"Aplomb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... white-breasted nuthatch which goes scudding up and down the tree trunks with as much ease and aplomb as a fly gliding over a window-pane. I have already told you something about him. I had long been aware that he wedged grains of corn, sunflower seeds, and kernels of nuts in the crannies of the bark; but one day he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... himself had been ridiculously deceived. The mystery of his fair companion's costume, which he had accepted as part of the "show"; the inconsistency of her manner and her evident occupation; her undeniable wish to terminate the whole episode with that single interview; her mingling of worldly aplomb and rustic innocence; her perfect self-control and experienced acceptance of his gallantry under the simulated attitude of simplicity—all now struck him as perfectly comprehensible. He recalled the actress's inimitable touch in certain picturesque realistic details in the dairy—which ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... not doubt it. Ditmar's aplomb, his faculty of getting what he wanted, had amused and distracted her. She was growing calmer, able to scrutinize, at first covertly and then more boldly the people at the other tables, only to discover that she and Ditmar were not the objects of the universal ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the Persimmon's protruding yellow stare, but finally, when the roustabout was gone, he shrugged, regained his aplomb, and remarked that some niggers spent their time in studyin' 'bout things they hadn't no info'mation on whatever. Then he strolled off up the crescent in the ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... before Marion and Hillyer, leaping from the automobile, were able to reach him, he sat up, and began to straighten out his crushed sombrero, eyeing it critically. He was covered with dust, and one end of his white collar, torn from the button, stuck out above his coat. But his aplomb ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... them. Then he was back at the table again amidst a storm of crockeryware, cutlery, and provisions, and each article as it descended was caught with an astonishing dexterity and set in its proper place with a swift exactness which looked like magic. The artist had a perfect aplomb, and he put off the catching of each article till the last fraction of the inevitable second, so that he seemed secure in perfect triumph and yet on the edge of instant failure. The house howled with excited laughter and applause, and Paul roared as loud as any. He was as sober ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... slowly obeyed. She shuffled across the porch, and at the door, which Mary Louise held open for her, paused and looked about her in indecision. She was a buxom creature, of the type that the Negroes about the station would call a "High Brown," but without the poise and aplomb that conscious membership in that ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... question miraculously restored all Mr. Prohack's vanished aplomb. That at the end of the greatest war in the history of the earth, amid decapitated empires and cities of starvation, braces should be made to measure,—this was too much for Mr. Prohack, who had not dreamed that braces ever had been ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... with his paws. Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean. But only for the space of a few seconds. Recovering his customary aplomb he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded by ambitious growls—and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob Jerry dropped back and buried his nose ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... her back to the door, and did not see her come in; but she felt the sudden silence and turned to ascertain the cause. For a moment she was rooted to the spot, and the color left her face. It says much for her aplomb that she did not cry out. Her confusion lasted only for a moment, then she went toward Lady Luce ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... were going to try it!" Rachael answered with equal aplomb as the train ran through Quaker Bridge without stopping, and went on with only slightly decreased speed. And a moment later she began to gather her possessions together, and the conductor remarked amiably: "Here we are! But she surely is raining," he added. "Well, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... with lavish applause. His touch, although neat and sure, has little of that brilliance by which our virtuosos announce themselves as such in the first bars; he emphasised but little, like one conversing in a company of clever people, not with that rhetorical aplomb which is considered by virtuosos as indispensable. He plays very quietly, without the daring elan which generally at once distinguishes the artist from the amateur. Nevertheless, our fine-feeling and acute-judging public recognised at once in this youth, who is a stranger ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg over the other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his discreet moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything, increased measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his tactfulness to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these accomplishments had their effect further heightened by a snowy immaculateness of collar and dickey, and an absence of dust from his frockcoat, as complete as though he had just arrived to attend a nameday festival. Lastly, his ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that he was, his consummate aplomb nobody could deny, except Daniel, now capering and swaggering and twirling ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... it is said that the more distinguished a man is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm confidence was justified by events. It remains to tell ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... His shoes were polished, his clothes brushed and—shocking to relate—his trousers creased. In all his career as marshal he had never gone to such extremes as this. He was, however, not in a happy frame of mind. His customary aplomb was missing. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... he had acquired aplomb in his journeys round the globe, but he gave her a glance of sad reproach, while Madame ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... wife sat in a far corner watching us. I think we were worth looking at. We grumbled over the misfortune of La Fere; we forecast other La Feres in the future;—although things went better with the Cigarette for spokesman; he had more aplomb altogether than I; and a dull, positive way of approaching a landlady that carried off the india-rubber bags. Talking of La Fere put ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... felt itself put upon its mettle. The first move was made by Miss Martha Hopkins. It was understood that if anybody could clear the way, carry a difficult position with skill and aplomb, that ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... longer is the Anti-Suffrage League to be kept waiting? (She passes him contemptuously and sits down with impressive confidence in the chair next the fireplace. Lady Corinthia takes the chair on the opposite side of the table with equal aplomb.) ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... and hardly any woman, whom she could not subjugate in a few days. It is as difficult to give any idea of her methods as to describe a dance when the music is unheard. Perhaps one may say that her special characteristic was the way in which she combined the gaiety of a child with the tact and aplomb of a grown woman. ... Her victims, after their period of enchantment, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... river, with its lemon groves and lush grass. A battery wheeled before them over the ancient bridge -a flight of short, broad cobbled steps up as far as the centre of the stream and a similar flight down to the other bank. The returning aplomb of the travellers was well illustrated by the professor, who, upon sighting this ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... motor car; you couldn't get around that. Maybe Bulger wouldn't open his eyes if he knew it. Bulger was an authority on cars, and spoke in detail of their strange insides with the aplomb of a man who has dissected them for years. He had violent disputes with the second bookkeeper about which was the best car for the money. The bookkeeper actually owned a motorcycle, or would, after he had paid ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... wish you to hear," she said, with all the aplomb she could muster. "These things will happen. I've often told him he ought to let ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... launched with more perfect aplomb, nor floated more superbly on an even keel than did Akbar at the women's bathing ghat. For a moment I thought he proposed to lie down there and finish his interrupted toilet, but he contented himself with squirting water on the sore spot caused by the thumping ankus of the driver's and set ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... man of twenty-five, a curious mixture of knowledge, cynicism, energy, and affectionateness. I found Rose a very congenial companion, though I never felt sure what he thought, and never aired my enthusiasms in his presence. He had great aplomb, and was troubled by no shyness nor hesitation. There was a touch of frostiness at times between him and Father Payne. Rose was paradoxical and whimsical, and was apt to support fantastic positions ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... voil, pauvres bonnes penses! L'espoir qu'il faut, regret des grces dpenses, Douceur de coeur avec svrit d'esprit, Et cette vigilance, et le calme prescrit, Et toutes!—Mais encor lentes, bien veilles, Bien d'aplomb, mais encor timides, dbrouilles A peine du lourd rve et de la tide nuit. C'est qui de vous va plus gauche, l'une suit L'autre, et toutes ont peur du vaste clair ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... him from the blow. She swam forward and smiled upon her husband with a sweetness that was insultingly artificial. 'Frederic,' she lisped, 'you are late.' It was a scene of high comedy, such as is proper to unhappy marriages; and her APLOMB disgusted him. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we could gather, all those present were used to living in a palace, and took all the splendor quite as a matter of course. Was there no envy? Was there nothing said about the airs of a country school-ma'am, the aplomb of an adventurer? Were there no criticisms afterwards as the guests rolled home in their carriages, surfeited and exhausted? What would you have? Do you expect the millennium to begin in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you see they had better be told at once?" she said, with the aplomb of a girl who, however young and irresponsible, is capable of arriving at independent conclusions and reversing existing conditions. "They are, as Rose says, all but grown up; indeed not so very much younger than Dora and I. I think Rose and ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... our experience, remember seeing a prince—or a mere man for the matter of that—leave a room with greater suavity, discretion, or aplomb. It was a revelation of breeding, of race, of long slavery to caste. And yet, with it all, it seemed to have a touch of finality about it—a hint that the entire proceeding was deliberate, planned, not to be altered by circumstance. He did not ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... on the world as an arena; and as the occasion and the audience arose, he suited himself with the utmost aplomb to the part he intended to play, so that under the costume and the paint the real Balzac is often difficult to discover. Sometimes he would pretend to be rich and prosperous, when he thought an editor would thereby be induced to offer him good terms; and sometimes, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... who were very persecuting there. Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands were deep in them, he perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in her face. "No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are certainly of yesterday. There is no scent left in them—and look!" she held up the bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... from my infancy," replied Mueller, with admirable aplomb. "I was born at sea, brought up in an undiscovered island, twice kidnapped by hostile tribes before attaining the age of ten years, and have lived among savage nations all ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... from them," replied Thrush, with just a little less than his usual aplomb. "It was a surprise he sprang on them after waking; it will probably surprise you still more, Mr. Upton. You may not believe it. I'm not certain that I do myself. In the morning he had spoken of the Australian voyage as though you'd opposed it, but withdrawn your opposition—one moment, if ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... explained. It is your Southern States that make the charm, the aplomb, without the—what you call—the—the freshness. Is it not so? But I do not mean the freshness of the cheek; and yet, in the argot do you not say freshness is cheek? Ah, I am bewildered; I am mixup with your strange words; but I will learn them! They ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... house to linger inhospitably after it was known that she must know of the visitor's arrival. Robert had coerced his mother into doing the correct thing. Politely he opened the drawing-room door for her—that, of course, was absolutely the correct thing—and escorted her forward with the aplomb of a man of the world, nicely blended with the respectfulness appropriate to ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... could have recorded his wise sayings and valuable criticism of men and things. He was more of an idealist than Doctor Johnson, and at the same time like Doctor Johnson in personal solidity, his English aplomb of character. They were both men of sterling quality. He was in all things especially human. His sympathies equalled the breadth of his mind. There was scarcely a subject in which he did not take an interest, and was not ready to converse on. As soon ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... his aplomb by the time he returned accompanied by the Duke. If Angus had ever lost his, he gave no indication of it. The effect on everybody else was literally seismic. The generally accepted view was that Lord Trask's ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... I, with great aplomb. Jasper, Jr., stuck out his chest modestly, and said: "Oh, piffle, Colly." But just the same I hadn't the least doubt in my mind that Jasper could "put it all over me." It was a rather sickening admission, though ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... spite of all his aplomb and matter-of-fact practicality, he felt a strange thrill curdle through his blood, while on the back of his neck the hair drew taut ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... saloon keepers, impractical young lawyers, and intensely practical old politicians;—all these he had lived through not once, but often, and had always piloted the Guardian's bark to port in safety. In fact, he had done this with such aplomb that long ago he had dismissed from his mind such a thing as the possibility ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... own lesser mass, the job proved almost impossible and he had to use his suit motor. This caused some concern over his meager fuel supply since his plan called for some flat-out jetting later on. In the frantic flurry of bending, twisting, over and under—controlling, the veneer of aplomb began to wear. Johnny was sweating freely by the time he had the cylinder stabilized as best he could judge and had gingerly worked himself into the open end as far as he could against the cushioning mass of ribbon chute. He ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... But all his aplomb, his lack of self-consciousness, seemed to be gone; and Neeland made some reply which seemed to him both obvious and dull. And hated himself because he found himself so unaccountably abashed, realising that he was afraid of the opinions that this young girl ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... you study curiously; and are quite amazed at the precocity of certain youths belonging to it, who are apparently about your own age. The Juniors you look upon with a quiet reverence for their aplomb and dignity of character; and look forward with intense yearnings to the time when you too shall be admitted freely to the precincts of the Philosophical chamber, and to the very steep benches of the Laboratory. This last seems, from occasional peeps through ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... style. Pride of the eye, a keen sense of the proprieties and the conventionalities, and a morbid feeling for the ridiculous, would have been death to Whitman's undertaking. He would have faltered, or betrayed self-consciousness. He certainly never could have spoken with that elemental aplomb and indifference which is so marked a feature of his work. Any hesitation, any knuckling, would have been his ruin. We should have seen he was not entirely serious, and should have laughed at him. We laugh now only for a moment; the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... never seen more faithfully presented on the stage. And there is M. Brasseur. He is a kind of French Arthur Roberts, but without any of that extravagant energy which carries the English comedian triumphantly through all his absurdities. M. Brasseur is preposterously natural, full of aplomb and impertinence. He never flags, never hesitates; it is impossible to take him seriously, as we say of delightful, mischievous people in real life. I have been amused to see a discussion in the papers as to whether "La Veine" is a fit ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... N. stability; immutability &c adj.; unchangeability, &c adj.; unchangeableness^; constancy; stable equilibrium, immobility, soundness, vitality, stabiliment^, stiffness, ankylosis^, solidity, aplomb. establishment, fixture; rock, pillar, tower, foundation, leopard's spots, Ethiopia's skin. permanence &c 141; obstinacy &c 606. V. be firm &c adj.; stick fast; stand firm, keep firm, remain firm; weather the storm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... district had turned horse dealer. The cramped side pavements of the town failed to accommodate the ceaseless promenade of those whose sole business lay in criticising the companion promenade of horses in the narrow street. They haled horses before them with the aplomb of a colonel ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... that ofttimes contact with an alien race did require long and patient handling. But between study and experiencing the situation himself there was a gulf, and he thought somewhat ruefully that he had much to learn before he could meet such a situation with Van Rycke's unfailing patience and aplomb. The Cargo-master seemed in nowise tired by his wasted day and Dane knew that Van would probably sit up half the night, going over for the hundredth time Traxt Cam's sketchy recordings in another painstaking attempt to discover why and how the other Free Trader had succeeded where the Queen's ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... key. I always carry one,' said Rocco, and he pulled one out of his pocket, and, unfastening the iron screen, pushed it open. Racksole smiled at his readiness and aplomb. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... squirrel in the idea of a cage, round and round the wheel of these hollow notions, without hands, without feet, without anything anywhere by which we could lay hold of a something that is not thought, a something solid, resistant, palpitating, 'luscious and aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a sense, a flesh, call it what you will, the unintelligible, but still the indispensable, that which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to miss, and which, if it be not the Good itself, the Good ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... all. Loiseau himself looked foolish and disconcerted for a moment, but soon recovered his aplomb, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... talent, and vocation for this. If the theater concerts should be arranged, be sure to secure his frequent co-operation. He will certainly bring new life into the whole affair, and possesses the necessary amount of experience and aplomb, [Employed in French by Liszt] ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... get away was now my only thought, But then this all-important step was fraught With seen and unseen dangers everywhere, Suppose I met Miss Gradient on the stair, Or Jane—for this I candidly confess I did not the required aplomb possess. Besides I dreaded now to rouse the house; No, I would dress, then wait, still as a mouse, For early dawn, a note to Harry write, Which would my wronged position soon make right. Yes, I would go before the servants were, Or any of the family, astir. Consulting Bradshaw, then, I found ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... place of evening dress, save that long stockings and dancing-pumps had taken the place of riding-boots. Rena went through the ordeal very creditably. Her shyness was palpable, but it was saved from awkwardness by her native grace and good sense. She made up in modesty what she lacked in aplomb. Her months in school had not eradicated a certain self-consciousness born of her secret. The brain-cells never lose the impressions of youth, and Rena's Patesville life was not far enough removed to have lost its distinctness of outline. Of the two, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... have gone on working with his chisel with just as much zest if his creations had been doomed to meet no mortal eye but his own. This indifference to the popular reception of his dream-figures lent him a curious artistic aplomb that carried him through the gusts of opinion without suffering them to disturb his ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... de M. Thiers, qui a dit avec aplomb 'Je ne change jamais,' et qui aujourd'hui est a la fois le protecteur et le protege de ceux qu'il a passe une partie de sa vie a fusilier, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... I told you, Dan,' asks Texas, after they gets headed for Boot Hill, an' Texas has regained his aplomb, 'that ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Dan possessed the aplomb which only years of work on a great paper can give a man; he had wormed interviews from many reluctant and exalted personages; he had asked questions which the other man was certain to resent, often quite justly; ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife had a seat in the assembly of East India shareholders, and a voice in the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of us. F. B. bent his most respectfully down before her; she sent him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more wore a cheerful countenance; the clouds which gathered ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the genius of conversation and discussion, lacked neither aplomb nor a taste for the proprieties; she knew how to support, or, at least, to preside over a circle. The young Dauphine had neither the desire, nor the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Gentleman, I have the pleasure to announce that Miss CONNIE COCKLE will now appear. Don't curtsey till the Orchestra gives the chord. (Chord from the harmonium—the Child advances, and curtsies with much aplomb.) Oh, lor! call that a curtsey—that's a cramp, that is! Do it all over again! (The Child obeys, disconcerted.) That's worse! I can see the s'rimps blushin' for yer inside their paper bags! Now see Me do it. (Bones executes a caricature ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... in no very special hurry. And now again she smiled, thoughtfully, rather approving my own silence, as I guessed; perhaps because it showed no unmanly perturbation—my lack of imagination passing for aplomb. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... took my hat and gloves in my hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid—un peu d'aplomb, M. Lucien, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... troubled, yet somehow not depressed. His coward fears of a few moments ago were gone, and he could face the situation now with considerable aplomb. Of course, it was disturbing to learn that he was probably a fugitive from justice; and with his knowledge of the law he could very well appreciate the probably serious consequences of last night's affair. Why, there were likely dead men in the city morgue as a result, and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... fired his last two shots with impressive aplomb—only to be absolutely ignored twice more by Number Seven. Then he rose to his feet and saluted with ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... manner. It was constantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly more aplomb. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... fires—though the King kept silence, and merely shrugged his shoulders—his countenance fell. He was at that time one of the handsomest gallants about the Court, thirty years old, and the darling of women; but at this his APLOMB failed him, and with ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... precaution to lock the bedroom door and pocket the key. He was a little ashamed of this, but he knew that Go-Get-'Em Jim was a very competent and energetic person. Convicted and sentenced though he was, Clanton still boasted with cool aplomb that there would be no hanging on the sixth. The deputy strolled round to the back of the house to make sure his assistant was still on the job. After a few words with the man he returned to the porch. He was satisfied ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... bows of blue ribbon on the skirt and corsage, and a cluster of roses in her belt, she was as inconsistent and incongruous to the others as a fashion-plate would have been in the dry and dog-eared pages before them. Yet she carried it off with a demure mingling of the naivete of youth and the aplomb of a woman, and as she swept down the narrow aisle, burying a few small wondering heads in the overflow of her flounces, there was no doubt of her reception in the arch smile that dimpled her cheek. Dropping a half curtsey to the master, the only ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... diminished her angle of aversion, and then Sir Chim, advancing quite close to the division, began what appeared to be a recollection of a minuet. He executed marvellous gestures with a precision and aplomb which were quite enchanting, and when at last he broke out into a quick movement with loud smacking stamps, the ladies were completely carried away, and gave him all attention. Friendship was established, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... washing and a compress of sterilized cotton bound on with surgical bandages completed the operation. Then, when it was all over with, the young mother, who had gone through everything with the aplomb and deftness of a surgeon, quietly sank back in a faint. On the instant Blake was reaching ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... they were by no means certain how they would emerge from the ordeal. To put it plainly, they were just a little afraid that at the critical moment they might fail to exhibit that superlative coolness and aplomb, the slightest lack of which would cause each to feel for ever humiliated and disgraced in the eyes of the other. Besides, there were the natives, keen of eye, and quick to observe the smallest sign of anything approaching to perturbation; it would ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... was better off than the gentleman, for while the former could dress as he pleased, the latter was often obliged to dress as he could, and in this lay an element of danger. So long as his clothes were as good as the blood he boasted, and he wore them with an aplomb suggestive of position and influence, the gentleman was safe; but let his pretensions to gentility lie more in the past than in the suit on his back, and woe betide him! In spite of his protestations the gang took him, and he was lucky indeed if, like the gentleman who narrates his experience in ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... absorbed in the other world to such a degree that blindness, even, is a blessing to him, enabling him to "see, no longer blinded by his eyes." The question of the poet's health arose. He should have the exuberance and aplomb of the young animal; no, he should have a body frail enough to enable him, like the mediaeval mystic, to escape from ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... recovering his aplomb, and taking the extended hand of the professor, "you certainly know the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... driving four horses and the "grub-wagon," and leading the procession. He handled the lines with an aplomb reminiscent of the coaching days of Reginald Vanderbilt, together with the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks dignified the "grub-wagon" to such an extent that it was a ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... characters, the fundamental ones, on the organs of respiration, circulation, and on the form of the nervous system. The reasons he gives for his classification are sound and philosophical, and presented with the ease and aplomb of a ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and aplomb ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... He'd regained most of his aplomb during the unhurried trip across the parklands. Iron Thoughts had done nothing but sit in the center of the car, eyes half shut, looking like instant death enjoying a dignified nap and occasionally emitting a ripsawing noise which might ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... exact compliance. Whitman hates doubt, deprecates discussion, and discourages to his utmost the craving, carping sensibilities of the conscience. We are to imitate, to use one of his absurd and happy phrases, "the satisfaction and aplomb of animals." If he preaches a sort of ranting Christianity in morals, a fit consequent to the ranting optimism of his cosmology, it is because he declares it to be the original deliverance of the human heart; or at least, for he would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mon regard lui cloua ses phrases menteuses sur les lvres. Et dans ce regard qui le fixait d'aplomb, en face, le misrable dut lire bien des choses, car je le vis tout coup plir, balbutier, perdre contenance; mais ce ne fut que l'affaire d'un instant: il reprit aussitt son air flambant, planta dans mes yeux deux yeux froids et brillants comme l'acier, et, fourrant ses mains ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... talking, Fenn like an old, faithful, affectionate dependant, and I—well! I myself fallen into a mere admiration of so much impudence, that transcended words, and had very soon conquered animosity. I took a fancy to the man, he was so vast a humbug. I began to see a kind of beauty in him, his aplomb was so majestic. I never knew a rogue to cut so fat; his villainy was ample, like his belly, and I could scarce find it in my heart to hold him responsible for either. He was good enough to drop into the ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... here," said the baron, who was fast losing his aplomb, "was to warn you, was to beg you—as I have been told you have had the charity to take this foundling—to continue the good work by protecting, sheltering and educating her, and when it is necessary to punish her will you do so with kindness, for the poor ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... this, but again his teeth were tightly locked, and he made but a meaningless squeak far back in his throat. He used this for the beginning of a cough, which he finished with a decent aplomb. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... fairly novel tricks—affectations like "I don't know what they did next" and the others noted above: while the famous rhetorical beginnings of chapters appear not only at the very outset, but at the opening of the second volume, "Le Soleil donnant aplomb sur les antipodes,"—things which a century later Fielding, and two centuries later Dickens, did not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... there was no jury at hand—only Pixie O'Shaughnessy, feeling very small and snubbed in her corner of the sofa, and robbed for the moment of her accustomed aplomb by the blighting consciousness that she was ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... standing and perhaps detaining her from other guests. "Parting is such sweet sorrow" in some cases that it becomes awkward and embarrassing because so prolonged. Especially does it seem difficult for the youth who has not yet attained the aplomb which makes him at ease in society, to "tear himself away." Remember that a too abrupt departure, though regrettable, is better than ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Palliac arose with unruffled aplomb and favoured the caller with his stateliest bow. He was at the moment a graceful and silencing rebuke to those who aver that manner and attire be interdependent. The baron's manner was ideal, undiminished in volume, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... in tugging at the bridle. Gypsy only planted her dainty forefeet and continued her repast in a manner not dainty at all. Missy began to feel a little desperate; that former fine frenzy, that divine madness, that magnificent tingle of aplomb and dash, was dwindling away. She was conscious of a crowd collecting in the doorway; there suddenly seemed to be millions of people in the store—rude, pushing, chortling phantoms as in some dreadful nightmare. Hot, prickling waves began to wash over her. They were laughing at her. Spurred ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Tommy, breaking into the conversation with great aplomb. He has been holding on vigorously to Mr. Dysart's right hand for the last five minutes, after a brief but brilliant skirmish with Mabel as to the possession of it—a skirmish brought to a bloodless conclusion ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... fell upon her. That is to say, she was painted, bewrinkled, bewigged, begowned, bejewelled and—(I was about to say be-dabbed)—for all the world like a real duchess, and she smoked a long cigarette in a still longer holder, and blew smoke through her nostrils with great APLOMB and ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... so like each other in verbal form, were utterly dissimilar in the manner of their utterance. Suddenly, and for the first time in all her knowledge of him, his cynical aplomb had fallen from the man like a garment. One moment he was brazening past deceit with a smiling face; the next, he was in earnest, even he, and that mocking voice ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... not easily disconcerted. He prided himself on his aplomb. It was hard to get behind his cynical, decorous smile, the mask of a suave and worldly-wise Pharisee of the twentieth century. But for once he was amazed. The orchestra was playing a lively fox trot and he thought that perhaps he had ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... not have mattered a bit if only, as the fog lifted and the clock of St Dunstan's chimed the hour of three a.m., she had emerged from the narrow opening into Fleet Street with the aplomb or savoir-faire, which are almost twins, necessary to ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Zis is my friend Count Bunker—gom all ze vay from Austria," responded the Baron, with no glimmer of his customary aplomb. ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... waitering at the ceremony of Dinner: this time with the complication that some of my patients were allowed wine, beer, or spirits, and some were not. "Burgundy, Sir?" "Whiskey-and-soda, Sir?" I ran round the table of the sitting-up patients, displaying (I was pleased to think) the complete aplomb and nimbleness of a thoroughbred Swiss garcon, pouring out drinks—with concealed envy—placing and removing plates, handing salt, bread, serviettes.... After which, back to Mrs. Mappin and her renewed mountain ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... performers—there are fifty of them all told—has his part to play, and plays it with commendable aplomb. One, having disarmed an unresisting prisoner, assists him over the parapet and escorts him affectionately to his new home. Another clubs a recalcitrant foeman over the head with a knobkerry, and having thus reduced him to a more amenable frame ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... Lucifer himself is not as deep or strong or wise as is patient furrowed earth and her blundering children. A rough earth-hint, a Rabelaisian ditty, a gross amazing jest, a chuckle of deep Satyric humour;—and the monstrous "thickness" of Life, its friendly aplomb and nonchalance, its grotesque irreverence, its shy shrewd common-sense, its tough fibres, and portentous indifference to "distinction"; tumbles us over in the mud—for all our "aloofness"—and roars over us, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... cordiality Billy and his room-mate insisted upon their friends remaining to tea, and the men needed but little urging. They made themselves generally agreeable, assisting in the entertaining; passing tea and sandwiches with ease and aplomb. ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... rough life with rough men had brought him to premature manhood, taught him to exhibit a saucy aplomb to everybody, to have at his finger-ends all the knockabout resourcefulness and impudence that the successful vagrant must acquire in order to live at all as ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... straight." Thereafter, she fixed her eye upon a certain flintlock rifle over the mantel-piece, which had won the first Kentucky Kildare his way into the virgin wilderness, and went through the ceremony with the aplomb of a general directing his forces into battle. The mother wondered what the girl was thinking of, staring so fixedly at the old rifle. Perhaps she was vowing to be worthy of it in the new wilderness she was ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... and very slightly built. His face, shrunken and wrinkled, had that look of prenatural wisdom which dwarfs sometimes have, and his little black eyes were incredibly bright. He was evidently something of a dandy, for his clothes were immaculate. I admired again the aplomb with which he accepted ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... sketch. She describes how Browning called at the house (he was acquainted with her father), and finding that gentleman out, asked with a kind of abrupt politeness if he might play on the piano. This touch is very characteristic of the mingled aplomb and unconsciousness of Browning's social manner. "He was then," she writes, "slim and dark, and very handsome, and—may I hint it?—just a trifle of a dandy, addicted to lemon-coloured kid gloves and such things, quite the glass of fashion and the mould of form. But full of 'ambition,' eager ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... Debris, most of the Spectators gasped and felt their Toes curling inside of their Shoes, but Wifey never batted an Eye. With only one little Strand of Wire or perchance a Steering Knuckle standing between her and a lot of Insurance Money, she retained both her Aplomb ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... smuggle in America," returned the colonel, with an aplomb that might have done credit to Vidocq himself; "in our republican country the laws ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... cool aplomb. "Don't you worry about me, Ned. I travel at a good lick myself. She'll break to double ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... for ordinary so wan. Over and over again he sheathed the sword, and as often withdrew it from its scabbard. Then he handled the dirk with the pleasure of a child. But always back to the sword, handled with beauty and aplomb, always back to the sword, and he had it before him, a beam of fatal light, when something startled him, as one struck unexpectedly ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... his smiling ones. The unabashed impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... voila, pauvres bonnes pensees! L'espoir qu'il faut, regret des graces depensees, Douceur de coeur avec severite d'esprit, Et cette vigilance, et le calme prescrit, Et toutes!—Mais encor lentes, bien eveillees, Bien d'aplomb, mais encor timides, debrouillees A peine du lourd reve et de la tiede nuit. C'est a qui de vous va plus gauche, l'une suit L'autre, et toutes ont peur du vaste clair ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... whom wore a battered straw hat, whilst his friend held an ancient green parasol over his bare head, appeared arm-in-arm, displaying much elegance of deportment, and, hailing a passing cab, gave the address, "Savoy," with great aplomb. ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... to Berlin. Once, say, in the month of November, the sunset colors were already gleaming through the trees on the city ramparts, as I stood down in our doorway watching my father as he put on his driving gloves with a certain aplomb and then suddenly sprang upon the front seat of his small calash. My mother was there also. "Really the boy might go along," said my father. I pricked up my ears, rejoiced in my little soul, which even then longed eagerly for anything a little out of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... avoided meeting the velvet-eyed glances of Miguel, and at the same time they were plainly anxious to include him in their talk as if that had been their habit from the first. A difficult situation to meet, even with the fine aplomb of the Happy Family to ease ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... pair prepared for bed, the elder man instructed his companion in all the details of duelling, that he might be prepared to play his part on the morrow with confidence and aplomb. ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to catch Wilfrid, whose soul thirsted for poetical refinement and filmy delicacies in a woman. What she had, and what he knew that he wanted, and could only at intervals assume by acting as if he possessed it, was a victorious aplomb, which gave her a sort of gallant glory in his sight. He could act it well before his sisters, and here and there a damsel; and coming fresh from Lady Charlotte's school, he had recently done so with success, and had seen the ladies feel toward him, as he felt ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the window. Madame complacently spread a snowy cloth, then, with the airy aplomb of a head waiter of some famous restaurant, say, the Chapeau Rouge at ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... gorgeous fane, I raved about Rossini, Hoped Ronzo would come back again, And criticized Paccini; I wished the chorus singers dumb. The trumpets more pacific, And eulogized Brocard's APLOMB And voted Paul "terrific." What cared she for Medea's pride Or Desdemona's sorrow? "Alas!" my beauteous listener sighed, "We MUST have ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... function to arouse."—"The sixth hour!" grumbled Dentatsu. He rubbed his eyes as one who had just gone to sleep. Jimbei carried him off to the cleaning processes of early morn. The return found the table laid with the meal. With quietness and despatch Jimbei settled all matters with the aplomb of the practised traveller. Before he was well awake Dentatsu found himself following after through the dark streets. "Surely the maid has mistaken the hour.[23] 'Tis yet the darkness of night."—"Not likely," interjected Jimbei, as swiftly he urged him on. "The ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and he had thrown the girl he loved out of her lonely life, craving for sympathy and interest, into a set of young men all apt for passion and emotion. The thought of Guthrie with his charm, his wealth, his aplomb, fell cold on his heart. Howard's swift imagination pictured the mutual attraction of the two, the enchanting discoveries, the laughing sympathy. Guthrie would, no doubt, come down to Windlow. It was exactly the kind of match that Mr. Sandys would like for Maud; and this was ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... aplomb of a general disposing his forces, Sims indicated the rising hill on which Rubino should bed his flock down, and watched critically as ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... table and leaned against it, making no effort to conceal the admiration he experienced for this man's superhuman aplomb. ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingers to draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. She enquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrude how her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. The tone of this last question made the person addressed ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,—a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to try if there be not somewhere under ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought, Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... laughed my uncle. "Just look! he has made his little flourish and thinks he's a very clever fellow! I do like that—upon my soul I do! What youthful aplomb, what life in that foolish flourish! And what boy is this?" he asked, suddenly turning and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... she had no leisure. Not only was she fully occupied with the new scenes around her, but her Scottish cousin took up every moment open to conversation. He was older than Norman, and had just taken his degree, and he talked with that superior aplomb, which a few years bestow at their time of life, without conceit, but more hopeful and ambitious, and with higher spirits than ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... appeared under the above title in the issue of Punch for January 14th, the setting of the nautical episode, in which the subject of the story conducted himself with so much aplomb and resourcefulness, was derived from a personal experience related to the author; but Mr. Punch has his assurance that Reginald McTaggart was not intended even remotely to represent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... are good at those things. You have so much aplomb, you know. YOU could carry it off, ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... lacked both originality and aplomb, but at the moment it appealed to us. Fortunately, we had worked round to a very short distance away from the spot where we had originally gone wrong; with the result that, aided by the gentleman of the scythe, we recovered the road, and reached Todtmoos ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... SLAMMED open, and Monsieur le Directeur bounced out, frothing at the mouth and threatening everyone with infinite cabinot, on the ground that everyone's deportment or lack of it was menacing the aplomb of the commissioners. Each time, the Black Holster appeared in the background and carried on his master's bullying until everyone was completely terrified—after which we were left to ourselves and the Wooden ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... stability; immutability &c. adj.; unchangeability, &c. adj.; unchangeableness|!; constancy; stable equilibrium, immobility, soundness, vitality, stabiliment[obs3], stiffness, ankylosis[obs3], solidity, aplomb. establishment, fixture; rock, pillar, tower, foundation, leopard's spots, Ethiopia's skin. permanence &c. 141; obstinacy &c. 606. V. be firm &c. adj.; stick fast; stand firm, keep firm, remain firm; weather the storm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the barrier (yes, he held me up in the first moment of our acquaintance) while he fumbled for his pass. He had given the word "Press" with an exaggerated aplomb that showed he was young to his job, and the gate-keeper challenged him. It was, in fact, the exquisite self-consciousness of the little man that made me look at him. And he caught me looking at him; he blushed, ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... very penitent. He was embarrassed, he was humiliated, and he showed both very clearly. He had lost all of his air of easy aplomb. "I'm very ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... seemed serious, but only for a moment. There was Beatrix Esmond, for whom I could certainly have challenged His Grace of Hamilton, had not Lord Mohun done the work for me. Wandering down the street in London one night, in a moment of weak admiration for her unrivalled nerve and aplomb, I was hesitating—whether to call on Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, knowing that her thick-headed husband was in hoc for debt—when the door of her house crashed open and that old scoundrel, Lord Steyne, came wildly down the steps, his ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... characteristic aplomb and insouciance Whitney Barnes was unable to face such a rush ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... dashed their spirits for the moment. Loiseau, nonplussed at first, soon regained his aplomb and burst into a roar of laughter. "Sour grapes, old ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... redeeming feature in this infatuation of Van Twiller's which the sober moralist will love to look upon—the serene unconsciousness of the person who caused it. She went through her role with admirable aplomb, drew her salary, it may be assumed, punctually, and appears from first to last to have been ignorant that there was a miserable slave wearing her chains nightly ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... wonderfully arranged, fair hair was ablaze with diamonds, her gown was more suitable to a London drawing-room than the deck of a steamer. And yet she seemed neither over-jewelled nor over-dressed. She had all the marvellous "aplomb" of her countrywomen, who can transgress all laws of fashion or taste, and through ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... common sense, Presley," returned S. Behrman with perfect aplomb. "What could you ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
