You want to give something small, an object that says, "Hello, friend -- I'm a modest offering that bespeaks admiration and affection!" and not, "Beloved, transport me to a safe-deposit box, then hasten back to this woman, who shall be your destiny!" Mind you, I would never be arrogant enough to tell you what to buy.
And that's to the good except when the admiration of modest simplicity gets in the way of the appreciation of other kinds of aesthetics at other kinds of moments—such as the incidental, the charmingly ordinary, the anecdotal, treated ornamentally or casually, for their evocative power.
When I signed up, back in 1995, for the task of writing a biography of an experimental novelist who had only reached a small (though devoted) audience in his lifetime, and had been pretty much forgotten ever since, all I had to motivate me was a modest advance and a burning admiration for his work.
Now that they're down to 59 votes, the theory is that we'll have such modest expectations that we'll fall down with admiration if the senators manage to get their shoe laces tied in the morning.
Four other world records were set at more modest levels with pictures that do not inspire boundless admiration.
His English class at Stuyvesant High School in 1975 was memorable for his Irish brogue, admiration of Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels," "A Modest Proposal"), general distaste for James Joyce ("Ulysses," "Finnegans Wake"), and his raconteur-style, old-country tales.
Long before his battle with cancer made him the natural object of sympathy he had won admiration for his successes and affection for his modest response to them.
Bathed in the admiration of a friendly crowd and enjoying a modest resurgence of public appreciation in recent surveys, he choked up as he finished speaking and wiped tears from his eyes after sitting down.
Your good friends remember you with great admiration and respect for your financial acuity, unerring eye, and modest persona.
After he sang on the 1950 hit recording "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" by the Lionel Hampton band, Scott began recording and performing on his own, to the admiration of Nancy Wilson, Betty Carter, Marvin Gaye, and other noted singers, but he enjoyed only modest popular success.
