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More "Taciturnity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silent. His dark profile is stern and wildly gloomy; every motion of his powerful body, every fold of his clothes, is full of the dull silence of the taciturnity of long hours, or days, or perhaps of ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... and frankly met his gaze. I had startled him out of his habitual set taciturnity, but even as I looked the light that might have been amaze and joy faded out of his face, leaving it the same ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... their true knights; our guide addressed these ladies roughly enough; but without eliciting any reply more encouraging than a sort of "Ugh! ugh!" unaccompanied by a single look. The negro girl, however, had not adopted the taciturnity of the tribe, but readily chatted with us, explaining, amongst other matters, the nature of the contents of the boiler, whose savoury smell greatly attracted our attention. She said it was composed of Indian corn, boiled a great deal and slowly, with only ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... concentrating on that faint, but infinitely important sound, and the need of maintaining a semblance of weary dullness was trying Brent's soul. He thanked Heaven for the taciturnity ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... by his glances—not by words. For a few minutes she coquettishly toyed with her fan—then she carelessly passed her jewelled hand over her queenly brow to remove the clustering hair; and finally, with an arch glance, she complimented Mr. Tickels on his taciturnity, and laughingly enquired if he was always thus silent in the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... choosing only to give some recollections and memories of my outer literary life. For spiritual self-analysis in matters of religion and affection I desire to be as silent as I can be; but in such a book as this absolute taciturnity on such subjects is ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... not attempt to invade his taciturnity. Nevertheless she was as keenly alive and watchful of his every movement and gesture as if she had hung enchanted on his lips. The unerring way with which he pursued a viewless, undeviating path through those trackless woods, his quick reconnaissance of certain trees or openings, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... and unassuming; indeed taciturnity is as much a distinguishing trait of Indian character, as it ever was of the Roman. In their councils and public meetings, they never manifest an impatience to be heard, or a restlessness under observations, either grating to personal feeling or ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... silence;—but that was his concern, and, as his facts are correct, and his motive not dishonourable to himself, I wished him well through it. As for his interpretations of the lines, he and any one else may interpret them as they please. I have and shall adhere to my taciturnity, unless something very particular occurs to render this impossible. Do not you say a word. If any one is to speak, it is the person principally concerned. The most amusing thing is, that every one (to me) attributes the abuse to the man they personally most ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... As such uncivil taciturnity is very rare amongst Frenchmen, I began to examine my companions with more attention than I had hitherto done, in order to discover, if I could, some clue to their strange behavior. I scanned them curiously, and it was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was sixteen there was a blond German boy whose taciturnity attracted her volubility and vivacity. She mistook his stolidness for depth, and it was a long time before she realized that his silence was not due to the weight of his thoughts but to the fact that he had nothing to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... solitude and silence, I am a great gossip with my friends, which arises, perhaps, from my seeing them but rarely. I atone for this loquacity by a year of taciturnity. I mutely recall my parted friends by correspondence. I resemble that class of people of whom Seneca speaks, who seize life in detail, and not by the gross. The moment I feel the approach of summer, I take a country-house a league distant ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... was probably so called because the inhabitants had been forbidden, owing to false alarms, to speak of the approach of an enemy. But if Virgil is referring, not to the Amyclae near Naples, but to the original Amyclae in Laconia, then the proverbial taciturnity of those inhabiting the latter country offers sufficient explanation. Aegeon was a monster with 100 arms and 50 heads. He is more ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of this philosopher, who was bulky and strong, and on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity sat enthroned, not inconsistent with his character, in which that quality was proudly conspicuous, almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though on familiar terms with him. Whispering to Florence that Bunsby had never in his life expressed surprise, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... craft watching the shipwrights at work on her deck. From the way they went about their business those men must have been perfectly sane; and I felt greatly refreshed by my company during the day. Dominic, too, devoted himself to his business, but his taciturnity was sardonic. Then I dropped in at the cafe and Madame Leonore's loud "Eh, Signorino, here you are at last!" pleased me by its resonant friendliness. But I found the sparkle of her black eyes as she ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... and she kept silent, hoping that the mood would pass. However, the mood did not pass. Langford continued to ride out alone, maintaining a moody silence, sitting alone much with his own thoughts and allowing no one to break down the barrier of taciturnity which he ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at the expense ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... had been ready enough to talk. Had she failed to hear what Francine had just said to her? or had she some reason for feeling reluctant to answer? In any case, a spirit of taciturnity took sudden ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... of him that he always addressed his lord with his cap in his hand, his head bowed down and his body bent double, more turquesco. And then, what shall we say of Gasabal, the squire of Galaor, who was so silent that in order to indicate to us the greatness of his marvellous taciturnity his name is only once mentioned in the whole of that history, as long as it is truthful? From all I have said thou wilt gather, Sancho, that there must be a difference between master and man, between lord ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... her feet, with a stupid and frightened expression. She knew very little of him, save that her husband had picked him up upon the road as a wanderer some five years since; and that he had been employed as a doer of odd jobs and runner of messages, and that was supposed, from his taciturnity and strangeness, to have ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... taciturnity to a man among strangers, it is apt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countryman who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the landscape ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... were heavier than his brother's—his speech and manner slower. He paused a second, even then; then he turned towards the house, and spoke, with his face away from them, with a curious directness and taciturnity. "Didn't go to the traps on West Mountain," he said, then; "went there myself. They hadn't been there—no tracks; was home before father was to-night. Louis and Richard hadn't come. Went down to the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and upon the plains of the west: whatever they may have been before their migration, they soon become meditative, abstracted, and taciturn. These, and especially the last, are the peculiar characteristics of the Indian; his taciturnity, indeed, amounts to austerity, sometimes impressing the observer with the idea of affectation. The dispersion, which must have been the effect of unlimited choice in lands—the mode of life pursued by those who depended upon the chase for subsistence—the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... already something of a pose; and I knew that if I felt it, his own keen instinct had discovered it, too. He was certainly laughing at me up his sleeve. I left him the last word, and sought refuge in a shrug of the shoulders and taciturnity. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... perceived these new signs of taciturnity, he ignored them. "Your master being verily the great artist that you say, it is a thing doubly to be regretted that he is without an heir," persisted the visitor, with kind, boyish eyes upon old Mata's face. The old woman ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... attendant "isms" and theories, received scant favour at his hands. He represented the solid element in British Labour politics, and it was well known that he had refused a seat in the Cabinet in order to preserve an absolute independence. He had a remarkable gift of taciturnity, which in a man of his class made for strength, and it was concerning him that the Prime Minister had made his famous epigram, that Furley was the Labour man whom he feared the most ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was not as gay nor as unconventional as others that had preceded it. The Countess vainly tried to make it as sprightly as its predecessors, but gave over in despair in the face of my taciturnity. Her spirits drooped. She became strangely ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... with his usual kindliness, deprecated my thrust at the taciturnity of his countryman and confrere, with a gesture and a look of reproach in his soft gray eyes, and we parted. I watched him until he disappeared at the first turn of ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... proposed to meet with Sir Mungo Malagrowther, from whom, in despair of better advice, he trusted to receive some information as to the best mode of introducing himself into the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host with whom he communed, the consequential taciturnity of an Englishman well to pass in the world. Ned Kilderkin spoke as a banker writes, only touching the needful. Being asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied, No. Being interrogated whether he was expected? ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... common resource with these fellows, to keep up their credit. He foretold confidently that the Prince should die by the hand of his own familiar friend, a person of a slender habit of body, a small face, a swarthy complexion, and of most remarkable taciturnity. So it afterwards happened; Alexander having been murdered in his chamber by his cousin Lorenzo, who corresponded exactly with the above description. [Jovii Elog. p. 320.] The author of Hermippus Redivivus, in relating this story, inclines to the belief ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... could he see that Willet was less keen about it and the three proceeded promptly to the council grove where a multitude was already hastening. There was, too, a great buzz of talk, as the Iroquois here in the vale, the very heart of their country, did not show the taciturnity in which the red man so often takes refuge in the presence ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... varied talents, and accurate scholarship, Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... interested in the girls, whose talk and ways must have been strange and very pleasant to him after so many years' wandering as a solitary man. He was generally a man of few words, using signs where signs would suffice, and making his answers, when obliged to speak, as brief as possible. This habit of taciturnity was no doubt acquired from a long life passed either alone, or amid dangers where an unnecessary sound might have cost him his life. To the young people, however, he would relax from his habitual rule of silence. Of an evening, when work was over, they would ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... One morning my neighbor Forster dropped in upon me at breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped laying, or wandered off in the bush. Wan Lee, who was present during our colloquy, preserved his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my neighbor had gone, he turned to me with a slight chuckle: "Flostel's hens—Wan Lee's hens allee same!" His other offence was more serious and ambitious. It was a season of great irregularities in the mails, and Wan Lee had heard me deplore the delay in the delivery ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... clay pipe and lazily perusing a copy of the National Gazette. Eleazer listened with a great deal of interest to what Mainwaring had to say of his proposed cruise. He himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of what he knew, particularly of Captain Scarfield—in whom he appeared to take ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... was admitted into our society. He was about thirty- five years of age, and therefore we looked upon him as an old fellow. His experience gave him great advantage over us, and his habitual taciturnity, stern disposition, and caustic tongue produced a deep impression upon our young minds. Some mystery surrounded his existence; he had the appearance of a Russian, although his name was a foreign one. He had formerly served in the Hussars, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... him that they were at last drawing near to Detroit, the great Northwestern fort of the British and Indians. They would arrive there to-morrow, and they spent that last night by camp fires, the Indians relaxing greatly from their usual taciturnity and caution, and eating as ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... secresy, as to this particular; which was promised by the widows, as well as for themselves, as for Miss Rawlins; of whose taciturnity they gave me such an account, as showed me, that she was secret-keeper-general to all the women of fashion ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the course of a week or so was the silence of these ladies. I used to meet them walking in the public garden near the University. They greeted me with their usual friendliness, but I could not help noticing their taciturnity. By that time it was generally known that the assassin of M. de P—- had been caught, judged, and executed. So much had been declared officially to the news agencies. But for the world at large he remained anonymous. The official secrecy had withheld his name from ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... standing at the gate. He had overheard the conversation and felt that there was no danger of a quarrel, and he now came eagerly forward with offers of assistance. They were gratefully accepted; for even the taciturnity of the brothers seemed to give way before the pressing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... men, but in the back ground, and concealed in their shadow, had one of those peculiar reputations, the more potent over opinion, as it made but little display: it was spoken of as though an antique virtue, beneath the simple appearance of a rustic: he was the Sieyes of his party. Beneath his taciturnity his deep thought was assured, and in his mystery the oracle was accredited. The brilliancy and genius of his wife attracted all eyes towards him: his very mediocrity, the only power that has the virtue of neutralising envy, was of service to him. As no one feared him, every body thrust ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... solitude such as only Ivan would have dared to undergo. Nathalie's letters, which grew more frequent as the days went by, and to which he faithfully replied; two visits from Kashkine, one from Mily Balakirev, and half a dozen from Nicholas, who was to be daunted by no amount of taciturnity, were the only incidents of the period. Balakirev, indeed, had brought with him a young protege, one Rimsky-Korsakow, (since heard from,) to worship at the shrine of Russia's Gregoriev; whereupon that hero, highly disgusted, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... silent about the then new fashion of smoking, we should not so much wonder at Shakespeare's taciturnity. But Decker's and Ben Jonson's works abound in allusions to tobacco, its uses and abuses. The humorist and satirist lost no opportunity of deriding the new fashion and its followers. The tobacco merchant was an important ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... into their shop. When asked my name and address, I gave F. A. Warren, Golden Cross Hotel, and then, for fear I might forget my name, I made a memorandum of it and placed it in my vest pocket. They bowed me out, evidently greatly impressed with my taciturnity, and especially my big hat, confident also that they had hooked a fortune in a genuine American silver king. I entered the brougham and drove directly to the Golden Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, and there registering "F. A. Warren" and securing a room I left for my ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... elapsed and he is still at Vincennes. At last his friends find means of communicating with him, and Grimaud, the servant of the Count de la Fere, is introduced, in the capacity of an under jailer, into the fortress, where, by his taciturnity and apparent strictness, he gains the entire confidence of La Ramee, an official who, under M. de Chavigny, is appointed to the especial guardianship of the Duke of Beaufort. An attempt to escape is fixed for the day of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... been that the Prospector's brief appearance in Court had roused the public spirit latent in his hirsute breast, or it may have been that his taciturnity had been cast aside in order that he might assume his true position as a leader of men; however that may have been, it is a fact that, on the morning after the trial, he was to be seen and heard haranguing a crowd outside The Lucky Digger, and inciting ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... contempt of death enough for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white handkerchief, and a case of instruments, where other men went hot blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of the regiment. Not even the major's taciturnity ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... fever—altogether unlike the terrible typhoid, yet such as to keep me to my room. Minima and Mademoiselle Therese were my only companions. Mademoiselle, after talking that one night as much as she generally talked in twelve months, had relapsed into deeper taciturnity than before. But her muteness tranquillized me. Minima's simple talk brought me back to the level of common life. My own nervous weeping, which I could not control, served to soothe me. My casement, almost covered by broad, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... apparently all the time there was, he had been a frequent spectator of operations, squatting by the hour watching the work. Occasionally his interest had been rewarded by a meal or a plug of tobacco. These things he had accepted without comment and without thanks. His taciturnity ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... is well with the soul of a brave man. Was he, Keeler, on a fool's errand to San Francisco? Well, he had determined on his own account to do a little investigating in Nevada City that very day. So had Mat Bailey. Hence his unusual taciturnity. So had "Bed-bug Brown," and he ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... Sunderland exerted so much art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fully aroused by the taciturnity of Haroun on this occasion, could not help asking, "Is your Majesty satisfied or disappointed with your ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... got a few more directions out of Kitty, over whom a shade of sombre taciturnity had now fallen. Then, saying she would write the notes down-stairs and come back, she gathered up her basketful of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... long winter nights, when the "boys" gather about the fire in Old Steele's General Stores at Hall's Harbor, their hard gray life becomes bright for a spell. When a keg of hard cider is flowing freely the grim fishermen forget their taciturnity, the ice is melted from their speech, and the floodgates of their souls pour forth. But ever in the background of their talk, unforgotten, like a haunting shadow, is the "Island of the Dead." Of their weirdest and most blood-curdling yarns it is always the center; and when at last, with uncertain ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... Sir Norman, at once surprised and impatient at his taciturnity, "Can't you speak man? I want you to ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... sea in the bay flashed and glittered in the long rays of the afternoon sunshine. The scene was extraordinarily peaceful. Stephen Dartrey for the first few minutes certainly justified his reputation for taciturnity. He leaned back in a long wicker chair, his head resting upon his hand, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon vacancy. No man in those days could have resembled less a popular leader of the people. In appearance he was a typical aristocrat, and his expression, notwithstanding his fine forehead ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... say one way or the other, but watched with a cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, and squatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when for some reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob happened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. As usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only the men ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... every detail of his work, he would have made an ideal assistant to most employers. The manager of this insurance company, however, was jovial, friendly, social, witty, and companionable. At first he was delighted with his new assistant. As time went on, however, the young man's solemnity, his taciturnity, and the quiet, dignified way in which he permitted all attempts at sociability and jocularity to pass over his head, as it were, unnoticed, began to ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... which reason I resolved not to stir. At last the good old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the argument, I rose and with a constrained smile told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit began to be ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... not what we look upon as an essential element of home-life—father and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,—the spoken word one with another, at the family table, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... of audition as of vision, we are struck by the mournful taciturnity that prevails. Nature is mute. Save for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses there are ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... that she needed sympathy—something for her encouragement. The old man's taciturnity hinted that he could be trusted with a secret so far as outsiders were concerned; as to Flagg, she was not sure of Dick's reliability in keeping anything away from a master to whom he was devoted. But if the old man ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... compelled to accuse himself. After several ineffectual attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and opponents of the ministry. It was asserted that the administration were no strangers to the convenient taciturnity of Sir John Blunt. The Duke of Wharton made a reflection upon the Earl Stanhope, which the latter warmly resented. He spoke under great excitement, and with such vehemence as to cause a sudden determination ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... much exposed," he said, pointing to Jinks' bread. He spoke with the hard taciturnity ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... mile from this singular spot dwelt another old pioneer, a friend of my companions, and at his cabin we stopped to pass the night. Our host was only remarkable for his great hospitality and greater taciturnity; he had always lived in the wilds, quite alone, and the only few words he would utter were incoherent. It appeared as if his mind was fixed upon scenes of the past. In his early life he had been one of the companions of the celebrated pirate La Fitte, and after the defence of New Orleans, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... point their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridge where Orgreave lived, and the other zigzagging down through neglected pasturage into Bursley proper. Usually they parted here without a word, taking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless have done the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their last walk together as two schoolboys. But an ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... manner put me in a socialist mood. He was hateful to me. I listened in morose silence. He felt piqued, and he wilted. The ginger went out of his voice. My taciturnity continued, until, gradually, he edged over to my side of the controversy, taking up the cudgels for education and spiritual excellence with the same force with which he had a short while ago tried to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... or external manners, nothing is so often mentioned as that timorous or sullen taciturnity, which his friends called modesty, by too mild a name. Steele mentions, with great tenderness, "that remarkable bashfulness, which is a cloak that hides and muffles merit;" and tells us, "that his abilities were covered only by modesty, which doubles the beauties ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... to be making up lost way for years of taciturnity in the tower. They say there is a balance ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... defending his choice of Nelson, "I have tried Lord Howe on most important occasions. He never asked me how he was to execute any service entrusted to his charge, but always went straight forward and did it." Some quaint instances are recorded of the taciturnity for which he was also noted. Amid the recriminations that followed the failure at Rochefort, Howe neither wrote nor said anything. At last the Admiralty asked why he had not expressed an opinion. In the somewhat ponderous style that marked his utterances, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... short time at the Zimbabwe camp, Carew had chosen always to conduct his own menage, and take his meals in solitary state apart from Stanley and Moore. This was in every case typical of the man, who rarely sought company, and was often quiet to taciturnity when he had it. He had not come to the wilderness for adventure, or for the companionship of the men he might find there; he had come because he wanted to forget. Not even to seek renewing and fresh hopes, but only to ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... in this matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... said nothing—taciturnity was his one redeeming trait. "Did you say cigars?" he asked, pushing a box across the bar to an impatient customer. Another beckoned to him and he leaned over to hear the whispered request, a frown struggling ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... of mind Tryon gave no visible manifestation beyond a certain taciturnity, so much at variance with his recent liveliness that the ladies could not fail to notice it. No effort upon the part of either was able to affect his mood, and they both resigned themselves to await his lordship's pleasure to ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... permitted to absent oneself by silence. To pretend contumaciousness is a wound given to the law. It is like Diomede wounding a goddess. Taciturnity before a judge is a form of rebellion. Treason to justice is high treason. Nothing is more hateful or rash. He who resists interrogation steals truth. The law has provided for this. For such cases, the English have always enjoyed the right of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... must confess that I took to myself the counsel he was giving to another; a young gentleman who, from his pale face, his abstinence at table, his cough, his taciturnity, and his gentleness, seemed already more than half poet. To him did Doctor Glaston urge, with all his zeal and judgment, many arguments against the vocation; telling him that, even in college, he had few applauders, being the first, and not the second or third, who always are more fortunate; ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... of him that even as a baby Joseph never cried, but endured his various troubles with silent stoicism. As he grew older, this trait of silence became ingrown; it was alluded to as "Joffre's taciturnity." But as a matter of fact the gift of silence in him as both boy and man did not indicate a sullen or unfriendly disposition. It was merely that he had his head in the clouds. He made a life job of thinking—like the seated statue ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... more set than it had been when she witnessed that marriage eight years ago, was as emotional as ever, her facile feelings only restrained at all by her husband's rigid taciturnity, even as her high bosom was kept up by the stiffest of "temberan busks"—a piece of wood which, like all self-respecting Cornishwomen, she wore thrust inside the front of her stays. Philip Jacka, who was now ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... guilty of some crime or other, and was forced to leave the part of the country where he had before resided. Uncle Stephen, who occasionally exchanged a few words with him, did not believe that this was the case, and declared that Sandy, in spite of his taciturnity and love of solitude, was an honest fellow. Be that as it may, Samson was satisfied with him, and the two ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the village on his way back from the Johnstons', Lane emerged from the telegraph office and joined him. On the rare occasions when they were thrown together alone like this, John Lane's taciturnity reached to positive dumbness. Vickers supposed that his brother-in-law disliked him, possibly despised him. It was, however, a case of absolute non-understanding. It must remain forever a problem to the man with ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... could not bear to see his chief thus perish. For four years that man had led them, and only his companions knew his worth. To his acquaintance he might seem hard and unsympathetic, he might repel by his taciturnity and anger by his sternness; but his comrades knew how eminent were his qualities. It was impossible for anyone to live with him continually without being conquered by his greatness. If his power with the natives was ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... was calculated to excite comment, readiness in disbursing money to remedy such shortcomings made amends for Lanyard's taciturnity. Within two hours, shaved, bathed, and inconspicuously dressed in a cheap suit of ready-made clothing, he was breakfasting famously upon the plain fare of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... "told him anything." And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they talked, but it was the woman who said most while the man listened in non-committal taciturnity. His memory flashed disturbingly back to the boyhood days and testified for the supplicant with reminders of occasional outcroppings of cruelty in his brother as a child. That outward guise of suavity which men had known in John Turk he knew for ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... who had been interested by Peter's taciturnity and fascinated by his waistcoat, had been leading that ordinarily masterful man something of a conversational dance. Detached for the moment by his demand for provender, she called across the table: "Mary, I herewith invite you to attend the Culture ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... conversation ended, and for the rest of the day Vera was silent and thoughtful, excusing her taciturnity by the fact that she had a lot of packing to do and needed to concentrate her mind upon ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... her at her word and essayed to make the leap, she would have prevented him as she had her chauffeur, his mood was no enviable one. Lost opportunities of any sort are not conducive to mental equanimity. He maintained extreme taciturnity throughout the remainder of the drive and Miss Wellington, whose thoughts seemed also absorbing, made no attempt to restore his ardent spirits. When they entered the Wellington driveway, she glanced at Armitage's well-set ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... he was the only human being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears, seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as gloomily reserved ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... contracted chest, with large flat feet, and bluish white nails on the gnarled bony fingers of his sinewy red hands. He had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and compressed lips, which he was for ever twitching and biting; and this, together with his habitual taciturnity, produced an impression almost sinister. His grey hair hung in tufts on his low brow; like smouldering embers, his little set eyes glowed with dull fire. He moved painfully, at every step swinging his ungainly body forward. Some of his movements recalled the clumsy actions of an owl in a cage ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... — N. {ant. 525} latency, inexpression[obs3]; hidden meaning, occult meaning; occultness, mystery, cabala[obs3], anagoge[obs3]; silence &c (taciturnity) 585; concealment &c. 528; more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear; Delphic oracle; le dessous des cartes[Fr], undercurrent. implication, logical implication; logical consequence; entailment. allusion, insinuation; innuendo &c. 527; adumbration; "something rotten in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... foller and close in upon 'em before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... Mysterious Pete had the habit of taciturnity. His gaze slid in a searching, sidelong fashion from Webb to Prince, on to Wrayburn, across to Clanton, and back to the drover. No wolf in the encinal could ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... Fouchard, who was also haunted by a sensation of uneasiness in the midst of his studied taciturnity, was standing on his doorstep reflecting on the probable outcome of events. His son had no place in his thoughts, but he was speculating how he best might convert the misfortunes of others into fortune ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... superior soul. The Duc d'Angouleme's expedition had been carried out, King Ferdinand was on the throne, and Carlos Herrera did not go to claim the reward of his services at Madrid. Fortified against curiosity by his diplomatic taciturnity, he assigned as his reason for remaining in Paris his strong affection for Lucien de Rubempre, to which the young man already owed the King's patent relating to his ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... his heels; like the scoundrel thief of a fox, detected in his maraudings and hunted to his hole. Such was this Dirk Schuiler; and from the total indifference he showed to the world and its concerns, and from his truly Indian stoicism and taciturnity, no one would ever have dreamt that he would have been the publisher of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... all who met him with his reserve and shyness. Many stories are told to illustrate this quality. Hawthorne was once a visitor at a club where a number of literary men had gathered. The taciturnity of Hawthorne was more impressive than the loquacity of the witty Holmes. After Hawthorne had left Emerson said, "Hawthorne rides his dark horse well." George William Curtis relates ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... one of your fits of taciturnity, and have resolved not to write till you are written to; it is but a peevish humour, but ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... for a fashionable novel.—"There he stood, like Taciturnity bowing at the feet of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... those with whom she came in contact while writing Miss Bronte's Life who were eager to fan that feeling in the usually kindly biographer. Mr. Nicholls himself did not work in the direction of conciliation. He was, as we shall see, a Scotchman, and Scottish taciturnity brought to bear upon the genial and jovial Yorkshire folk did not make for friendliness. Further, he would not let Mrs. Gaskell 'edit' and change The Professor, and here also he did wisely and well. He hated publicity, and above all things ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... consoled himself with copious potations from the punch-bowl, and filled the room with dense clouds of smoke, that were in themselves, sufficient to produce the drowsiness that Ronayne pleaded in excuse of his taciturnity. ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... cup of coffee which accompanies it. He loads his pipe from his own bag, and the boy of the establishment places a small bit of lighted charcoal on it. They may be seen by hundreds before every coffee-shop, seated on low stools, blowing clouds, sipping Mocha juice, and exhibiting the most solemn taciturnity and perfect content. In driving bargains, the Turk, having seated the purchaser at his side, presents him with coffee and a pipe, and between the puffs of smoke the negotiation is carried on. If it does not succeed, the pipe is resigned, thanks are returned for the coffee, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... carpenter, whom he at one time had occasion to employ in doing some work on a small property he owned in Ipswich. Reining up his horse, Master Putnam stopped to have a chat with the man—whose oddity mainly consisted in his taciturnity, which was broken only by brief ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... motive, both from sympathy and emulation, to acquire a variety of words, than those who live with silent people, and who have few companions of their own age. All these circumstances should be considered by parents, before they form their judgment of a child's capacity from his volubility or his taciturnity. Volubility can easily be checked by simply ceasing to attend to it, and taciturnity may be vanquished by the encouragements of praise and affection: we should neither be alarmed at one disposition nor at the other, but ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... old-time stock we could have forgiven him the rest of the disappointment he cost us; but we had to admit to ourselves that he had the most absolutely commonplace appearance of all our acquaintance. In fact, we soon discovered that, except for a taciturnity the like of which we had never encountered, our aromatic uncle had positively not one picturesque characteristic about him. Even his aroma was a disappointment. He had it, but it was patchouly or some ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... known in Missouri and California, a man of rare good sense, caustic wit, and many eccentricities. The young man became an attache of my newspaper-office and an inmate of my home. He was as fair as a girl, and refined in his taste and manners. A genial taciturnity, if the expression may be allowed, marked his bearing in the social circle. Everybody had a kind feeling and a good word for the quiet, brightfaced youth. In the discharge of his duties in the office he was punctual and trustworthy, showing not only industry ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... he had the gentle sympathy of the very strong; for the physically undeveloped and the morally weak he had no use whatever—none. In the West, his reserve with men had been labelled taciturnity or swollen-headeduess, which did not fit the case at all; whilst, in spite of his perfect manner towards them, his indifference to woman en masse or in the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... be starved to death is "to sink from inanition into nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is "the developer of the skies in their embodied movements;" and Mrs. Thrale, when a party of clever people sat silent, is said "to have been provoked by the dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of all human faculties." In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of Madame D'Arblay's later works without finding ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... afternoon. The grass was green in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow, with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him, she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right and left, at anything ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little, through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... explanation on this essential point. Whenever our asthmatical abbe would lead the conversation towards subjects relating to chemistry or alchemy, Boiviel would either avoid a direct reply or else fall into a state of profound taciturnity: and yet all his debts had been paid, including the various outstanding accounts due to his numerous landlords, and his dinners at the Croix de Lorraine—that memorable tavern, where all the abbes who received fifteen sous for every mass said at St. Sulpice were accustomed to feed daily. Several ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the public will think of it; and, in short, what and how the Executive-Royal shall DO therein: this, the essential function of a Parliament and Privy-Council, was here, by artless cheap methods, under the bidding of mere Nature, multifariously done; mere taciturnity and sedative smoke making the most of what natural intellect there might be. The substitution of Tobacco-smoke for Parliamentary eloquence is, by some, held to be a great improvement. Here is Smelfungus's opinion, quaintly expressed, with ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the scene, Nancy Rouse made a discovery which very often follows the dismissal of a suitor—that she was considerably more attached to him than she had thought. The house became dull, the subordinate washerwomen languid; their taciturnity irritated ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best; and that, if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy you shall show it to myself only; and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day. The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the Stone of Sacrifice midway. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... discoursing of the 'old uns' he yet counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall, in which he considers 'a whole family on 'em' to be stoned and earthed up, just as if he were a familiar friend of the family. The taciturnity of Durdles is for the time overcome by Mr. Jasper's wicker bottle, which circulates freely;—in the sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into Mr. Durdles's circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once, and casts forth ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... I ask. Your story is apt to run away with you. Up hill and down dale you go, through Scythia and Machlyene, off again to Bosphorus, then back to Scythia, till my taciturnity ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... quite possible that by reason of this grave taciturnity the clergyman won more surely upon the respect of his people. "He is engrossed," said they, "with greater matters; and in all secular affairs he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his inaptitude in current speech ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... stages of her convalescence, Beryl, though perfectly rational, asked no questions, made no reference to her gloomy surroundings and maintained a calm, but mournful taciturnity, very puzzling to Mrs. Singleton, who ascribed it at first to mental prostration, which rendered her comparatively obtuse; but ere long, a different solution presented itself, and she marvelled at the silence with which a desperate battle was fought. With returning consciousness, the prisoner ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hunger by practising Yoga. By practising benevolence one should keep off all ideas of self-importance, and drive off all sorts of craving by adopting contentment. By exertion one should subdue procrastination, and by certainty all kinds of doubt, by taciturnity, loquaciousness, and by courage, every kind of fear.[1305] Speech and mind are to be subdued by the Understanding, and the Understanding, in its turn, is to be kept under control by the eye of knowledge. Knowledge, again, is to be controlled by acquaintance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... no hesitation in her prompt agreement. Neither did she add any polite regrets. The professor felt unduly irritated. He had never become used to her ungirlish taciturnity. It always excited him. The women he had known, especially the younger women, had all been chatterers. They had talked and he had not listened. This girl said little and her silences seemed to clamour in his ears. Well, she would ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... years the hermit of the cliff had made his home there, but he had shunned all intercourse with his neighbors and had coldly repelled all advances and checked all curiosity by his persistent taciturnity. From time to time he went to the village for supplies, and when they were too bulky to admit of his carrying them, he had had them delivered on the beach in front of the entrance to his cave dwelling and at his leisure carried them ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... that offers, you are sure to relapse into your habitual taciturnity, and my labours to subdue it are again to be repeated. I have sometimes been tempted to retaliate, and convince you, by the effects of my concealments upon you, of the error of ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... perceived power in his guest's resolute taciturnity, and the very weight of the silence eventually opened his own lips. From moment to moment the impulse to talk grew stronger within him. There was something as compelling as heat in this reticent visitor whose soul was so intent on inward problems that it perceived nothing of interest in an ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... cried, stung out of his taciturnity. And he rose with an air of menace from his seat. "Let me tell you, sir, that I fling back ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from expressing the thoughts that had suddenly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... conviction had followed overwhelmingly in a multitude of observed little facts to which before he had given only a languid attention. The abrupt and faltering intonations of the deep voice; the taciturnity put on like an armor; the deliberate, as if guarded, movements; the long immobilities, as if the man he watched had been afraid to disturb the very air: every familiar gesture, every word uttered in his hearing, ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... represented in the House by Mr. John N. Burnhisel, a small, dapper gentleman, who in deportment and tone of voice resembled Robert J. Walker. It was very rarely that he participated in debate, and his forte was evidently taciturnity. In private conversation he was fluent and agreeable, defending the peculiar domestic institutions of his people. The delegate from Oregon was Mr. Joseph Lane, who had served bravely in the Mexican war, gone to Oregon as its first Governor, and been returned as its first Territorial ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... do not mock you. I know your secret, despite your taciturnity. I know that you love the Marchioness Strozzi, and that the jealousy of her husband is such that you have not been able to speak a word with her ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... and contempt of death enough for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white handkerchief and a case of instruments, where other men went hot-blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of the regiment. Not even the Major's taciturnity daunted him. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... spinal axis; take a deeper delight in the mere social reflection and echoing of life. And in this, on account of their instinctive swiftness of susceptibility, perception, and adroitness, refined women can have no rivals in the other sex. The luxury of the British is taciturnity; but to this day the favorite excitement of the French is conversation; and conversation is the food ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... all reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, sufficiently ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his own roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, Con el rey y la inquisicion, chiton! "With the king and the Inquisition, hush!" The gravity and taciturnity of the nation have been ascribed to the effects of this proverb. Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and on a variety of dues exacted by their clergy, were murmured in proverbs—Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... coriandoli of the past as compared with the poor remnants of these customs, and describing the still undiminished glories of a veglione, perceiving finally that the usually merry lady was on her best behavior to the point of almost complete taciturnity, from necessity addressed herself more directly to Miss Seymour, who shared the sofa with her; and from talking of veglioni the two slid into talking of Florentine ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The malicious Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might possibly be the effect of their servitude under ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... few moments they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing laboriously, while he who was there first appeared, from some natural taciturnity of character, to decline opening ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... disposition left the good cleric, like many another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and trustfulness of others. Did he ever complain that he was oppressed and saddened by his self-chosen life in the Bush? We have seen the high estimate he once gave of it; and Mr. Woods, who has recorded many ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... well enough," said Lady Margaret, who had heard the whole argument in sullen taciturnity, "he is well enough, I say; and there comes no good from young women's being ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a good fat cheese apiece—his friend The Young Pole looked as if the ordeal had scared the life out of him temporarily; he was unable to say whether or no he and "mon ami" would leave us: la commission had adopted, in the case of these twain, an awe-inspiring taciturnity. Jean Le Negre, who was one of the last to pass, had had a tremendously exciting time, due to the fact that le gouvernement francais's polished tools had failed to scratch his mystery either in French or English—he came dancing and singing toward us; then, suddenly suppressing ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... physically weak-born, he had the gentle sympathy of the very strong; for the physically undeveloped and the morally weak he had no use whatever—none. In the West, his reserve with men had been labelled taciturnity or swollen-headeduess, which did not fit the case at all; whilst, in spite of his perfect manner towards them, his indifference to woman en masse or in the individual was ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... off the Clown's garment, allow me to drop also the Clown's taciturnity, and address you in a few parting sentences. I entered early on this course of life, and leave it prematurely. Eight-and-forty years only have passed over my head—but I am going as fast down the hill of life as that older Joe—John Anderson. Like vaulting ambition, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... I ran upon two hermit thrushes (one had been seen on the 25th), flitting about the woods like ghosts. I whistled softly to the first, and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... closer inspection, and inserted a finger through the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... his companions had called him Buck Johnson. Since then his form had squared, his eyes had steadied to the serenity of a great authority, his mouth, shadowed by the moustache and the beard, had closed straight in the line of power and taciturnity. There was about him more than a trace of the Spanish. So now he was known as Senor Johnson, although in reality he was straight ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... which she was kept, the dissatisfaction this evidently created, the gloom that was visible in her countenance, and that seemed to oppress her heart, added to a disconsolate and habitual taciturnity, soon occasioned Mr. Elford to consider her with compassion: and the very question—can I not afford her relief? gave birth to ideas of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and Drake began to feel vaguely uncomfortable under his fixed gaze and taciturnity; and being uncomfortable, he blundered on to ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... small black bag which he placed on the floor by his side. Hilda's diffidence was extreme. Throughout lunch she had scarcely spoken; but as there had been eight people at the table, and George Cannon had chatted with all of them, her taciturnity had passed inconspicuous. Now she would be obliged to talk. And the sensations which she had experienced on first meeting George Cannon in the dining-room were renewed in a form even ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... headdress brilliant and defiant like that of Tayoga, came forward to meet them, and Robert saw with intense pleasure that it was none other than Daganoweda himself. Nor was the delight of the young Mohawk chieftain any less—the taciturnity and blank faces of Indians disappeared among their friends—and he came forward, smiling and uttering ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and he was the only human being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears, seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as gloomily reserved as though he had buried a secret of state in his breast. Toward the widower ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... took place in Boileau's rooms in the Rue du Colombier of a distinguished group, which included Moliere, Chapelle, Racine, and La Fontaine. La Fontaine, the bonhomme, who escaped from the toil of conversation which did not interest him in shy or indolent taciturnity, could be a charming talker with companions of his choice. Probably to Boileau's urgency is due the first original publication of La Fontaine, a little volume of Nouvelles en Vers (1664-1665), containing the Joconde, a tale from Ariosto, and a comic story versified ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... a huge effort, finally conquering that taciturnity which was almost an affliction to him. "The reason I gave the other night to you and that chap Durnovo was honest enough, but I have another. I want to lie low for a few months, but I also want to make money. I'm ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... inevitable soup was placed on the table, the natural taciturnity, common even to Icelandic babies, prevailed over all else. Our host filled our plates with a portion of lichen soup of Iceland moss, of by no means disagreeable flavor, an enormous lump of fish floating in sour butter. After that there came some skyr, a kind of curds ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... obstacle to all investigation of this new world, and the diligent and patient assistance given by my host or his son for a great part of every day, have enabled me to make such rapid progress. I had noted even, during the short evening gatherings when the whole family was assembled, the extreme taciturnity of both sexes; and by the time I could make myself understood, I was not surprised to learn that the Martials have scarcely the idea of what we mean by conversation, not talking for the sake of talking, or speaking unless they have something to discuss, explain, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... without tiring, and that he could go over a precipice now without even seeing any danger sign. He had never been like this in all Firio's memory. The silence became unsupportable for once to Indian taciturnity. If Jack would not talk Firio would. Yes, he would ask a question, just to hear ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that enveloped him like ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... various adventures we had met with. Armitage was not very talkative, but Dick managed to draw him out more than could any of the rest of the party. Buffet, in his broken English, talked away sufficiently to make ample amends for his employer's taciturnity. Our midday halt was over, and we did not again intend to encamp until nightfall, at a spot described by Buffet on the banks of a stream which ran round a rocky height on the borders of the prairie. It was, however, some distance off, and we did not expect ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... Society Column of the La Chance Morning Herald, with an enigmatic expression on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, swooping about ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... undergo. Nathalie's letters, which grew more frequent as the days went by, and to which he faithfully replied; two visits from Kashkine, one from Mily Balakirev, and half a dozen from Nicholas, who was to be daunted by no amount of taciturnity, were the only incidents of the period. Balakirev, indeed, had brought with him a young protege, one Rimsky-Korsakow, (since heard from,) to worship at the shrine of Russia's Gregoriev; whereupon that hero, highly disgusted, behaved so boorishly that the chagrined Balakirev refused Nicholas' next ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read for the edification of all. The interchange of ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... familiar with the French half-breeds of the outlands she would have been suspicious of the man's sudden taciturnity under stress of anger—suspicious, also, of the gradual shifting that had been going on for days among the crews of the scows. A shifting that indicated Vermilion was selecting the crew of his own scow with an eye to a purpose—a ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... as she saw how I was caring for her gift; but I puzzled and disheartened her by my preoccupation and taciturnity. She took the children off on a long ramble in the afternoon, and heaped coals of fire on my head by bringing me ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... [773]and therefore Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur Nobody shall go free, Quid valeat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; [774]no better way to avoid folly and madness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all senators, magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... word and essayed to make the leap, she would have prevented him as she had her chauffeur, his mood was no enviable one. Lost opportunities of any sort are not conducive to mental equanimity. He maintained extreme taciturnity throughout the remainder of the drive and Miss Wellington, whose thoughts seemed also absorbing, made no attempt to restore his ardent spirits. When they entered the Wellington driveway, she glanced at Armitage's well-set ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... word. He had learned the taciturnity of the woods, and leveling his rifle, took sure aim. There was no buck fever about him now, and, when his rifle cracked, the deer bounded into the air and dropped down dead. Ross, all business, began to cut up and clean the game, and with Henry's ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to Aynesworth. His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he determined ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... employer, and, when the labours of the office were ended, brought home such books as he needed, and spent his evenings in study. His powers of application and endurance were extraordinary, and his progress was in the same ratio. As he became more and more absorbed in these pursuits his reserve and taciturnity increased. His employer was particularly impressed by the fact that he never volunteered a remark on any subject, and rarely opened his lips except to ask some necessary information in connection with his business. He comprehended Russell's character, and quietly facilitated his progress. ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... acquainted with his temperament can well imagine what a gloomy prospect the future presented to him, when its contemplation wrung from his stoical taciturnity ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... only was admitted into our society. He was about thirty- five years of age, and therefore we looked upon him as an old fellow. His experience gave him great advantage over us, and his habitual taciturnity, stern disposition, and caustic tongue produced a deep impression upon our young minds. Some mystery surrounded his existence; he had the appearance of a Russian, although his name was a foreign one. He had formerly ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... curiosity was fully aroused by the taciturnity of Haroun on this occasion, could not help asking, "Is your Majesty satisfied or disappointed with your ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... let this vital point sink home. Only the same dull silence came in reply, and this continued taciturnity seemed to irritate Hovey. When he spoke again, his ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... letter, and early in the morning sent a mounted express to the post town. During the day he came out of his taciturnity, to the great joy of the family circle, and conversed with his father of recent events—the revolt in Warsaw, the flight of the Grand Duke Constantine, the first slight successes of the Polish army (at ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... great metropolis which used to astonish any Englishmen of distinction who were not aware of this visit. He occasionally took his cup of chocolate at the 'Northumberland,' occupying himself in reading, and preserving a provoking taciturnity to the gentlemen in the room; though his manner was stern, his deportment was that of a gentleman." The story of his visit is probably as apocryphal as that of his offering his services to the English Government when the English forces wore blockading ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ideal assistant to most employers. The manager of this insurance company, however, was jovial, friendly, social, witty, and companionable. At first he was delighted with his new assistant. As time went on, however, the young man's solemnity, his taciturnity, and the quiet, dignified way in which he permitted all attempts at sociability and jocularity to pass over his head, as it were, unnoticed, began to ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... (for which he had a great mind to prosecute the printer). To-day, the London Evening Post says, Mr. Pane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of the treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson, who was so tormented by that Committee that it turned his brain, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... I wish in Chap. XXIII. in your answer to the objection, "That one cannot trust a man that gets drunk," you had been pleased to have taken notice of the taciturnity and continency of the right worshipful the free masons in this respect. For though otherwise they are free enough of speech, yet I do assure you, as to secrets, though some of them love the creature very heartily, and carouse abundantly, yet has it never been ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... abandon of the evening, and his sombre appearance was so marked in contrast that it was widely commented on afterward. Burr frequently leaned forward and stared at Hamilton in amazement. As the hilarity waxed, his taciturnity deepened, and he ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... crossed the village on his way back from the Johnstons', Lane emerged from the telegraph office and joined him. On the rare occasions when they were thrown together alone like this, John Lane's taciturnity reached to positive dumbness. Vickers supposed that his brother-in-law disliked him, possibly despised him. It was, however, a case of absolute non-understanding. It must remain forever a problem to the man with a firm grasp on ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... in the hearts of the colonists, who had, in this fourth year of their sojourn on Lincoln Island, suffered so many trials. Even Pencroft lost in some measure the sombre taciturnity occasioned by the devastation and ruin of his domain. His hopes, it is true, ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... something serious, Barry, about Gillian's future," she paused, hoping that he would volunteer some remark that would make her task easier. But he volunteered nothing and, stealing a glance at him she saw on his face an expression of peculiar stoniness to which she had lately become accustomed. The new taciturnity, which she still found so strange, seemed to have fallen on him suddenly. She stifled a sigh ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... religious observances and his horror of avarice. He was examined at the bar of the House of Lords, but refused to criminate himself. The Duke of Wharton, vexed at this prudent silence of the criminal, accused Earl Stanhope of encouraging this taciturnity of the witness. The Earl became so excited in his return speech, that it brought on an apoplectic fit, of which he died the next day, to the great grief of his royal master, George I. The Committee of Secrecy ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and Jasmine, watching closely, fascinated by Krool's taciturnity, revolted by his immobile face, thought she saw in his eyes a glint of malicious and furtive joy. A dark premonition suddenly flashed into her mind that this creature would one day, somehow, do her harm; that he was her foe, her primal foe, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his dwelling, Caneri seated himself to his repast, which, though frugal in the extreme, was nevertheless served with all the etiquette of a sovereign. The taciturnity of the renegade was if possible more marked than ever, nor could he be prevailed upon to partake of the food which was before them. Caneri felt an invincible desire to dive into the mysterious history ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... men. Withal, he was a finely formed, soldierly-looking man. In the early part of his service he was reserved in his comments upon the conduct of the war, and considered, as he was in fact, conservative,—setting the best possible example of taciturnity, subordinate to the wisdom of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... disturbance, For a moment it occurred to Darrow that Anna might have employed her afternoon in preparing Madame de Chantelle for her grandson's impending announcement; but a glance at the elder lady's unclouded brow showed that he must seek elsewhere the clue to Owen's taciturnity and his step-mother's concern. Possibly Anna had found reason to change her own attitude in the matter, and had made the change known to Owen. But this, again, was negatived by the fact that, during the afternoon's shooting, young Leath had been in a mood of almost extravagant expansiveness, ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... fuller, the jaw less projecting, and the smile is simple and agreeable. The women are a merry, light-hearted set, and their constant laugh and incessant prattle form a strange contrast to the iron taciturnity of their grim lords. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... afternoon, two visitors entered the city. One had little to tell, but the other made amends for his companion's taciturnity with a graphic, Othellonian description of the dangers he had passed, and his wondrous experiences for many days and nights. He had, it appeared, a regard for Mr. Rhodes, (who is less popular in the Free State than in Kimberley), and the Government across the border had arraigned him on ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... two or three of his officers, with Lieutenant Vinoy and some of the young gentlemen from the shore, followed his example. The minuet being voted slow, a country-dance quickly succeeded it. The young ladies who had the officers of the ship for their partners were struck by their extraordinary taciturnity; for, with the exception of the young lieutenant who had visited the shore, not one of them spoke a word. Captain Dupin remarked that they were rough fellows, little accustomed to the society of ladies, and were too bashful to speak—though Miss Kathleen O'Rourke, one of the belles ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... they attributed it to the machinations of the Evil One. The devil was capable of protecting his servants even when they had fallen into the hands of judges of the Church; he granted them strength to bear the torture in silence. This strength was called the gift of taciturnity.[2427] ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... having refused to provide him with the money he wanted for the mine, and so ruined his last chance. Anderson hardly replied; but what he did say was as soothing as possible; and at last the old man flung himself on his bed, excitement dying away in a sulky taciturnity. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brief space all three pursued their way in silence, then Bertha made an effort to converse. Maurice answered in monosyllables and those were followed by deep sighs. Gaston seemed to be hardly more master of language, though his taciturnity had a different origin; it was occasioned by the unexpected delight of finding himself walking beside Bertha, who constantly lifted her sweet face inquiringly to his, as though to ask why he ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Louvre, which revealed to him what the little provincial museum of Cherbourg had but faintly suggested. Before long, however, he entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, who was the popular master of the time. There he won the sobriquet of the "man of the woods," from a savage taciturnity which was his defence in the midst of the atelier jokes. He had come to work, and to work he addressed himself, with but little encouragement from master or comrades. Strong as a young Hercules, with a dignity which never forsook him, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... friends boded well for a man fond of a military life who had sense enough to be on the right side. That it took an abnormal degree of intelligence to know which was the right side in those troublous days he also realized, and hence he cultivated that taciturnity and proneness to irritability which ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... the brush." Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation of his exemption from their fate, nor the driver's ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... little roused by the presence of his young friend, and came much more than usual out of his reserve. So that the conversations round the tea-table, when Pitt made one of their number, were often lively and varied; such as Esther had hardly known in her life before. The colonel left off his taciturnity; waked up, as it were; told old campaigning stories, and gave out stores of information which few people knew he possessed. The talks were delightful, on subjects natural and scientific, historical and local and picturesque. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... intellect, varied talents, and accurate scholarship, Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful and impulsive, we have good authority for recording, that many unfortunate men of genius derived support ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the hermit of the cliff had made his home there, but he had shunned all intercourse with his neighbors and had coldly repelled all advances and checked all curiosity by his persistent taciturnity. From time to time he went to the village for supplies, and when they were too bulky to admit of his carrying them, he had had them delivered on the beach in front of the entrance to his cave dwelling and at his leisure carried them ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... make an effort to throw off his taciturnity, and suddenly to be able to throw it off, at least partially. For he continued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... yourself to the resentment of those, whom you may not think it worth your while to notice."—"Indeed," answered I, "I have not the least doubt of your secresy."—"Neither have you any reason," said he; "but after all, I suppose, you had rather be silent yourself, than rely upon our taciturnity."—"To confess the truth," replied I, "when I first entered upon the subject, I never imagined that I should have extended it to the age now before us; whereas I have been drawn by a continued series of history among the moderns of latest date." ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... peace, they could not conceal from themselves the fact that while, on the one hand, the Esquimaux appeared to be perfectly sincere and cordial in their professions, on the other hand the Indians evinced a good deal of taciturnity at first, and even after their reserve was overcome, seemed to act as men do who are constrained to the performance of ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... him with hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little, through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, and that he had been ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... whether I was in my right senses yesterday or whether I was delirious? Perhaps he will judge as to our quarrel." Nothing would have pleased him better than there and then to have strangled that gentleman, whose taciturnity and equivocal facial expression ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... little maid wrapped herself about his heart. Daily her wondrous love coiled its soft folds tighter around him, squeezing from his atrabilious soul, drop by drop, its sad taciturnity and inherent morbidness, that it might later fill his empty life with a spiritual richness which he had ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... reserved natures, she often failed to attract strangers at a first meeting. In general conversation she disappointed people, by not shining. Men and women, immeasurably her inferiors, surpassed her in ready wit and brilliant repartee. Her taciturnity in society has been somewhat ungenerously laid to a parti pris. She was one, it is said, who took all and gave nothing. That she was intentionally chary of her passing thoughts and impressions to those around her, is, however, sufficiently ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... eye that he told of many incidents in his life either in hunting or in the lumber camps. Bob being the only boy to understand French was soon in animated discussion with Joe and Pierre. The Indian under the questioning of the boy forsook his usual taciturnity, and in the most casual way told Bob of exploits in hunting and fishing that would make most interesting reading. To the Indian, they were events likely to happen to any one that goes out in the dead of winter to trap and ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... Sulaco thinks himself, no doubt, a very honest man. And so he is, if one could look behind his taciturnity. Perhaps he thinks that this alone makes his honesty unstained. Those Englishmen live on illusions which somehow or other help them to get a firm hold of the substance. When he speaks it is by a rare 'yes' or 'no' that seems as impersonal ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... disreputable appearance was calculated to excite comment, readiness in disbursing money to remedy such shortcomings made amends for Lanyard's taciturnity. Within two hours, shaved, bathed, and inconspicuously dressed in a cheap suit of ready-made clothing, he was breakfasting famously upon the plain fare of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... were steadier. He spoke of this and that in the large discursive way men use in clubs, and it was past the fish before the conversation settled down upon the topic of business organization and Sir Isaac, a little warmed by champagne, came out of the uneasily apprehensive taciturnity into which he had fallen in the presence of his wife. Horatio Blenker was keenly interested in the idealization of commercial syndication, he had been greatly stirred by a book of Mr. Gerald Stanley Lee's called ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... assuredly prove the accuracy of the remark of Washington Irving that "although there seems but little soil in the Indian's heart for the growth of the kindly virtues, if we would penetrate through the proud stoicism and habitual taciturnity which hide his character from casual observers, we should find him linked to his fellow-men of civilized life by more of those sympathies and affections than are usually ascribed to him." Much in the same spirit, Father Smet writes—"The Indians ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... too soon, thought Peter and the Indian agent, as they glanced at the faces of the dusky chiefs who had gathered around the cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered any outbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept Peter from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their lowering dissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. "I wonder you don't punish them," she ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... to watch his attitude to the deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax. But, now that the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... office, Mr. Dill was noticeably abstracted. His smiling suavity, his gracious manner, had given place to taciturnity and Ore City's choicest bon mots, its time-tested pleasantries, fell upon inattentive ears. As a matter of fact, his bones ached like a tooth from three long, hard days in the mail-carrier's sledges, and also he recognized certain symptoms which told him that he was in for an attack of ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... will, you will give me that counsel that you think best: And that if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only, and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... that black stuff; it's worse nor whiskey and baccy forbye.' Such were some of the ordinary comments on the weird form which was seen emerging from 'the Paddock' and moving in solitude towards the hills. Taciturnity was a striking feature in DeQuincey's character, and was, no doubt, owing to intense mental action. The inner life, aroused to extreme activity by continued stimulus, excluded all perceptions beyond its own limits, and the world ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... asked my name and address, I gave F. A. Warren, Golden Cross Hotel, and then, for fear I might forget my name, I made a memorandum of it and placed it in my vest pocket. They bowed me out, evidently greatly impressed with my taciturnity, and especially my big hat, confident also that they had hooked a fortune in a genuine American silver king. I entered the brougham and drove directly to the Golden Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, and there registering "F. A. Warren" and securing a room I left for my hotel. This room at the Golden ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... that the others were not worthy of their opportunity; although General Hobson, seeing that most of the memories touched belonged to a period before the Revolution, obeyed the dictates of politeness, and made amends for his taciturnity indoors by a talkative ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... assurance that he was now safely over his attack. Yet all the efforts of Lord James to jolly him into a cheerful mood utterly failed. Throughout the trip he continued to brood, and did not rouse out of his sullen taciturnity until the train ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the idea of teaching oral composition has too often died with it. Young children are, as a rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable command of language. But it not infrequently happens that at the close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a state of sullen taciturnity. In common with other vital faculties, his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the repressive atmosphere to which he has so ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... new activities on which I was to enter were quickly made. In my Bloomsbury house I installed as caretaker a retired sergeant-major of incomparable taciturnity. I locked up the museum wing and kept the keys. I took a few lessons in haircutting from a West-End barber. I paid my advance rent, sent in a set of bedroom furniture to my new premises in Saul Street, Whitechapel, abandoned ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... laziest and most worthless of the generation. From the age of twelve to twenty years he is distinctly remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxenhaired, prevaricating boy noted only for his indolent and vagabondish character, and his habits of exaggeration and untruthfulness. Taciturnity was among his characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to any one outside of his intimate associates, except when first addressed by another; and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his word was received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... grass was green in the meadow; the trees were beginning to show their leaves; the air was soft and spring-like. In great glee Ellen danced along, luckily needing no entertainment from Mr. Van Brunt, who was devoted to his salt-pan. His natural taciturnity seemed greater than ever; he amused himself all the way over the meadow, with turning over his salt and tasting it, till Ellen laughingly told him, she believed he was as fond of it as the sheep were; and then he took to chucking little bits of it right and left, at anything ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he proceeded to do this. When he encountered Avice there was a trace of apprehension on her face; but he set that down to a fear that she had offended him the night before by her taciturnity. Directly he requested her mother, in Avice's presence, to get her to fix the day quite early, Mrs. Pierston became brighter and brisker. She, too, plainly had doubts about the wisdom of delay, and turning to her daughter said, 'Now, my ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... talk of those about him that they were at last drawing near to Detroit, the great Northwestern fort of the British and Indians. They would arrive there to-morrow, and they spent that last night by camp fires, the Indians relaxing greatly from their usual taciturnity and caution, and eating as if ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... expression moulded of indifference and utter disdain. His eyes fell on Anthony, as though he expected an answer, and then upon the others. Receiving only a defiant stare from the Italian he groaned and spat noisily on the floor by way of a dignified transition back into taciturnity. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the question whether woman is or is not inferior to man. Conversation as a means of improvement. Taciturnity and loquacity. Seven rules in regard to conversation. Reading another means of mental progress. Thoughts on a perverted taste. Choosing the evil and refusing the good. Advice of parents, teachers, ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... projected crookedly, and a hollow chest, with huge, flat feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent impression; his grey hair hung in elf-locks over his low brow; his tiny, motionless eyes smouldered like coals which had just been extinguished; he walked heavily, swaying his clumsy body from side to side at ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... little put out by the determined taciturnity of her manner, moves forward on her seat, and pulls the lace lappets of her dove-gray cap more over to the front impatiently. Long, soft lappets they are, falling from a gem of a little cap, made of priceless lace, and with a beautiful old face beneath to frame. A face like an old miniature; ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Willet was less keen about it and the three proceeded promptly to the council grove where a multitude was already hastening. There was, too, a great buzz of talk, as the Iroquois here in the vale, the very heart of their country, did not show the taciturnity in which the red man so often takes refuge in the presence ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... When it was ended, he rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken to ash and embers. Before they parted for the night ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
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