisicion, chiton! "With the king and the Inquisition, hush!" The gravity and taciturnity of the nation have been ascribed to the effects of this proverb. Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and on a variety of dues exacted by their clergy, were murmured in proverbs—Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco! "What Christ takes not, the exchequer ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and opponents of the ministry. It was asserted that the administration were no strangers to the convenient taciturnity of Sir John Blunt. The Duke of Wharton made a reflection upon the Earl Stanhope, which the latter warmly resented. He spoke under great excitement, and with such vehemence as to cause a sudden determination of blood to the head. He felt himself so ill that he was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,—the spoken word one with another, at the family table, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... Quid valeat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; [774]no better way to avoid folly and madness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all senators, magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos esse, (some say) we must not ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... not as gay nor as unconventional as others that had preceded it. The Countess vainly tried to make it as sprightly as its predecessors, but gave over in despair in the face of my taciturnity. Her spirits drooped. She became strangely uneasy and, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... were sufficiently noisy over their new wine, they talked without laughter, and without the shrugs and gestures that enliven conversation among other Latin peoples. They had a hard-favored grimness and taciturnity that with their mountain scenery reminded me of New England now and again, and gave me the bewildered sense of having dropped down in some little anterior America. But there was one thing that marked a great difference from our civilization, and that was the prevalence of uniforms, for which ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... gallantry and contempt of death enough for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white handkerchief and a case of instruments, where other men went hot-blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of the regiment. Not even the Major's taciturnity ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... when the King of Rome approached to greet her, she turned pale and trembled as she felt the gaze of his large blue eyes. Her paleness did not increase her beauty, nor did her shyness contribute to make her interesting. Joseph was annoyed at her taciturnity and disgusted with her ugliness. After a few brief words he bowed, and galloped off to join his retinue. The princess looked sadly after him, and returned home with a troubled heart. She knew that she had been disdained, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... her convalescence, Beryl, though perfectly rational, asked no questions, made no reference to her gloomy surroundings and maintained a calm, but mournful taciturnity, very puzzling to Mrs. Singleton, who ascribed it at first to mental prostration, which rendered her comparatively obtuse; but ere long, a different solution presented itself, and she marvelled at the silence with which a desperate battle was ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of such a freight. He sputtered at the mouth, and stamped with his feet, so forcibly and vociferously, that no endeavours of mine could induce him to stop his accusations of traitorous designs, till, tired of the attempt, I ceased both explanation and entreaty, and stood before him with calm taciturnity. Wanting, then, the fresh fuel of interruption or opposition, his fire and fury evaporated into curiosity to know what I could offer. Yet even then, though my account staggered his violence into some degree of civility, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... presence of his young friend, and came much more than usual out of his reserve. So that the conversations round the tea-table, when Pitt made one of their number, were often lively and varied; such as Esther had hardly known in her life before. The colonel left off his taciturnity; waked up, as it were; told old campaigning stories, and gave out stores of information which few people knew he possessed. The talks were delightful, on subjects natural and scientific, historical and local and picturesque. Esther luxuriated in ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... particular charm. Yet, like all reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, sufficiently disproved ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... afternoon. The grass was green in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow, with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him, she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... get to London again, in order to meet a gentleman he had seen there, under a different impression as to his merits, than what now appeared to be just. Who the gentleman was, or what these impressions were, Julia was left to conjecture, taciturnity being a favorite property in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... servant of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he determined not yet to dismiss ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it now," said Captain Billings, with a responsive sigh to the carpenter's lament over the lost foremast. Haxell looked upon all the ship's spars as if they were his own peculiar private property, and spoke of them always—that is, when he could be induced to abandon his chronic taciturnity—as if they had kindred feelings and sensibilities to ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a few more directions out of Kitty, over whom a shade of sombre taciturnity had now fallen. Then, saying she would write the notes down-stairs and come back, she gathered up her basketful of letters ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... St. Thomas Aqui'nas was so called by his fellow-students at Cologne, from his taciturnity and dreaminess. Sometimes called "The Great Dumb Ox of Sicily." He was larged-bodied, fat, with a brown complexion, and a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... managed to do so, in the bracing conditions that obtained on Cosdon Beacon upon the occasion of a visit to its summit. By this time he had grown friendly with Hicks and must have learnt all and more than he desired to know but for the bee-keeper's curious taciturnity. For some whim Clement never mentioned his engagement; it was a subject as absent from his conversation as his own extreme poverty; but while the last fact Martin had already guessed, the former remained ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... laughed harshly but said nothing—taciturnity was his one redeeming trait. "Did you say cigars?" he asked, pushing a box across the bar to an impatient customer. Another beckoned to him and he leaned over to hear the whispered request, a frown struggling to show itself on ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... fond of a military life who had sense enough to be on the right side. That it took an abnormal degree of intelligence to know which was the right side in those troublous days he also realized, and hence he cultivated that taciturnity and proneness to irritability which we have ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... culprit go unpunished. Her insanity was not self-evident, and it may even be said that there were no outward signs of it. Up to that time it had never occurred to anyone that she was insane, for there was nothing singular in her conduct except her extreme taciturnity. It was easy, therefore, to question her insanity, while the true explanation of the act was so incredible and so strange that her friends could not well bring it forward. The fact of having allowed ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... nice of you, Isom," said she, moved out of her settled taciturnity by his little show of thought for her, "I've been just dying for a piece ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... themselves so much secluded as among the Malay races; the children were more merry and had the "nigger grin," while the noisy confusion of tongues among the men, and their excitement on very ordinary occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity and reserve ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... comforted Des Esseintes who none the less was frightened by the taciturnity observed; he adjured his servant not to conceal the truth from him any longer. But the servant declared that the doctor had exhibited no uneasiness, and despite his suspicions, Des Esseintes could seize upon no sign that might betray a shadow of a lie on the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... taken in training by her. That gentleman, having made the discovery, early in life, that the less a man says, the more he is supposed to know, had acquired a habit of taciturnity which had become a second nature to him. His conversation consisted mainly of grunts and nods; and it was astonishing how much he could express by them. At any rate, they had "made his fortin', and he couldn't ha' done more'n that if he'd talked like a house a-fire"—which ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... it's positively of use to torment the adored one; but in my position it was indescribably stupid. Liza, in the most innocent way, paid no attention to me. No one but Madame Ozhogin observed my solemn taciturnity, and she inquired anxiously after my health. I replied, of course, with a bitter smile, that I was thankful to say I was perfectly well. Ozhogin continued to expatiate on the subject of their visitor; but ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... been interested by Peter's taciturnity and fascinated by his waistcoat, had been leading that ordinarily masterful man something of a conversational dance. Detached for the moment by his demand for provender, she called across the table: "Mary, I herewith invite you to attend the Culture Club ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... appearance of Lower Bengal in history, its inhabitants have been reticent, self-contained, distrustful of foreign observation, in a degree without parallel among other equally civilized nations. The cause of this taciturnity will afterwards be clearly explained; but no one who is acquainted either with the past experiences or the present condition of the people can be ignorant of its results. Local officials may write alarming reports, but their apprehensions seem to be contradicted by the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... had been ready enough to talk. Had she failed to hear what Francine had just said to her? or had she some reason for feeling reluctant to answer? In any case, a spirit of taciturnity took sudden possession of ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... his Majesty's chief eunuch, as they have made the Tripoline ambassador call Lord Anson, executed his commission. She lay that night at your old friend Lord Abercorn's, at Witham [in Essex]; and, if she judged by her host, must have thought she was coming to reign in the realm of taciturnity. She arrived at St. James's a quarter after three on Tuesday the 8th. When she first saw the Palace she turned pale: the Duchess of Hamilton smiled. "My dear Duchess," said the Princess, "you may laugh; you have been married twice; but it is no joke to me." Is this a bad proof of her sense? ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... bear to see his chief thus perish. For four years that man had led them, and only his companions knew his worth. To his acquaintance he might seem hard and unsympathetic, he might repel by his taciturnity and anger by his sternness; but his comrades knew how eminent were his qualities. It was impossible for anyone to live with him continually without being conquered by his greatness. If his power with the natives was unparalleled, it was because they had taken his measure and ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... to be making up lost way for years of taciturnity in the tower. They say there is ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... thus talking the waiter told us that dinner was served, and we withdrew accordingly; my guests more than making amends for my comparative taciturnity. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... what had so long been one of the most powerful objects of my imagination. The gloomy and almost inaccessible situation chosen by this strange fraternity for their convent—their rigid separation from human intercourse—the infringible taciturnity imposed upon themselves—and the terrible severity of their penances, are certainly circumstances more resembling the visionary indulgence of fantasy and fiction, than actual realities to be met with among living men, ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... sleep and outraged at her taciturnity, I breakfasted alone on the soggiest wheatcakes and the muddiest coffee I have ever demeaned my stomach with. The absence of my customary morning paper added the final touch to my wretchedness. But one would have thought ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... of few words, cold and grave, accustomed to every kind of risk and hairbreadth escape, and as little apt to praise the deeds of others as he was to mention his own; but on this occasion he broke through his usual taciturnity to express his thanks for Kenton's help and his admiration for ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... spirit as ever. Nor could he see that Willet was less keen about it and the three proceeded promptly to the council grove where a multitude was already hastening. There was, too, a great buzz of talk, as the Iroquois here in the vale, the very heart of their country, did not show the taciturnity in which the red man so often takes refuge in the presence of ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... ha!" said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. But the obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw that his taciturnity and his bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore, and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... forth from the landing and around a bend in the river. Thereafter his efforts relaxed, and he had Adelle to himself for two long hours. And Adelle, reclining on the gaudy cushions under an enormous pink sunshade, was not unenticing. Her air of indolent taciturnity was almost provoking. Mr. Ashly Crane quite persuaded himself that he was really in love ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... value of taciturnity to a man among strangers, it is apt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countryman who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the landscape which are never discerned by him ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... respects, the voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to Aynesworth. His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one night as the two men paced ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the feather headdress brilliant and defiant like that of Tayoga, came forward to meet them, and Robert saw with intense pleasure that it was none other than Daganoweda himself. Nor was the delight of the young Mohawk chieftain any less—the taciturnity and blank faces of Indians disappeared among their friends—and he came forward, smiling ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ventured to enter upon any conversation with me, for he had observed that I always sought to be alone, that I took long, solitary rambles through the woods and, across the hills—and, not daring to break through my taciturnity, he had contented himself by merely attending to my material comforts in silence. One afternoon, however, after clearing away the remains of my light luncheon, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Shakespeare's contemporaries were silent about the then new fashion of smoking, we should not so much wonder at Shakespeare's taciturnity. But Decker's and Ben Jonson's works abound in allusions to tobacco, its uses and abuses. The humorist and satirist lost no opportunity of deriding the new fashion and its followers. The tobacco merchant was ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... village on his way back from the Johnstons', Lane emerged from the telegraph office and joined him. On the rare occasions when they were thrown together alone like this, John Lane's taciturnity reached to positive dumbness. Vickers supposed that his brother-in-law disliked him, possibly despised him. It was, however, a case of absolute non-understanding. It must remain forever a problem to the man with a firm grasp on concrete fact how ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... appearance of this philosopher, who was bulky and strong, and on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity sat enthroned, not inconsistent with his character, in which that quality was proudly conspicuous, almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though on familiar terms with him. Whispering to Florence that Bunsby had never in his life expressed surprise, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... good as that she was able to obtain many looks at the profile she admired, for she saw it clean-cut against the passing landscape for the sixty miles of daylight out of the seventy-five miles home, while she sat beside its owner and tried many times to draw him into talk. His taciturnity on this particular day was a thing beyond any experience with it she had yet had. She had heard Burns talk, and talk well, on many different subjects, the while he sat upon the Chesters' porch of a summer evening, the three of them about him, and he had seemed to enjoy talking. He ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden." And the German, roused from his taciturnity, turned to Vronsky. "Das laesst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht." The German was just feeling in the pocket where were his pencil and the notebook he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a dinner, and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and relapsed into a taciturnity which was obviously one of his peculiarities. The young man strolled down the platform, and catching up with the inspector, touched ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... forests and upon the plains of the west: whatever they may have been before their migration, they soon become meditative, abstracted, and taciturn. These, and especially the last, are the peculiar characteristics of the Indian; his taciturnity, indeed, amounts to austerity, sometimes impressing the observer with the idea of affectation. The dispersion, which must have been the effect of unlimited choice in lands—the mode of life pursued by those who depended upon the chase for subsistence—the gradual estrangement ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... His dark profile is stern and wildly gloomy; every motion of his powerful body, every fold of his clothes, is full of the dull silence of the taciturnity of long hours, or days, or perhaps ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... and made a huge effort, finally conquering that taciturnity which was almost an affliction to him. "The reason I gave the other night to you and that chap Durnovo was honest enough, but I have another. I want to lie low for a few months, but I also want to make money. I'm as good as engaged to be married, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... warm the southeastern skies at nine, and its glow had already risen above the forests before Croisset stopped his team again. For two hours he had not spoken a word to his prisoner and after several unavailing efforts to break the other's taciturnity Howland lapsed into a silence of his own. When he had brought his tired dogs to a halt, Croisset spoke ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... English master though, to teach us elocution, because it's so fashionable now to read loud well. Mrs. Harcourt, isn't it odd to read English books to a French governess?" continued this young lady, whose constrained taciturnity now gave way to a strong desire to show herself off before Lady N——. She had observed that Isabella and Matilda had been listened to with approbation, and she imagined that, when she spoke, she should certainly eclipse them. Mrs. Harcourt replied to her observation, that ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... this the case in the Orient, where the most original and suggestive thought is half disguised in the garb of metaphor, and where, in spite of vivid fancies and fiery passions, the people affect taciturnity or reticence, and delight in the metaphysical and the mystic. Hence the early annals of the Siamese, or Sajamese, abound in fables of heroes, demigods, giants, and genii, and afford but few facts of practical value. Swayed by religious influences, they joined, in the spirit ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... friends, and officers. Victor and the Chevalier were on this list, as were the vicomte and D'Herouville. Usually these were enjoyable evenings. Victor became famous as a raconteur, and the Chevalier lost some of his taciturnity in this friendly intercourse. D'Herouville's conduct was ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... was sixteen there was a blond German boy whose taciturnity attracted her volubility and vivacity. She mistook his stolidness for depth, and it was a long time before she realized that his silence was not due to the weight of his thoughts but to the fact that he had nothing to say. In her ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... was probably so called because the inhabitants had been forbidden, owing to false alarms, to speak of the approach of an enemy. But if Virgil is referring, not to the Amyclae near Naples, but to the original Amyclae in Laconia, then the proverbial taciturnity of those inhabiting the latter country offers sufficient explanation. Aegeon was a monster with 100 arms and 50 heads. He is more ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... well is the duke guarded in consequence, that five years have elapsed and he is still at Vincennes. At last his friends find means of communicating with him, and Grimaud, the servant of the Count de la Fere, is introduced, in the capacity of an under jailer, into the fortress, where, by his taciturnity and apparent strictness, he gains the entire confidence of La Ramee, an official who, under M. de Chavigny, is appointed to the especial guardianship of the Duke of Beaufort. An attempt to escape is fixed for the day of the Pentecost. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... which he consulted with trained eyes that correctly approximated both locality and distances. Slowly refolding it he replaced it in an inner pocket. Being in a mood that anticipated much at the end of the journey, he was not loath to break into his chauffeur's taciturnity. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... Queen and Royal Family,' and 'Lord Hood,' this strange man regularly filled his glass, and observed that those were always bumper toasts with him; which, having drank, he uniformly passed the bottle, and relapsed into his former taciturnity. It was impossible, during this visit, for any of us to make out his real character; there was such a reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with occasional sallies, though very transient, of a superior mind. Being placed by him, I endeavoured ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... nervous fever—altogether unlike the terrible typhoid, yet such as to keep me to my room. Minima and Mademoiselle Therese were my only companions. Mademoiselle, after talking that one night as much as she generally talked in twelve months, had relapsed into deeper taciturnity than before. But her muteness tranquillized me. Minima's simple talk brought me back to the level of common life. My own nervous weeping, which I could not control, served to soothe me. My casement, almost covered by broad, clustering ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... have its reward. Indeed, my daily walks to and from my work took on the character of a silent duel between the expressionless walls and my expressionless face, and I was not going to be beaten in taciturnity. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his usual kindliness, deprecated my thrust at the taciturnity of his countryman and confrere, with a gesture and a look of reproach in his soft gray eyes, and we parted. I watched him until he disappeared at the first ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... said Mr. Hendricks to Doctor Smalley, after a half hour of almost taciturnity, while Willy Cameron smoked his pipe and listened. "Watch him rise ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... disdain. His eyes fell on Anthony, as though he expected an answer, and then upon the others. Receiving only a defiant stare from the Italian he groaned and spat noisily on the floor by way of a dignified transition back into taciturnity. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... enfeebled, has no betrayal of such imbecility in the expression of his face. He has been in his present unfortunate condition since the year 1830; and, for a great part of that time, he has maintained an immovable taciturnity. No ingenuity has been able to extract a syllable from him. He answers no questions, nor asks any—enters into no conversation—and, even during the whole journey from Milan to London, he never spoke ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears, seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as gloomily reserved as though he had buried a secret of ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... few moments they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing laboriously, while he who was there first appeared, from some natural taciturnity of character, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... moral weakness, but saw that my disapprobation had in it already something of a pose; and I knew that if I felt it, his own keen instinct had discovered it, too. He was certainly laughing at me up his sleeve. I left him the last word, and sought refuge in a shrug of the shoulders and taciturnity. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... in solemn taciturnity Thy brain seems wandering through eternity, What happiness were mine Could I then catch the thoughts that flow, Thoughts such as ne'er were hatched below, But in a ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for his success in the Election. His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas Day ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... they had aged considerably and were weighted with care. Music teaching in Melkbridge was a sorry crutch on which to lean for support. During the short meal, neither husband nor wife said much. Mavis wondered if this taciturnity were due to any suspicions they might entertain of Mavis's unwedded state. But when Mrs Trivett came upstairs with her, she sat on the bed and burst ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... pretty low. He would have liked very much to know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were, in an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... she did not attempt to invade his taciturnity. Nevertheless she was as keenly alive and watchful of his every movement and gesture as if she had hung enchanted on his lips. The unerring way with which he pursued a viewless, undeviating path through those trackless woods, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... have taken the liberty to describe elsewhere. His disposition was naturally cheerful and mild, his temper even, and not easily provoked. Although somewhat inclined to taciturnity, yet when drawn out to converse upon any subject he was acquainted with, he was naturally fluent, and in his language pure and correct. He was a universal favorite with the youth of both sexes in his native town, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... solitude such as only Ivan would have dared to undergo. Nathalie's letters, which grew more frequent as the days went by, and to which he faithfully replied; two visits from Kashkine, one from Mily Balakirev, and half a dozen from Nicholas, who was to be daunted by no amount of taciturnity, were the only incidents of the period. Balakirev, indeed, had brought with him a young protege, one Rimsky-Korsakow, (since heard from,) to worship at the shrine of Russia's Gregoriev; whereupon that hero, highly ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and, since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... heart in sonnets. Such is the drift of the verses entitled House; a peep through the window is permitted, but "please you, no foot over threshold of mine." This was not Shakespeare's wiser way; if he hid himself behind his work, it was with the openness and with the taciturnity of Nature. He did not stand in the window of his "House" declaring that he was not to be seen; he did not pull up and draw down the blind to make it appear that he was at home and not at home. In the poem Shop Browning continues his assurances that he is no Eglamor ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Max, the ne'er-do-weel, the extravagant one, who drank little and did the listening. Dudley had cast off altogether the gravity and taciturnity which sometimes got him looked upon as a bit of a prig, and chatted and told his friend stories, with a tone and manner of irresponsible gayety which became ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... concern, and, as his facts are correct, and his motive not dishonourable to himself, I wished him well through it. As for his interpretations of the lines, he and any one else may interpret them as they please. I have and shall adhere to my taciturnity, unless something very particular occurs to render this impossible. Do not you say a word. If any one is to speak, it is the person principally concerned. The most amusing thing is, that every ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not advice to taciturnity. It is not a suggestion that you should be stolid and wooden in manner and speech. The reason of it is to prevent you from making mistakes or betraying yourself by foolish and unnecessary utterance. My suggestion to young men that they practise reserve in speech is merely a practical ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the National Gazette. Eleazer listened with a great deal of interest to what Mainwaring had to say of his proposed cruise. He himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of what he knew, particularly of Captain Scarfield—in whom he appeared to take an ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the inevitable soup was placed on the table, the natural taciturnity, common even to Icelandic babies, prevailed over all else. Our host filled our plates with a portion of lichen soup of Iceland moss, of by no means disagreeable flavor, an enormous lump of fish floating in sour butter. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... increased, and mingled with it was a growing admiration wholly aside from his respect for him as a soldier. He was showing observation or intuition of a high order. The General's heart was full. He had all of the mountaineer's reserve and taciturnity, but now after years of repression and at the touch of real sympathy ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... talents, and accurate scholarship, Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful and impulsive, we have good authority ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hear the words so glibly enunciated. His lips seemed to him stiff, petrifying. He looked very white about them. She did not heed. She was angered, wounded, perplexed, by his acquiescence, his calmness, his taciturnity. A wave of anxiety that was half regret went over her. She felt lost in the turmoil of these complex emotions. With that destructive impulse to hurl down, to tear, to strike, that is an element of a sort of blind irritation, she ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... his nature, to win his way, either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed as well adapted as ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... "to sink from inanition into nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is "the developer of the skies in their embodied movements"; and Mrs. Thrale, when a party of clever people sat silent, is said to have been "provoked by the dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of all human faculties." In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of Madame D'Arblay's later works without finding flowers of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is not permitted to absent oneself by silence. To pretend contumaciousness is a wound given to the law. It is like Diomede wounding a goddess. Taciturnity before a judge is a form of rebellion. Treason to justice is high treason. Nothing is more hateful or rash. He who resists interrogation steals truth. The law has provided for this. For such cases, the English have always enjoyed the right of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... whether I was in my right senses yesterday or whether I was delirious? Perhaps he will judge as to our quarrel." Nothing would have pleased him better than there and then to have strangled that gentleman, whose taciturnity and equivocal facial expression ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Taciturnity becomes habitual to men accustomed to vast solitudes. Even on such a tramp as I had undertaken, in which I frequently walked for miles without sight or sound of a human being, I began to realize how banal and aimless is conventional conversation. Under ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... ultimately Tickell, who became his most confidential friend and the depositor of his literary remains. In mixed societies he was silent; but with a few select spirits around him, and especially after the "good wine did the good office" of banishing his bashfulness and taciturnity, he became the most delightful and fascinating of conversers. The staple of his conversation was quiet, sly humour; but there was fine sentiment, touches of pathos, and now and then imagination peeped over like an Alp above meaner hills. Swift alone, we suspect, was his match; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... morning my neighbor Forster dropped in upon me at breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped laying, or wandered off in the bush. Wan Lee, who was present during our colloquy, preserved his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my neighbor had gone, he turned to me with a slight chuckle: "Flostel's hens—Wan Lee's hens allee same!" His other offence was more serious and ambitious. It was a season of great irregularities in the mails, and ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... a word. He had learned the taciturnity of the woods, and leveling his rifle, took sure aim. There was no buck fever about him now, and, when his rifle cracked, the deer bounded into the air and dropped down dead. Ross, all business, began to cut up and clean ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gave a sigh, feathered his oar, and never spoke another word till we came alongside. I did not regret his taciturnity, for I was always more amused with my own thoughts, than in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... singular spot dwelt another old pioneer, a friend of my companions, and at his cabin we stopped to pass the night. Our host was only remarkable for his great hospitality and greater taciturnity; he had always lived in the wilds, quite alone, and the only few words he would utter were incoherent. It appeared as if his mind was fixed upon scenes of the past. In his early life he had been one of the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... differently on those who follow it, according to their depth and nature. It makes black devils of some who were once civil, smiling, wholesome men, whether the mischance of life-taking has fallen to them in their duty to society or in outlawed deeds. It plunges some into dark taciturnity and brooding coldness, as if they had eaten of some root which blunted them to all common relish ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... Office on the discovery of the murder; another was the detective who had accompanied him. Since the murder Triffitt had kept in touch with these two, and had found them affable and ready to talk; now, however, they had suddenly curled up into a dry taciturnity, and there was nothing to ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... turned and frankly met his gaze. I had startled him out of his habitual set taciturnity, but even as I looked the light that might have been amaze and joy faded out of his face, leaving it the ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... hermit of the cliff had made his home there, but he had shunned all intercourse with his neighbors and had coldly repelled all advances and checked all curiosity by his persistent taciturnity. From time to time he went to the village for supplies, and when they were too bulky to admit of his carrying them, he had had them delivered on the beach in front of the entrance to his cave dwelling and at his ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual contact, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... as though oblivious of her existence. She had observed the same thing in Bompard and La Touche who would sit cheek by jowl without a word, as though they had quarrelled. This trait pleased her, and she fell in with it unconsciously as though his mind had moulded hers and were teaching it the taciturnity ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... look attentively at everything, though his features were motionless as those of a blind man. When he laughed it was with what the English call a horse-laugh, and immediately resumed his habitual taciturnity. Mr. Wilkinson seemed about forty, and, in manner and appearance, ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... on having so far succeeded in the establishment of peace, they could not conceal from themselves the fact that while, on the one hand, the Esquimaux appeared to be perfectly sincere and cordial in their professions, on the other hand the Indians evinced a good deal of taciturnity at first, and even after their reserve was overcome, seemed to act as men do who are constrained to the performance of ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... nothing to say one way or the other, but watched with a cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, and squatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when for some reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob happened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. As usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only the men would act in their accustomed way, and ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... The bibations, namely, had to end; even the building where they used to be carried on was razed from the soil of St. Edmundsbury, and 'on its place grow rows of beans:' Willelmus himself, deposed from the Sacristy and all offices, retires into obscurity, into absolute taciturnity unbroken thenceforth to this hour. Whether the poor Willelmus did not still, by secret channels, occasionally get some slight wetting of vinous or alcoholic liquor,—now grown, in a manner, indispensable to the poor man? Jocelin ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the soul of a brave man. Was he, Keeler, on a fool's errand to San Francisco? Well, he had determined on his own account to do a little investigating in Nevada City that very day. So had Mat Bailey. Hence his unusual taciturnity. So had "Bed-bug Brown," and he kept the secret ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... curious, sir," said I to the stranger when she had gone, "that I should feel so strangely annoyed as I have been with that woman. I absolutely know nothing about her, and cannot lay a single fault to her charge, but plain looks and taciturnity; and yet I feel as if no inducement would tempt me to step again into a coach where I knew she was to be present. And after all, for any thing I know to the contrary, she may be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... settled, I sought Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. But the obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw that his taciturnity and his bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore, and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting fisherman's way. Breakfast over, we went on shore. The Nautilus had gone some miles further ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... ended, he rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken to ash and embers. Before they parted for ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... in kind; Barnes' candor and simplicity were apparent antidotes to the other's taciturnity and constraint. During the country dance the soldier had remained a passive spectator, displaying little interest in the rustic merry-making or the open glances cast upon him by bonny lasses, burned in the sunlit fields, buxom serving maids, as clean as the pans in the kitchen, and hearty matrons, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... expression moulded of indifference and utter disdain. His eyes fell on Anthony, as though he expected an answer, and then upon the others. Receiving only a defiant stare from the Italian he groaned and spat noisily on the floor by way of a dignified transition back into taciturnity. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... three pursued their way in silence, then Bertha made an effort to converse. Maurice answered in monosyllables and those were followed by deep sighs. Gaston seemed to be hardly more master of language, though his taciturnity had a different origin; it was occasioned by the unexpected delight of finding himself walking beside Bertha, who constantly lifted her sweet face inquiringly to his, as though to ask why ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and trustfulness of others. Did he ever complain that he was oppressed and saddened by his self-chosen life in the Bush? We have seen the high estimate he once gave of it; and Mr. Woods, who has recorded ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... he had disliked and distrusted Madame de Flahaut from the first time of meeting her, and, to do the lady justice, she had disliked Mr. Calvert just as heartily and could never be got to believe that he was anything but a most unintelligent and uninteresting young man, convinced that his taciturnity and unruffled serenity before her charms were ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... profile she admired, for she saw it clean-cut against the passing landscape for the sixty miles of daylight out of the seventy-five miles home, while she sat beside its owner and tried many times to draw him into talk. His taciturnity on this particular day was a thing beyond any experience with it she had yet had. She had heard Burns talk, and talk well, on many different subjects, the while he sat upon the Chesters' porch of a ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... deep-seated melancholy, and immoveable taciturnity—it was evident to Mr Adair and his family that their boarder was labouring under some grievous depression of mind; and in this opinion they were confirmed by various expressions of grief, not unaccompanied by others of contrition, which they had frequently ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... apparently all the time there was, he had been a frequent spectator of operations, squatting by the hour watching the work. Occasionally his interest had been rewarded by a meal or a plug of tobacco. These things he had accepted without comment and without thanks. His taciturnity and gravity seemed primeval. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... both from sympathy and emulation, to acquire a variety of words, than those who live with silent people, and who have few companions of their own age. All these circumstances should be considered by parents, before they form their judgment of a child's capacity from his volubility or his taciturnity. Volubility can easily be checked by simply ceasing to attend to it, and taciturnity may be vanquished by the encouragements of praise and affection: we should neither be alarmed at one disposition nor at the other, but steadily pursue the system ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... In this he'd rather resemble the bullfinch; you must give out the tune to him, and chirrup with questions to him before he will pipe his strain to you; and when I consider the vast difficulty which the natural taciturnity of you ladies places you under of asking questions, I feel for your curiosity in its tight stays excessively. On this occasion, perhaps, where the motive is so strong, you will break through your native restraint; and, therefore, I advise you to have your interrogatories ready by the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... at the table could not understand a young man of twenty-eight years who drank nothing but water, scorned all enjoyment in eating, and only laughed forcedly under compulsion. At last, disturbed by the continued taciturnity of their host, they rose from the table sooner than their wont, and prepared to take leave. Before their departure, Arbillot the notary, passed his arm familiarly through that of Julien and led him into an adjoining room, which served as ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... among the men. Withal, he was a finely formed, soldierly-looking man. In the early part of his service he was reserved in his comments upon the conduct of the war, and considered, as he was in fact, conservative,—setting the best possible example of taciturnity, subordinate to the wisdom ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... the salt upon the table?' 'Yes,' says he, 'my dear; and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza.' The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when, to my utter confusion, the lady seeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them across one another upon the plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and place them side by side. What the absurdity was which I had ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... the taciturnity of the plainsman, jerked the cinchas tight and swung to the saddle. Sinker's death had come like a white-hot flash of lightning from the bulked clouds that had shadowed disaster impending—and in that shadow the three men rode ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... talking at once, rumbling and roaring as big-chested open-air men will, when whisky has whipped their taciturnity. And I, a little shaver of seven, my heart in my mouth, my trembling body strung tense as a deer's on the verge of flight, peered wonderingly in at the open door and learned more of the strangeness of men. And I marvelled at Black Matt and Tom Morrisey, sprawled over the table, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were, in an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that nothing ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Colonel Jermain Fiske. Sylvia read this announcement in the Society Column of the La Chance Morning Herald, with an enigmatic expression on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... spoken, no other than our old friend, Dumbiedikes, whose mouth, like that of the prophet's ass, had been opened by the emergency of the case, now joined them, and, with his usual taciturnity, escorted them into the Court-house. No opposition was offered to their entrance either by the guards or doorkeepers; and it is even said that one of the latter refused a shilling of civility-money tendered him by the Laird of Dumbiedikes, who was of opinion ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... these men, but in the back ground, and concealed in their shadow, had one of those peculiar reputations, the more potent over opinion, as it made but little display: it was spoken of as though an antique virtue, beneath the simple appearance of a rustic: he was the Sieyes of his party. Beneath his taciturnity his deep thought was assured, and in his mystery the oracle was accredited. The brilliancy and genius of his wife attracted all eyes towards him: his very mediocrity, the only power that has the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... style, and a plain black cravat. If he had worn an old-time stock we could have forgiven him the rest of the disappointment he cost us; but we had to admit to ourselves that he had the most absolutely commonplace appearance of all our acquaintance. In fact, we soon discovered that, except for a taciturnity the like of which we had never encountered, our aromatic uncle had positively not one picturesque characteristic about him. Even his aroma was a disappointment. He had it, but it was patchouly or ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... afloat in ten minutes," said a man in oil-skins, who helped them over the low bulwarks. He spoke good English, and seemed to have learned some of the taciturnity of the seafaring portion of that nation with their language; for he went aft to the tiller without more words ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... other high matter will be; what the public will think of it; and, in short, what and how the Executive-Royal shall DO therein: this, the essential function of a Parliament and Privy-Council, was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere Nature, multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke making the most of what natural intellect there might be. The substitution of Tobacco-smoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, by some, held to be a great improvement. Here is Smelfungus's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The professor's taciturnity was of a pronounced order this morning. Now and then as he made his own brief and customarily untidy toilet, he turned a look of accusation upon the big Colt lying on his bed. Before drawing on his boots he ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... reason I resolved not to stir. At last the good old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the argument, I rose and with a constrained smile told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit began to be troublesome; she reddened and I withdrew, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Smith, who sat smoking contemplatively. Answering the glance, the woodsman muttered "old tree fallin'," and resumed his passive contemplation of the sticks glowing keenly in the fire. The Boy, upon whom, as soon as he entered the wilderness, the taciturnity of the woodsfolk descended as a garment, said nothing, but scanned his companion's gaunt face with ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing laboriously, while he who was there first appeared, from some natural taciturnity of character, to decline opening ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... about Pythagoras, to whom taciturnity and not expressing those things which it is wrong to speak were especially pleasing, let us see whether Homer had also this opinion. For about those drunken with wine he ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... mate, living with Commodore Trunnion to keep the servants in order. Tom Pipes is noted for his taciturnity.—Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... spent in my society (and I was very sprightly) no shadow of a smile so much as lightened the straight line of his mouth. Can a shadow lighten? Maybe not; but, anyway, what IS the matter with the man? Has he committed some remorseful crime, or is his taciturnity due merely to his natural Scotchness? He's as companionable as ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... an.... Der Preis vom Draht muss ausgerechnet werden." And the German, roused from his taciturnity, turned to Vronsky. "Das laesst sich ausrechnen, Erlaucht." The German was just feeling in the pocket where were his pencil and the notebook he always wrote in, but recollecting that he was at a dinner, and observing Vronsky's chilly glance, he checked himself. "Zu compliziert, macht ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... platform. Then there's that bald man in the white robe—his name's Giroflet—a retired stockbroker. Well, that fellow robes himself like an ancient Roman, puts himself in classical attitudes, affects taciturnity, models himself upon Brutus, and all that sort of thing; but is as careful not to get his feet wet as a cat. Others, again, come simply to feed. The restaurant is one of the choicest in Paris, with this advantage over Vefour or the Trois Freres, that it is the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... anything." And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and went ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... because the inhabitants had been forbidden, owing to false alarms, to speak of the approach of an enemy. But if Virgil is referring, not to the Amyclae near Naples, but to the original Amyclae in Laconia, then the proverbial taciturnity of those inhabiting the latter country offers sufficient explanation. Aegeon was a monster with 100 arms and 50 heads. He is ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Tarzan rode off side by side at the head of the little detachment of SPAHIS. Gernois' cordiality was short-lived. No sooner had they ridden out of sight of Captain Gerard and his men than he lapsed once more into his accustomed taciturnity. As they advanced the ground became rougher. Steadily it ascended toward the mountains, into which they filed through a narrow canon close to noon. By the side of a little rivulet Gernois called the midday halt. Here the men prepared and ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wondered whether it was his duty to do or say more. Unorna was a changeable woman. She might love the man to-morrow. But Israel Kafka was too young to let the conversation drop. Boy-like he expected confidence for confidence, and was surprised at his companion's taciturnity. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... it off.... But he must be minutely careful to do nothing which might lead to a breach. Such was Denry's code. The walk home at midnight, amid the reverberations of the falling tempest, was marked by a slight pettishness on the part of Ruth, and by Denry's polite taciturnity. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... After several ineffectual attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and opponents of the ministry. It was asserted that the administration were no strangers to the convenient taciturnity of Sir John Blunt. The Duke of Wharton made a reflection upon the Earl Stanhope, which the latter warmly resented. He spoke under great excitement, and with such vehemence as to cause a sudden determination ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... this American sheep that Providence had led astray into their shop. When asked my name and address, I gave F. A. Warren, Golden Cross Hotel, and then, for fear I might forget my name, I made a memorandum of it and placed it in my vest pocket. They bowed me out, evidently greatly impressed with my taciturnity, and especially my big hat, confident also that they had hooked a fortune in a genuine American silver king. I entered the brougham and drove directly to the Golden Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, and there registering ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Lower Bengal in history, its inhabitants have been reticent, self-contained, distrustful of foreign observation, in a degree without parallel among other equally civilized nations. The cause of this taciturnity will afterwards be clearly explained; but no one who is acquainted either with the past experiences or the present condition of the people can be ignorant of its results. Local officials may write alarming ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... King,' 'the Queen and Royal Family,' and 'Lord Hood,' this strange man regularly filled his glass, and observed that those were always bumper toasts with him; which, having drank, he uniformly passed the bottle, and relapsed into his former taciturnity. It was impossible, during this visit, for any of us to make out his real character; there was such a reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with occasional sallies, though very transient, of a superior mind. Being placed by him, I endeavoured ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... and diligently adjusted their watch-chains. In a short time, this reserve wore away. From this moment the conversation became general. Each individual had some invalid story to relate, and I too, so far forgot my usual taciturnity as to indulge my hearers with a detail of my late indisposition—of its origin in the Mysterious Tailor—of the wretch's inconceivable persecution—of the fiendish peculiarities of his appearance—of his astonishing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... seem to be making up lost way for years of taciturnity in the tower. They say there is ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Aunt Jane after her insanity became confirmed, and he was the only human being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears, seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as gloomily ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... latter was confounded at this intelligence. He questioned Ambrose with great anxiety as to the particulars of this event, but he could gain no satisfaction from the stupid inattention of the other. From this time there was a visible augmentation of his sadness. His fits of taciturnity became more obstinate, and a deeper gloom sat ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... sooner astride her pony than the color returned to her cheeks, and the sparkle, if not the gayety, to her eyes. And at once, as if her taciturnity had been a vow, to be ended when she should touch leather, she began to talk. "I'm cross with you," ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... held his peace for a few minutes, coughing once or twice impatiently. He suspected that the extraordinary nature of this last tale, combined with the use of the future tense, had given rise to a taciturnity so unexpected in the warrior king. He therefore asked if Vikram the Brave would not like to ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... of the wheatfield. It was a very fine afternoon. The grass was green in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right and left, at anything ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... his heart was in the possession of another woman. Here I question not but the reader will be surprized at our long taciturnity as to this matter; and quite at a loss to divine who this woman was, since we have hitherto not dropt a hint of any one likely to be a rival to Sophia; for as to Mrs Blifil, though we have been obliged to mention some suspicions of her affection for Tom, we have not hitherto given the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the Earl of Orford and his natural daughter, Lady Mary, at length (for which he had a great mind to prosecute the printer). To-day, the London Evening Post says, Mr. Pane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of the treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson, who was so tormented by that Committee that it turned his brain, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... of sleep and outraged at her taciturnity, I breakfasted alone on the soggiest wheatcakes and the muddiest coffee I have ever demeaned my stomach with. The absence of my customary morning paper added the final touch to my wretchedness. But one would have thought to look at my companion that she had been refreshed by a lengthy repose, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... fashion, you confess the universe to be a weightier matter than the contents of your skull, and your wits a somewhat slender instrument wherewith to plumb infinity,—why, then you will recall that it is written God is love, and this recollection, too, is conducive to a fine taciturnity. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... notwithstanding the deep silence that I preserv'd when I made my answer, it seems that "I assured him that the way of peaceable, dutiful and legal representations of our grievances had already been tried to no purpose": With the most profound Taciturnity I "was pleas'd most largely to expatiate upon this point", & with all my "altum silentium" my "interrogations follow'd one another with such amazing rapidity, that he (poor man) was almost out of breath in repeating them." - Here, gentle reader, is presented to you a group of ideas in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... moment I can only partially recall the process by which Shorthouse persuaded me to lend him my company. Like myself, he was a guest in this autumn house-party, and where there were so many to chatter and to chaff, I think his taciturnity of manner had appealed to me by contrast, and that I wished to repay something of what I owed. There was, no doubt, flattery in it as well, for he was more than twice my age, a man of amazingly wide experience, an explorer of all the world's corners where danger lurked, and—most ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... uneasiness to get to London again, in order to meet a gentleman he had seen there, under a different impression as to his merits, than what now appeared to be just. Who the gentleman was, or what these impressions were, Julia was left to conjecture, taciturnity being a favorite property ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... the brain, less from the spinal axis; take a deeper delight in the mere social reflection and echoing of life. And in this, on account of their instinctive swiftness of susceptibility, perception, and adroitness, refined women can have no rivals in the other sex. The luxury of the British is taciturnity; but to this day the favorite excitement of the French is conversation; and conversation is the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... observe this before they descended the narrow path that led through the wooded valley. They walked on in perfect silence until the professor, noticing the unusual taciturnity of his ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... with Yuba Bill that morning; the latter gentleman's taciturnity being intensified at such moments through a long habit of confining himself strictly to eating in the limited time allowed his daily repasts, and it was not until they had taken the horses from the stable and were harnessing them to the coach that Jeff extracted ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... lanes of light. Up and down these lanes they walk, Durdles discoursing of the 'old uns' he yet counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall, in which he considers 'a whole family on 'em' to be stoned and earthed up, just as if he were a familiar friend of the family. The taciturnity of Durdles is for the time overcome by Mr. Jasper's wicker bottle, which circulates freely;—in the sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into Mr. Durdles's circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... out with his brigade when Ledyard came, went to visit the Englishman; but Ismyloff had little to say, little of Benyowsky, the Polish pirate, who had marooned him; less of Alaska; and the reason for taciturnity was plain. The Russian fur traders were forming a monopoly. They told no secrets to the world. They wanted no intruders on their hunting-ground. Could Ledyard have known that the surly, bearded Russian was to blast his new-born ambitions; could ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... wondered also why she brought her baby with her, and why all who came fondled it so much and so respectfully. He did not wonder at the deference, almost the fear, which all men showed her—that seemed somehow her due. She had shed her taciturnity and was even voluble at times. But behind her volubility lurked always an inexplicable intensity of purpose whose cause Simpson could never fathom and was afraid to seek for. It was there, however—a nervous determination, not altogether alien to his own, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... differences in the others of the party. Gale himself lost a certain sickening dread, which had not been for himself, but for Mercedes and Nell, and Thorne and the rangers. Jim, good-natured again, might have been patrolling the boundary line. Ladd lost his taciturnity and his gloom changed to a cool, careless air. A mood that was almost defiance began to be manifested in Thorne. It was in Mercedes, however, that Gale marked the most significant change. Her collapse the preceding day might never have been. She was lame and sore; she rode her ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... inside the building, so that while Thorpe was in plain view, he could not make out which of the dark figures on the piazza was the man he wanted. He approached, and attempted an identifying scrutiny. The men, with the taciturnity of their class in the presence ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the waiter told us that dinner was served, and we withdrew accordingly; my guests more than making amends for my comparative taciturnity. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... most distinguished in our religion." The caliph could not forbear laughing at my adventure; and instead of treating me as a prattling fellow, as this lame young man did, he admired my discretion and taciturnity. "Commander of the faithful," I resumed, "your majesty need not wonder at my silence on such an occasion, as would have made another apt to speak. I make a particular profession of holding my peace, and on that account have acquired ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... advice to taciturnity. It is not a suggestion that you should be stolid and wooden in manner and speech. The reason of it is to prevent you from making mistakes or betraying yourself by foolish and unnecessary utterance. My suggestion to young men that they practise ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... fame, steadily ascending from its adamantine foundation, gave signs that it was to encircle the globe, some imagined him too prudent. Some thought him devoid of sensibility; a cold, colossal mass, intrenched in taciturnity, or enfolded in a mantle of dignity. The sequel disclosed that his complete mastery over passion, moving in harmony with his other powers and faculties, lent its essential aid towards his unrivalled name. Opinion and passion were strong in him. The latter existed ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... clear space of deck between the door of the doctor's cabin and the saloon gangway two men were walking slowly backwards and forwards. They were both tall men, both large, and consequently both inclined to taciturnity. They had said, perhaps, as little as any two persons on board, which may have accounted for the fact that they were talking now, and still seemed ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... as the inevitable soup was placed on the table, the natural taciturnity, common even to Icelandic babies, prevailed over all else. Our host filled our plates with a portion of lichen soup of Iceland moss, of by no means disagreeable flavor, an enormous lump of fish floating in sour butter. After that there came some skyr, a kind of curds and whey, served with ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... calculated to excite comment, readiness in disbursing money to remedy such shortcomings made amends for Lanyard's taciturnity. Within two hours, shaved, bathed, and inconspicuously dressed in a cheap suit of ready-made clothing, he was breakfasting famously upon the plain fare ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... sensitive, it seemed rather a doubtful case if he would succeed in his aspirings. With the nabob, Major George was an immense favourite; but except that they had hunted tigers together, there seemed no adequate reason for so strong a preference—the taciturnity of the one being as remarkable as the communicativeness of the other. Mr Elliston called George a 'good fellow,' and slapped his shoulder approvingly; and introduced him to Miss Constantia with sly and peculiar empressement. Major George's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... preferred that the mystery should come to me. My alert devotion must, I thought, have its reward. Indeed, my daily walks to and from my work took on the character of a silent duel between the expressionless walls and my expressionless face, and I was not going to be beaten in taciturnity. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... then he and the curator fell back on each other's company. They knew well that the others were not worthy of their opportunity; although General Hobson, seeing that most of the memories touched belonged to a period before the Revolution, obeyed the dictates of politeness, and made amends for his taciturnity indoors ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... able version of his son's behaviour and adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of his father's resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief was mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and Horace, leaving Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat alone. The house had not its usual influx of Feverels that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was of no avail against his iron strength. Though I was hard and spare from my travels in the summer heat, 'twas all I could do to keep up with him, and only my pride kept me from crying halt. Often when he stopped I could have wept with fatigue, and had no breath for a word, but his taciturnity saved me from shame. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... powers of audition as of vision, we are struck by the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Save for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses there are ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... leave. None too soon, thought Peter and the Indian agent, as they glanced at the faces of the dusky chiefs who had gathered around the cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered any outbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept Peter from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their lowering dissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. "I wonder you don't ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... silence would incense a flint. Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee, Or shake thy dogged taciturnity? ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... and Johnson were perhaps the only beings on board who took any interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras was always intent upon his maps, and said little; his taciturnity increased as the brig got more and more south; he often mounted the poop, and there with folded arms, and eyes lost in vacancy, he stood for hours. His orders, when he gave any, were curt and rough. Shandon kept a cold silence, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... night they talked, but it was the woman who said most while the man listened in non-committal taciturnity. His memory flashed disturbingly back to the boyhood days and testified for the supplicant with reminders of occasional outcroppings of cruelty in his brother as a child. That outward guise of suavity which men had known in John Turk ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... was milder and more subdued; she wanted the power, the fire, the originality of her sister, but was well endowed with quiet virtues of her own. Long-suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelligent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially her feelings, with a sort of nun-like veil, which was rarely lifted. Neither Emily nor Anne was learned; they had no thought of filling their pitchers at the well-spring of ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, sufficiently ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... however, consoled himself with copious potations from the punch-bowl, and filled the room with dense clouds of smoke, that were in themselves, sufficient to produce the drowsiness that Ronayne pleaded in excuse of his taciturnity. ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... feet, with a stupid and frightened expression. She knew very little of him, save that her husband had picked him up upon the road as a wanderer some five years since; and that he had been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, and that was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to have something ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... reach the cider-mug on the shelf near him. Although he seldom opened his lips save to assent to some remark of his host or to answer a direct question, yet at times, when the cider-mug got the better of his taciturnity, he would amuse us with interesting details of his early experiences ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... did not attempt to invade his taciturnity. Nevertheless she was as keenly alive and watchful of his every movement and gesture as if she had hung enchanted on his lips. The unerring way with which he pursued a viewless, undeviating path through those trackless woods, his quick reconnaissance ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... vigorous intellect, varied talents, and accurate scholarship, Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... provincial museum of Cherbourg had but faintly suggested. Before long, however, he entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, who was the popular master of the time. There he won the sobriquet of the "man of the woods," from a savage taciturnity which was his defence in the midst of the atelier jokes. He had come to work, and to work he addressed himself, with but little encouragement from master or comrades. Strong as a young Hercules, with a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... disappeared from the scene, Nancy Rouse made a discovery which very often follows the dismissal of a suitor—that she was considerably more attached to him than she had thought. The house became dull, the subordinate washerwomen languid; their taciturnity irritated ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... his opinion that Gringo would stop short of suicide, commended Gringo's taciturnity and evident perseverance, and departed for the hotel. In the dining-room he saw Mrs. Sherwood in a riding habit, eating alone. Keith hesitated, then took the vacant seat opposite. She accorded this permission cordially, but without coquetry, remarking ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... ambassador call Lord Anson, executed his commission. She lay that night at your old friend Lord Abercorn's, at Witham [in Essex]; and, if she judged by her host, must have thought she was coming to reign in the realm of taciturnity. She arrived at St. James's a quarter after three on Tuesday the 8th. When she first saw the Palace she turned pale: the Duchess of Hamilton smiled. "My dear Duchess," said the Princess, "you may laugh; you have ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... was as disagreeable as the first had been pleasant: even our best friend, Nomahanna, was quite altered, and received us with coldness and taciturnity, we therefore laid in our stock of provisions and fresh water as quickly as possible, and rejoiced in being at liberty to take leave of a country from whence one wrong-headed man ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... had entered his head, the conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little facts to which before he had given only a languid attention. The abrupt and faltering intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long immobilities, as if the man he watched had been afraid to disturb the very air: every familiar gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, every sigh overheard, ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... this matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without the secluded members, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... concise language, English is by no means so adequate in actual speech; it is not one of the languages which can be heard at a long distance, and, moreover, it lends itself in speaking to so many contractions that are not used in writing—so many "can'ts" and "won'ts" and "don'ts," which suit English taciturnity, but slur and ruin English speech—that English, as spoken, is almost a different language from that which excites admiration when written. So that the exclusive use of English for international purposes would not be the survival ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... house I was taken once or twice to dinner. He was at one time very rich, but lost all his fortune in some untoward speculation, and he used to come and pay us long, sad, silent visits, the friendly taciturnity of which I always compassionately attributed to that circumstance, and wished that he had not lost the use of his tongue ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... interpret literally their courtesy full of compliment, their assumed humility. The forms of this politeness, this modesty, have their solution in their manners, in which their ancient connection with the East may be strangely traced. Without having in the least degree acquired the taciturnity of the Mussulman, they have yet learned from it a distrustful reserve upon all subjects which touch upon the more delicate and personal chords of the heart. When they speak of themselves, we may almost always be certain that they keep some concealment ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Nelson, "I have tried Lord Howe on most important occasions. He never asked me how he was to execute any service entrusted to his charge, but always went straight forward and did it." Some quaint instances are recorded of the taciturnity for which he was also noted. Amid the recriminations that followed the failure at Rochefort, Howe neither wrote nor said anything. At last the Admiralty asked why he had not expressed an opinion. In the somewhat ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... at nine, and its glow had already risen above the forests before Croisset stopped his team again. For two hours he had not spoken a word to his prisoner and after several unavailing efforts to break the other's taciturnity Howland lapsed into a silence of his own. When he had brought his tired dogs to a halt, Croisset spoke ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... distinguished her. But not even the sudden delight of such praise, so given, could seduce our Scottish damsel into self- betrayal. The faithful sister rushed forward to bear the brunt, while the unsuspected author lay snug in the asylum of her taciturnity. She had been taught to repress all emotions, even the gentlest. Her sister once told me that their father was an excellent parent; when she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life; but that he had never ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... we have taken the liberty to describe elsewhere. His disposition was naturally cheerful and mild, his temper even, and not easily provoked. Although somewhat inclined to taciturnity, yet when drawn out to converse upon any subject he was acquainted with, he was naturally fluent, and in his language pure and correct. He was a universal favorite with the youth of both sexes in his native town, and, during the intervals ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Dill was noticeably abstracted. His smiling suavity, his gracious manner, had given place to taciturnity and Ore City's choicest bon mots, its time-tested pleasantries, fell upon inattentive ears. As a matter of fact, his bones ached like a tooth from three long, hard days in the mail-carrier's sledges, and also he recognized certain symptoms ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... His habitual taciturnity, curiously enough, is one of the traits which endears him to the army. For French's silence has no trait of churlishness. It is the silence of a man utterly absorbed in the task before him, the man whom Tommy Atkins admires. "If the British ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... rich as Croesus: "At any rate, you are King of Lydia;" and Lucretia Mott's humorous comment when she entered a room where her husband and his brother Richard were sitting, both of them remarkable for their taciturnity and reticence: "I thought you must both ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... officers, with Lieutenant Vinoy and some of the young gentlemen from the shore, followed his example. The minuet being voted slow, a country-dance quickly succeeded it. The young ladies who had the officers of the ship for their partners were struck by their extraordinary taciturnity; for, with the exception of the young lieutenant who had visited the shore, not one of them spoke a word. Captain Dupin remarked that they were rough fellows, little accustomed to the society of ladies, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... apiece—his friend The Young Pole looked as if the ordeal had scared the life out of him temporarily; he was unable to say whether or no he and "mon ami" would leave us: la commission had adopted, in the case of these twain, an awe-inspiring taciturnity. Jean Le Negre, who was one of the last to pass, had had a tremendously exciting time, due to the fact that le gouvernement francais's polished tools had failed to scratch his mystery either in French or English—he ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... at last drawing near to Detroit, the great Northwestern fort of the British and Indians. They would arrive there to-morrow, and they spent that last night by camp fires, the Indians relaxing greatly from their usual taciturnity and caution, and eating as if at ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in keeping with the surroundings. You would have said that he could ride on forever without tiring, and that he could go over a precipice now without even seeing any danger sign. He had never been like this in all Firio's memory. The silence became unsupportable for once to Indian taciturnity. If Jack would not talk Firio would. Yes, he would ask a question, just to hear the sound ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... characteristics. He was one of those strong personalities that give an interest to all manner of incidents, even the commonplace. Like Moltke, he could hold his tongue in seven languages; but it is a fact that all his friends must have observed that his taciturnity never made his company any the less entertaining. Moreover, when the mood was on him, he could talk by the hour, and then his reminiscences of the years spent in the household of Wagner or the story of his experiences ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled the garret but a few ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... useful house for a young man, and especially a young politician, to frequent. Endymion heard many things and learnt many things which otherwise would not have met his ear or mind. The prince encouraged conversation, though himself inclined to taciturnity. When he did speak, his terse remarks and condensed views were striking, and were remembered. On the days on which he did not receive, the prince dined at the Travellers' Club, to which Waldershare had obtained his introduction, and generally with Waldershare, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... sea in the bay flashed and glittered in the long rays of the afternoon sunshine. The scene was extraordinarily peaceful. Stephen Dartrey for the first few minutes certainly justified his reputation for taciturnity. He leaned back in a long wicker chair, his head resting upon his hand, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon vacancy. No man in those days could have resembled less a popular leader of the people. In appearance ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... either the riding or the drawing, was the partial relaxation for her benefit of the reserve and taciturnity which had for years veiled the real man from those who liked and respected him most. He never indeed talked of himself or his past; but he would discuss affairs, opinions, books—especially on their long rides together—with a frankness, and a tone of gay and equal comradeship, which, or ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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