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Solicitous   /səlˈɪsətəs/   Listen
Solicitous

adjective
1.
Full of anxiety and concern.  "Solicitous about the future"
2.
Showing hovering attentiveness.  "Made solicitous inquiries about our family"



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"Solicitous" Quotes from Famous Books



... pat the red metal lovingly, or pound it with the violence of a fiend. Indeed, so quick and sympathetic were all the movements of that steam-hammer that it seemed as though it were gifted with intelligence, and were nervously solicitous to act in prompt obedience to its master's will. There were eleven steam-hammers of various sizes in this building, with a staff of 175 men to attend to them, half of which staff worked during the day, and half during the night—besides seven smaller steam-hammers in the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... were no habits of business, of steady purpose, and regular application, superinduced upon the mind; everything was left to chance and impulse, and native luxuriance, and everything of course ran to waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me if I am tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon you, being an error extremely prevalent in our country and one into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am happy, however, to observe the zeal which still appears to actuate you for the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every good from the elevated bent of your ambition. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... the man's "plaything"; or, at most, the means for continuing the family lineage; in the one, the man is the "husband"; in the other, he is the "danna san" or "teishu" (the lord or master); in the ideal home of the one, the wife is the object of the husband's constant affection and solicitous care; in the ideal home of the other, she ever waits upon her lord, serves his food for him, and faithfully sits up for him at night, however late his return may be; in the one, the wife is justified in resenting any unfaithfulness or immorality on the part of her ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... curious graceful dignity upon the serene calm of her ordinary demeanour. Towards her followers of the humbler sort she ever showed herself full of consideration and kindliness. She felt for their fatigues or privations in marching, was tenderly solicitous later on for the wounded. Above all, she was insistent that the dying should receive the consolations of religion, and it was a terrible thought to her that either friend or foe ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... difficult for us to find out the qualities in their writings which gave them popularity. A complete library of one of the learned in the Ramesside period must have contained a strange mixture of works, embracing, in addition to books of devotion, which were indispensable to those who were solicitous about their souls,* collections of hymns, romances, war and love songs, moral and philosophical treatises, letters, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... solicitous The delicate love lines of her mouth, till, lit With quivering fire, the words take wing from it; As here between our kisses we sit thus Speaking of things remembered, and so sit Speechless while things forgotten ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... countrymen! these are the tenets of the modern nullification school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free discussion—that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth? Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us—of that Union proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—of that Union never to be divided by any act whatever—and who dreads that the discussion of the merits of ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as much surprised as chagrined to find that he had apparently forgotten the appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Polly in the passage, Tom shambled from the sitting-room in his loose slippers and his blue check shirt, with his eternal clay ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... scanning the dinner card when the people at his table came in. The man of the trio was obviously an invalid of the nervous variety, and the most decided type. The small, dark woman who took the corner seat at his left was undoubtedly, from the solicitous way in which she adjusted a small shawl about his shoulders—to his querulous uneasiness—his wife. There was a good deal of white in the dark hair, brushed smoothly ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... incredulity of Thomas, and the defection of Peter, are not concealed, but faithfully recorded. The apostles, especially, seem everywhere to forget that they are writing of themselves, and appear not at all solicitous about their own reputation, but only that they might represent facts just as they were, whatever might be the consequences. Hence they readily confess, not only the meanness of their original employments, and the scandals of their former life, but their prejudices, follies, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... and flown a little farther; and thus, if you were tempted to follow him, you would soon find yourself some distance from the scene of the nest, and both old and young well out of your reach. The female bird was not less solicitous, and practiced the same arts upon us to decoy us away, but her dull plumage rendered her less noticeable. The male was clad in holiday attire, but his mate in an ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... on board on the L— as a midshipman, and have since, on several occasions, acted as pilot and interpreter. You see in me, Captain Fleetwood, one who is solicitous to be of use to you; and, as you appear to be anxious to meet this Signor Zappa, I will now show you where you are most likely to fall ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... compliment which it contained, but, from delicacy, avoided shewing him the paper itself. When Sir Joshua observed to Johnson that he seemed very desirous to see Pope's note, he answered, 'Who would not be proud to have such a man as Pope so solicitous in inquiring about him?' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... any baseness was bitterly scathing; the point of her sarcasm was keen as any thrusting blade of tempered steel; her will was to be obeyed, and was obeyed as sovereign law, else woe betide the disobedient. Also, though kind and gracious to all, tenderly solicitous for, and incessantly watchful of, the welfare of the least of her charges, she never feigned where she could not feel regard or love. Her rare kiss was coveted in the little world of the Convent school as the jewel of an Imperial Order was coveted in the bigger world outside ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... ces dames." Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another, like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... will be my real heir in Europe. I alone was able to stop him with his deluge of Tartars. The crisis is great, and will have lasting effects upon the continent of Europe, especially upon Constantinople. He was solicitous with me for the possession of it. I have had much coaxing upon this subject, but I constantly turned a deaf ear to it. The Turkish empire, shattered as it appeared, would constantly have remained a point of separation between ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... therefore returned to the rest, and for that day made no other repast than what the wild sellery afforded us. The ensuing night proved exceedingly tempestuous; and, the sea running very high, threatened those on board with immediate destruction by the parting of the wreck. They then were as solicitous to get ashore as they were before obstinate in refusing the assistance we sent them; and when they found the boat did not come to their relief at the instant they expected it, without considering how impracticable a thing it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... I confess myself solicitous for their safety and kind treatment. We have two which were lam'd by being blown down in a storm (a calamity which destroys great numbers almost every spring). One of them is perfectly domesticated. The other is yet more remarkable; since although ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... she had expected an immediate apology, and she inferred from its omission an unpardonable complicity. Any compliance with the public toleration of that person would have been inexcusable, and he had been more than compliant, more than tolerant; he had been solicitous, attentive, deferent. And deference to such a woman was insolence to his wife. Anne was struck dumb by the shameless levity of the proceedings. The two had behaved as if nothing had happened, or rather (she bitterly corrected herself) as if everything had happened, and might happen any day ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... to whom he talked without reserve, was the witness of the startling conflict through which he was passing in his last hours. While sitting near his bedside on one occasion, she was suddenly recalled from a revery by the sound of the sighs and sobs of the royal patient. To her solicitous questions as to the cause of his distress, she received the most piteous exclamations, interrupted by weeping: "Ah, my nurse, my friend, how much blood! how many murders! Ah, what wicked counsels ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... perhaps she never thought much about it; for I have always observed that very beautiful women, who prefer revolving in the quiet circle of domestic happiness and usefulness, are seldom or never very anxiously solicitous about their beauty; and the consequence is, that they are more beautiful, and stand the attacks of time far better, than those who choose a life of fashionable display, and court public admiration. Ladies may lace tight, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... was very grateful and very solicitous about her wounded shoulder; but he opened his box before he thought about bandages. Everything was intact, except the conservatory window and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended—but his box! ah, that, if lost, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... person with him was not even of the race, but had been substituted in the cradle for a white child stolen by an Indian woman with some great wrong to avenge. He would call her his Chippewa Changeling, and at lunch would be most solicitous as to whether or not the Wild Rose would have a little more of the chicken salad. Would the Flying Pawn try the celery? Some of the jelly, he felt confident, would please the palate of the Brown Dove. Might the white hunter help her to a little more of this or that? Only once she rebelled. ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... one of the young ladies had been called away unexpectedly and arrangements had to be made for her departure. But the mother and daughter had had almost an hour together, and Mrs. Lidcote was happy. She had never seen Leila so tender, so solicitous. The only thing that troubled her was the very excess of this solicitude, the exaggerated expression of her daughter's annoyance that their first moments together should have been marred ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... boy of quality, then, I say, I would also have his friends solicitous to find him out a tutor who has rather a well-made than a well-filled head, seeking, indeed, both the one and the other, but rather of the two to prefer manners and judgment to mere learning, and that this man should exercise his charge after ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... kept up an incessant firing of cannon and musketry from their whole line. His Excellency General Washington, Generals Lincoln and Knox with their aids, having dismounted, were standing in an exposed situation waiting the result. Colonel Cobb, one of General Washington's aids, solicitous for his safety, said to his Excellency, 'Sir, you are too much exposed here, had you not better step back a little?' 'Colonel Cobb,' replied his Excellency, 'if you are afraid, you have liberty to step back.'" It is no cause for wonder that an officer ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... his adherents had to quit Mecca, and seek refuge in Abyssinia over the sea. The Koreish grew ever angrier; laid plots, and swore oaths among them, to put Mahomet to death with their own hands. Abu Thaleb was dead, the good Kadijah was dead. Mahomet is not solicitous of sympathy from us; but his outlook at this time was one of the dismalest. He had to hide in caverns, escape in disguise; fly hither and thither; homeless, in continual peril of his life. More than once it seemed ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... duty and requirement, under the circumstances existing at the time, than it was a much-needed measure for the restoration of local self-government and the promotion of national harmony. The withdrawal of the troops from such employment was effected deliberately, and with solicitous care for the peace and good order of society and the protection of the property and persons and every right ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes

... produced another skull and, laying it before Iskandar, said to him, "Knowest thou this?" "No," answered the conqueror; and the other rejoined, "This is the skull of another King, who dealt justly by his lieges and was kindly solicitous for the folk of his realm and his dominions, till Allah took his soul and lodged him in His Garden and made high his degree in Heaven." Then laying his hands on Iskandar's head he said, "Would I knew which of these two art thou." Whereupon Iskandar ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... of hopes greater than he himself acknowledged, a military hero of the first rank, and one disposed to prosecute war with a humanity far in advance of his age. He severely repressed all excesses of his soldiery, was solicitous for the security of citizens and peasantry, and strictly forbade any revengeful reprisals on Catholic cities for the frightful work done by his opponents upon the Protestants. Seldom has a conqueror shown such magnanimity and nobility ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... dejection With a smile of kind wonder and tacit affection. He, of late so indifferent and listless!... at last Was he startled and awed by the change which had pass'd O'er the once radiant face of his young wife? Whence came That long look of solicitous fondness?... the same Look and language of quiet affection—the look And the language, alas! which so often she took For pure love in the simple repose of its purity— Her own heart thus lull'd to a fatal security! Ha! would he deceive her again by this kindness? Had she been, then, O fool! ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... every judge is watched by sharp eyes in every step which he may take in the progress of a cause. He acts in view of the bar at large, and of two of their number in particular, one of whom probably will be disappointed by his decision, and solicitous to ascertain and employ every reasonable ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... of a career which promised nothing but glory and prosperity, surrounded by all the appliances of ease and pleasure, he was solicitous to teach his child to do and to endure. He would have her accustomed to sleep alone, and to go about the house in the dark. Her breakfast was of bread and milk. He was resolute in exacting the less agreeable tasks, such as arithmetic. He insisted upon regularity of hours. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... the few lives precious to mankind, and for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be an exception.... But I have got into a long disquisition on politics when I only meant to express my sympathy in the state of your health, and to tender you all the affections of public and private hospitality. I should be very happy ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... lectern, consecrate the new portion of the churchyard, open a reading-room, and say a few cordial words at a drawing-room meeting before I left at mid-day. I told him if he went on like this he would certainly come to grief and be made a bishop some day. But he only remarked that he was not solicitous of high preferment. I think you would like Rawlings if you knew him better. You and he have a certain amount in common. I must own that I am glad that it is Lucy who has to put up with him and not I. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church. Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at Magdalen Hall in the autumn ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... not receive the news of his luck with the enthusiasm that might have been expected. Many a man was tramping London in search of employment and finding none, therefore even the ladies who were so solicitous about Joe's welfare thought he should be thankful that work came unsought. He said he would do his best, which is, when you come to think of it, all that we have a right ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... alone had eaten. The two children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbour across the hall The last two ha'pennies had ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... had enjoyed more leisure, it is probable that he might have written better; for he was solicitous not to lose any distinction to be acquired by his poetry; and took care to reclaim a copy of humorous verses, entitled, an Epistle from Thomas Hearne, which had been attributed by mistake to his brother, among whose ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... some degree of Genius, affect on all occasions a florid manner[2], and clothe their sentiments in the dress of imagery. To them nothing appears so disgusting as dry and lifeless uniformity; and instead of pursuing a middle course betwixt the extremes of profusion and sterility, they are only solicitous to shun that error of which Prejudice hath shown the most distorted resemblance. It is indeed but seldom, that Nature adjusts the intellectual balance so accurately as not to throw an unequal weight into either ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... searched, and Mr. Barter was so good as to point out, among Steinberg's keys, those which were necessary for the purposes of investigation. He even went so far as to offer his assistance as guide; but this was declined with a chilliness singularly at variance with the solicitous warmth of the proposal. ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... unimportant matters like the snow, which was beginning again; indeed, her only anxiety concerned his health, and as he toiled amid the falling flakes, intent upon heaping up wood enough to last out the night, she became solicitous. ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... sly preface to return, Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone Up to the middle region of thick air, Where all his Potentates in council sate. There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy, Solicitous and blank, he thus began:— 120 "Princes, Heaven's ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones— Daemonian Spirits now, from the element Each of his reign allotted, rightlier called Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath (So may we hold our place and these mild seats Without new trouble!)—such ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... solicitous about me," she said one afternoon, from her seat by the fire. "Yet when a chance of diversion comes you begrudge it to me. You would rather ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... tempted to suggest, however, that "The Spanish Tragedy" affords a rich and ample field to modern critics who are solicitous to save the life and work of "the gentle William" from the imputation of being "superhuman": Is it not clear that "Hamlet" was only an imitation of "The Spanish Tragedy"? Did not Hamlet have a friend whose name ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... if you are at all solicitous of your health you'll climb down off that pony, not forgetting to keep your hands above your head when you reach the ground. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to be the object of our affections? We own and feel the force of amiable and worthy qualities in our fellow creatures; and can we be insensible to the contemplation of perfect goodness? Do we reverence the shadows of greatness here below, are we solicitous about honour and esteem and the opinion of the world, and shall we not feel the same with respect to Him whose are wisdom and power in the original, who is the God of judgment by whom actions are weighed? Thus love, reverence, desire ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... seeing the archbishop enter his house, advanced, knelt, and kissed his ring; and, knowing on what errand he was come, he was so solicitous of securing the archbishop's favour, that he put aside his guitar, and ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... of the De' Medici—a work which Mr. Roscoe considered "the most engaging work that has, perhaps, ever appeared on a subject of literary history." Introduced as Lady Clayton had been amongst the elite of our aristocracy, it could not be supposed that she would be at all solicitous about an introduction to the wife of an Irish nobleman, simply as such, and apart from her personal endowments. Those endowments, it is true,—namely, the beauty and the talents of Lady Carbery, made known in Manchester through Mr. White's report of them, and combined with the knowledge ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... was solicitous to ascertain, was, whether human sacrifices constituted a part of the religious customs of these people, The man of whom he had made his inquiries, and several other natives took some pains to explain the matter; but, from our people's ignorance of the language of the country, their explication ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... understand what you mean by the latter viz. that a belief in a happy future state, is not necessary to our present felicity. This is what you know! What then are you in pursuant of? You pretend to be earnestly solicitous to have your doubts respecting divine revelation removed if possible; you call on me to assist in this work as if you viewed it with deep concern.—If your doubts should be removed, if you should be altogether convinced that God ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... solicitous to remember and sustain the enormous difference in their social degrees; but at the offer of her gifts, of her patronage, of her recompense, the pride of his old life rose up to ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... the evils that threaten me, I will look up to Him for help, and question not but He will either avert them, or turn them to my advantage. Though I know neither the time nor the manner of the death I am to die, I am not at all solicitous about it; because I am sure that he knows them both, and that He will not fail to comfort and support ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... her favor she was unassuming and bowed her head so low that the darts of jealousy, so universally hurled at the brilliant and popular, never came her way. No one in Norfolk was considered worthy of her heart and hand and the community was tenderly solicitous as ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... no perfect time-keeper has ever been made. From an early period, the governments of commercial nations were solicitous to find a way of determining the longitude that would be sufficiently correct. Thus, the King of Spain, in 1598, offered a reward of a thousand crowns to any one who should discover an approximately correct method. Soon after, the government of Holland offered ten ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... and to avoid any show of presumption or forwardness on my part, as I had been advised by an officer, I did as he requested, taking my place on the right of the rear rank at every formation of the company for another whole year. But with all this condescension on my part I was still the object of solicitous care. My falling in there did not preclude the possibility of my own classmates, now also risen to the dignity of third-classmen, falling in next to me. To perfect his plan, then, the first sergeant had the senior plebe in the company call ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... Canterbury, was not a little solicitous about Chillingworth's reply to Knott, and at his request, as "the young man had given cause why a more watchful eye should be held over him and his writings," it was examined by the vice-chancellor of Oxford and two ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... 4,000l. in jewels on his bosom, and when he was finally captured on August 10, 1618, his pockets were found full of the diamonds and jacinths which he had hastily removed from various parts of his person. His letters display his solicitous love of jewels, velvets, and embroidered damasks. Mr. Jeaffreson has lately found among the Middlesex MSS. that as early as April 26, 1584, a gentleman named Hugh Pew stole at Westminster and carried off Walter Raleigh's pearl hat-band and another jewelled article of attire, valued ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... commendable to parents because entertaining to their offspring. Such an idea put into words upon paper and advertised in so well-read a sheet as the "Boston Evening Post," must surely have impressed fathers and mothers really solicitous for the family welfare and anxious to provide harmless pleasure. This pictorial element was further encouraged by Franklin, when, in 1747, he reprinted, probably for the first time in this country, "Dilworth's New ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks after her lord's return: during which it seemed as if, by caresses and entreaties, she strove to win him back from some ill ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... little popularity I possessed in Pennsylvania, ever induced me to make a sacrifice of my honour, by adopting opinions or measures which I disapproved, or thought injurious to my country. Esteeming it the highest honour to deserve the approbation of my fellow-citizens, I have ever been solicitous to obtain it. You and some others have industriously propagated reports for the purpose of injuring my reputation; but conscious that my political opinions and conduct will stand the test, upon the nicest scrutiny, and having never experienced any diminution of that ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... discernment, and he had already observed that Helen had different sides of character for different persons. To Betty, Mabel, Nell, and the children, she was frank, girlish, full of fun and always lovable; to her elders quiet and earnestly solicitous to please; to the young men cold; but with a penetrating, mocking promise haunting that coldness, and sometimes sweetly agreeable, often wilful, and changeable as April winds. At last the colonel concluded that she needed, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... Newman faces this question with his customary ability. "Now, I own, I am not at all solicitous to deny that this doctrine of an apostate Angel and his hosts was gained from Babylon: it might still be Divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet's ass speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might instruct His Church by means of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... 'Who art thou?' Quoth she, 'I am a handmaid of God.' 'What dost thou in this desolate place?' asked he, and she said, 'I serve God the Most High.' When he saw her beauty and grace, he said to her, 'Harkye! Do thou take me to husband and I will be tenderly solicitous over thee and use thee with exceeding compassion and I will further thee in obedience to God the Most High.' But she answered, saying, 'I have no need of marriage and I desire to abide here [alone] with my Lord and His service; but, if thou wouldst deal compassionately with me ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... instantly to the castle of Landshort and explain the fatal cause of his not keeping his appointment with his bride. Though not the most ardent of lovers, he was one of the most punctilious of men, and appeared earnestly solicitous that his mission should be speedily and courteously executed. "Unless this is done," said he, "I shall not sleep quietly in my grave." He repeated these last words with peculiar solemnity. A request at a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... the seasons of the year when he will have plenty or deficiency of food, the locality of his farm, the market to which he has access and the produce which can be disposed of with greatest profit, and these things will at once point to him the breed he should be solicitous to obtain. The man of wealth and patriotism may have more extensive views, and nobly look to the general improvement of cattle; but the farmer, with his limited means and with the claims that press upon him, regards his cattle as a valuable portion of his own little property, and on which ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... those years of self-denial. Only necessities could be gotten, but soon all this changed. Neighbors began to settle near. All were willing to share, ever solicitous for the other, all were on a level, simplicity and cordiality prevailed. There were hardships, hard labor and trials of many kinds, but these developed strength of character. All were in the prime of life, of strong manhood and joyous womanhood. "How beautiful is youth, how fair it ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... blossom, infant fair, Pondling of a happy pair, Every morn and every night Their solicitous delight; Sleeping, waking, still at ease, Pleasing, without skill to please; Little gossip, blithe and hale, Tattling many a broken tale, Singing many a tuneless song, Lavish of a heedless tongue. Simple ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... of an officer of field rank in His Majesty's Army it was certainly a peculiar collection, few or none of these articles being included in the Field Service regulations. Still, not more peculiar than some of the things with which solicitous friends and relatives encumber officers at ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... favourite romance. It was published in May, 1816, the third of the Waverley Novels, and in it the author intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland during the last ten years of the eighteenth century. "I have been more solicitous," he writes, "to describe manners minutely, than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good novel." Scott took considerable pains to point ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting people to patronize his house. He therefore did not hurry to the door, and, the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the Notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... probable that our regard for the sentiments of our fellow-creatures springs, by association, from a sense of their ability to hurt or to serve us. But, be this as it may, it is notorious that, when the habit of mind of which we speak has once been formed, men feel extremely solicitous about the opinions of those by whom it is most improbable, nay, absolutely impossible, that they should ever be in the slightest degree injured or benefited. The desire of posthumous fame and the dread of posthumous reproach and execration ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... at the forbidding spectacle, and was about to turn back when the sleeper moved restlessly and rolled his hand among the burrs. She noted the sun on his face, and the buzzing flies; her face grew solicitous, and for a moment she debated with herself. Then she tiptoed to his side, interposed the parasol between him and the sun, and brushed away the flies. After a time, for greater ease, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... crossing the fence into the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for a cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, the calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... the two avoided each other. Yan ate but little, and to Mrs. Raften's kindly solicitous questions he said he ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Tawast was particularly solicitous that the communication which he made to me should be considered in the strictest confidence, and expressed his hopes that the whole of the conference would be kept a profound secret, which I assured him I should take particular ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... children. She was a religious hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, full of doubts and scruples, and giving no rest on earth either to herself or to those whom she honoured with her confidence. From the first time she heard Knox preach she formed a high opinion of him, and was solicitous ever after of his society.[87] Nor was Knox unresponsive. "I have always delighted in your company," he writes, "and when labours would permit, you know I have not spared hours to talk and commune with you." Often when they had met in depression he reminds her, "God hath sent great ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... most solicitous for our every comfort. He hurried in and out, and by the time we were thoroughly warmed told us supper was ready and asked us to his living room below, where Mrs. Schmidt had spread the table for ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... suggest for her torment has been expended, and the ruffians who have been sent to murder her approach to do their office, her attitude is that of quiet dignity, forgetful of her own sufferings, solicitous for others. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... brightly solicitous about the rest of the quart of Bourbon, and bouncingly ready to "go out and have a time," Milt loafed about the streets with him, showing him the city. He dully cut his classes, next morning, and took Bill ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... entirely in their power, he was forced to comply. He had been about three months in London when I met him in the coffee-room, and the two elderly gentlemen in his company were his guardians. At this time they were very solicitous that he should choose for himself a profession, offering to his choice either the army or law—he was calculated to shine in either of these professions—for, like many others of his countrymen, he was brave and eloquent; but he did not wish to shackle himself with a profession. As, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Clarendon considered this as a monstrous innovation. He told the King, as he himself says, "that he could not be too indulgent in the defence of the privileges of Parliament, and that he hoped he would never violate any of them; but he desired him to be equally solicitous to prevent the excesses in Parliament, and not to suffer them to extend their jurisdiction to cases they have nothing to do with; and that to restrain them within their proper bounds and limits is as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... with the lantern and the stars, there was light enough for William King to see the stray curl that blew across her forehead— brown, was it? And yet, William remembered that in daylight her hair was too bright to be called brown. He was solicitous lest he was making her walk too fast. "I don't want your brother to think we don't take care of you in Old Chester," he said; and in the starlight he could see that her face flushed a little. Then he repeated some Old Chester gossip, which amused her very much—and held his breath to listen to the ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... sisters, the wife of the Major was, oddly enough, the one who was least inveterately solicitous of concealing the fact of her parentage. Reticence, of course, she had to study with the rest; the Major was a walking book of reticence and the observances; he professed, also, in company with herself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... more. If you are obliged to make any little economies, do not be ashamed to acknowledge them as economies, if it becomes necessary to speak of them at all. If you keep no carriage, do not be over-solicitous to impress upon your friends that the sole reason for this deficiency is because you prefer to walk. Do not be ashamed of poverty; but, on the other hand, do not flaunt its rags unmercifully in the faces of others. It is better to say nothing ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... choice of the enterprise he would no more be good. And the lawful gains of wealth but rarely fall to the lot of the good, because, since much anxiety or anxious care is required therein, and the solicitude of the good is directed to greater things, the good man is rarely solicitous enough to seek them. Wherefore it is evident that in each way these riches fall unjustly or inequitably; and therefore our Lord called them wicked or unrighteous when He said, "Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness," inviting and encouraging ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... "What was the boy up to," thought Watson, "and what's to become of him?" He was already devotedly attached to George, so that he felt sick at heart when he pictured him alone and unprotected at a little wayside village in the heart of an enemy's country. Nor were the other two men less solicitous. Had George suddenly put on wings, and flown up through the roof of the car, they could not have been more horrified than they were at this moment. Meanwhile the train went rumbling on, as it got farther and farther away from the little station. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... stand as sentinels around the tower of David, it is because we are more earnest in protecting Jerusalem from invasion. If we forbid profane hands to touch the ark of the covenant, it is because we are anxious to guard from profanation the Lord of the ark. If we are so solicitous about Mary's honor, it is because "the love of Christ" presseth us. If we will not permit a single wreath to be snatched from her fair brow, it is because we are unwilling that a single feature of Christ's sacred humanity should be obscured, and because ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... understood in London; consequently there were many attempts to do him honour in which he was unable to participate. Custom demands that a retiring Ambassador shall go to Windsor Castle to dine and to sleep; but King George, who was very solicitous about Page's health, offered to spare the Ambassador this trip and to come himself to London for this leave-taking. However, Page insisted on carrying out the usual programme; but the visit greatly tired him and he found it impossible personally ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... factory workmen; and I can see that the place is full of cabarets and debits, flowing not only with light beer and sour wine, but with spirits of a sort to make the consumers more clamorous about the rights than solicitous about the duties ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... more particularly anxious for this answer, from the heartfelt concern with which I wait for the notification of His Majesty's sense of those assurances of attachment and dutiful respect, which makes me solicitous that no part of my conduct may be liable to misconstruction: to his wisdom I submit those considerations, which touch so nearly the interests of this kingdom, and to his justice, with all humility, those ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... as best she could and stayed there twenty-four hours. She was sure her seasickness was the worst that had ever been known, but we all feel that. On the second day she was persuaded to go on deck by her solicitous mother,—who, by the way, was not uncomfortable one minute,—and as she dropped limply into her steamer chair, carefully arranged for her by the Kinsellas, she for the first time had a desire to live. The ocean was a wonderful color, all pearly gray with little ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the uncleanness of the place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the gaiety of her garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may have observed, women are apt to be inordinately solicitous. I lost the favour of the lady of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by touching with the sole of my boot the train of her black velvet gown, which I mistook for a foot-cloth, it being half the room ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... came he or the Russian were always present, solicitous and attentive. She got out of her bed one day, and dragging her splinted leg got to her desk, in the hope of writing a note and finding some opportunity of giving it to the doctor. Only to discover that they had taken away her pen, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him the strongest assurances that he did him ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... whom Cicely kept a solicitous eye, showed no sign of any intention of falling in love with Gorla. He was more profitably engaged in paying court to the Grafin von Tolb, whose hospitable mansion in Belgrave Square invested her with a special interest in his eyes. As a professional Prince Charming he had every inducement ...
— When William Came • Saki

... when they came to the bank under the willows where a pipe sent forth a clear, cold stream of water from a shady recess in the hillside. Here, at Lee's solicitous suggestion, she rested after her long walk—it was nearly a half-mile to the ranch-house—disposing her skirts fluffily about her, taking her seat upon a convenient log from which, with his hat, Lee had ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... Solicitous to maintain and enhance that reputation for gallantry towards his fair readers which it has ever been his pride to have merited, has much pleasure, not unmixed with self-congratulation, in thus announcing to the loveliest portion of the creation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... inhabitants. In more ancient times Gand produced another character of political importance, d'Arteville, a brewer, whose influence in this city (then one of the first in Europe) made King Edward the Third of England solicitous for his friendship; and history informs us, that one of his sons, at the head of 60,000 Gantois, carried on a war against ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... to understand, however, (for sometimes so the author hints,) that something stable in the Constitution of Regicide was required for our amity with it; but the noble Remarker is no more solicitous about this point than he is for the permanence of the whole body of his October speculations. "If," says he, speaking of the Regicide, "they can obtain a practicable constitution, even for a limited period ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... whereupon a veteran member of the orchestra, the old violoncellist Dotzauer, turned towards me and said seriously: "Yes, this is the way Weber himself took it; I now hear it again correctly for the first time." Weber's widow, who still resided at Dresden, became touchingly solicitous for my welfare in the position of Capellmeister. She trusted that my sympathy with her deceased husband's music would bring about correct performances of his works, for which she had no longer dared ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... understood the situation, and his friends pointed with confidence to his well known character for firmness and nerve. Of Clinton, it may be justly said, that he seems most attractive, not as a politician, not as a mayor solicitous for the good government of a growing city, not as a successful promoter of the canal, but as a rugged, inflexible, determined, self-willed personality. Perhaps not many loved him, or longed for his companionship, or had ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Further, no one asks save for that which he is solicitous about. Now we ought not to have solicitude for temporal things, according to the saying of Matt. 6:25, "Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat." Therefore we ought not to ask for temporal things ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... told her that the matter of this election had been taken up at the Progress, and that possibly he might have to meet two or three persons there on this evening. There had been a proposition that the club should bear a part of the expenditure, and he was very solicitous that such ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... course. I see how it is." The dimples were gone, and the brightness of Josette's eyes was overcast. She looked at Nevill wistfully, and a flash of sympathetic understanding enlightened Stephen. No doubt she was generously solicitous for the fate of Victoria Ray, but there was something different from solicitude in ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... duties of life. The propensity towards ease is psychologically a very important factor. The home is in general the place of protection; the characteristic embodiment of this is preeminently the mother. We speak of maternal solicitude but less of paternal solicitude. I have noted the solicitous mother type in the story of the three feathers, where the mother toad bestows the gifts from the big box. In so far as the solicitous person refuses the requests made of her and for reasons of necessity thrusts the child out into the world, or in so far as any other ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... America; a scholarly gentleman, the friend of kings and presidents. He had been of the greatest possible assistance to the secretaries of state of both parties in solving international problems. The respect of the entire world was his and he was far more solicitous about his good name than about his financial [Transcriber's note: A line of the book appears to be missing here, but the sentence probably ends with "affairs", "business", or ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... have had my clothes re-made and new ones constructed I am an object of continual comment among my friends. They all marvel at my changed appearance. They are all solicitous about my health. They do not see how a man can take off more than fifty pounds and not hurt himself. I do not see how he can keep it on and not kill himself. They tell me I look like a boy—and I feel like one. I'm as active as I was twenty years ago. When I was in the mountains this ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe

... with something like the generous compunction of a prince protested that he would rather lose the crown than gain it so—a protest which James must have thought a piece of affectation, for he replied with a jeer that his companion was too solicitous for the welfare of a country which would neither acknowledge him as prince nor receive him as citizen. Perkin must have begun to tire the patience of the finest gentleman in Christendom before James would have made ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... Majesty will see to the payment of these bills, at all events;" adding, with amusing simplicity, "this will be a means of recovering your Majesty's credit, and as for my own; I don't care to lose it, small though it be." Don John was even more solicitous. "For the love of God, Sire," he wrote, "do not be delinquent now. You must reflect upon the necessity of recovering your credit. If this receives now the final blow, all will desert your Majesty, and the soldiers too ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... will believe, that fully impressed with the great importance of the question, as to the interior formation of this great country, I was anxiously solicitous to remove all ground for farther conjecture, by the most careful observations on the nature of the country; which though it was to me a proof that the interior was covered with water, yet I felt it my duty to leave no measure untried which would in ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... should be so desirous of doing something, when I as earnestly wished to wait. At last he said, "Doctor, it is not the child I want to dose; it is the mother's mind." Perhaps the anecdote may not be lost on some too solicitous woman, who naturally desires that the doctor should be doing something just when he is most anxious to be ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... friends were seated on the benches, one on each side the long table, and their guest at the end, between them, on a three—legged stool. What a dinner! how charming the remembrance! While we can enjoy, at so small an expense, such pure, such true delights, why should we be solicitous for others? Never did those 'petite soupes', so celebrated in Paris, equal this; I do not only say for real pleasure and gayety, but even ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Mightiness nobly enshrined as a god among a worshipping crowd of witless maidens,—he hath inquired for you many times, which is somewhat of a wonder, seeing that as a rule he concerns his mind with naught save himself! Furthermore, he is graciously pleased to be in a manner solicitous on behalf of the maiden Niphrata, who hath suddenly disappeared from the household, leaving no message to explain the cause of her evanishment. Hath seen her? ... No?"—and the old man thumped his stick petulantly on the floor as Theos shook his head in the negative—"'Tis ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... also, while it attends to logic, and rhetoric, and perspective, and atmosphere, and every other circumstance which is trivial, verbal, external, or accidental, in what it either says or sees, it will not attend to what is essential and substantial,—being intensely solicitous, for instance, if it draws two trees, one behind the other, that the farthest off shall be as much smaller as mathematics show that it should be, but totally unsolicitous to show, what to the spectator is a far more important matter, whether it is ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... the very point about which we are so solicitous. Sorrow shared with affectionate friends is relieved of half ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... her, to inquire into their plans, perhaps to back aunt Leonora's invitation, which he was aware had been gratefully declined. With these ideas in his mind he went down-stairs, after brushing his hat very carefully and casting one solicitous glance in the mirror as he passed—which presented to him a very creditable reflection, an eidolon in perfect clerical apparel, without any rusty suggestions of a Perpetual Curacy. Yet a Perpetual Curacy it was which was his sole benefice or hope in his present ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... fabric, they would not suffer a reformer, with unhallowed hands, to repair the injuries which it has suffered from time. Others, who, perceiving the deficiencies that have arisen from circumstances, are solicitous for their amendment, yet resist the attempt; under the argument that, when once we have presumed to touch the constitution in one point, the awe which had heretofore kept us back from the daring enterprise of innovation might abate, and there was no foreseeing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Galt House. He immediately obeyed the summons, as he was well acquainted with the General. The reverend gentleman informs us that the dying man spoke no word concerning the difficulty, and made no allusion to his temporal affairs, but was exceedingly solicitous as to the salvation of his soul, and desired Mr. Talbott to perform the rite of baptism, and receive him into the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... Refusing her solicitous offers of a warm meal, and merely begging her to buy him a loaf, he began to read his arrears of letters, picking them up one after another with no eagerness but with calm interest. His correspondence was varied. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... rather, adverting here to the conclusion of her studies, confine myself to the use which a young lady should make of the education she has received at school. The advantages, now enjoyed by the youth of our land for mental culture, are rare. Parents are solicitous that their children should spend much time at the seats of learning. The daughters are receiving a far higher intellectual training than their mothers enjoyed. But is this all a sure good? Have the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... settle down and live in Nuremberg, a city of such one-sided commercial interests?" continued Herr von Erfft, with an almost solicitous caution. "Would you not have a much better opportunity as a composer in one of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... when she defended herself unconsciously. She did something that made her husband most solicitous for her welfare and happiness. He began to watch her health with maternal care, to shield her from draughts, to take care of her diet, to indulge her in all her whims instead of snubbing her, and to pet her, till she was the happiest wife in England for a time. She deserved this at his ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... the flabby idealists and doctrinaires. If I melt lead and iron and copper and silver and gold in the same pot, I get a bastard metal, do I not? It is not, as a fused product, worth a tinker's hoot. Why, even Zangwill is not an advocate of the melting-pot. He is a Jew, proud of it, and extremely solicitous for the welfare of the Jewish race. He is a Zionist—a leader of the movement to crowd the Arabs out of Palestine and repopulate that country with Jews. He feels that the Jews have an ancient and indisputable right to Palestine, although, parenthetically speaking, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... the unerring prophet justified; This nymph the god Cephisus had abused, With all his winding waters circumfused, And on the Nereid got a lovely boy, Whom the soft maids even then beheld with joy. The tender dame, solicitous to know Whether her child should reach old age or no, 10 Consults the sage Tiresias, who replies, 'If e'er he knows himself, he surely dies.' Long lived the dubious mother in suspense, Till time unriddled all the prophet's sense. Narcissus ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... ever been solicitous, to reconcile Pardon of Sin to the Purity of God's Nature, which has expos'd them (as we have seen) to divers Delusions, and to wearisome and costly Superstitions; even sometimes to the giving the Fruit ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... She could not if she would, for all about her were reminders of him. The conductor took charge of her ticket, telling her in his gruff, kind way what time they would arrive in the city. The porter was solicitous about her comfort, the newsboy brought the latest magazines and a box of chocolates and laid them at her shrine with a smile of admiration and the words, "Th' g'n'lmun sent 'em!" The suit-case lay on the seat opposite, the reflection ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... of sermons at her left. On either side of her stood a faithful attendant, one being a confidential maid, the other a Miss Drake—an old, mittened companion, hardly younger in appearance than herself—both of whom watched her with eyes of solicitous reverence, and seemed always ready to collapse into quasi-religious curtsies. Here she would receive such visitors as happened to be staying in the house, and subsequently reverential villagers, who appealed to her for aid ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... just this characteristic, which is really atypical. One would be much more inclined to suspect in it a secret, hidden meaning. Then at once a connection forces itself. We know from the infantile history of so many people that a tenderly solicitous parent, the father or the mother, likes to convince himself or herself, with a candle in the hand, that the child is asleep.[37] Then we would have on one side a motive for sleep walking in general, that one is playing the part of the loving ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... induced him to go to Vauxhall in search of her. They gained admittance without any disturbance, as the servant of young Delvile had been ordered to sit up for his master. Cecilia much disliked thus taking possession of the house in the night-time, though Delvile, solicitous to relieve her, desired she would not waste a thought upon the subject, and making his servant shew her the room which had been prepared for her reception, he begged her to compose her spirits, and to comfort her friend, and promised to acquaint his father and mother when they ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... there to greet him, only the Aunt Caroline, and he felt a sense of injury creeping over him. She might have been in time. Nancy Ruggles, the Bishop's second daughter, had given him tea and ministered to his wants in a spirit of solicitous devotion every day since the Ebleys had left Exminster, but Nancy's hair was not full of sunlight, nor did her complexion suggest cream and roses. Things which, to be sure, the Rev. Eustace Medlicott ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... for months, feels called on by the sun to sing, not so near to heaven's gate, and a shorter than vernal lyric, or during that sweetest season when neither he nor you can say whether it is summer or but spring. Unmated yet, nor of mate solicitous, in pure joy of heart he cannot refrain from ascent and song; but the snow-clouds look cold, and ere he has mounted as high again as the church-spire, the aimless impulse dies, and he comes wavering down silently to the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... of New Zealand "bring the prepuce over the gland, and to prevent it from being drawn back by contraction of the part, they tie the string which hangs from the girdle round the end of it. The glans, indeed, seemed to be the only part of their body which they were solicitous to conceal, for they frequently threw off all their dress but the belt and string, with the most careless indifference, but showed manifest signs of confusion when, to gratify our curiosity, they ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the wedding, the Queen and her daughter were photographed together, but the Queen 'trembled so, that her likeness came out indistinct.' The correspondence between the mother and her daughter began and continued, close and confidential, full of trusting affection and solicitous wisdom. ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... I am to see the face of an honest man. I am so tired of those devils of spies who come here ten times a day to ransack my pockets and my cell to satisfy themselves that I am not preparing to escape. The government is very solicitous on my account." ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... Miss Watts, effusive and solicitous, arrived, and Susan could see that Emily was repenting of her bargain long before she, Susan, had dressed for dinner. But she ran downstairs with a singing heart, nevertheless. Ella was to bring two ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... might be thoroughly comfortable. Thus he went to Gossensass, not for his own profit and pleasure, but because the doctor they consulted in Venice advised this secluded mountain resort. And when the time of the birth came, he had been properly solicitous to see that she was provided with the best attendance and care, and Milly knew vaguely that he had spent lavishly of their hoard for this purpose. Milly was sure he loved her, and what was also very important ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... the intermediary who, according to Oriental custom, arranged the preliminaries of the marriage, and brought the bride to the bridegroom, and, as the friend of the latter, standing by rejoices greatly to hear the bridegroom's voice, and is solicitous mainly that in the tremulous heart of the betrothed there should be no admixture of other loves, but a whole-hearted devotion, an exclusive affection, and an absolute obedience. 'I have espoused you,' says he, 'to one husband that I may present you as a chaste ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... able disposition of some of the old republican legislators, which follows with a solicitous accuracy the moral conditions and propensities of men, they have levelled and crushed together all the orders which they found, even under the coarse, unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which mode of government the classing of the citizens is not of so much importance as in a republic. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... direction. Now I perceive it is not so. A considerable number of highway passengers, though even they are less numerous than of old, are still studious—that is in their aspirations—to avoid taking (shall I say delicately) the lower road; but only a few, comparatively, are solicitous to reach the goal ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... in time her strong mind recovered in a good degree its equilibrium. But she was now a subdued and thoughtful woman. Four years passed away, during which her former admirers gradually gathered around her again, solicitous, as before, to win her favor. To one of them she gave her hand,—her heart was yet another's. Years of an unhappy married life went over her, brightening no cloud above her head, admitting no sunshine into her heart. All her ambitious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... excluded from eternal truth by its very essence. The only function those traditional metaphors have is to shield confusion and sentimentality. Because Jehovah once fought for the Jews, we need not continue to say that the truth is solicitous about us, when it is only we that are fighting to attain it. The universe can wish particular things only in so far as particular beings wish them; only in its relative capacity can it find things good, and only in its relative capacity can it be ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... wouldn't wake him!" said Julia, in reference to Mrs. Arbuthnot's lowered voice, and the solicitous look the wife had given a great opened beach umbrella three feet away, under which Dr. Arbuthnot slumbered on the warm sands. "He's forty fathoms deep. No," continued the actress, returning aggrievedly to her own affairs, "I suppose there's no such thing as escaping ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... myself sternly that I feared nothing for Jerry. He would emerge from such an experience greater, stronger, purer even, and yet, in spite of my confidence, I found myself planning, devising something that would open the boy's eyes before damage was done. I was solicitous for Jerry, but there were other considerations. Jerry wasn't like other men. He had been taught to reason carefully from cause to effect. He would not understand intrigue, of course, or double dealing. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... by him to tranquilise the troubled soul with the principle that the precepts of the Church do not bind him to repeat the Hours with such inconvenience as leads to bodily and mental illness. The Church is our mother and does not wish her children to be troubled and solicitous, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... who were accustomed to receive benefits at the hands of "the Golden Shoemaker," there was great distress. Every day, and almost every hour, there were callers, chiefly of the humbler classes, with anxious enquiries on their lips. Not the least solicitous of these were "the Little Twin Brethren." Tommy Dudgeon almost continually haunted the house where his honoured friend lay in such dire straits. The anxiety of the little man was intensified by a burning desire to know whether his desperate ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... cause of her illness, she made me no answer; but she smiled and said, 'O wife of my uncle, bid thy son, whenever he would go whither he goeth every day, repeat these two saws at his going away; 'Faith is fair! Unfaith is foul!' For this is of my tender affection to him, that I am solicitous concerning him during my lifetime and after my death.' Then she gave me somewhat for thee and sware me that I would not give it until I see thee weeping for her and lamenting her death. The thing is with me; and, when I have seen thy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... very solicitous about my getting out in the air," cried Clara. "Come, Carroll, let's wander down the street and ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... darkness. Disconcerted and anxious he returned to secure a lantern. The wind promptly blew it out; then another, and a third. He stood on the ro[u]ka in the darkness to wait the return of the Wakadono. For the first time Kakusuke had noted failing purpose in his young master. He was more solicitous over this than over the strange disappearance of the Inkyo[u]'s body. Was the Wakadono losing his ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... distinguished her from all her companions. She never lost her self-respect; and whilst no one ventured to take the slightest liberty with her, every one very clearly recognised the simple candour with which she responded to my kindly and solicitous attentions. They could not fail to see that the link existing between us was not to be compared to any ordinary liaison, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flighty young lady who had so openly angled for me fall into a fit ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... help wondering if some ignorant or faithless steward of God's work and God's money hasn't blundered. It seems necessary that we should make known to the good men and women who are so solicitous about our souls, and our minds, that we haven't quite got rid of our bodies yet, and until we do, we must feed and clothe them; and this attitude of keeping us out of work ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... air of Baden has such an effect upon you," said Bernard, "it is only a proof the more that you need the solicitous attention ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... which should not be buried in obscurity, but who has found that since her marriage she has, to all intents and purposes, been "laid upon the shelf," it is a very delightful experience to see herself once more the object of solicitous attention, considered as one of the brilliant central ornaments of a ballroom, not as one of its indispensable wall-decorations. The experience seems to be so particularly pleasant to the majority of American women, indeed, that they show the greatest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... correspondence with them. None thought more highly of him as a soldier and a man, than Washington, and such names as Greene, Knox, Lincoln, Lee, Steuben, Kosciusko, and many more, form those of intimate and tried associates. Nor was he less solicitous to preserve unbroken friendship with many unknown to fame, and with a large family circle. The wealth that he acquired was liberally dispensed, and his bounty was always readily extended to the deserving. To his brother he says in one of his letters—"Whatever is ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany

... muttering something about "better tidy up a bit," which drew from his sister expressions of surprise and solicitous questions as to ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton

... of course, to any agent we may have there. My expenditures in the affair, as you know, have been large and liberal, and have somewhat embarrassed me. Hence I cannot incur more outlay. I am, however, extremely solicitous for the double purpose of having you witness with your own eyes and in your own lifetime the consummation in actual, practical, national utility [of] this beautiful and wonderful offspring of your mechanical and philosophical genius, and know that you have not overestimated the service ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... John, and Janie. Mrs. Slessor's fragility prevented her battling successfully with trial and misfortune, but no children could have been trained with more scrupulous care. "I owe a great debt of gratitude to my sainted mother," said Mary, long afterwards. Especially was she solicitous for their religious well- being. On coming to Dundee she had connected herself with Wishart Church in the east end of the Cowgate, a modest building, above a series of shops near the Port Gate from the parapets of which George Wishart preached ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... of works. This had been hastily abandoned by the civilian occupants, who had left everything pretty much as it was—had no place to store it, probably, and trusted that Heaven would preserve it from Federal cupidity and Confederate artillery. With regard to the latter we were as solicitous as they. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... over the wants of infancy as she who gave that infant birth? Can a mother suppose, that if she can so stifle those sensibilities which prompt her to provide for the wants of her children, servants and dependants, in whom no such sensibilities exist, will be very solicitous about their charge? How many of the infant's cries will be unattended to, which would at once have made their way to the heart of a mother! and, therefore, how many of the child's wants will in ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... of family circumstances from India, and have not since been solicitous to hear particular news from the regiment; the name of Brown, too, is so common, that I might have seen his promotion in the Gazette without noticing it. But a day or two will bring letters ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... but he could not fail to be disturbed by the unfavorable auguries that met him on every side. These naturally had the more weight, as they came from men who were attached to (p. 046) him personally, and who were honestly solicitous for his fame. He was at one time almost inclined to give up the project. But a critical English friend to whom he submitted a portion of the manuscript was delighted with it. In this man's judgment and taste Cooper felt so great confidence that he was induced ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... had the explanation of his lack of enthusiasm in the stage fright inseparable from any beginning. "It will not be really exquisite tonight until after the newness wears off and the grotesque with it. After I know her I shall be able to consort with her again without feeling solicitous about her and conscious of myself. I wish we were ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... 4: We seek counsel about the actions of others, in so far as they are, in some way, one with us; either by union of affection—thus a man is solicitous about what concerns his friend, as though it concerned himself; or after the manner of an instrument, for the principal agent and the instrument are, in a way, one cause, since one acts through the other; thus the master takes counsel about what he would do through his ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... showing that she had, as they say, not been exchanging salutes. We had stirred up the hornets, and she had got the benefit; quite uselessly, her captain evidently felt, by his glum face and short answers to our solicitous hail. He was naturally put out, for no good could have come, beyond showing the position of the enemy's guns; while an awkward hit might have sent her back to the yard and lost her her share in the coming fray, one of ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... that in Sierra Leone, where such customs have prevailed, "except among the Mandingoes and Suzees, few kings are natives of the countries they govern. So different are their ideas from ours, that very few are solicitous of the honour, and competition is very ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... none the less deep because he brooded over it in secret. He would have renewed his attempt upon Pomp, but there was something in Mr. Maynard's eye which assured him that his threat would be carried out. Frank, solicitous for the little fellow's safety, kept vigilant watch over him for some days, but no violence was attempted. He hoped John had ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... it weakness to place any trust or value upon their friendship, and therefore took no care to conciliate it. This has a look of wisdom, and would explain many apparently stupid and gratuitous negligences. But what shall I think when he seemed as little solicitous, and certainly was at no greater pains, to attach his own men? Instead of treating us like fellow-soldiers and adventurers in danger, upon whom he was wholly dependent, until his power was established, he bore himself like an Eastern tyrant,—reserved and haughty,—scarcely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various



Words linked to "Solicitous" :   attentive, concerned



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