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Reserve in speech, behavior, or dress
Among these were to be found the most sordid opportunism and the most heroic self-effacement, the crassest supernaturalism and - the loftiest conceptions of practical morality.
Swann embodies the discretion and ironic self-effacement which are the anti-thesis of French directness.
He was "Roman in resolution and repression, Roman in civic nobility and pride, Roman in tenacity of imperial aim, Roman in respect for law, Roman in self-effacement for the service of the State" (G.