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Unostentatious   Listen
Unostentatious

adjective
1.
Not ostentatious.  Synonyms: unpretending, unpretentious.  "Unostentatious elegance"
2.
Exhibiting restrained good taste.  Synonyms: understated, unpretentious.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unostentatious" Quotes from Famous Books



... husband, father, master, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike unostentatious and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liberty, of national independence ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... townsmen may regard him merely as a man of business; others, as a politician; all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom. Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of character, which gives the nameless grace to real excellence, may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, who do not know that true worth is always void of glare and pretension. But ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... a subaltern given a more friendly welcome than that which Major Brighten extended to me. I was made at home at once. Padre Newman, who seemed little more than a young undergraduate with a gay and affable countenance, but with that unselfish and utterly unostentatious heroism depicted in every feature—a typical example of the kind of hero which our public schools, with all their failings, have sent forth in hundreds and thousands during the last five years—was placing ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd

... of human beings. She moved about the house with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity. Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she had a strong, controlling will, which all around her felt and acknowledged. From the moment she drew the fan from my hand, at my mother's bedside, to the hour I left her ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... diners, and Stephen Glynn felt the pang of the lonely as he absorbed the atmosphere of love and sympathy. The beautiful hostess looked tired and worn, but her eyes brightened as she looked at her husband, and, in a quiet, unostentatious fashion, he watched incessantly over her comfort. It was easy to see that the trial through which this husband and wife had passed had but riveted the bond between them and brought them into closest sympathy, while the little sister comported herself with a brisk cheeriness which was ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... see. So we went with him through the shop, up-stairs, into the private part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest adventures I ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of village-business. The two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... was quiet and unostentatious and so devoid of the pomp and pageantry of a victorious general as to cause question in the minds of some as to whether or not this was the man expected. His dress was plain in the extreme, and bore upon it no insignia of rank; yet those there were, ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... suffered to remain in this ancient seat by connivance and from compassion, they did not venture upon taking any step which might be construed into an assertion of their ancient rights, contenting themselves with the secret and obscure exercise of their religious ceremonial, in as unostentatious a manner ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... lining of whose cloak were of different colours, and a high reward, and pardon for past acts of malignancy, might tempt him once more to turn his tippet. For these reasons Joceline kept a strict, though unostentatious watch ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... and Mrs Darcy waited upon us, having thoughtfully sent a mounted messenger to enquire if we felt equal to receiving company after our journey. On our agreeing, they presented themselves in the most unostentatious way, having walked through their park and down the lane, though the weather was showery. All forebodings were ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... one of their best traits. I am afraid the race is fast dying out. Lavish expenditure, and a too confiding faith in their native dependants has often brought the usual result. But many of my readers will associate with the name of Purneah or Bhaugulpore planter, recollections of hospitality and unostentatious kindness, and memories of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... good. However this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... luxurious—being lined only with drugget pinned down with highly-polished brass rods. Nowhere were there any flowers or mirrors to be seen. The salon, too, with its polished floor, which I traversed on my way to the drawing-room, was decorated in the same cold, severe, unostentatious style. Everything in it looked bright and solid, but not new, and pictures, flower-stands, and articles of bric-a-brac were wholly absent. In the drawing-room I found some of the young princesses seated, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... and unostentatious as the veery's does not appeal to the hurried or the preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased myself with imagining a resemblance between it and the poetry of George Herbert,—both uncared ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... shameful maybe for the Western peoples, is it necessary to go to the far Orient to find a wise man who is simple, unostentatious, free from imposture, who taught men to live happily six hundred years before our vulgar era, at a time when the whole of the North was ignorant of the usage of letters, and when the Greeks were barely beginning to distinguish themselves ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... out his hand for his gun, and began to examine it carefully, a proceeding that was imitated by the others, but in a quiet unostentatious way, so as not to take ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... man was watching the President more keenly, than Chandler. History is said to repeat itself, and all things are supposed to come to him who waits. While Davis's bill was before the House, Lincoln accepted battle with the Vindictives in a way that was entirely unostentatious, but that burned his bridges. He pressed forward the organization of a new State government in Louisiana under Federal auspices. He wrote to Michael Hahn, the newly chosen governor of this somewhat fictitious State: "I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... known to slighter souls—I hope so; I hope that they cannot be permitted to endure what Dante endured. In the purlieus of our cities these resigned, resolute spirits expend their forces, and their unostentatious figures, passing from home to home where poor men lie, offer a lesson to the petty souls of some whose riches and worldly powers are by no means petty. Ah, it is lovely to see those merciful sisters of the fallen or falling—good to see the men who help them! ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... man, that Father Philip, by the way," he went on, looking round the table. "In his quiet, unostentatious way, in his little room up there in the old house of Our Lady of Rest, as they used to call it, he has done more real work for the Church than, I am afraid, a good many of us have done with all our ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... all was done under an affectation of sympathy that was deeply touching. Two constables kept order, but appeared to enjoy the fun. Now, in any other country but Ireland, and perhaps, indeed, we may also except Spain and France and Italy, a simple thing is done in a simple, unostentatious manner. That does not suit the genius of our people, which tries to throw around the simplest matter all the pomp and circumstance of a great event, and in the evolution thereof every man, woman, and child is supposed to have a personal interest, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... admit. But that it should find its profit in the business of improving the standard of existence and appealing to the pride of the folk was to me a wondrous sign of the essential vigor of American civilization, and a proof that public spirit, unostentatious as a coral insect, must after all have long been ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... splashing his way, with La Salle and Tonti, through the swamps of Louisiana, holding forth the crucifix and backed by French carbines and Mohican tomahawks, among the marvels of that wilderness was found this: a child of nine sitting, and—with some unostentatious aid from her medicine-man—ruling; queen of her tribe and high-priestess of their temple. Fortified by the acumen and self-collected ambition of Listening Crane, confirmed in her regal title by the white man's Manitou through ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... somewhat disappointed in the quiet, unostentatious general rooms. The suite assigned them—at a hundred and twenty francs a day—was comfortable, was the most comfortable assemblage of rooms either had ever seen. But there was nothing imposing. This impression ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... work and making itself generally useful. Formerly it was the man who wore the fine clothes who went to the shows. To-day it is the woman gorgeously clad for whom the shows are organized. The man dressed in a serviceable and unostentatious, not to say depressing, suit of black accompanies her for the purpose of carrying her cloak and calling her carriage. Among the working classes life, of necessity, remains primitive; the law of the cave is still, with slight modification, the law of the slum. But in upper ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... deceived by the want apparently of any local subscription. But I will throw out of consideration the whole of those amounts—the whole of this unparalleled munificence on the part of many manufacturers which never appears in any account whatever—I will throw out everything done in private and unostentatious charity—the supplies of bedding, clothing, food, necessaries of every description, which do not appear as public subscriptions, and will appeal to public subscriptions alone; and I will appeal to an authority which ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... again—and again. They made six trips, carrying each time a capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod returned in a casual ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... Their painted, immobile faces and plumed heads towered with grave dignity above the meaner crowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timid glances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone and impassive,—yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to have become royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remote dignity and the nearer civilized world acquired the status of a ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... been so checked, would long before this time have involved the finances of the General Government in embarrassments far greater than those which are now experienced by any of the States; of limiting all our expenditures to that simple, unostentatious, and economical administration of public affairs which is alone consistent with the character of our institutions; of collecting annually from the customs, and the sales of public lands a revenue fully adequate to defray ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... exterior, in Washington street, and the young lady was assisted to alight; entering the house, she was received by an elderly female, who immediately conducted her to a private room, which contained a bed and furniture of a neat but unostentatious description. The carriage drove away, and Julia remained several hours in the house. At about nine o'clock in the evening, the carriage returned, and she was assisted to enter, being apparently in a very feeble and unwell condition. She ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... the heroine of the hospitals of Scutari. No one will dispute the practical piety of the gentle, but fearless, the tenderhearted, but truly strong-minded woman, who made the lazar-house her home for months together,—ministered to its sick, miserable, and ignorant inmates,—put, by the unostentatious exercise of indomitable faith and unswerving self-sacrifice, the love and humanity of the Gospel in direct and strongest contrast with the barbarisms of war. No one will deny or dispute this now. That heroic English maiden, whose shadow, as it fell on his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... of the English Philanthropist has contributed to its relief and preservation. Of this we are very certain, the splendid and indefatigable Hero of Slaughter and Vain-glory did not traverse a more extensive field, nor expose himself more courageously to personal danger, than our meek and unostentatious Hero of Medical Benevolence. In point of true magnanimity, I apprehend the spirit of Caesar would very willingly confess, that his own celebrated attempts to reduce Gaul and Britain were low and little achievements, when compared to the unexampled efforts by which Howard endeavoured ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... beautiful, so courted, so idolized by women, yet no tale of seduction, of profligacy, attached to his name! As to his antecedents, he had so frankly owned himself a natural son, a nobody, a traveller, an idler; his expenses, though lavish, were so unostentatious, so regularly defrayed; he was so wholly the reverse of the character assigned to criminals, that it seemed as absurd to bring a charge of homicide against a butterfly or a goldfinch as against this seemingly innocent and delightful favourite ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his simple 'vitty' songs of the Delectable Duchy. He is a patriotic Cornish-man sure enough ... as good as anything of the kind written by the dialect-poets of Lancashire or Dorset ... it is a thing to rejoice over, this little easy-going, unostentatious book." ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... chosen to denominate repose; but, in the ease of the two former, this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an unambitious, unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before me the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong undercurrent ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... fashionable is peculiar and characteristic. From the toe of his boot to the crown of his hat, there is that unostentatious, undefinable something about him distinctive of his social position. Professional men, every body knows, have an expression common to their profession. A purblind cyclops could never mistake the expression of an Independent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... channelled bayonets and polished musket barrels of the sentinels. Carriage after carriage drew up at the great portal, and emitted beautiful ladies, brilliantly attired, and marshals and staff officers blazing with embroidery; for Napoleon, simple and unostentatious in his own person, well knew the importance of surrounding himself with a brilliant court; and the people, even the rude and ragged denizens of the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau, as they hung upon ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... to gauge the period of any uninscribed examples. Although few of us are likely to possess treasures of the XIIIth century, signed and dated pieces of our great-grandmothers' embroideries are interesting personal landmarks in family history, so for this reason, amongst others, unostentatious marks of identification are by no means out of place. Descriptive names or verses are also a means of amplifying the story and so enlivening ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. We had it enormously full last night (Marigold and Trial), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher being present in his pew, I sent to invite him to come round before he left. I found him to be an unostentatious, evidently able, straightforward, and agreeable man; extremely well-informed, and with a ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... large but unostentatious; the well-matured beautiful grounds and gardens were notable even in Rangoon. A recent acquaintance, who escorted Shafto, presented him to Mrs. Gregory, a smart, sandy-haired little lady of five or six and thirty, with an animated, expressive ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... in one of the buildings in one of the streets that slope precipitously from the Strand to the Thames Embankment, there is a door that would be all the better for a lick of paint, which bears what is perhaps the most modest and unostentatious announcement of its kind in London. The grimy ground-glass displays ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... performed. The success of Mr. Felt's undertaking is due scarcely less to the pecuniary aid of all his patrons than to the counsel and encouragement of this wise, liberal, and steadfast friend. Thus aided, he has triumphed over all obstacles. Proceeding in a most unostentatious manner, he has submitted his device to the inspection of practical printers, and men of science, in various cities of the United States and Great Britain, and has everywhere won approval. His first patent was issued in 1854,—proceedings to obtain it having been commenced in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... upon which he came forward was the military establishment and the natural defences of the country. In looking through the columns of the "Congressional Globe," we find abundant evidences of Senator Pierce's laborious and unostentatious discharge of his duties—reports of committees, brief remarks, and, here and there, a longer speech, always full of matter, and evincing a thoroughly-digested knowledge of the subject. Not having been written out by himself, however, these speeches are no ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Whole takes him up and directs him, and adjusts him into the providential plan; not simply from without but through himself. Such is this poet's loyalty to his Idea; he has faith, deep, genuine faith, yet unostentatious, quite unconventional at times; a most refreshing, yes, edifying appearance to-day, even for religious people, though he ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... friends—this is right,—but of that of any person, any chance-comer, about whom they know nothing. Who is not open to flattery? and if he seems not to be exposed to it, is it not that he is too shrewd or too refined to be beguiled by any but what is delicate and unostentatious? A man never considers who it is who praises him. But the most dangerous, perhaps, of all kinds of vanity is to be vain of our personal appearance, most dangerous, for such, persons are ever under temptation—I may say, ever sinning. Wherever ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... flakes to beat upon it, as was her wont, when her spirits were high, she kept her veil down, and the handkerchief which she frequently drew from under it gave proof that she was silently weeping. It often happens, that the most boisterous, lofty women bear their grief in unostentatious quiet, giving it a more forcible relief from contrast. Thus was it in the present instance with Zulma. Revolving in her mind all that the priest had told her, and having full leisure during the ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... cottages of the rancheros, and dotted everywhere with innumerable herds of cattle. Beyond the Missouri rose abruptly chains of snow-capped mountains, glistening in the sunlight and veined with gold and silver. Reports of these men came at times to Virginia,—reports always of a quiet and unostentatious prosperity. In the winter of 1864 their secret became known, and half the nomadic population of Virginia hurried to the new mines, and puzzled the slow-moving Minnesotians by their bustle and activity. Claims advanced rapidly in price, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... richest suitor; still, he took it for granted, that if Theodore St. Leger had not a fortune at the time, being a merchant, he would, of course, make one in a few years. But Mr. Taylor's son-in-law was a man of very different character from himself; he was a quiet, prudent, unostentatious young man, of good abilities, who had received by education excellent principles, and moderate views, and who had fallen in love with Adeline's pretty face. Mr. Hopkins, his uncle and adopted father, was a very worthy man, though a little eccentric, and ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... other hand, he has befriended many a poor client to his own cost; and, while failing in many cases to collect the fees which were his due, he has contributed to public and private charities with a liberal, but unostentatious hand. Though he has never posed as a "working-men's candidate" for official preferment, the laboring people of his city and section have long known him as the true and sympathetic friend of every honest son and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... in the earth." Then, desirous of correcting by her example, in this last act of her life, the wasteful pomp of funeral obsequies to which the Castilians were addicted, she commands that her own should be performed in the plainest and most unostentatious manner, and that the sum saved by this economy should be distributed in ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... poem to them since they married—not only harmonious and happy, but earnest, useful, and rich in the beautiful benevolence which can do so much when wealth and wisdom go hand in hand with charity. Their house was full of unostentatious beauty and comfort, and here the art-loving host and hostess attracted and entertained artists of all kinds. Laurie had music enough now, and was a generous patron to the class he most liked to help. Amy had her proteges among ambitious ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... Green, on the south, or left-hand side, of the main Fulham road, behind a pair of carriage gates, connected by a brick wall, stands the mansion of Lord Ravensworth; in outward appearance small and unostentatious, without the slightest attempt at architectural decoration, but sufficiently spacious and attractive to have received the highest honour that can be conferred on the residence of a subject, by her Majesty and Prince Albert having visited the late ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... a simple thing, an unostentatious remembrance; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions. Rodney loyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business, but every spire and frond and leaf of green in this winter wreath shed off the secret, magnetic meaning with which it was charged. Heart-light flowed from them, and touching ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... the house's interior was one of well-chosen but unostentatious comfort, and the materials and furnishings used were all so nicely adapted to their setting that only to more discerning eyes than those of the Stuarts' neighbours would they have ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... the play, is a room in the vicarage. Jacobean in character, its oak-panelling and beamed-ceiling, together with some fine pieces of antique furniture, lend it an air of historical interest, whilst in all other respects it speaks of solid comfort, refinement, and unostentatious elegance. Evidently the room of a rich man, who has, however, apparently come to some compromise on the difficult question of his entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; for the panelled walls possess, among other decorations, a ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy

... audience. In private society, he was universally beloved. "His society," writes Mr Deans, "was courted by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. In every company he was alike kind, affable, and unostentatious; as a companion, he was the most engaging of men; he was the best story-teller of his day." His power of humour was unbounded; he had a joke for every occasion, a bon-mot for every adventure. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... ability, By the clearness and accuracy of his intellect, By diligence, by patience, by firmness, by love of truth, By public spirit, ardent and disinterested, Yet always under the guidance of discretion, By rigid uprightness, by unostentatious piety, By the serenity of his temper, And by the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for me when Simon Newcomb met me at the door of the Cosmos Club, of which he was then president, and presented me as his guest to one and another of the select company of men who formed its membership. He moved among them as unostentatious and simple-mannered as he had been as a boy, with a catholic interest in all the varying topics which held the sympathies of the crowd, and able well to hold his own whatever might be the field of the conversation. Bishop, poet, scientist, historian, he had common ground with ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... Highlands. He had excellent health, and was physically a good specimen of our north-English race. It was a pleasure to see his tall straight figure going over the roughest ground with no appearance of hurry, but in fact with such unostentatious swiftness that few sportsmen could follow him. I was myself active enough then, and accustomed to wild places, but he always restrained himself when we did any mountain work together. He afterwards became well known as the "Thursday" of the "Painter's Camp," but I may give his ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... Middlesex, entitle him to the gratitude of this country; and, at some future day, his merits will be, I trust, recorded on a monument, by the side of the benevolent Howard, in St. Paul's. Sir Richard Phillips is a modest, unostentatious man; he makes but little skew and parade; but the hand of oppression seldom bears heavily upon a fellow-citizen, that Sir Richard is not found, in some way or other, endeavoring to alleviate his distress. I speak feelingly, for my persecutions brought me acquainted ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... their associates. They moved in one of the many circles of cultured and agreeable people, which, despite the mandate of a M'Allister, formed a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; they entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the career of the Baroness had not been unearthed. That the widow of Judge Lawrence, the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known as "The Baroness" caused some questions, to be sure, but the simple answer that she ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... expressed his conviction that the wide-spread poverty of the bishops is caused by their being required to maintain "venerable but costly palaces." He says that he and many of his fellow-churchmen would prefer to lead plain and unostentatious lives, but they are not allowed to do so; that they would much prefer to devote a portion of their income to charity and other worthy purposes rather than to be compelled to spend it in useless pomp ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells too, by Jove!—breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in—your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to account to myself for—for—Mr. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... away, and the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... Borneo, the service which he has rendered to the mercantile interests of his country by his exertions in the suppression of piracy, the numbers of people whom he has induced literally to turn their swords into ploughshares, and the quiet, unostentatious way in which all this, and more than all this, has been effected, are not less surprising than creditable to his abilities, perseverance, ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... smilingly listened, knowing Veale for a queer rustic character of poor repute, gave him sixpences to assist in his efforts to quench an abnormal thirst. Talking together, they decided that the hero of the tale had done rather a fine thing in a very unostentatious way, and it occurred to several of them that pluck ought to be rewarded. If the chance came they would encourage Dale. The M.F.H. in fact made up his mind to reconsider matters, and see if he could not before long let Dale have an inning ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it as something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved like these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural for him to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a little time his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book was Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... with what true and unostentatious philosophy thou didst accommodate thyself to the greatest change thy quiet, harmless life had known since it had passed out of the brief, burning cycle of the passions! Lost was the home endeared to thee by ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which the lesser nobility, the clergy, and the magistracy meet together, exerts a great influence. The judgment and mind of the region reside in that solid, unostentatious society, where each man knows the resources of his neighbor, where complete indifference is shown to luxury and dress,—pleasures which are thought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelve acres of pasture land,—a purchase coveted for years, which has ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... personal relations with both—retained their confidence, and while he lived secured their general support of his Administration. Herein President Lincoln exhibited those peculiar qualities and attributes of mind which made him a leader and manager of men, and enabled him in a quiet and unostentatious way to exercise his executive ability in administering the Government during the most troublesome period of our ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... the victory was won. He had not bound his victim till the new flight of that victim had compelled him; nor had he spoken even one harsh word to him. He had captured him fairly and bravely too, and in the most quiet and unostentatious manner had handed him over to the police of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... infinite care on the following morning, no doubt in the hope of making a conquest of the marquis at first sight. He tried his best to solve the problem of appearing at the same time most recherche but at ease, excessively elegant and yet unostentatious; and he devoted himself to the task so unreservedly that he lost all conception of the flight of time: so that on seeing M. de Coralth enter his rooms, he exclaimed in unfeigned astonishment: ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... knew only too well that his beloved chums would not hear of an afternoon's work, and would head him off either to footer or a run round the Bender. Therefore, immediately after dinner, he had made an unostentatious exit, and reached the laboratory ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... these social phenomena is exhaustive, imagines that the habit of unostentatious charity, which seems indigenous to England, was powerfully stimulated by the philosophy of Shaftesbury and Voltaire, by Rousseau's sentiment and Fielding's fiction. This theory may have something to say for itself, and indeed it is antecedently ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... Indeed he rarely failed in any enterprise requiring nerve, perseverance, tact, and ability; and it may well be added that he seemed to accumulate wealth to enjoy the pleasure of spending it worthily. His unostentatious charities during the war were almost boundless; and hundreds of widows and orphans blessed him for the relief which he extended to them in those dark days, when even medicines were contraband of war, and the simplest necessaries of life ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... a quiet, unostentatious dignity about Evelyn which is altogether absent in the garrulous Pepys, and, indeed I find something very beautiful and touching in the grief Evelyn pours forth upon the death of his little son of five ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... the riders assembled at the cross roads on the outskirts of the wood in gusts, fitful indeed, but not so fitful that Nora, on the distrained foxy mare, was not able to gauge to a nicety the state of his temper. From the fact of her unostentatious position in the rear it might safely be concluded that it, like the wind, was still rising. The riders huddled together in the lee of the trees, their various elements fused in the crucible of Sir Thomas's wrath into a compact and anxious mass. There had been an unusually large ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... and I had very little room to move about in his dugout. I was very much impressed with the unostentatious way in which he said, "If you want to say your prayers, Padre, you can kneel over in that corner first, because there is only room for one at a time. I will say mine afterwards"—and he did. He was a Roman Catholic, and had lived in India, and was a very fine type of man. When ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... preserved meats, rolled day by day into Paris. At the same time, several illustrious exiles returned to the capital. Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet arrived there, after years of absence, in the most unostentatious fashion, though they soon succumbed to the prevailing mania of inditing manifestoes and exhortations for the benefit of their fellow-countrymen. Victor Hugo's return was more theatrical. In those famous "Chatiments" ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... country with a passionate ardour. The ideas of greatness, power and sovereignty were inseparably connected in his mind with the name of the German Empire. But his chief enthusiasm was reserved for the diligent, unostentatious work, quietly accomplished and conscious of its aim, which, begun by Stein, Scharnhorst and Boyen, had led through long struggles to such a glorious result. He reviewed the whole story with the eye of a soldier from ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... melancholy man, winning esteem rather by the unaffected modesty of his demeanor than by eclat of lineage or the romantic incidents which had befallen him. In the words of a distinguished writer, who well knew him at that day: 'So unostentatious was his deportment, so correct, so pure his life, that even the ripple of scandal can not appear plausibly upon its surface.' We have inquired of those who entertained him as their guest, of those who tended at his sick-bed, of the artist who painted his miniature, of his lady friends ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... "tuft-hunting," which I, who stood by a silent observer, could not but feel to involve a malicious calumny. Naturally it happened that coroneted carriages, superb horses, and numerous servants, in a town so unostentatious and homely as the Manchester of that day, drew the public gaze, and effectually advertised the visit of the Laxton ladies. Respect for the motive which had prompted this visit cooperated with admiration for the distinguished personal ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... like a girl. He had objected, always, to the expensive and the aristocratic. He was proud of his pure plebeian blood, as many plebeians are; he gloried in it. He disliked show, with a calm and deep aversion. He was a plain man with a simple, unostentatious taste for money. The difference between Helen's name and her ornamental raiment gave him pleasure in the name. But he had not been examining her for more than half a minute when he began to find pleasure in her rich clothes (rich, that ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... Upon the elevation of Louis Napoleon to power the Count, who distrusted him and his schemes, abandoned politics and the agitation of public life forever, contenting himself with doing all the good in his power and aiding the needy in a quiet, unostentatious way. His daughter and her husband spent a great deal of their time at the family mansion, and the Count and Mercedes acquired additional delight thereby. Albert de Morcerf, his wife and Mlle. Louise d' Armilly remained inmates of the Monte-Cristo residence, aiding not a little in promoting ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... precautions that are taken in recruiting the department. The candidate has passed the stringent tests of character and physique applied to all metropolitan police officers. He has been watched, with unostentatious vigilance, for defects of temperament or intelligence. A few months he has on street duty in uniform, and then he may apply for transfer to the C.I.D. He may be recommended then by his divisional superiors to Mr. McCarthy—the blonde blue-eyed Irishman who rules the Central C.I.D.—who ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... the family estate had always attended to its cultivation, and was properly called a gentleman farmer. Unostentatious and frugal, he never lacked means, in spite of bad harvests or unexpected losses, to assist the younger members of the family in starting in life, or to help forward any good cause ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... of the greater number, there would be no disposition to interfere. Of Christianity, the common judgment in that body, and among those in the capital who are of the same general rank, is for the most part favorable. It is commended for its modesty, for the quiet and unostentatious manner in which its religious affairs are managed, and for the humble diligence with which it concerns itself with the common people and the poor, carefully instructing them in the doctrines of their religion, and relieving liberally their necessities. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... village on the second of August, at three o'clock, for Orange Court House, seventeen miles on the way to Richmond. Detachments of a Vermont and a New York cavalry regiment composed the reconnoitring party, and the whole was commanded by Gen. Crawford, a clever and unostentatious soldier. We bivouacked that night near Raccoon Ford, on the river Rapidan. No fires were built; for we knew that the enemy was all around us, and we slept coldly and imperfectly till the gray of Sunday morning. At daylight we galloped into the main street of Orange Court House, having first ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... in the Union—men who held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at home and at the capital. These gentlemen and their households were unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well aware of the potency of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... combat, by no means well matched, according to those who judged by sight and appearance. The one had a body enormous in size, glittering in a vest of various colours, and in armour painted and inlaid with gold; the other had a middle stature, as is seen among soldiers, and a mien unostentatious, in arms fit for ready use rather than adapted for show. He had no song, no capering, nor idle flourishing of arms, but his breast, teeming with courage and silent rage, had reserved all its ferocity for the decision of the contest. When they took their ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... he could not clear up. Unfortunately, he was not always at hand to consult. Pundit Shyama Charan Kaviratna, during my residence at Seebpore, assisted me in going over the Mokshadharma sections of the Santi Parva. Unostentatious in the extreme, Kaviratna is truly the type of a learned Brahman of ancient India. Babu Aghore Nath Banerjee also has from time to time, rendered me valuable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... modern parterres; the dull earth was covered with a tangle of ready-growing, self-sowing, lowly flowers, that filled every space left unoccupied by statelier garden favorites, and crowded every corner with cheerful, though unostentatious, bloom. And the close juxtaposition, and even intermingling, of flowers with herbs, vegetables, and fruits gave a sense of homely simplicity and usefulness, as well as of beauty. The soft, purple eyes of the mourning-bride ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... opening of Parliament had usually been attended. He had been accustomed to go to the House of Lords in state, with a numerous retinue and great parade. Now he was conveyed from his palace along the river in a barge, in a quiet and unostentatious manner. His opening speech, too, was moderate and conciliatory. In a word, it was pretty evident to the Commons that the proud and haughty spirit of their royal master was beginning to be pretty ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... unostentatious, yet not moody,—neither impulsively liberal and generous nor habitually penurious and uncharitable,—he led a quiet and monotonously easy life, varied by occasional trips to foreign lands, and comforted by the assurance that ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... moment of grave thought came a few days later, with the arrival of two quietly-dressed, unostentatious men. He told Melanie that one man was her chauffeur for the white machine, and the other was an extra hand he had engaged for the return trip on the Sea Gull. The chauffeur, however, for one reason ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... pale and pretty in her simple new mourning, out once more into the Bourne Close for half an hour's quiet conversation. Very delicate and sweet and refined that tiny girlish face and figure looked in the plain unostentatious black and white of her great sorrow, and Ernest felt as he walked along by her side that she seemed to lean upon him naturally now; the loss of her main support and chief advisor in life seemed to draw her closer and ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... was born near Agra to the vicinity of which the father had migrated in 1547. He was thus five years younger than Akbar. Shortly after that prince had reconquered the North-western Provinces, Shaikh Faizi, then about twenty, began his quiet, unostentatious life of literature and medicine. He soon made a name as a poet. His native generosity, backed by the earnings of his profession as physician, prompted him to many acts of charity, and it became a practice with him to treat the poor ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... children for school, runs to her sick neighbour to do the same for her little ones, frequently sharing with them her own children's food; and then, like an angel of mercy, watches over and comforts her sick neighbour. Such is the unostentatious Christian charity found among the Christian poor. O that it may more ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of a frenzy for books. He impressed them by crowds, and marshalled them in regiments and myriads. They all fell in 1789 before the hammer of the auctioneer. Dibdin has described the catalogue. It was unostentatious and printed on indifferent material. He hoped, with his curious insistance on the point, that there were 'some few copies on large paper.' It is a mark of the changes in book-collecting that Dibdin praised the index as excellent, ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... Cleveland, and that benevolent institution owed its usefulness in great measure to his indefatigable zeal in the cause, and to his unstinted liberality. To the distressed of any nation he never turned a deaf ear, but to the needy and suffering of his native country he was ever liberal, and accompanied his unostentatious charities with kind words and manifestations of sincere interest that were frequently as beneficial to the recipient as the money itself. He was also a valued member of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... her religion and politics. Said the Low Church parson: "An earnest Christian woman, sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that true woman's heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... majesty excuse me?" said the abbe, bowing low. "My life has been the still, quiet, lonely, unostentatious life of a priest, and only the ever-blessed King Frederick William introduced storm and tempest into its even course. That was, without doubt, God's will; otherwise this robust and giant form which He gave me would have been in vain. My height ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... accompanying them. Of all the old provinces of France, it was Brittany that sent the most devout pilgrims, whole parishes arriving together, the men as numerous as the women, and all displaying a pious deportment, a simple and unostentatious faith, such as might edify the world. Then came the winter, December with its terrible cold, its dense snow-drifts blocking the mountain ways. But even then families put up at the hotels, and, despite everything, faithful worshippers—all those who, fleeing ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... richest girl in the school. Her father, a plain, sensible man, who had lacked early advantages, had within a few years amassed a considerable fortune, which he would gladly have enjoyed in an unostentatious, unpretending manner. This, however, did not suit his wife at all. Mrs. Dillon, though a kind-hearted, charitable woman, was excessively fond of style, lavishly extravagant, and inclined to parade her wealth upon all occasions. She did not realize that the very efforts she made to attain the position ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... a curve of her pretty red lip, "is the protest of the child against insanitary and artificial treatment. In its upright, unostentatious cradle it is protected against that injudicious fondling and dangerous promiscuous osculation to which, as an infant in human arms, it is so often subjected. Above all, it is kept from that shameless and mortifying publicity so unjust ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... arrived Mr. and Mrs. Drury, upsetting all her arrangements, implying that it had been presumptuous to exert any authority without relationship. It did seem hard that the claims of kindred should be only recollected in order to unsettle her plans, and offend her unostentatious tastes. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... natives, who come from two or three hundred miles in the interior, and constantly crowd his yard. There they sit, in almost perfect silence, receiving their goods, and making payment in gold-dust and ivory. Towards us Mr. Bannerman showed himself most hospitable, yet in a perfectly unostentatious manner. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... lauding that gallantry which stands in polite posture in the presence of a lady, hat in hand, and with its selectest bow and smile, and in the same breath turns to commit the direst offences against the peace and purity of womanhood; but that true and hearty, though simple and unostentatious, reverence for the sex, that teaches men to regard all women as worthy of freedom, respect, and protection, simply by virtue of their womanhood. I say not that this chivalry is a Southern, but that it is an American trait. As such I am proud ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... becoming modesty, for 'puffery' is a thing I heartily despise,—and were the whole press to turn round and applaud me as much as it has hitherto abused and ridiculed me, I would not have one of its penny lines of condescendingly ignorant approval quoted in connection with what must be a perfectly unostentatious and simple announcement of this new production from my pen. The manuscript is exceptionally clear, even for me who do not as a male write a very bad scrawl—so that you can scarcely have much bother with the proof-correcting—though even were this ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... thinking ever of others. He had a strong sense of justice, and desired to do right—not to take advantage of another. He was generous and large in his ideas. He was benevolent, giving of his means in a quiet and unostentatious way. He took a great interest in young men, helping them in their struggles, with advice, encouragement, and pecuniary assistance. Students, teachers, helpless women, colored boys and girls, in early life slaves, came in for a share of his large-hearted ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... courtyard, lantern in hand, and let itself into the garage. Despite the dimness, I recognized Miss Falconer's chauffeur, the man she had addressed as Georges when they left the rue St. Dominique. The very link I needed, provided I could get into communication with him in some unostentatious way. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... mad, and sent Rousseau to attics and solitudes,—so that, in his humble but pleasant home, with his young wife, with whom he lived amicably, he could see his friends, the great men of the age, and bestow an unostentatious charity, and maintain his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... gracefully shewing its unostentatious front, and, at length, humbly adorning almost all the scattered villages of the land.—Bowles's History ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... G. Blaine, with his wife and daughter and Miss Dodge ('Gail Hamilton') left at noon yesterday in anticipation of the rush. Before going the Senator did a very gracious and kindly deed in an unostentatious way. Sending for Flipper, the colored cadet, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... which supplemented the other: military and naval efficiency on the one hand and pacific interpenetration on the other. The former has been often and adequately described; the latter has not yet attracted the degree of attention it merits. For one thing, it was unostentatious and invariably tinged with the colour of legitimate trade and industry. Practically every country in Europe, and many lands beyond the seas, were covered with networks of economic relations which, without being always emanations ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the pupil of Mozart; in fact, to the formidable and inaccessible Vathek himself! I have many times passed the house, and longed to see its contents, and often have I wondered how a building with so plain and unostentatious an exterior could suit the reception of the works it contains, and the residence of so magnificent ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown

... lateness of the hour, albeit with misgivings justified in the issue, he hailed a taxicab and had himself driven to the headquarters of the British Secret Service in America, an unostentatious dwelling on the northwest corner of West End Avenue ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... this moment I find it hard to interpret in words actuated me to leave the house in a quiet and unostentatious fashion—by the back door, in fact—and to proceed on my way to the parish house, two blocks distant, along a rather obscure side street. I was perhaps halfway there when through the falling dusk ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... the while the microbe was getting in some unostentatious but clever work. A week later Shoeblossom began to feel queer. He had occasional headaches, and found himself oppressed by a queer distaste for food. The professional advice of Dr. Oakes, the school doctor, was called ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... which particularly endeared this brave and justly-famous Boer officer to us were his straightforwardness and unostentatious manner, his truthfulness, and the utter absence of affectation that distinguishes him. I am certain that he has written his simple narrative with candour and impartiality, and I feel equally certain, from what I know of him, that this most popular of our late opponents ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... Foyle the danger of jumping to conclusions. Inferences, however clever, however sound they may seem when they are drawn, are apt to lead one astray. The detective who habitually used the deductive method would spend a great deal of his time exploring blind alleys. Yet Foyle, with the unostentatious Maxwell at his right hand, hurried in the direction of Berkeley Square with a hope that his theory ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... 4th, the following occurrences, in the house of commons, marked at once the estimation in which Sir Robert was held by public men, and his own singular and unostentatious character. Lord John Russell introduced to the house the circumstance of the honourable baronet's decease, and said:—"It is impossible not to lament that hereafter this house will be no longer ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... view the Fisherman's Palace passed in a steady and orderly procession over the broad deck; through the smart main ward with its polished oak floor; through the operating-room, and through the comfortable, unostentatious club-room, which had been designed by Lewis Ferrier. Robert Cassall was silently ecstatic now that the pinch of his work was over; and he had good reason to be proud, for no prettier or more serviceable piece of work was ever bought with money, and no man ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... that the boy has not much mind. He is a simple boy. If he had good sense he would perceive that others of his playmates, in many qualities, surpassed him, and that it became him to be humble and unostentatious, The mind that ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott

... enjoyable one to all, but it was especially delightful to three couples who early paired off together, and in a quiet unostentatious fashion dropped into the rear. Captain and Mrs Staunton had naturally much to say to each other upon matters interesting only to themselves; while as for Violet and Rex, Blanche and Lance, this was their first opportunity for an exchange of these sweet ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... true teachers who used to come to me on Arlington Street, so my father had reason to boast of the distinction brought upon his house. For the school-teacher in her trim, unostentatious dress was an uncommon visitor in our neighborhood; and the talk that passed in the bare little "parlor" over the grocery store would not have been entirely comprehensible to our ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... with cousin Bessie for many seasons, and at the end of that time I had become more truly attached to her and her dear family than I had ever been to my own. Yet they were plain people, living a quiet, unostentatious life in the very heart of social exuberances, they were not rich either, in fact they had little more than medium comforts, of those which it takes money to buy, but the sweetness and happiness of their home was not of that kind which gold can gather, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... people of Dry Bottom he had announced in a quiet, unostentatious paragraph that while he had not come to Dry Bottom for a free fight, he would permit no one to tread on his toes. His readers' comprehension of the metaphor was complete—as was evidenced by the warm hand-clasps ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit. The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the interest in them never fades. There is nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... genteel. A lovely little harpsichord—meditating on Scarlatti—stood in one angle, a harp, tied with most delicate ribands of ivory satin powdered with pimpernels, in another. Many waxen candles shed a tender and unostentatious radiance above their careful grease-catchers. Upon pretty tables lay neat books by Fanny Burney, Beatrice Harraden, Mary Wilkins, and Max Beerbohm, also the poems of Lord Byron and of Lord de Tabley. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... when the Studdifords made a flying trip to Honolulu, where Jim had a patient. The great liner was fascinating to Julia, and, as usual, her beauty and charm, and the famous young surgeon's unostentatious bigness, made them friends on all sides, so that the life of cocktail mixing and card playing and gossip went on as merrily as it had in San Francisco. Julia could not spend the empty days staring dreamily out at ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... too weak to resist, too cowardly to court and embrace death, her name might have been preserved. Such, too, fail to appear in the Jewish annals, which contain but few women's names of any kind. Inspired devotion of strength and life to Judaism was as natural with a Jewess as quiet, unostentatious activity in her home. No need, therefore, to make mention ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... A tiny and unostentatious cottage buried among the trees. All around it, first, flowers; secondly, flowers; thirdly, flowers. The garden, a network of walks, and spruce hedges of rare beauty; occasionally you stumble unexpectedly ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... intruder. The mysterious stranger had been brought in and was fetched by a plain green chariot; and the few that saw him said that he was a portly gentleman, wrapped in a long great coat and muffled up to the eyes. Keeping himself well behind his Royal Highness, the portly stranger took a deep but unostentatious interest in the performance. In his Haroun al-Raschid character he had been present, with his friend Lord Coleraine (then Major George Hanger), at some of the actual scenes represented; and in particular, by virtue of the fact of his wearing "a clean shirt," had ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... he expired. As his soul sped heavenward A watched its flight with melancholy admiration. B burst into a passionate flood of tears and sobbed, "Put away his little cistern and the rowing clothes he used to wear, I feel as if I could hardly ever dig again."—The funeral was plain and unostentatious. It differed in nothing from the ordinary, except that out of deference to sporting men and mathematicians, A engaged two hearses. Both vehicles started at the same time, B driving the one which bore the sable parallelopiped containing the last remains of ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... slums and by individuals who mingle with and study the actual condition of the very poor. The extent of good accomplished by these few who are giving their lives to uplifting society's exiles is little understood, because it is quiet and unostentatious; yet through the instrumentality of the silent workers, thousands of persons are annually kept from starvation and crime, while for many of them new, broad, and hopeful horizons ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a thrilling cry for ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... sort of thing—to do any thing really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane Fairfax's ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;—and for an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day—for we arrived together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... a trying situation for us - very trying. There seemed to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... His funeral was unostentatious but the attendance was very great. He was laid in the Abbey of Dryburgh, by the side of his wife, in the sepulchre ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... though it is a matter of no importance, I may mention that he employs a reviewer who, referring to the map in my book, A Difficult Frontier (Yugoslavs and Albanians)—a map which is most conspicuously printed opposite the title-page—observes that it "is hidden in one unostentatious page, which at first sight escapes the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look to in the future, the major always kept two years' ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... in the unostentatious lodging in the Rue de Vaugirard where Damour had brought him. The surgeon had pronounced the wound mortal, giving him but a few hours to live. For long after he was gone Philip was silent, but at length he said "You heard what Grandjon-Larisse said—It is broken pride that kills, Damour." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... at the arched entrance of the Hotel Ritz, and a most important looking personage in blue uniform assisted them to alight. Other attendants in unostentatious livery swung open the glass doors and our party entered. The proprietor, who advanced to meet them, was a courtly, polite Frenchman, in correct evening dress, whose suave and deferential manner was ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... downtown again and again sauntered in, this time with the theater crowd. Our first visit had been so quiet and unostentatious that the second attracted no attention or comment from ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... knowledge of mechanics in the highest of terms. Women are employed in various capacities in nearly every line of work that was exhibited in this department, and Miss Gleason probably stands as an example of the real but unostentatious work of many women who understand the intricacies of machinery fully as well as men with the same degree ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... that time an acquaintance was formed between us which lasted till my venerable friend departed this life. Peace to his ashes! He was a person of singular habits and eccentric opinions; but the chief part of his time was occupied in acts of quiet and unostentatious goodness. He was an enthusiast in the duties of the Samaritan; and as his virtues were softened by the gentlest charity, so his hopes were based upon the devoutest belief. He never conversed upon his own origin and history, nor have I ever ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... also ever ready to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... to Squab and Lynch's, in Long Acre, to examine the carriages building for her, so faultless, so splendid, so quiet, so odiously unostentatious and provokingly simple! Besides the ancestral services of argenterie and vaisselle plate, contained in a hundred and seventy-six plate-chests at Messrs. Childs', Rumble and Briggs prepared a gold ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a Chelsea square of some repute, was small and unostentatious, but was painted a spotless white and possessed, even from the outside, an air of quiet and unassuming elegance. A trim maid-servant opened the door and ushered him into a drawing-room of grey and silver, with a little faded blue in the silks of the French chairs. There were a few fine-point ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the whole it is a very plain plant, Makes no conspicuous show, But the internal appearance is lovely Of the unostentatious Potato. ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... recited clearly indicate the character of the man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people against English tyranny took the form of religious ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... by two extensive windows, reaching nearly from the ceiling to the floor. The magnificence of the furniture, the rich and well chosen paintings that ornamented the walls, and in short, the air of unostentatious richness that struck the beholder on entering it, showed at once the good taste and general character of ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... down when the Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say of him that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,—who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... the rich from the poor in their camouflage, but the really rich in character are easily discernible, arrayed in modest garbs as unostentatious and serviceable as those of the nightingale or the thrush. Like all great people the melody of their lives eclipses their array until only the soul-thrilling memories of what they are or were remain to gladden the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand



Words linked to "Unostentatious" :   quiet, restrained, ostentatious, tasteful



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