"Taciturn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... sullen in court the next morning; she was resentful of the policeman's talk, she was oppressed and discouraged and therefore taciturn. She herself said afterwards that she "often got still that way." She so sharply felt the disgrace of arrest, after her long struggle for respectability, that she gave a false name and became involved in a story to which she could ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... century, made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Moeen, and became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the family, all following the sea in their youth, jovial men of a humorous disposition, continued to haunt the coasts of Norway, marrying sinister and taciturn wives, who, by the way, were always, it would seem, Danes or Germans or Scotswomen, so that positively the poet had, after a hundred years and more of Norwegian habitation, not one drop of pure Norse blood to inherit from his parents. His grandfather, Henrik, was wrecked in 1798 in his own ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... house close to the water, and keep the Malays off till the boats come ashore to fetch you off. Your crew has been very carefully picked. I have consulted the warrant officers, and they have selected the most taciturn men in the ship. There is to be no smoking; of course the men can chew as much as they like; but the smell of tobacco smoke would at once deter any native from entering a hut. If a Malay should come in and try to escape, he must be ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... daybreak, guided by a taciturn mountaineer, Jim Jones, called simply Jim for the sake of brevity, and, the hour being so early, few were present to see them ride up the hanging slope and ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... with some good news, or cause of unusual happiness; persons who talk much, and excite themselves in argument, are apt to become affected more speedily than those who hold themselves in the midst of the convivial scene sedate and taciturn. The mind, in fact, may exercise a considerable power of resistance against inebriation; for which reason, persons in the society of their superiors, under circumstances which render it necessary they should maintain the appearance of being always well conducted, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... formless against an empty sky; and he dared not look again, for the thought of her that lay awake in the Marshal's Tower, so near at hand as yet, was like a dagger. With set teeth he followed in the wake of his taciturn companion. The bishop never spoke save ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... aloud. It pleased her to feel that this taciturn man had taken her into his confidence at last. "I shall remember," ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion—which coincided with his—upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters at any moment. I passed forward along the starboard side of the deck, noticing as I did so that there was a faint lightening in the fog away to ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... knew by experience when to talk And when to hold his tongue, now held it till This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. At length she rose up, and began to walk Slowly along the room, but silent still, And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... days Hurka while paddling generally sung Spanish songs that he had picked up, but gradually he ceased doing so, and became as taciturn as Pita himself. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... many of the French officers, and soon became a favorite among them. He met Gernois, whom he found to be a taciturn, dyspeptic-looking man of about forty, having little or no social intercourse ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sofa, with the air of one perfectly resigned to the boredom of life. Something is said by my learned friend who is to write for the new periodical, or perhaps it is the young editor of the new periodical who speaks, or (if that were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of impromptu elaboration. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... July 1848 on account of mental weakness,—Abbas succeeded to the pashalik. He has been generally described as a mere voluptuary, but Nubar Pasha spoke of him as a true Turkish gentleman of the old school. He was without question a reactionary, morose and taciturn, and spent nearly all his time shut up in his palace. He undid, as far as lay in his power, the works of his grandfather, good and bad. Among other things he abolished trade monopolies, closed factories and schools, and reduced the strength of the army to 9000 men. He was inaccessible to adventurers ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fertile in intellect, fluent in speech and with pen, an inspiring leader and one born to command in state and army. Quite as earnest, equally courageous, and upholding in private life a higher standard of morals, San Martin was relatively calm, cautious, almost taciturn in manner, and slower in thought and action. He was primarily a soldier, fitted to organize and conduct expeditions, rather than, a man endowed with that supreme confidence in himself which brings enthusiasm, affection, and loyalty ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... The foreign element comprised an Irishman named Mike Hogan and the Frenchman whom the boys had met when they first came aboard. The crowd called him Dashalong. Upon inquiry, Leonard found it to be Deschaillon. The young man who read the articles was named Farnol Greer. However, he proved a silent, taciturn youth, who seemed to converse with no one and to ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Once, at a crossing, he laid an involuntary hand on her arm—but instantly lifted it as if the touch had burnt him! "Lookout!" he said, and for the first time his voice betrayed him. But before the clattering dray had passed, his taciturn self-control had returned: "you can hardly hear yourself think, in Mercer," he said. Elizabeth was silent; she had come to the ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the ten thousand things which I had to say. I forgave Penelope. I called down maledictions on the robust Malcolms and McLaurins who had carried me out of her world and abandoned me to the garrulous Mrs. Bannister and the taciturn Rufus Blight. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... looks which Astley had kept throwing at Mlle. Blanche and her mother; and it had occurred to me that he must have had some previous acquaintance with the pair. I had even surmised that the Frenchman too must have met Mr. Astley before. Astley was a man so shy, reserved, and taciturn in his manner that one might have looked for anything from him. At all events the Frenchman accorded him only the slightest of greetings, and scarcely even looked at him. Certainly he did not seem to be afraid of him; which was intelligible ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... again. Up to then—all that first day, and the next morning in New York where he took them to the bank their L200 was in and saw that they got a cheque-book, and all the day after that waiting in the Chicago hotel for the train they were to go on in to California—Mr. Twist was taciturn. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... of joking with him about his love for his handsome, taciturn wife. But he did not laugh this time as he ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... salutation, salute scanty, sparse scholar, student science, art scrupulous, conscientious serf, slave shift, expedient sick, ill silent, taciturn sit, set skilled, skilful slender, slim smart, clever sociable, social solicitude, anxiety stay, stop stimulus, stimulation ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... mortified the listening heir of Rood. They showed, at least, even to the well-meant officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pale, gloomy and taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie shamblingly sauntered up, and said ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... had been able to verify it in all essential particulars by the evidence of the old bonne, who had lived with Anna in Paris before her flight, and had been present at the child's birth. The old woman was very taciturn, and apparently hostile to Buntingford, whom she perfectly remembered; but she ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that she has taken care of many insane women before, and remembers no case like this. She is a famous nurse, too. Those people, from their constant daily experience, sometimes understand things that we specialists do not. But on the other hand, she is so taciturn and cautious that she can hardly be induced to speak at all. The other woman is younger and more enthusiastic, but she has not ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... obtained the throne of the Terrible. At the same time, little by little, tighten Anew the reins of government; now slacken; But let them not slip from thy hands. Be gracious, Accessible to foreigners, accept Their service trustfully. Preserve with strictness The Church's discipline. Be taciturn; The royal voice must never lose itself Upon the air in emptiness, but like A sacred bell must sound but to announce Some great disaster or great festival. Dear son, thou art approaching to those years When woman's beauty ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... introspective philosopher. Seeking out the cabin he had built on the Skagit River, he resumed his residence there, solitary and somber. In winter he cooked for a nearby lumber camp, in summer he served as watchman for an electric power company, patient, faithful, brooding over his books, austere, taciturn, mystical. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... reached Washington from all sides, he had also to listen to the advice of military amateurs. Some of these had never been in a battle and knew nothing about warfare except from reading, but they were not on this account the most taciturn. Many urged strongly that an expedition be sent against Canada, a design which Washington opposed. His wisdom was justified when Richard Montgomery, with about fifteen hundred men, took Montreal—November 12, 1775—and after waiting several weeks formed ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... pow in a pulpit yet.' With an ambitious view to such a consummation, they pinched and pared, rose early and lay down late, ate dry bread and drank cold water, to secure to Abel the means of learning. Meantime, his tall, ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs and screwing his visage while reciting his task, made poor Sampson the ridicule of all his school-companions. The same qualities secured him at Glasgow College a plentiful share of the same sort of notice. Half ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Geordie for an hour this morning. He was taciturn at first, but later he talked freely. He is very much afraid of his father, and he weeps when his father scolds him. This makes the father angrier and he calls Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie. This jeer wounds the boy deeply. He is afraid in the dark. He told me ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... tools, were ready to return to Georgia. If Mordecai felt any pain at having his co-religionists depart, he was skilful in concealing it. For, after his confidence over the supper table, he had slipped back into his stoical reserve and not even the taciturn Lyon was more silent or chary of speech in anything that did not directly concern the business in hand. So it was merry little Barrett who alone mentioned the occasion that for a moment had brought the strangers of the wilderness together and ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... no attention. Before his death Lazarus had always been cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke. It was because of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as deprived of depth and significance, as those sounds ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... woman at the hospital was much less popular, on account of her taciturn ways. She never spoke to any one, and no one knew anything of her history. She never said a word to us boys, but her haggard and wild look made a deep and painful impression upon us. I have often thought since of this enigma, though without being ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... through it, and, as soon as the busy trainmen discovered ladies on board, they unceremoniously drove the more bibulous passengers, protesting, into the forward compartment. This left Hope in comparative peace, her remaining neighbors quiet, taciturn men, whom she looked at through the folds of her veil during the long, slow, exasperating journey, mentally guessing at their various occupations. It was an exceedingly tedious, monotonous trip, the train slackening up, and jerking forward, apparently without slightest reason; then ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... silent and grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himself from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster and station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... Dick was taciturn, and old Hiram, when I tried to engage him in conversation, cut me off with the remark that I would need my breath on the morrow. This somewhat offended me. So I made my bed and rolled into it. Not till I had lain quiet for a little did I realize that every bone and muscle felt utterly worn out. ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... now that she had never before known John Pendleton. The old taciturn moroseness seemed entirely gone since they came to camp. He rowed and swam and fished and tramped with fully as much enthusiasm as did Jimmy himself, and with almost as much vigor. Around the camp fire at night he quite rivaled Jamie with his story-telling of adventures, both laughable and thrilling, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... tortured me. It disturbed my bibliophilist labors, and gave a twang of musty nausea even to the sweet scent of old binding-leather. I was as a man caught in the pangs of removing, unattached to either home; and I bent from my windows over the throngs of festal promenaders, taciturn and uneasy. I fancied that wings were sprouting from my brown dressing-robe, and that they were the volatile wings of the moth or dragon-fly. But to establish myself at Marly before the baron, would not that be a breach of compact? Would he not make it a casus ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... practice of waiting for the moment of effect was, (as all, who have been much in his society, must have observed,) that he would remain inert in conversation, and even taciturn, for hours, and then suddenly come out with some brilliant sally, which threw a light over the whole evening, and was carried away in the memories of all present. Nor must it be supposed that in the intervals, either before ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... exists in each. That is, as I say, among contemporaries: in the world at this moment in which I am speaking. But," he continued, warming to his subject, for, as you will have already gathered, he was not one of the taciturn brush-brotherhood, "after the lapse of years I see no reason why nature should not begin precisely to reproduce physiognomies and so save herself the trouble of for ever diversifying them. That being so—and surely the hypothesis is not too far-fetched"—here ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... Anita too was here. To Miko and Moa it was the somber, taciturn George Prince, shrouded always in his black mourning cloak, disinclined to talk; sitting alone, brooding ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... one of the most interesting and picturesque characters in Virginia history. Nathaniel Bacon is depicted as twenty-nine years of age, black-haired, of medium height and slender, melancholy, pensive, and taciturn. In conversation he was logical and convincing; in oratory magnetic and masterful.[508] His successful expeditions against the Indians and the swift blows he directed against the loyal forces mark him as a military commander ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... position, I should have augmented it by submission, instead of causing you constant self-reproach by my haughty and taciturn coldness. I should have endeavored to console you for a fearful malady, by only remembering your misfortune. By degrees I should have become attached to my work of commiseration, by reason even of the cares, perhaps the sacrifices, which it would have cost me; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... such perfect mastery of language, on public occasions she is so taciturn that she might be supposed to be indolent. With a few words she unties the knots of entangled litigations, she calmly arranges hot disputes, she silently promotes the public welfare. You do not hear her announce beforehand what will be her course of action in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... dimensions were goodly, its position a sheltered one, its kitchens ample and well-managed, and its October ale beyond reproach. At first the little man in black doublet and hosen was inclined to be moody and taciturn; the public whipping, apparently, had seared his kindly and humane temperament. But jolly Dan poured oil—not to say ale—on the wounds and eased them. As it was neither dinner-time nor supper-time, the sailor ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... thinks with pleasure, how much she will be looked at and envied by her companions. She fain would show herself at once and begs Heiling to visit a public festival with her. But Heiling by nature serious and almost taciturn, refuses her request. Anna pouts, but she soon forgets her grief, when she sees the curious signs of erudition in her lover's room. Looking over the magic book, the leaves begin to turn by themselves, quicker and quicker, the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... cardinal quality of my adventure remained prominent in my being, and it gave me countenance among these taciturn, musing workgirls, who were always at grips with the realities of life. 'Ah,' I thought, 'you little know what I know! I may appear a butterfly, but I have learnt the secret meaning of existence. I am above you, beyond you, by my experience, and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... with him a man called James Maradick whom Peter had met before and liked. Maradick was forty-two or three, large, rather heavy in build and expression and very taciturn. He was in business in the city, but had been drawn, Peter knew not how, into the literary world of London. He was often to be found at dinner parties and evening "squashes" silent, observant and generally alone. Many people thought him dull, but Peter liked him partly because ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... as though General French would never tire. He rode on far ahead of his men—stern, taciturn, resolved—as they rushed across the veldt to Kimberley, or hastened to the doom of Cronje. Our soldiers did their best to follow, and did so till their horses dropped dying or dead upon the veldt. It says much for their Christian enthusiasm that after such days as these, and knowing that ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... Prince did not complain of his quarters, but, after we had for the second time refused his offer of an escort to Alessandria, became somewhat taciturn. We left him in the salle a manger, Mamma heading the procession of three which trailed to our room. Maida and I lingered behind for a moment, to play with our first Italian cat, until a wild cry of "Fire!" from Mamma took us after her with ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Mildred was sulky and taciturn. She remained in her room till it was time to get the dinner ready. She was a bad cook and could do little more than chops and steaks; and she did not know how to use up odds and ends, so that Philip was obliged to spend ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... passengers—that they were in the final resort mere fool bodies to be controlled! After I had seen the countless store-rooms, in the recesses of each of which was hidden a clerk with a pen behind his ear and a nervous and taciturn air, and passed on to the world of the second cabin, which was a surprisingly brilliant imitation of the great world of the saloon, I found that I held a much-diminished opinion of the great world of the ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... reserved and taciturn, which the more surprised me, as, up to the present moment, he had at all times been remarkably communicative with respect to his affairs and prospects. From what I could learn from his broken hints and innuendoes, it appeared ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... daring) Bien hablado (a courteous speaker) Callado (taciturn) Cansado (tiresome) Comedido (thoughtful, considerate) Corrido[191] (acute, artful) Divertido (amusing) Entendido (experienced, conversant) Experimentado ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... MacKelvey was taciturn. But he was not the man to give up a quest once begun. He grew irritable under the sting of Sledge Hume's sneers and Martin Leland's regular weekly enquiries; but he pushed his work tirelessly. As is always the case when the law wants a fugitive there were many conflicting and empty ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... not recollect Hawthorne's talking much at the table. Indeed, he was a very taciturn man. One day, tired of seeing him sitting immovable on the sofa in the hall, as I was learning some verses to recite at the evening class for recitation formed by Charles A. Dana, I daringly took my book, pushed it into his hands, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Benson, saying that Leonard was not quite well. There was so much pains taken to disguise anxiety, that it was very evident much anxiety was felt; and the girls were almost alarmed by Ruth's sudden change from taciturn langour to eager, vehement energy. Body and mind seemed strained to exertion. Every plan that could facilitate packing and winding-up affairs at Abermouth, every errand and arrangement that could expedite their departure by one minute, was done by Ruth with stern promptitude. She spared herself ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with Axel Stroem on the way back, leading his sheep on a string. Axel is taciturn, seemingly anxious about something, whatever it might be. There's nothing he need be troubled about that one can see, thinks Isak; his crops are looking well, most of his fodder is housed already, and he has begun timbering his house. All as it should be with Axel Stroem; a thought slowly, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... people. She saw them wild, free, sovereign, and there were no greasy, berry-peddling Oneidas among them. They were Sioux, and Pottawatomies (that last had the real Indian sound), and Winnebagos, and Menomonees, and Outagamis. She made them taciturn, and beady-eyed, and lithe, and fleet, and every other adjectival thing her imagination and history book could supply. The fat and placid Capuchin Fathers on the hill became Jesuits, sinister, silent, powerful, with France and the Church ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... punctuated with false alarms. It was evident that the colonel had not yet heard the full story, and it was just as evident that the portion of it that he had heard had disturbed him almost beyond precedent. He was taciturn in speech, and severe and formal in manner. To misuse and neglect the flag of his country was, indeed, no venial offense in ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... this taciturn, almost hostile tete-a-tete, he began to examine the route through the windows of the cab. The street stretched out interminable, already deserted, so badly paved that at every step the cab springs creaked. The lamp-posts were beginning to be further and further apart. The cab was ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Worth. To set down the trouble briefly, he was desperately in love with La Signorina; and the knowledge of how hopeless this passion was, together with the frequent efforts he had put forth to repress the ardent declaration, were making him taciturn and solitary. La Signorina never went down to Florence, not even to Fiesole; so Worth never joined his companions when they took, pleasant excursions ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... seemed to be from some tribe about the Great Lakes, did not speak any dialect he knew, and, if they understood English, they did not use it. He was compelled to do all his talking with the Owl who, however, was not at all taciturn. Robert saw early that while a wonderful woodsman and a born partisan leader, he was also a Gascon, vain, boastful and full of words. He tried to learn from him something about his possible fate, but he could obtain no hint, until they had been traveling more than three weeks, and ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to London at twenty-two, and enrolled himself as a student of the Mining College in Jermyn Street. There he had spent four years, sharing the chambers of a young barrister in the Temple Gardens. His London career was uneventful. Taciturn in manner, he made few friends. His mind had a tendency toward contemplative inactivity. Of physical energy he had very little, and this may have been partly due to his infirmity. Late at night he would walk alone in the Strand: the teeming ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... charm away the shadow from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk cleverly and well when she chose. And today she did choose, exerting all her wit to combat the taciturn fit that emphasized so forcibly the change in him. But though he listened with apparent attention his mind was very obviously elsewhere, and he sat staring into the fire, mechanically flicking ash from his cigarette. Conversation languished ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... was a flimsy mass of black lace—richly wrought, yet insufficient to hide the paleness of the upper part of her visage. Mr. Aylett watched and wondered, with but one definite idea in his brain beyond the resolve to ferret out the entire mystery in his stealthy, taciturn fashion. Herbert Dorrance had been, in some manner, compromised by his association with this Chilton, had reason to dread exposure from him, and his sister was the confidante of his ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... restive from the moment of her arrival, and, when a monosyllabic comment from the taciturn group threatened to reveal to the girl the threatened outbreak of the feud, he went over ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... browned by the sun, and lake breezes. A thick white beard flowed over his chest; a fur cap covered his head; his aspect was grave and austere. His large great-coat, fastened in at the waist, reached down to his heels. This taciturn old fellow was seated in the stern, and issued his commands by gestures. Besides, the chief work consisted in keeping the raft in the current, which ran along the shore, without drifting out ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... to see her; but he was nervous and constrained, with little to say for himself, and Marjorie always did her best to show to a disadvantage when he was there. "He's such a crabby old thing," she would say, when Miles grew enthusiastic over the grave, taciturn officer,—"besides, he hates girls, you know he does, and I'm not going to knuckle under to him." Her brother had explained that the Colonel's ideas were old-fashioned, so she sometimes talked slang on purpose to shock him. She listened to his abrupt, awkward sentences with a half listless, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... still a lonely one. The youth grew up in seclusion, yet in contact with a few great ideas, chief among them Liberty. "My father," he said, "was an old-fashioned Democrat, and really believed in the Preamble of the Bill of Rights which reaffirmed the Declaration of Independence." The taciturn father transmitted to his sons a hatred of kingcraft and priestcraft, the inward moral freedom of the Quaker touched with humanitarian passion. The spirit of a boyhood in this homestead is veraciously told in "The Barefoot Boy," "School-Days," "Snow-Bound," ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and lasses, and his taciturn saga heroes, with their predatory self-assertion, he saw that he had done with them forever; that they could never more enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the problems of modern contemporary life, of which he had now gained quite a new comprehension, tempted him. The ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... brought forward by a pale young man who was taciturn even to rudeness, and by that trait seemed to commend himself to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Dr. Egavine is taciturn about some things. I'll bring him back here with me as soon as I have these two locked away." Dasinger finished picking up Calat, swung the crane slowly towards the door, the unconscious Fleetmen suspended ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... enduring fatigue in an extraordinary degree. His carriage was erect and commanding, and there was an air of hauteur in his countenance, arising from an elevated pride of soul, which did not forsake it when life was extinct. He was habitually taciturn, but, when excited, his eloquence was nervous, concise, and figurative. His dress was plain, and he was never known to indulge in the gaudy decoration of his person, which is the common practice of the Indians. On the ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... bitter dominie (who rarely left the studies in political economy which he found a solace for his thwarted powers), happened to be at the Cross that evening. A brooding and taciturn man, he said nothing till others had their say. Then ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul and praying to his ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and Thurstane took their leave; the Mexican affable, sociable, smiling, smoking; the American civil, but taciturn ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Madge declared exultingly—the second of this band of sisters—and, as far as I could observe, on first acquaintance, the brightest. Marion, the elder, was extremely pretty and gentle; and Bertie, the third, taciturn and unprepossessing, yet evidently sensible. She it was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... always taciturn and often surly, was the only human being on board with whom I had the slightest desire to become better acquainted. The other men, seeing that I did not relish their company, and knowing that I was a protg of the captain, treated me with total indifference. Bloody Bill, it is true, did the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... McLeod, habitually grave and taciturn, seemed quite enlivened and talkative this day; but I verily believe that not the slightest ostentation or vanity inspired him, for I never before or since heard him talk or allude to his own good deeds: I am convinced his motive was to excite me to persevere in my benevolent projects, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Before going forward, Should be looked to; For difficult it is to know Where foes may sit Within a dwelling. . . . . Of his understanding No one should be proud, But rather in conduct cautious. When the prudent and taciturn Come to a dwelling, Harm seldom befalls the cautious; For a firmer friend No man ever gets Than great sagacity. . . . . One's own house is best, Small though it be; At home is every one his own master. Though he but ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... when Abby Atkins joined her there was little said. Ellen asked for Maria, and Abby replied that she had taken more cold yesterday, and could not speak aloud; then relapsed into silence, making her way through the snow with a sort of taciturn endurance. Ellen looked at the struggling procession of which she was a part, all slanting with the slant of the storm, and a fancy seized her that rebellion and resistance were hopeless, that those parallel lines of yielding to the onslaughts ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... evil, (and) who is full of faith in me, even he is dear to me. He who is alike to friend and foe, as also in honour and dishonour, who is alike in cold and heat, (and pleasure and pain), who is free from attachment, to whom censure and praise are equal, who is taciturn, who is contented with anything that cometh (to him), who is homeless, of steady mind and full of faith, even that man is dear to me. They who resort to this righteousness (leading to) immortality which ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dramatiser. There are, in this novel, indeed, many potentially dramatic crises; the trouble is that they are too numerous and individually too small to be suitable for theatrical presentment. Moreover, they are crises affecting a taciturn and inarticulate race,[3] a fact which places further difficulties in the way of the playwright. In all these cases, in short, the bankruptcy portrayed is a matter of slow development, with no great outstanding ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... just in time for the first supper call, and found Talbot and Yank awaiting us. Yank was as cool and taciturn, and nodded to us as indifferently, as ever. Talbot, however, was full of excitement. His biscuit-brown complexion had darkened and flushed until he was almost Spanish-black, and the little devils in his eyes led a merry dance between the surface and unguessed depths. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... this ordinarily taciturn man wanted to unburthen his mind. He was desirous of talking to some one of Jack Meredith; and perhaps Jocelyn reflected that she was as good a listener as he would find ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Nanny, and arrived at my mother's house in time for breakfast. I did not, however, find her in a very good humor; something had evidently ruffled her. Virginia also, who welcomed me most cordially, was taciturn and grave. My mother made but one ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... as it moved away from under the milk-white pillars of the restored portico. Why did Fanny Dodge and Ellen Dix dislike her, she wondered, and what could she do to win their friendship? Her troubled thoughts were interrupted by Martha, the taciturn maid. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... was perhaps a snub; Sir Tichborne's was certainly a bottle. Sir Chetwode was somewhat garrulous, and was often like a man at a play, in the wrong box! Sir Tichborne was somewhat taciturn; but when he spoke, it was always to the purpose, and made an impression, even if it were not new. Both were kind hearts; but Sir Chetwode was jovial, Sir Tichborne rather stern. Sir Chetwode often broke into a joke; Sir Tichborne sometimes backed ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... him Captain Bontnor's epistle. She watched his face as he read—she had a trick of watching her husband's face. This was a hopelessly taciturn man, but Eve seemed to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... about her lips as she said it. Somehow, telling this taciturn individual of her trouble deprived it ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the popular belief that he was always attended by a familiar demon. When a stranger was introduced to him, his corpse-like face became galvanized into a ghastly smile, which produced a singular impression, half fascinating, half repulsive. He was taciturn in society, except among his intimates, when his buoyant spirits bubbled out in the most amusing jokes and anecdotes expressed in a polyglot tongue, for he never knew any language well except his own. Naturally irritable, his quick temper was ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... of asking her driver who he was, but she had found Roderick to be a very taciturn Highlander. He had not shown much disposition to converse on the way up, and his speech had not been very intelligible to her English—or Anglicised—ears. She re-entered the waggonette, therefore, in silence. Roderick drove on also in silence, although much surprised ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the acknowledgment Strong received from the Martian. Famed for his daring, Sticoon was also known for his taciturn personality. ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... of Ironsides at Cecil Place by this time," continued the man, who began to think that Robin was relapsing into one of his taciturn fits, "and Noll himself on the road, which I heard, not an hour past, from two soldiers, who have been sent on with his own physician to Sir Robert, who's gone mad as a March hare; and they do say that his ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... London to order a wagonette for us, and in this vehicle we drove to the police station, where I presented the written order from Lord Rantremly for the keys of the castle. The chief constable himself, a stolid, taciturn person, exhibited, nevertheless, some interest in my mission, and he was good enough to take the fourth seat in the wagonette, and accompany us through the park to the castle, returning in that conveyance to ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Solon keeping very close to my heels, as if he were afraid of losing me in the crowd, and whenever I put down my hand I felt him licking my fingers to show that he was near me. Mr Ward was again taciturn as before. He felt that, as a city man, he was among people who knew him, and lest he should be overheard he was habitually silent. He now appeared to me quite a different person to what I had fancied him to be. I had thought him what the world calls a very worthy, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in full view of this ravishing landscape that Sir John awoke. For the first time in his life, perhaps, the morose and taciturn Englishman smiled at nature. He fancied himself in one of those beautiful valleys of Thessaly celebrated by Virgil, beside the sweet slopes of Lignon sung by Urfe, whose birthplace, in spite of what the biographers say, was falling into ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... they came to be reflected on, it was universally observed that nothing tangible could ever be got out of them. The housekeeper, a weird old woman, with a very abrupt and repelling manner, was too fierce and taciturn to be safely approached. The few indoor servants had all been long enough in the family to have learned to hold their tongues in public as a regular habit. It was only from the farm-servants who supplied the table at the Abbey ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... came yesterday, and my little sister is entirely and overwhelmingly happy, for he is literally her Prince. Physically he is much improved; has developed surprisingly, but has the shy, taciturn manner of a student, and is, I fear, a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... been declared the greenest of God's green earth, and they received the panegyric with national complacency, knowing not that they had three thousand miles of grassless ocean to thank for it every bit. The fragrance of the land was sweet to the weary voyagers, and the most taciturn was disposed to unwonted mirth. The Captain, question-driven, had taken wing and soared aloft, looking down in safety from ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... a handful of dollars, which, the next instant, disappeared in one of Jaime's capacious pockets. This time a muttered word or two of thanks escaped the lips of the taciturn esquilador. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... apparently a Spanish mestizo, declared himself the son of the dead stranger, and established himself in that far-off corner of the world. He began to farm the land and devoted himself especially to the cultivation of indigo. Don Saturnino was a taciturn young man, violent and sometimes cruel, but very active and industrious. He built a wall around his father's grave and, from time to time, went all alone to visit it. A few years later he married a ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... just arrived, and was bewildered by the great city. He listened to me in the taciturn Scotch way, and then he ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the sombre and taciturn character of their leader, the party of officers had been riding for some time in silence, when they came in sight of a house situated at a short distance from the road, and of a superior description to the caserias and peasants' cottages which they had hitherto passed. It was a building of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... taciturn humor that nothing could overcome; he respected it scrupulously. I did not reply to his questions and he dropped the subject; he was satisfied that I had forgotten my mistress. Nevertheless, I went to the chase and appeared at the table and was ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... The Countess Kate played as placidly as though she were dealing cards for "old maid," while her husband reminded Nina of a squirrel sitting up and nibbling at a nut. Carlo Olisco was excited but not unnatural. Porter looked gloomy and taciturn. Minotti and Allegro were both tense and keen, the former arrogant, the latter flushed and excited. John Derby, like the Countess Kate, played exactly as he used to play Jack Straws or besique, on rainy days in ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter and introduced as our guide. The professor, who had promised to see us off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come. Our guide was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went. Jan was rather anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since childhood; but ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... along with us our atmosphere of hearty good will and enthusiasm we know no defeat. The man who is gloomy, taciturn and lives in a world of doubt seldom achieves more than a bare living. There have been a few who have groaned their way through to a competence but in proportion to that overwhelming number of souls who carry cheer through life they are as nothing—mere drops in the bucket. If the truth ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... A strong, ugly man, he was well adapted for manual labour; and that was all. His eyes were made to see with, and not for ogling. Compared with the Cockney, he was grave, and rather taciturn; but there was a deal of good old humour bottled up in him, after all. For the rest, he was frank, good-hearted, shrewd, and resolute; and like ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... had continued their stroll and had passed from the Piazza del Popolo to the Corso. Giovanni was taciturn and moody. He looked straight ahead, failing to notice the gayly attired beauties thronging that great thoroughfare, who at ordinary times would have engrossed his attention. Not so with Esperance; he admired the vivacious ladies ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... the work; but because our personal impressions of him do not correspond with our conceptions of a powerful man, we abate or withdraw our admiration, and attribute his success to lucky accident. This blear-eyed, taciturn, timid man, whose knowledge of many things is manifestly imperfect, whose inaptitude for many things is apparent, can HE be the creator of such glorious works? Can HE be the large and patient thinker, the delicate humourist, the impassioned ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... his professional connection with the sanitarium, Mr. Henry Blake was, in a sense, the oracle of Judson Centre, and he enjoyed his proud distinction to the full. Ordinarily, he was taciturn, but the present hour found him in a ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... estimable both as artists and as men; but the Catholicism of Overbeck and one of the Schadows excludes entirely many topics of conversation." Overbeck is elsewhere described as of "very prepossessing physiognomy, taciturn and melancholy," with a "proselyting spirit." Bunsen, who no less than Niebuhr deplored these conversions, writes in 1817 that Overbeck had been for a fortnight in August a welcome guest at Frascati, that he had finished a water-colour ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... had a servant called Yuditch, just such another tall, thin, taciturn person as his master. They say that this man Yuditch was partly responsible for Ivan Andreevitch's strange behaviour with Anna Pavlovna; they say he discovered my great-grandmother's guilty intrigue with one of my great-grandfather's ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... cultivation, but often it depends on a native sociability, a friendliness and genuine interest, on a "good nature" that is what it literally purports to be,—good nature. Though many of the persuasive kind are insincere and selfish, I believe that on the whole the taciturn and gruff are less interested in their fellows than the talkative ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... time out of ten Johann might be taciturn or sharp, the other nine he would be agreeable, always pleased—good humored, satisfied, like a child with children. Every one liked his earnest nature, his ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... in the shoe seemed to engross the taciturn young smith's attention for the next minute ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... fez, contrasting with the dark mahogany colour of his sun-burnt brow. And what a rich crimson caftan! Perhaps he is from Tunis or Barbary. He sits alone, smoking, with eyes half-closed, grave and taciturn. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... window. The couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapper being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a fanciful appearance of lying among clouds. He felt that she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn man; it was another help to him to have established that understanding so easily, and got ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... their rescue from oblivion. They are in no wise to be compared with this master's frescos in the Chapel of the Annunziata,—which, indeed, is in every way a place of wonder and delight. You reach it by passing through a garden lane bordered with roses, and a taciturn gardener comes out with clinking keys, and lets you into the chapel, where there is nobody but Giotto and Dante, nor seems to have been for ages. Cool it is, and of a pulverous smell, as a sacred place should be; a blessed benching goes round the wall, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... lake, and the mountains; supper-time, with the declining sun pouring light into the little room and making the landscape glorious, was especially exhilarating. Ambrosial was the bread baked by Mrs. Peters, the taciturn and serious religious person of color who attended to our cooking; the prize morsels were the ends, golden brown in hue, crunching so crisply between our teeth. I used to wonder how a being with hands so dark as those of Mrs. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Sometimes, weary of seeking information unsuccessfully, Tim would deliver it himself, and would talk all evening about his past hard life. After some of its sad disclosures he noticed that his companion was less taciturn, and he seized such opportunities for wringing from him something of his ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... he had tied him up in the bread-bags, and thrown him into the canal. Whisperings and murmurings were heard all round the cutter's decks. Obadiah Coble shrugged up his shoulders, as he took an extra quid—Dick Short walked about with lips compressed, more taciturn than ever—Jansen shook his head, muttering, "Te tog is no tog"—Bill Spurey had to repeat to the ship's company the legend of his coming on board over and over again. The only persons who appeared not to have lost their courage were Jemmy Ducks ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... religiously believed in, I regretted he was so idle; but his dissipation was winning, and his delight was thorough, and his gay, dashing manner made me feel happy, and his experience opened to me new avenues for enjoyment and knowledge of life. On my arrival in Paris I had visited, in the company of my taciturn valet, the Mabille and the Valentino, and I had dined at the Maison d'Or by myself; but now I was taken to strange students' cafes, where dinners were paid for in pictures; to a mysterious place, where a table d'hote was held under a tent in a back garden; and afterwards we went ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the room, but her visits were short, and though invariably kind and considerate, Edna felt an involuntary awe of her, which rendered her manner exceedingly constrained when they were together. Hagar was almost as taciturn as her mistress, and as the girl asked few questions, she remained in complete ignorance of the household affairs, and had never seen any one but Mrs. Murray, Hagar, and the doctor. She was well supplied with ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Salina had come up from the Farnham's deserted mansion to spend the evening with aunt Hannah, and arrange the preliminaries for a "husking frolic," which was to take place on the morrow in uncle Nathan's barn. But she found the good lady so taciturn and gloomy, that even her active spirit was awed into stillness. So the two women remained almost in silence, knitting steadily, with a round ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... for dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner seemed nothing to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old dog's nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung himself down beside the taciturn boy, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conversation. By and by they left the small train and got into a compartment reserved for them in the London express. Sir John did everything he could to enliven the journey for his young cousins. But they were taciturn and irresponsive. Betty's wonderful gray eyes looked out of the window at the passing landscape, which Sir John was quite sure she did not see; Sylvia and Hester were absorbed in watching their sister. Sir John had a queer kind of feeling that there was something wrong with the girls' ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... shipping-room. It penetrated the frowsy head of Jake, the elevator-man. As the days went on and the tempo of the front office slackened with that of the two bright little inner offices, only one member of the whole staff remained unmoved, incurious, taciturn. Pop Henderson listened, one scant old eyebrow raised knowingly, a whimsical half-smile screwing ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... to see him. For a deserter to come to him from a legion so faithful to the rebel cause as that of Major Lee seemed an evidence that the American side was rapidly weakening. He questioned Champe closely. The taciturn deserter answered him briefly, but with such a show of sincerity as to win his confidence. The interview ended in Clinton's giving him a couple of guineas, and bidding him to call on General Arnold, who was forming a corps of loyalists and deserters, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... man, two legs of labor and of endurance. She sings naturally, this woman, when she is alone, vague songs, sort of fugues of savages, very simple, which seem to have neither beginning nor end, but in the company of others she is almost taciturn, replying by gestures, by signs, accomplishing her task with a passive regularity. She scarcely knows the lighter shades of sentiments and expressions. She laughs or she weeps. No smiling. When she laughs, it is with ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... from the Sanctum Sanctorum, where their presence seemed to have operated as a check on the freedom of discussion, had just seated themselves in the room allotted to the private soldiers, when, in a broad northern accent, the aforesaid taciturn gentleman, selecting the two strangers, who, of all the company, seemed alone worthy the honour of his notice, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... but, though Casterbridge was old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The mistress of the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made no objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions from the taciturn landlord as to where she could find the different things, trotted up and down stairs with materials for her ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... had not expected this, and it embarrassed him. He had waited as a matter of routine duty until the wages were paid, but he was a taciturn, slow-witted man, and he had not foreseen this sudden call upon his oratorical powers. He stroked his thin cheek nervously with his long white fingers, and looked down with weak watery eyes at the mosaic of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is said to begin where words end, we might expect it to play a role in the taciturn courtship of Indians. One of the maidens described by Mrs. Eastman (85) "had many lovers, who wore themselves out playing the flute, to as little purpose as they braided their hair and painted their faces," Gila Indians court and pop the question with their flutes, according to the description ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... hidden with his sorrow under the canvas waggon-tilt, roused himself at the accelerated motion. He rose, and, holding the sleeping child upon one arm, pushed back the front flap and looked out. He spoke to the taciturn driver, who shook his head. How did he, Smoots Beste, know whether a minister of the Church of England, or even a Dutch predikant, was to be found at the place beyond? All he hoped for was that he would be able to buy there tobacco and brandy cheap, and sleep drunken, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of the great kraal, Imvungayo, conferred a moment among themselves, and immediately two men were sent to learn the royal pleasure as to the request. Laurence Stanninghame, awaiting their return, was taciturn and moody, and as he gazed around his one thought was lest his scheme should miscarry. The sun had just gone below the western peaks, and a radiant afterglow lingered upon the dazzling snow ridges, flooding some with a roseate hue, while others ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford |
