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Private   /prˈaɪvət/   Listen
Private

adjective
1.
Confined to particular persons or groups or providing privacy.  "Private discussions" , "Private lessons" , "A private club" , "A private secretary" , "Private property" , "The former President is now a private citizen" , "Public figures struggle to maintain a private life"
2.
Concerning things deeply private and personal.  "Private family matters"
3.
Concerning one person exclusively.  Synonym: individual.  "Each room has a private bath"
4.
Not expressed.  Synonym: secret.



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"Private" Quotes from Famous Books



... magnificent; the plans provided for a thousand private operating rooms, each beautifully furnished in Louis XVI style, a restaurant, a tea room, a marriage licence bureau, and an emergency chapel where first aid clergymen were to be ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... of an unknown hand made a distinct sensation. It was discussed, angrily by some, delightedly by others. The criticism which Rossetti, Mr. Ruskin, and other critics bestowed upon it in the press or in private correspondence[1] will come more fitly into our later pages, when we turn to deal with contemporary opinions upon Leighton's work. Enough to say here that it won fame for the artist at a stroke. The Queen bought it for L600, having bespoken it, I believe, ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... profitted but little. Concerning the second Question we hold and believe that not only the Psalms of David, but any other spirituall song recorded in the Scripture, may lawfully be sung in Christian Churches. 2d. We grant also that any private Christian who hath a gifte to frame a spirituall song, may both frame it and sing it privately for his own private comfort, and remembrance of some special benefit or deliverance. Nor do we forbid the private use of any instrument of Music therewithall, so that attention to the instrument does ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... leads you to battery, my young friend—" was his private comment. To Mr. Bazalguet he whispered, "The fellow's got scholarship. We might give these back, I think." Mr. Bazalguet was only too happy, and Glyde saw his offspring returned. Sergeant Weeks, safe in Mr. Fortnaby's good opinion, scrupulously wrapped and tied ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... "I do not know him, and he can assuredly have no private business with me that you ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... that twilight room, flanked with piles of expended briefs, and surrounded with neatly docketed packets of attested copies, notices, affidavits, and other engines of legal war—little Toole having expended his congratulations, and his private knowledge of Sturk's revelations, fell upon the immediate ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... have felt free to act, but the stiffness of black was upon them and they simply moved to the corner by Rusper's to take a better view of Mr. Polly beating at the door. The policeman was a young, inexpert constable with far too lively a sense of the public house. He put his head inside the Private Bar to the horror of everyone there. But there was no breach of the law, thank Heaven! "Polly's and Rumbold's on fire!" he said, and vanished again. A window in the top story over Boomer's shop opened, and Boomer, captain of the Fire Brigade, appeared, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... to have been a porch, used as a school or place for disputation. The parvise mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go" (Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the paruise. In some notes on this character in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the world, from which the last thrill has long since departed. They are, so to say, public poetry, the public property of the emotions, and no longer touch the private heart or stir the private imagination. Our fathers felt so much about them that there is nothing left for us to feel. They are as a rose whose fragrance has been exhausted by greedy and indiscriminate smelling. I would rather find ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... a strict inquiry, that there were no private person or persons in the place that could at this time advance me a sufficient sum of money to defray the charge I might be at in repairing and refitting the Ship—at least, if there were any, they would be afraid ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, which has nothing private in it;[124] that which he does not know, that which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... looked-up to. He had done it that night in New York at supper, and at all the meals in the train in spite of the train being so wobbly and each time they had loved it. "It makes one have such self-respect," they agreed, commenting on this agreeable practice in private. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... in many minds that morning about going again to the meadow. It seemed so absurd, so humiliating to costume herself as for private theatricals, and to go repeatedly to keep a tryst which the other party, and that a man, ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... asylum from now on. Also, consider what it means for the children. They are finding out how a real family lives, and this is the first time that dozens of them have ever crossed the threshold of a private house. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... the consequences of his rash act, - for Carbajal was much beloved in Lima, - Blasco Nunez ordered the corpse of the murdered man to be removed by a private stairway from the house, and carried to the cathedral, where, rolled in his bloody cloak, it was laid in a grave hastily dug to receive it. So tragic a proceeding, known to so many witnesses, could not long be kept secret. Vague rumors of the fact ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... earnestly wish that I could end here by making over these things to you, but they seem to me to throw so strange a light on certain past events that I must hold myself responsible for them, and can give them up to no private person. At the same time, I do not feel justified in refusing to let you see picture and papers, if you should wish to do so, and to judge yourself of their importance. I am at the above address, and shall be ready to make an appointment at any time before Monday next, after which date I shall ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... satisfied belief in the surface of any parliamentary or public facts that may be presented to you, varnished out of all likeness to the truth by the suave periods of writer or speaker. But there is something tragically stupid about your dogged acceptation of any social construction of a private life, damned out of all possibility of redemption by the flippant deductions of chatter-box ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... Beaumarchais secured from the government money with which he purchased supplies to be sent to America. He had a great warehouse in Paris, and, under the rather fantastic Spanish name of Roderigue Hortalez & Co., he sent vast quantities of munitions and clothing to America. Cannon, not from private firms but from the government arsenals, were sent across the sea. When Vergennes showed scruples about this violation of neutrality, the answer of Beaumarchais was that governments were not bound by rules of morality applicable ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... some of the words of the dying Buddha, taken from "The Book of the Great Decease," as illustrating the statement in this text:—"So long as the brethren shall persevere in kindness of action, speech, and thought among the saints, both in public and private; so long as they shall divide without partiality, and share in common with the upright and holy, all such things as they receive in accordance with the just provisions of the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl; . . . so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... monarch shall annul decisions of suits which have been brought about by force or fraud; also those made by women, those made at night, those made in private chambers, those made in a place beyond the limits,[84] and ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... music, art, and crafts, soon added to the original object a department of philanthropy, a department of public school decoration, a department of child labor, a department of civics. The day a women's club adopts civics as a side line to literature, that day it ceases to be a private association and becomes a public institution—and the public sometimes finds this out before the club ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... with the news and the draft of the telegram to the Khedive. The copy was sent in to Ismail Pasha in his private apartments. On mastering its contents, he rushed out, threw himself on a sofa, and exclaimed, "I am quite upset by this telegram of Lesseps; some one must go after him and tell him not to send it." Then turning to Gordon, he said, "I put the whole ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... an anxious heart that Sholto rode out behind his master over the bald northerly slopes of the Moorfoots. For a long time David Douglas kept close to his brother, so that the captain of the guard could speak no private word. For, though he knew that nothing was to be gained by remonstrance, Sholto was resolved that he would not let his reckless master run unwarned into danger so deadly ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Craigavon, and in taking steps to give effect to it. On the 25th of September a meeting of four hundred delegates representing the Ulster Unionist Council, the County Grand Orange Lodges, and the Unionist Clubs, was held in Belfast, and, after lengthy discussion in private, when the only differences of opinion were as to the most effective methods of proceeding, two resolutions were unanimously adopted and published. It is noteworthy that, at this early stage in the movement, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... nodded kindly to the equerry, and passed into the Swiss saloon, and farther on into the private rooms which he was accustomed to occupy whenever he remained at the capital. The Swiss saloon was fast filling, not alone with the generals and staff-officers of the Berlin garrison, but with the officers ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... to this genial provincial city that the President and his ministers have come. They distributed themselves about town in various public and private buildings; the Senate chose one theatre for its future meeting-place and the Chamber of Deputies another. And from these places, sometimes the most incongruous—one hears, for instance, of M. Delcasse maintaining his dignity in a bedroom ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... we had made arrangements which would prevent any one calling on Col. Roosevelt at the hotel, having a private ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... contact gently undergo; Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, 210 If "nothing follows all this palming work?" [25] True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme— Something does follow at a fitter time; The breast thus publicly resigned to man, In private may ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... International Meteorological Congress, in 1879, the erection of an observatory on the top of a high mountain was considered. The Swiss Meteorological Commission undertook to carry out the project, and sent out circulars to different associations, governments, and private individuals requesting single or yearly contributions to aid in defraying the expense of the station. In December, 1881, an extra credit of about $1,000 was granted by the Bundesversammlung for the initial work on the station, which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... ruins are still to be seen on the east side of the island. Seeing this, Donald Mac Neill, who previously sent young Macleod of Raasay to the protection of Calder brought back the rightful heir, and kept him, in private, until an opportunity occurred by which he could obtain possession of the castle. This he soon managed by coming to terms with the commander of the stronghold, who preferred the native heir to his relative of the Gairloch Macleods. It was arranged that when Mac ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... was soon repaired and a steady stream of rescue vehicles began arriving from Harkness—fire trucks, three ambulances, and private cars driven ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... of priests, those who have been successful in life are either placed in mosques or private families, waiting for advancement; but a greater number are nominally attached to colleges, and live by the practice of astrology, fortune-telling, the sale of charms, talismans, &c. They who are not possessed of the requisite ingenuity to subsist by the credulity of others, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... him keenly. "Our embassy is concerned only with the diplomatic world. You are to send us word whether the United States Government arsenals are working under a full complement of men; of the orders placed by the Navy Department for submarines, and the activities obtaining in private munition plants. Be certain and study the undercurrent of sentiment for or against us. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... dragged the Wildcat to a little room opening off the larger hall, and thereafter for five minutes Honey Tone used some private eloquence on his old-time acquaintance. The Soopreem Leader took pains to omit the detail covering the four-thousand-dollar obligation that went with the job. Finally the Wildcat weakened. "Sho' sounds noble, Honey Tone. ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... lilies. Now and then a tall, green stalk of the columbine could be seen, and occasionally a wooly circle of bracts on the stem of a late anemone. At intervals tall ferns bent over the woodland pathway, as if to hide and protect it for the private use of the many tiny wild feet that scampered ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... with the world of business and politics the evil is in great matters too. But the principle is the same. We are not honest. We condemn graft in public office. Is it not also graft when a student helps herself to examination foolscap and takes it for private use? Is the girl who carries away sugar from the table any better than the government employee who misappropriates funds or supplies in his charge? We cry out in horror at revelations of bribery. Ah, but in our class elections ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... of Ildown, a beautiful village on the Devonshire coast. As younger son, his private means were very small, and the more so as his family had lost in various unfortunate speculations a large portion of the wealth which had once been the inheritance of his ancient and honourable house. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... Peakslow, accompanied by the two older boys, walking about his private and particular pile of ruins, in a gloomy and bewildered state of mind, as if utterly at a loss to know where the repair of such tremendous damages should begin. And (the sun itself must have been somewhat astonished) ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... the kind that has ever been accumulated by the industry of one man. Hunter used to spend every morning from sunrise until eight o'clock in his museum; and throughout the day he carried on his extensive private practice, performed his laborious duties as surgeon to St. George's Hospital and deputy surgeon-general to the army; delivered lectures to students, and superintended a school of practical anatomy at his own house; finding leisure, amidst all, for elaborate experiments on the animal ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... equator, scrambling up the poles—all these colossal children!... Here we all are!—a whiff of steam from the Watts's steam kettle and a wave of Marconi across the air and we have crept up from our little separate sunsets, all our little private national bedrooms of light and darkness into the one single same cunning dooryard of a world! Our religion, our politics, our Bibles, kings, millionaires, crowds, bombs, prophets and railroads all hurling, sweeping, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... all kinds were much more frequent callers at farm-houses in the early days of my farming, than latterly when auction sales, to some extent, superseded private negotiations, but the horse-dealer remained constant, because comparatively few horses were offered by auction. The horse-dealers appeared to conform to an understanding that it was a breach of etiquette to exceed certain well-marked boundaries in their search for purchases, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... the city thoroughly searched during the next few days for two persons resembling your niece and the woman,' he continued. 'But if they have already fled, and if you insist upon finding them, you will have to employ private agents.' ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... A typical Western or polo pony is just the thing for a boy or girl provided that it has no vicious or undesirable traits such as kicking, bucking, or stumbling, or is unsound or lame. It is always better if possible to buy a horse from a reliable dealer or a private owner. There is a great deal of dishonesty in horse trading and an honest seller who has nothing to conceal should be willing to grant a fair trial ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... therefore, to form what idea we could of the real state of Mexican affairs, from the private information received by our friends. Just for once it may be worth while to give a few details, not because the people engaged were specially interesting, but because the affair may serve to give an idea of the condition ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... let you go ahead and have full charge. There has been talk this year of abolishing a private training-house and table for this green varsity. But rather than have you resign we'll waive that. You can rest assured from now on you will not be interfered with. Give us the best team you can under the circumstances. There has been much dissension ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... would insist on his right to be sprinkled by the parson, to get a legal name and please his mother. At all turns in the history of our healthy relations with women we are confronted by the parson! 'And, upon my word, I believe,' Beauchamp said to Lydiard, 'those parsons—not bad creatures in private life: there was one in Madeira I took a personal liking to—but they're utterly ignorant of what men feel to them—more ignorant than women!' Mr. Tuckham and Mrs. Lydiard would not listen to his foolish ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Heraklas' mother dwelt, a receiving-room for visitors looked upon the court, but a row of columns led inward to a private sitting-room, which, after the manner of the Egyptians, stood isolated in one of the passages. In this isolated room, the mother sat on a stool of ebony, inlaid with ivory. Beside her lay a papyrus on which was written part of the Sacred Book ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... South-Western Railway stands the magnificent palace of Hampton Court, originally erected by Cardinal Wolsey for his own residence, and after his sudden downfall appropriated by his ungrateful master Henry VIII. for his private use and property. ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... home a copy of this schedule, and the following Monday morning all four young men met by appointment in the private office of the publisher of the Daily Independent. After they were seated, Mr. Giddings brought forth the tentative draft, studied it a ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... neglect of the books is private and secret, and is seldom known to any body but the tradesman himself, at least till he comes to break, and be a bankrupt, and then you frequently hear them exclaim against him, upon that very account. 'Break!' ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... Bannister and Calder to dinner at Radley's. They'll have no laughin' an' singin' there, but we took a private room—like yacht-owners ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... merchants of London, when they felt that the queen failed in her duty of pushing the fight against the great Catholic Power, fitted out fleets upon their own account and sent them to levy good Protestant war of a private nature upon ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... in the observance of a vow. Therefore they will not speak. Silent they will remain till midnight After that hour they will speak with thee!' The king then quartering his guests in the sacrificial apartments retired into his private chambers. And when midnight arrived, the monarch arrived at the place where his guests attired as Brahmanas were. For, O King, that ever victorious monarch observed this vow which was known throughout the Worlds that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... mobilization will be a slow business. As you know, the regulars in England have been reduced to an almost negligible minimum, and the mobilization of the 'Haldane Army' involves the slow process of drawing men out of private life into the field. What is worse, it means in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves at Aldershot, and south-country men reporting themselves in the north. And then their practical knowledge so far leaves them simply men in ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... before a private society in London on the element chlorine, Faraday thus expresses himself with reference to this question of utility. "Before leaving this subject, I will point out the history of this substance as an answer to those who are in the habit of saying to every new fact, 'What ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... eloquence, and a habit of dealing with men; especially those of the humbler classes. He was passionate, greedy, overbearing, violent, and loose of life. He had sworn vengeance upon the Remonstrants in consequence of a private quarrel, but this did not prevent him from breathing fire and fury against the Contra-Remonstrants also, and especially against the Stadholder, whom he affected to consider the arch-enemy ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... was of a nature more private. She concluded with a postscript, which also I did not read ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not Duchesses are described by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who followed his leader in public life, and in private life followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories, and thinking with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... drove Muriel and Dolly Chetwynd Lyle frantic. They, poor things, were beaten out of the field altogether by her superior tact and art of "fence," and they hated her accordingly and called her in private a "horrid old woman," which perhaps, when her maid undressed her, she was. But she was having a distinctly "good time" in Cairo; she called her son, who was in delicate health, "my poor dear little boy!" and he, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... news to Amilcare's private ear. Cesare was his deadly enemy, the one man he honestly feared; the one man, consequently, he wanted to meet. He was still brooding over it when the broad-backed butcher they call Il Drudo slammed ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... Lesson of Evolution" (1907, posthumous, and only published for private circulation) Frederick Wollaston Hutton, F.R.S., late Professor of Biology and Geology, first at Dunedin and after at Christchurch, New Zealand, puts forward a strongly vitalistic view, and adopts Hering's teaching. After stating this he adds, "The same idea of heredity ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... element of actual "lived" anecdote and personal history which has been mentioned more than once before. The Historiettes of Tallemant contain short suggestions for a hundred novels and romances; the memoirs, genuine or forged, of public and private persons have not seldom, in more modern times, formed the actual basis of some of the greatest fiction. Everybody ought long to have known Thackeray's perhaps rather whimsical declaration that he positively preferred the forged D'Artagnan memoirs ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... so great a Friendship and mutual Love, which was absolutely strengthened by a private Marriage of her own proposing, lest he should prove ungrateful to her (which he said were her own Words) after so material an Intimacy, and leave her, and go and live with his real Wife, and her Mother being dead, she and he, the first Time they met after her Mother's Decease ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... dwelling, of which, in his own name and authority, he took immediate possession, and soon after he expelled poor Clashnichd, with many stripes, from her natural inheritance. Not satisfied with invading and depriving her of her just rights, he was in the habit of following her into her private haunts, not with the view of offering her any endearments, but for the purpose of inflicting on her person every torment which his brain ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... up their minds not to depart for the springs yet awhile. As for Franconia, finding she could no longer endure M'Carstrow's dissolute habits, and having been told by that very distinguished gentleman, but unamiable husband, that he despised the whole tribe of her poor relations, she has retired to private boarding, where, with the five dollars a week, he, in the outpouring of his southern generosity, allows her, she subsists plainly but comfortably. It is, indeed, a paltry pittance, which the M'Carstrow family will ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... you're going to Palmyra," he asked, "where do you mean to stop? Have you thought about lodgings? You mustn't imagine it's a place like an English town, with an inn or hotel or good private apartments. There's nowhere you can put up at in these brand-new villages. Are you going to friends, or did you expect to find quarters as ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... shouted a private, and "bang" went his gun. That was the way the fight opened. Chad saw Harry's eyes blazing like stars from his pale face, which looked pained and half sick, and Chad understood—the lads were fighting their own people, and there was no help for it. A voice bellowed from the rear, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... they made off and escaped. This time the Germans were better informed about the conditions they dealt with, and evidently had no fear of mines, for they came to within two miles of the shore. The forts on shore were bombarded and private houses near by were hit by German shells, killing two women who lived in one of them. The forts tried to reply to the German guns, but those of the English battery were by no means modern, and firing them only served to further convince the Germans that the place was fortified; ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... in his study, waiting for Wistons. Wistons had come to Polchester for a night to see his friend Foster. It was an entirely private visit, unknown to anybody save two or three of his friends among the clergy. He had asked whether Ronder could spare him half an hour. Ronder ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... stood a private of the Garde de Paris who remained respectfully on the threshold, his heels in a straight line, his right hand raised to the peak of his shako, and his elbow on a level with his eyes, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... which he ran in battle occurred in his efforts to put down an insurrection of the mulattoes. In this contest he fell into an ambush in the mountains near Port de Paix, a shower of bullets sweeping his ranks. His private physician fell dead by his side and a plume of feathers in his hat was shot away, but he remained unharmed. The same was the case soon after when, in a narrow pass, his coachman was shot down. The negro leader seemed, like Napoleon, to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... that he should not do it directly and officially as a librarian. He may do it quietly and unobtrusively like any other private citizen, but he needs all his efforts, all his influence, to bring the book and the reader together in his community. Sometimes by doing this he can be doing the other too, and he can always do it vicariously. He should bear in mind that the successful man is not ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... it was then customary for both gentleman and commoner, male as well as female, as will be more fully shown hereafter, to take their meals at home, and repair afterwards to houses of public entertainment for wine or other liquors. Private chambers were, of course, reserved for the gentry; but not unfrequently the squire and his friends would take their bottle with the other guests. Such was the invariable practice in the northern counties in the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... for defense. Says Col. Stone,—"Sa-go-ye-wat-ha was then twenty-nine years old, and though it does not appear that he had yet been created a chief, he nevertheless seems to have been already a man of influence. He was in the practice of holding private consultations with the young warriors, and some of the younger and less resolute chiefs, for the purpose of fomenting discontents, and persuading them to sue for what Brant ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... sphere of oppression is small. In the King's council, the wisdom of Southampton, the moderation of Falkland, and the integrity of Hyde, had to contend with the pride and petulance of those who would not lower their own pretensions in deference to the public good, or forgive a private wrong for the sake of that unity which alone could secure the whole. In the army discord was equally prevalent; the generals accusing each other on every mischance, panting for superiority, and all offended at the hauteur of Prince Rupert, and jealous of the influence ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... gained admittance. For a long time his arrival had been looked forward to by my deluded sister, as he had arranged the means of communicating with her before his departure; and he had persuaded her of the necessity of a private marriage, all the arrangements of which he promised to make, provided she would undertake to follow his directions. The priest he had brought with him from a distant part of the coast, having induced him, by high bribes, to accompany him, and, I believe, keeping ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... served him well. In 1765 Lord Rockingham became prime minister, and Burke, widely known as the chief writer for the Annual Register, was free to accept the position of private secretary, which Lord Rockingham was glad to offer him. His services here were invaluable. The new relations thus established did not end with the performance of the immediate duties of his office, but a warm friendship ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... on, uttering private chuckles as numerous as a woodpecker's taps, and Ethelberta with him. She walked as by a miracle, but she would walk. She would have died rather than ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... busily in his private room one foggy afternoon when he was informed that Miss Liddell wished to speak ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... private naturalist's expedition is about to take place up one of the Paraguay rivers. The eponymous hero, Rob Harlow, is a teenager. They are going to be rowed up the river, and the larger vessel that had brought then there, with ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... will provide extra help to middle and high school students who fall behind in reading and math, expand advanced placement programs in low-income schools, invite math and science professionals from the private sector to teach part-time in our high schools. I propose larger Pell grants for students who prepare for college with demanding courses in high school. (Applause.) I propose increasing our support for America's fine community colleges, so they can — (applause.) ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... it," he said; "but as I was a-saying, I wonder what she is. Looks to me like what they calls a private ear." ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... valuable and peculiar light," says Lord Cockburn, "in which his history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth, is this: He died at the age of thirty- eight; possessed of greater public influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all, except the heartless or the base. Now let every young man ask—how was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he, nor any of his relations, ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... give an account, equally particular, of the remaining part of his life, as he was no longer a private man, but engaged in publick affairs, and associated in his expeditions with other generals, whose attempts, and the success of them, are related in the histories of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... in the education of the Archduke Charles and his three sisters, who had been placed in her charge. In 1515 Charles, on entering his sixteenth year, was declared by Maximilian to be of age; Margaret accordingly handed over to him the reins of government and withdrew for the time into private life. Her retirement was not, however, to be of long continuance. On January 23, 1516, King Ferdinand of Aragon died, and Charles, who now became King of Castile and of Aragon, was obliged to leave the Netherlands to take possession of his Spanish dominions. Before sailing he reinstated his ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... would be in better taste to retire. He knew Miss Turner, and he guessed that probably the next scene in the drama would be purely private. Well, the youngsters had unquestionably disobeyed orders, and on their own showing. They must be punished, if by no other means they could be taught obedience, which is the first if not the chief lesson of life. Still, it was a pity, thought the big, soft-hearted man; and the ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... limits' to purchases by Defense installations and by Servicemen."[20-9] Others were convinced that the federal government was in effect supporting segregation through its widespread economic assistance programs to state and local governments and to private institutions in the fields of employment, housing, education, health service, military affairs, and agriculture. In August 1961 a group of fifty civil rights leaders petitioned the (p. 504) President to end such federal support.[20-10] On a more modest ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... became extremely unfriendly to the citizens of Illinois and others. This band had determined for some years past to remain at all hazards, on certain lands which had been purchased by the United States, and afterwards some of them sold to private individuals by the general government. They also determined to drive off the citizens from this disputed territory. In order to effect this object, they committed various outrages on the persons and property of the citizens of this state. ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... at the Capitol headquarters in Speaker Cannon's private room about eleven o'clock next morning. Clemens was not in the best humor because I had allowed him to oversleep. He was inclined to be discouraged at the prospect, and did not believe many of the members would come down ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... in the settlement, Shangois was the last of his race. He could put his finger upon the secret history and private lives of nearly every person in a dozen parishes, but most of all in Bonaventure—for such this long parish was called. He knew to a hair's breadth the social value of every human being in the parish. He was too cunning and acute to be a gossip, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... but to avoid the appearances to the contrary. I dressed plain, and was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no scandal; and to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... shall get a scolding anyway, so I might as well have all the fling I can get. I'll have tea with you and the boys, and a little private chat with Jack afterwards. You won't mind leaving us alone for a few minutes? It's something about Ron, but I won't promise not to get in a little flirtation ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the second is drawn from man's relations with his fellow-men, relations which involve more complicated experiences. The parables of the second group were sometimes spoken in answer to questions addressed to our Lord in private; such is the parable of the good Samaritan, and that of the rich fool. If we desire to study the parables in special relation to the kingdom of God, {76} we can divide them into three groups. The first consists of those collected in Matt. xiii., delivered ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... Greece has been studied in the Homeric poems. Mediaeval private life has been reconstructed principally from the chansons de gestes. (See C. V. Langlois, Les Traditions sur l'histoire de la societe francaise au moyen age d'apres les sources litteraires, in ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... group for a private word to Zeke before her cousin should come to enter the brougham. 'Zekiel sat bolt upright in the most approved style, and did not turn his face, even when the child ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... that had once been a trim garden with smooth paths and neat little hedges, as back yards were once in the olden days, they met under the iron fire-escape attached to the house next door. This building, much higher than the corner house, was used as a private sanitarium or hospital by one of the highest-priced specialists in the city. The fire-escape, therefore, was in perfect condition, and safe as such a spidery stairway could be made, with ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine

... delight in beautifying Chelsea Church, although he had a private chapel of his own; and when last there they told us the painted window had been his gift. It must have been a rare sight to see the chancellor of England sitting with the choir; and yet there was a fair share of pomp in the manner of his servitor bowing at his lady's pew, when the service ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... your inquiry, I never read 'Robert Elsmere,' but understand from a private source that it saved many young men from reading 'David Grieve.' Your second inquiry as to the lady-love of my first youth is violent—very violent. Suppose you ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... hear from our Ambassador any minute about the private interview he wired he was about to ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn

... which he had thought fit in his quality of painter to assume. Our greeting it need not be said was warm; and our talk, which extended far into the night, very friendly and confidential. If I make my readers confidants in Mr. Clive's private affairs, I ask my friend's pardon for narrating his history in their behoof. The world had gone very ill with my poor Clive, and I do not think that the pecuniary losses which had visited him and his father afflicted him near so sorely as the state of his home. In a pique with the woman ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... adding to the length of my last long letter prevented me from entering into details upon private and personal feelings among the residents, who have cause to lament the threatened intrusion. These are not matters to be brought before a Board of Trade, though I trust there will always be of that board members who know well that as we do 'not ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... the evening, I preached. While the afternoon service was in progress, the ministers were holding a private meeting to decide whether or not I should proceed with the meeting I had come to hold. In this part of the country was a wealthy man, a sinner, who contributed very liberally to the support of the work. This man objected to women's preaching ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... then released these to a company of children which acted there for some years. In 1608 the Burbages regained possession of this property, and Shakespeare's company began acting there. This Blackfriars theater was known as a private theater in order to avoid the application of certain statutes directed against the public theaters, but it differed from them merely in being indoors, with artificial lights, and higher prices. It was used by Shakespeare's company as a ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... is taken up by half a dozen dwellings of modest dignity, whose front shade-trees, being on the southerly side, have been placed not on the sidewalk's roadside edge but on the side next the dwellings and close within their line of private ownership: red, white and post-oaks set there by the present writer when he named the street "Dryads' Green." They are now twenty-one years old and give a good shade which actually falls where it is ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... all these diversions, people begin to think of going out of town—no such matter: the Parliament continues sitting, and will till the middle of June; Lord Egmont told us we should sit till Michaelmas. There are many private bills, no public ones of any fame. We were to have had some chastisement for Oxford, where, besides the late riots, the famous Dr. King,[1] the Pretender's great agent, made a most violent speech at the opening of the Ratcliffe Library. The ministry denounced ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... with the architecture of the fifteenth century in France, had reproduced there very cleverly the characteristics of a private house of the time of Louis XII. That house, begun in the middle of the Second Empire, had not been finished. The builder of so many castles died without being able to finish his own house. It was better thus. Conceived ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more happy. And Solon replying, Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who were loving brothers, and extremely dutiful sons to their mother, and, when the oxen delayed her, harnessed ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... the older girl, as she paused for a moment on the threshold of the private hall of the apartment house. She had tied her veil rather tightly at the back, knotting it and fastening it with a little gold pin, and now she pulled it away from her ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope

... left to him after Necia's stormy interview with the Lieutenant. The arrival of the freight steamer afforded him some distraction, but there was only a small consignment for the store, and that was quickly disposed of; so, leaving the other citizens of Flambeau to wrangle over their private merchandise, he went back to his solitary vigil, which finally became so unbearable that he sought to escape his thoughts, or at least to drown them for a while, amid the lights and life and laughter of Stark's saloon. Being but a child by nature, his means of distraction were primal ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... had arranged with Lothair that they should enter the church by their usual private way, and Lothair therefore was not in any degree prepared for the sight which awaited him on his entrance into it. The church was crowded; not a chair nor a tribune vacant. There was a suppressed gossip going on as in a public place before a performance ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... any that had yet gone, to operate against the savages on the south-east side of the river. This expedition numbered seventy-two men, thirty of whom were Mississippi Yauger men, under a Captain Jones, while the others were volunteers from private life. The expedition was under the command of Sam Dale, already celebrated as an Indian fighter, and known among the Creeks, with whom he had lived, as Sam Thlueco, or Big Sam, on account of his enormous size and strength. During this Creek war he had performed some feats of strength, skill ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... answer, Holmes sprang to his saddle and, with a quick jab of his spurs in the horse's flanks, rejoined them on the run. In his excitement the mental habits of his life asserted themselves and he was again the typical corporation official dealing with a mere private individual operating on a small scale. "Look here!" he burst forth sharply to Abe; "these are not our Company stakes. You are not following ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... knowing they would be duly kissed and cared for. Yet some day, I have just remembered, he may have problems that can't be brought to me. But that day, please God, I shall defer as long as possible. Already we have our own little secrets and private compacts and understandings. I don't want my boy to be a mollycoddle. But I want him to have his chance in the world. I want him to be somebody. I can't reconcile myself to the thought of him growing ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... lampooned by the imbecile wit of the singers and dancers of the calinda in Congo Square. The tree-planted levee was still populous on summer evenings with promenaders and loungers. The quadroon caste was in its dying splendor, still threatening the moral destruction of private society, and hated—as only woman can hate enemies of the hearthstone—by the proud, fair ladies of the Creole pure-blood, among whom Madame Lalaurie shone brilliantly. Her elegant house, filled with "furniture of the most costly description,"—says ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... accompanying disadvantages, by making the characters do a good deal of talking. That method escapes the danger of getting the narrator between the story and the reader; for the puppet who "I's" his way through the narrative is apt to be rather an important fellow, who intrudes on the most private scenes, and who prefers moralizing and philosophizing to the legitimate furthering of the plot; thus he runs no small risk of making himself unpopular with the reader, and so proving of detriment to the success of the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... she knew her father made use of for the drinks and drops he was fond of distilling. Waldemar Daae was arrogant and conceited, but also he had a great deal of knowledge. Everybody knew that, and everybody talked in whispers about it. Even in summer a fire burned in his private cabinet; its doors were always locked. He passed days and nights there, but he spoke little about his pursuits. The mysteries of nature are studied in silence. He expected soon to discover its greatest secret—the transmutation ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... eight of the Second Battalion, the Adjutant, the Quartermaster, two Lieutenants, and five volunteers, were passengers) had only six pieces of cannon to oppose them; and the Annabella (on board of which was Captain McKenzie, together with two subalterns, two volunteers, and eighty-two private men of the First Battalion) had only two swivels for her defence. Under such circumstances, I thought it expedient for the Annabella to keep ahead of the George, that our artillery might be used with more effect and less obstruction. Two of the privateers having stationed themselves upon our larboard ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... it can, my friends, and two hundred times over. No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation, says St. Peter. That is, it does not apply to any one private, particular thing that is to happen. Every prophecy of Scripture goes on fulfilling itself more and more, as time rolls on and the world grows older. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution—and the removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... of his appointment, he seemed to regard the library as his own private property, or, rather, as his own family. He was grandfather to the books: at least a grandfather shows that combination of parent and servant which comes nearest to the relation he henceforth manifested towards them. Most of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Private" :   offstage, sequestered, tete-a-tete, private practice, cliquish, insular, inward, closed-door, snobby, secluded, close, reclusive, esoteric, nonpublic, personal, toffee-nosed, enlisted man, backstage, one-on-one, snobbish, confidential, privy, public, clubby, head-to-head, cloistered, clannish



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