"Unconstrained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matter of course. It is so natural to take advantage of them that unless we purposely keep an eye upon the writer's devices, marking them off as he turns from one to another, we hardly notice the change. He is telling a story in the ordinary way, the obvious and unconstrained. But in fact these variations represent differences of method that are fundamental. If the story is to be shown to us, the question of our relation to the story, how we are placed with regard to it, arises with the first word. Are we placed before a particular scene, an occasion, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... because they were stupid enough or ungracious enough to be sad, to want everybody else to be so too and to impose on everybody their decrepit way of living.... The first of all virtues is joy. Virtue must be happy, free, and unconstrained. He who does good must give pleasure to himself. But this perpetual upstart Duty, this pedagogic tyranny, this peevishness, this futile discussion, this acrid, puerile quibbling, this ungraciousness, this charmless life, without politeness, without silence, this ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... manner that had struck her then, along with the readiness for action; the combination was peculiar, and expressed in every turn of head and hand. Here, in a strange house, he was as absolutely at ease and unconstrained as if he had been on the quarterdeck of his own ship. Is it the habit of command? thought Dolly. But that does not necessarily give a man ease of manner in his intercourse with others who are not under his command. Meanwhile, Mr. Shubrick sat and talked, keeping up a gentle run of unexciting ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... twenty-year-old head, of a jovial, comely appearance, with the hair dressed after the newest mode. It was the Candidate. He cast a glance first at his foot, and then at the lady of the house, whom he approached with the most unconstrained self-possession, exhibiting the while a row of dazzlingly white teeth. Odour of eau de Portugal ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the permission had not been foreseen. Both Leonora and John had thought of the girls as modest members of the chorus in an affair unmistakably and confessedly amateur. Ethel had kept within the anticipation. But here was Milly an actress, exploiting herself with unconstrained gestures and arch glances and twirlings of her short skirt, to a crowded and miscellaneous audience. Leonora did not like it; her susceptibilities were outraged. She blushed at this amazing public contradiction of Milly's bringing-up. It seemed to her as if she had never known ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... they are lost to sight under the passengers' heads and legs. Another feature of railway travel in Paraguay—for a foreigner a sensation—is to observe a woman clad in the Arcadian simplicity of a single garment enter a car and take a seat opposite you or alongside of you with the most unconstrained air imaginable. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... is the position of women. Where they are wholly slaves, man is wholly barbarous; and the measure of progress from barbarism to civilization is the recognition of their equal right with man to an unconstrained development. Therefore, when Mr. Mill unrolls his petition in Parliament to secure the political equality of women, it bears the names of those English men and women whose thoughts foretell the course ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to go, and walking, bareheaded, to the outside of the little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of unconstrained respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could have taught, no truth mistrusted, and nothing but a ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... all these things was absolutely essential, or that they were really more than ornamental. Her lively sympathy for those of her own class was the only reason for the pleasure she took in going among the poor, and it also explained her natural unconstrained manner towards them, which so quickly won their hearts. During these visits she often recalled her own sad condition in that distant time when she lived in Moon Street; thinking that it would have made a great difference ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... was after his girl. That just describes it exactly. What Heemskirk might have expected or what he thought he could do, I don't know. For all I can tell, he might have imagined himself irresistible, or have taken Freya for what she was not, on account of her lively, assured, unconstrained manner. But there it is. He was after that girl. Nelson could see it well enough. Only he preferred to ignore it. He did not want to ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... get along without a certain infusion of democracy; but it was for the most part essential to their national interest that such an infusion should be strictly limited. In Europe the two ideals have never been allowed a frank and unconstrained relation one to the other other. They have been unable to live apart; but their marriage has usually been one of convenience, which was very far from implying complete mutual dependence and confidence. No doubt the collective interests of the German or British people suffer ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... all, the same as that which we have found less directly phrased in Crevecoeur. But let us quote the lines that follow the exordium—now we should find the poet unconstrained and fancy-free:— ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Ravises', their manners changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight they were all profane enough, and it was not very long ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... Madame, her brothers and the Secretary (even the Duke of Monmouth not being admitted), the last we saw as we made our bows and backed out of the doorway would be M. de Perrencourt standing in an easy and unconstrained attitude behind Madame's chair and manifesting no overpowering sense of the signal honour paid to him by the permission to remain. As may be supposed, a theory sprang up to account for the curious regard this gentleman commanded; it was put about ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... in the highest degree a spoilt child of fortune; he acquired everything without effort; existence fitted him like an elegant dress, and he wore it with such unconstrained amiability that people ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... is attached to it, and no local tradition identifies it with any particular spot, there is no difficulty in fixing in the very heart of "Dickens-land" the picture upon which the "Battle of Life" is opened: the joyous dance of two girls, "quite unconstrained and careless", "in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch", "while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... retired, and each executed its figures, and delivered its verses, some of them graceful, some burlesque, but Don Quixote's memory (though he had an excellent one) only carried away those that have been just quoted. All then mingled together, forming chains and breaking off again with graceful, unconstrained gaiety; and whenever Love passed in front of the castle he shot his arrows up at it, while Interest broke gilded pellets against it. At length, after they had danced a good while, Interest drew out ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Sally grew quickly indifferent to the topic, and thus was able to appreciate Savage's mental dexterity in discussing it with apparent candour, but without once verging upon any statement or admission that might count against the interests of his sister. He seemed wholly unconstrained, but the truth was not in him. Or, if it were, it was in on a ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... pressed her again to his side, and when she had done running her forefinger round the leads to cut off the cream-edge, he cleaned it in nature's way; for the unconstrained manners of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... houses, and on leaden skies, When speech seems but the babble of a crowd, And music fails me, and my lamp of life Burns low, and Art, my mistress, turns from me, — Then do I pass beyond the Gate of Dreams Into my kingdom, walking unconstrained By ways familiar under Southern skies; Nor unaccompanied; the dear dumb things I lov'd once, have their immortality. There too is all fulfilment of desire: In this the valley of my Paradise I find again lost ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... generals, splendid in gold, and purple, and jewels, ablaze with orders and ribbons of every color, offered more obsequious homage or sought with more eagerness at Versailles for the favor of a word or of a glance. The Emperor alone seemed free and unconstrained. With an assured step he passed through the throng of courtiers, who respectfully made way before him. With a look he transported with rapture or crushed those who approached him; and if he deigned to speak to any one, the happy mortal thus honored ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... such a favour, what needeth so much pressing men to be thankful, and with such eager circumstances, that where persuasions cannot delude, threatenings are employed to fright them into a compliance? Thanks must be voluntary, not only unconstrained but unsolicited, else they are either trifles or snares, that either signify nothing or a great deal more than is intended by those that give them. If an inference should be made, that whosoever thanketh the King for ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... her child's laugh, and flying from her room had met the little one on the threshold of her door and now, crying and sobbing, was kneeling with the child in her arms in the open space at the top of the stairs. Her paroxysm of grief, wild and unconstrained as it was, gave less hint of madness than of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... one put down his pen, pushed back his chair, and came round the table: a tallish, well-made young man, dressed a shade too foppishly in spite of an unceremonious dinner coat, his manner assured, amiable, unconstrained, perhaps ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... and her counsel mislead me; tha t her constant companionship might, for all I knew, become intolerably tedious to me; that I could not answer for my feelings for a week in advance, much less to the end of my life; that to cut me off from all natural and unconstrained relations with the rest of my fellow creatures would narrow and warp me if I submitted to it, and, if not, would bring me under the curse of clandestinity; that, finally, my proposals to her were wholly unconnected with any of these matters, and were the outcome of a perfectly simple impulse of my ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... circumstances into Germany, she is brought into contact with the old noblesse, a very different, but far less charming, atmosphere than that of the gondoliers of Venice. But here, too, the strong, simple character of our Consuelo is unconstrained, if not at home, and when her heart swells and needs ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... circlet two on a side, and drawn from behind the ears forward so as to lightly tip the upper edge of the mantle. The right hand rested at the moment on the right cone of the chair; the left was free. The attitude of the figure thus presented was easy and unconstrained, the countenance high and noble, and altogether the guest admitted to himself that he had seldom been introduced to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... washed up, she drying the cups and saucers, and striving with somewhat doubtful success to appear normal and unconstrained. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... we said, had three pleasant days at Loo; discoursing, as with friends, on public matters, or even on more private matters, in a frank unconstrained way. He is not to be called "Majesty" on this occasion; but the fact, at Loo, and by the leading Mightinesses of the Republic, who come copiously to compliment him there, is well remembered. Talk there was, with such leading Mightinesses, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... intellectual effort, and finally the power to express that which is dictated by one's imagination and emotion, with the same natural simplicity and spontaneity with which the thought of a really great orator is expressed in the easy, unconstrained flow ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... week he was able to take possession of an invalid-chair, which was then wheeled into the room where the family were wont to gather for the free and unconstrained enjoyment of each ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... artificer's sweat. How Chopin produced the "Impromptu," Op. 29 (in A flat major), I do not know. Although an admired improviser, the process of composition was to him neither easy nor quick. But be this as it may, this impromptu has quite the air of a spontaneous, unconstrained outpouring. The first section with its triplets bubbles forth and sparkles like a fountain on which the sunbeams that steal through the interstices of the overhanging foliage are playing. The F minor section ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... she saw them and others at the Meeting House. It was, however, not a smile for an individual, whoever that individual might chance to be. It was only the kindness of her nature expressing itself. Talking seemed like the exercise of a foreign language to her, but her smiling was free and unconstrained, and it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... proved indeed a prophet, and he longed also to see his beloved relative return from her sheaf of pleasures in the free and unconstrained use of all her graceful limbs. He was, therefore, torn by foes in a mental conflict, and was in no case to sip the philosophic honey of Marcus Aurelius as he sat between the telescope and the fire in the comfortable drawing-room ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... depended upon a grace of which he was unconscious—quaint, naive, and beautiful phrasing, a fine poetical imagination, tiny word-pictures, and a youthful and impetuous charm. His gestures at that time were free and unconstrained, his voice ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... favor, for she hardly spoke to him, and snubbed him decidedly when he humbly tendered a peace-offering in the form of a potato. Evelyn, too, was silent, or made spasmodic attempts at conversation with Mrs. Marston, the only unconstrained person of the party. Evelyn and Aurelia had appeared together, and it was evident from Evelyn's expression that Aurelia had told her. What conversation there was turned upon ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... She turned her face around to the stage, and for some time her long, nervous fingers convulsively squeezed the upholstery of the barrier of the box. But when she again turned around to her friends, her eyes were already dry, and the enigmatic, vicious and wilful lips were resplendent with an unconstrained smile. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... departed; but their absence was not followed by the usual outburst of unconstrained festivity. On the contrary, a sense of sorrow and dread hung over all who remained, and before long everyone not immediately connected with the palace respectfully but silently withdrew, leaving the King and Queen to their ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... insulting importunities; and had merely distressed Lady Greville by indulging in a mockery of respectful deference, which exposed her to the ridicule of those around her who could not fail to observe his change of manner. Perceiving by my unconstrained expressions of grateful acknowledgment for his furtherance of my marriage with Theresa that she had kept his secret, and incapable of appreciating that purity of mind, which rendered such an avowal difficult, ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... publican had not scrambled down in haste. He forces Himself on no man; He withholds Himself from no man. He respects that awful prerogative of being the architects of our own evil and our own good, by our own free and unconstrained choice. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was exceedingly humorous, and had a great delight in humour. Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was very ready at a sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well) there was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery. She was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected: as modestly silent about her productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary results. She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments; she was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... by nature," the mode of his existence as well as his destiny is implied; his merely natural and primary condition is intended. In this sense a "state of nature" is assumed in which mankind at large is in the possession of its natural rights with the unconstrained exercise and enjoyment of its freedom. This assumption is not raised to the dignity of the historical fact; it would indeed be difficult, were the attempt seriously made, to point out any such condition as actually existing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... to prevent the agitation of the udder as much as the dairymaid pleases, while holding in the other mode. Indeed, a more constant vibration could be kept up in that way by the vibrations of the arms than by stripping. Stripping, by using an unconstrained pressure on two sides of the teat, is much more apt to press it unequally, than by grasping the whole teat in the palm of the hand; while the friction occasioned by passing the finger and thumb firmly over the outside of the teat, is more ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... precept, any man or woman to seek to have children. You surely will not breed men by selection, like cattle, as Plato proposed. The union of the sexes, especially the married union, is an act to be of all others the most entirely free, spontaneous, uncommanded, and unconstrained. It should be a union of intense mutual love. But a man may not meet with any woman that he can love with passion; or, meeting such, he may not be able to win her. Nor, considering the indeterminateness of points of health, capacity, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... D'Estrella, and was endeavouring to express my wishes to a boy, when I heard a female voice, in broken English, from a balcony above, giving the information I desired. I looked up, and saw a young girl, dressed in white, who was loveliness itself! In the few words which passed between us, of lively unconstrained civility on her part, and pure confounded gratitude on mine, she seemed so perfectly after my own heart, that she lit a torch in it which burnt for two ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... heard a friendly voice. The very sound of the human voice had become hateful to him, because he was constantly detecting the note of nervousness, the scarcely concealed fear of being entangled in his misfortunes. As Tetlow rose to go, Norman tried to detain him. The sound of an unconstrained voice, the sight of a believing face that did not express one or more of the shadings of contempt between pity and aversion—the sight and sound of this friend Tetlow was acting upon him like one of those secret, unexpected, powerful tonics which nature ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... almost furtive, survey of the room, then glanced in succession at each of those seated about the table, till his eyes rested on Janice. There they fixed themselves in a bold, unconcealed scrutiny, to the no small embarrassment of the maiden, though the man himself stood in an easy, unconstrained attitude, quite unheeding the five pairs of eyes staring at him, or, if conscious, entirely unembarrassed ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... last fond good-night had passed, and the little one had gone away to her nest, Sophy said in a soft, natural, unconstrained voice, 'I am very sleepy. If you will be so kind as to send up my tea, I will go to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... facile, slight; comfortable, untroubled, quiet, tranquil; gullible, facile, credulous, submissive, compliant, tractable; affluent, independent; smooth, fluent, unconstrained. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... building, strongly secured and generally locked. I was never admitted into this strong-hold, where the old man would remain for the greater part of the time, drawn up like a veteran spider in the citadel of his web. The rest of the mansion, however, was open to me, and I sauntered about it unconstrained. The damp and rain which beat in through the broken windows, crumbled the paper from the walls; mouldered the pictures, and gradually destroyed the furniture. I loved to rove about the wide, waste chambers in bad weather, and listen to the howling of the wind, and the banging about of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... vital, inspiring element into every company which he visited. His cheerfulness was inexhaustible, his wit keen and lambent without being acrid, his speech clear, fluent, and genial, and his fund of anecdote commensurate with his remarkable narrative power. He was exceedingly frank, joyous, and unconstrained in his demeanor; fond of the pipe and the beer-glass; and as one of his maxims was, "Not to close any door through which Fortune might enter," he not only occasionally bought a lottery-ticket, but was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... the court, with the most exquisite urbanity and gentleness which the female character, in its loveliest forms, ever exhibited. She impressed me continually with a sense of the high intellectual and moral qualities by which she was distinguished, but still left me as unconstrained as if I had been conversing with a beloved child. There was an air of graceful and unaffected ease; an instinctive regard to the most delicate proprieties of social intercourse; a readiness to communicate, and yet a ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... the ape grew up, ran and leaped about, drank from the springs in the valleys, ate the flowers and fruits, and time went by in unconstrained play. ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... everyone is welcomed with the same benevolence, which already goes for a good deal. But what is extremely poignant is at the end of the seance to see the people who came in gloomy, bent, almost hostile (they were in pain), go away like everybody else; unconstrained, cheerful, sometimes radiant (they are no longer in pain!!). With a strong and smiling goodness of which he has the secret, M. Coue, as it were, holds the hearts of those who consult him in his hand; he addresses himself in turn to the numerous persons who come to consult him, ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... a tendency to go back to its beginnings, to the time when the laws of rhythm did not yet trouble her; it seems that she wishes to free herself, to regain an utterance that is unconstrained, and raise herself to the dignity of a sort of ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... situation: the piquant fragrance that filled the air, the pleasure-loving women—these people, so free and unconstrained, all strangers to one another, hidden in the elegant, half-dark salon, each following his most secret thoughts—thoughts born of the mysterious, muffled music; whilst the firelight rose and fell, and made everything that was golden glimmer ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... cut illustrates a neat country-house, for a family who think more of neatness, comfort, and intellectual pursuits, than of mere ornament, and may serve the purpose of a farmhouse, or the residence of a retired or professional gentleman. It has the unconstrained air of the Italian style, without a rigid adherence to any rules, and may therefore be altered or added ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... dinner very dignified and stern; but the Honourable John Ruffin saw to it that the meal was unconstrained. He spared no effort to keep the talk in a light vein; and the duke, after his talk with the duchess that afternoon, was sufficiently at his ease to second him to the best of his not very great ability. He won the Honourable John Ruffin's golden opinions by remembering ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... a good, free and unconstrained will and a firm intention to take unto thyself to wife this woman, Kaya, whom ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... on, and that in fact the special conditions of old age do not and cannot express the true law and tendency of the dynamic relations of life in the face of its evident advance upon the Earth. The law of the unconstrained cell is growth on an ever increasing scale; and although we assume the organic configuration, whether somatic or reproductive, to be essentially unstable, so that continual inflow of energy is required merely to keep it ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... "Yes." "Bring your porringer." "Then I am not hungry." Is it to the joys of the vineyard and the harmonious loveliness of this garden land of France, is it to the peace and tranquillity of a region where the step of an invader has never trodden, that we owe the soft compliance of these unconstrained and easy manners? To such questions no answer. Enter this Turkey of sunny France, and you will stay there,—lazy, idle, happy. You may be as ambitious as Napoleon, as poetic as Lord Byron, and yet a power unknown, ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... passed long enough for her not to be alone in her surprise at his absenting himself before he at length made his appearance, just before luncheon, so as to miss the unconstrained morning hours he used so much to enjoy. He found Guy, Charles, and ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... embarrassed. Her manner was as frank and unconstrained as though I had not been shunning her for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in blue velvet to the throat; the hair was brushed from the temples and bound in a simple knot. Her face and speech, fair and unconstrained, had neither shadow nor beam directed specially ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death. It offers him the means of living, but only for an "equivalent" for his work. It even lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has attained ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... of Heaven—think not, I say, though I suffer all this by the cruel will of Alexius Comnenus, that therefore I hold him to be mine enemy; on the contrary, it is by his means that the blinded and miserable prisoner has been taught to seek a liberty far more unconstrained than this poor earth can afford, and a vision far more clear than any Mount Pisgah on this wretched side of the grave can give us: Shall I therefore account the Emperor among mine enemies? He who has taught me the vanity of earthly things—the nothingness ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... floor, faced us, lifted its veil, and took a preliminary look. When we had grown sufficiently rigid in our attitude of studied ease, and got our umbrella into a position of thoughtful carelessness, and put our features with much effort into an unconstrained aspect of cheerfulness tempered with dignity, of manly firmness blended with womanly sensibility, of courtesy, as much as to imply,—"You honor me, Sir," toned or sized, as one may say, with something of the self-assertion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... By the lavish but unconstrained suffrages of the people, Pompey had obtained a military command scarcely inferior to that of Augustus. Among the extraordinary acts of power executed by the former we may remark the foundation of twenty-nine cities, and the distribution of three ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... hovered on my tongue; but my confidence always forsook me, when I tried to utter it. My best friend! Your goodness, your affection, your generosity of heart, have encouraged me in a hope which I can justify by nothing but the friendship and respect you have always shown me. My free, unconstrained access to your house afforded me the opportunity of intimate acquaintance with your amiable daughter; and the frank, kind treatment with which both you and she honoured me, tempted my heart to entertain the bold wish of becoming your son. My prospects have hitherto ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... known her for an age, and Lisa, the same Lisa whom, at any-rate, he had loved, to whom he had the evening before offered his hand, had vanished as it were into a mist. Tea was brought in; the conversation became still more unconstrained. Marya Dmitrievna rang for the page and gave orders to ask Lisa to come down if her head were better. Panshin, hearing Lisa's name, fell to discussing self-sacrifice and the question which was more capable ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... easily led into anything that allows unconstrained movement of the body. There are a thousand ways of interesting them in measuring, discovering, and estimating distances. "Yonder is a very tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries? Will the ladder in the barn do? There is a very wide brook; how can we cross ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... not quite right, though. Rough as he looked, he was born with a tender heart; but habit, example, and independent command, and long unconstrained temper, made him appear the fierce savage man I often thought him. A large quantity of our water and provisions, and stores of all sorts, were thrown overboard, as was everything that was not absolutely necessary, to lighten the boat as much as possible. Yet, do all we ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... to make a tour to Oestanvik in his new landau drawn by "my chestnut horses," four-in-hand. It was said by many that the agreeable and friendly Jacobi was much nearer to Louise's heart than the rich Landed Proprietor. But even towards Jacobi her behavior was so uniform, so quiet, and so unconstrained that nobody knew what to think. Very few knew so well as we do that Louise considered it in accordance with the dignity of a woman to show perfect indifference to the attentions or doux propos of men, until ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Anyway, I have never come across another like it in my life. As I sat at the examination I was full of admiration. . . . Wonderful children! They know a great deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehow special, unconstrained, sincere. . . . One can see that they love you, Fyodor Lukitch. You are a schoolmaster to the marrow of your bones. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts —innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . . ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... below the elbow to the shoulder, though not so as to be permanently disfigured. Lady Bloomfield has a pretty story about this accident. She has been describing the Princess as "quite charming. Her manners were so perfectly unaffected and unconstrained, and she was full of fun." The writer goes on to say, "When she, the Princess, burnt her arm, she never uttered a cry; she said 'Don't frighten mamma—send for papa first.'" She wrote afterwards to her music- mistress, dictating the letter and signing it with her left hand, to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... merrily together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and gaiety ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... Easy and unconstrained postures and motions are always beautiful: An air of health and vigour is agreeable: Clothes which warm, without burthening the body; which cover, without imprisoning the limbs, are well-fashioned. In every judgement ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... already come, as esteeming the very expectation they had of him to be his real presence, on account of the great desires they had to see him, and because the good-will they bore him was entirely free and unconstrained; for it was, desirable thing to the senate, who well remembered the calamities they had undergone in the late changes of their governors, to receive a governor who was adorned with the gravity of old age, and with the highest ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... curiosity induced him to conceal himself in the copse behind us, and from thence he had a view of your person: nay, miss he told me more, that he had played the eaves-dropper, and heard all your conversation, free and unconstrained as it was from the supposition that you were alone; he heard you express your sentiments and opinions, and finding that there was on this earth what, in his scepticism, he thought never to exist—youth, beauty, talent, principle, and family, all united in one person—he had bowed at ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... after inadvertently taking an over-large pinch of snuff. To all and sundry Chichikov responded with a bow, and felt extraordinarily at his ease as he did so. To right and left did he incline his head in the sidelong, yet unconstrained, manner that was his wont and never failed to charm the beholder. As for the ladies, they clustered around him in a shining bevy that was redolent of every species of perfume—of roses, of spring violets, and of mignonette; so much so that instinctively Chichikov ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... optional; discretional, discretionary; volitient[obs3], volitive[obs3]. minded &c. (willing) 602; prepense &c. (predetermined) 611[obs3]; intended &c. 620; autocratic; unbidden &c. (bid &c. 741); spontaneous; original &c. (casual) 153; unconstrained. Adv. voluntarily &c. adj.; at will, at pleasure; a volonte[Fr], a discretion; al piacere[It]; ad libitum, ad arbitrium[Lat]; as one thinks proper, as it seems good to; a beneplacito[It]. of one's won accord, of one's own free will; proprio motu[Lat], suo motu[Lat], ex meromotu[Lat]; out of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... failing to understand a word of this explanation, had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment of the sweets, began now to apprehend that some change was impending, and prepared for the worst by hastily swallowing what they had in their mouths, thus defying enchantment, and getting ready for speech. Polly, who had closely followed ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... received him, not as an hireling, but as one whose genius placed him beyond the possibility of dependence. An annual income was assigned to him during his residence in Florence, in the service of the court, besides a stipulated price for each of his pictures: and he was left perfectly unconstrained and at liberty to paint ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... Saturday evening, and Sunday morning rode over, a drive of five miles. It was a beautiful day; the congregation turned out well; the little church was full, and Maurice, unconscious of the presence of a committee, and preaching, not to fish for a place, but to fish for men, was free, unconstrained and, as Providence willed it, or as good fortune would have it (the reader may have his choice of expressions, according as he is Christian or heathen), was in a good mood. Deacon Goodsole was delighted. Jim Wheaton was scarcely less so, and even Mr. Hardcap was ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... night. The women themselves, in spite of the dirt, were good-looking; fine eyes, rather good though heavy features, a skin darkened by the sun and wind, gave them the look of peasants of southern Europe. In bearing they were much gayer and more unconstrained than ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... which she had so unwillingly accepted. In her drawing-rooms she brought together, at brilliant entertainments, the old aristocracy and the new nobility of Holland, and taught the stiff society of that country the fine, unconstrained tone, and the vivacious intellectual conversation of Parisian society. It was under Hortense's fostering hand that art and science first made their way into the aristocratic parlors of Holland, giving to their social reunions a higher and ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... but it was not flurried. People did not go to various parties on the same night. They remained where they were assembled, and, not being in a hurry, were more agreeable than they are at the present day. Conversation was more cultivated; manners, though unconstrained, were more stately; and the world, being limited, knew itself much better. On the other hand, the sympathies of society were more contracted than they are at present. The pressure of population had not opened the heart of man. The world attended to its poor in its country ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... in the remote places they are so happy whenever they receive a visit, that they exert all their efforts to make their guest's stay as pleasant as possible. Life in a large convent very much resembles that of the lord of the manor in eastern Europe. Nothing can be more unconstrained. One lives as independently as in an inn, and many guests act just as if they were in one. I have seen a subaltern arrive, who, without waiting until the steward assigned him a room of his own accord, took one himself, ordered his dinner, and only casually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... intelligence from putting itself exactly in that soul's place, so that our decisions and aids and suggestions are never wholly sufficient or available for those even whom we love most. He went over the question again and again; he followed Nan in his thoughts as she had grown up,—unprejudiced, unconstrained as is possible for any human being to be. He remembered that her heroes were the great doctors, and that her whole heart had been stirred and claimed by the noble duties and needs of the great profession. She had been ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 1561, in a dense fog, and almost unexpected and unwelcomed, Mary landed in Leith. She had told the English ambassador to France that she would constrain none of her subjects in religion, and hoped to be unconstrained. Her first act was to pardon some artisans, under censure for a Robin Hood frolic: her motive, says Knox, was her knowledge that they had acted "in despite ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... but essentially a protection not only for the freedom of the individual, but much more the protection of the individual against the rude impetuosity of his own naturalness. Savages and peasants for this reason are, in their relations to each other, by no means as unconstrained as one often represents them, but hold closely to a ceremonious behavior. There is in one of Immerman's stories, "The Village Justice," a very excellent picture of the conventional forms with which ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... assumed the appearance of luxuriant cultivation. Few artificial pastures could equal the natural beds of oleander that are sometimes found here stretching far away till lost behind the crags of a ravine; and which, in their unconstrained vegetation, show colours that the hothouse might envy. And particularly are the wildernesses of myrtle remarkable, which for miles grow in thick jungle, through which it is difficult to preserve the narrow track kept for passage. It is curious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... the impetuous little boy he had met outside; but nothing more which I can recall. My own share in the conversation has entirely faded from my memory: it is probable indeed that I had no share in it at all, being less at my ease in the conventional sphere of a drawing-room than in the more unconstrained atmosphere of a back alley. Yet in hours of depression, when, in spite of the most sincere desire to think favorably of mankind, I cannot fail to notice that I am not appreciated as I should be by the undiscerning world, and my soul seeks consolation and forgetfulness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... respectful, but easy and unconstrained; polite, without being servile; and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed to take in what related to her, in a manner that convinced us she ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... and counts, generals and diplomatists, beautiful women and blooming maidens, all moved in a confused intermixture, jesting and laughing with each other. They were all very gay on this evening, as the regent had herself set the example. With the most unconstrained cheerfulness, radiant with joy, did she wander through the rooms, dispensing smiles and agreeable words among all whom she approached. She bore in her bosom the glowing and cherished letter of her lover, and at its lightest rustling she seemed to feel the immediate ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... which perhaps in the study seemed too familiar, and to employ modes of address, which are allowable in personal communion with a friend, but which one hesitates to commit to writing, lest he should infringe the dignity of deliberate composition. This forgetfulness of self, this unconstrained following the impulse of the affections, while he is hurried on by the presence and attention of those whom he hopes to benefit, creates a sympathy between him and his hearers, a direct passage from heart to heart, a mutual understanding of each other, ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... the history of the Gundasov family and the rank of my uncle, felt far more at ease and unconstrained than I. There was a clamour going on in the garden such as one only bears at fairs. Masses of starlings flitting through the air and hopping about the walks were noisily chattering as they hunted for cockchafers. There were ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... benevolence of our countrymen, and which constitutes the only independently sovereign state on the west coast of Africa, this Government has suggested to the French Government its earnest concern lest territorial impairment in Liberia should take place without her unconstrained consent. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... steadily; his deeply-veined hand grasped the arm of his wooden chair, a slight flush rose to his forehead. It was in a perfectly calm and unconstrained voice, however, that he ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... impatience yesterday evening; so that I snatched up my hat, and prepared for a sally beyond the cultivated farm and ornamented grounds of Mount Sharon, just as if I were desirous to escape from the realms of art, into those of free and unconstrained nature. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a French Creole family have observed the gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and toward each other—never an improper word; never an improper action; never riotous; never disobedient. They approach you with confidence, yet with modesty, and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... collected, showing the gradual change from the first deviations of the early Gothic capital from its classical model, while it still retained the square abacus and the scroll under the angle and the symmetrical disposition of the leaves, down to the free and unconstrained treatment of the later Gothic capital. Yet with these decided relations in derivation, what a difference in the two manners of building! The Greek building is comparatively small in scale, symmetrical and balanced ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... wayward feeling of his playing was chiselled by that technique, as if a flame were being frozen in its swaying. When he stopped, she did not join in the tornado of applause, but sat motionless, looking up at him. Quite unconstrained by all those people, he passed the back of his hand across his hot brow, shoving up a wave or two of that queer-coloured hair; then, with a rather disagreeable smile, he made a short supple bow or two. And she thought, "What strange ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
